Fine Books & Manuscripts

[FORE–EDGE PAINTING]. CREASY, Edward, sir (1812–1878). Memoirs of Eminent Etonians, with an inscription by an Eton scholar and great nephew to Jane Austen. London: Chatto and Windus, 1876. 8vo. Illustrated with full-page plates including frontispiece. Presentation binding in full umber morocco, raised bands, gilt titling in compartments, dentelle turn-ins, pale yellow endpapers, all edges gilt concealing a FORE–EDGE PAINTING containing a duck hunting scene of a dog retrieving the prize. Inscribed by a Scholar of Eton and Lower Master of the University on front flyleaf: “Charles Fitzpatrick Burroughs/from/Edward Austen Leigh/(Honoris causá)/Eton Easter 1889”. A FINE COPY WITH AN INTERESTING ASSOCIATION. Edward Compton Austen–Leigh (1839–1916), son of the author James Edward Austen–Leigh (nephew to Jane Austen and biographer of “A Memoir of Janes Austen”) and graduate at the top of his class of both Eton and King’s College, later becoming an Assistant Master in 1861 of his first alma mater, and a permanent member of the Eton staff during the following summer. In 1887, Austen–Leigh became Lower Master of Eton cementing his legacy in the 1901 Vanity Fair’s “Men of the Day” (No. 811) titled “The Flea”.