The National Trust's collections are packed with literary works of all kinds: novels, plays and poetry, ancient and modern, in foreign languages, and, above all, in English.

Unsurprisingly the contents of the shelves reflect the two principal strands within all of the collections: some books bought retrospectively as collectors' items, and others bought when they were new - simply for the pleasure of reading them.

Collection highlight

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)
Northanger Abbey with Persuasion, 1818
London: John Murray
Tatton Park in Cheshire

The Trust owns two copies of the first edition of Northanger Abbey. This one, still in its original publisher’s boards: the temporary card covers in which the bookseller would have sold it. In this case the purchaser obviously decided that there was no need to pay for it to be grandly bound in leather.