The copy of Pride and Prejudice that Prince Albert read to Queen Victoria will go on public display for the first time at Windsor Castle later this month.
George IV’s specially bound copy of Emma, personally dedicated by Jane Austen to the future king – who, at the time was Prince Regent – will also be on show as part of celebrations marking the author’s birth 250 years ago.
They will go on display in the Queen’s Drawing Room, once one of the most important reception rooms in the castle.
The books will be on show between 13:30 and 15:30 between 25 October and 27 October and again between 30 October and 2 November.
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was read by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert together and the monarch recorded in her journal in July 1853 that her husband read it to her as she recovered from measles.
George IV, an avid reader of novels, kept a set of Austen’s works in each of his residences.
He had received the copy of Emma in 1815 after the author was given a tour of Carlton House, his London residence.
A second copy of Pride and Prejudice, which was possibly part of the castle’s Servants’ Library before it found its way into the present Royal Library, will also go on display.
The novel was published anonymously in 1813 and the first edition sold out within the first year. It remains one of the most popular novels in the English language.
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