Press Release

Rare Archival Manuscripts and Illustrations Enhance Flaubert, Brontë, and Dickinson in New Series of New York Public Library Collector's Editions

A new series of Collector's Editions of favorite literary masterpieces will be launched in May 1997, featuring rare and beautiful materials from The New York Public Library archives. Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and Selected Poetry of Emily Dickinson: Chosen by The New York Public Library will inaugurate the series, to be published jointly by Doubleday and the Literary Guild/Doubleday Direct, divisions of Bertelsmann NA.

Marking the first time The New York Public Library has drawn extensively from its special collections for a series of books, these unusual editions offer the general reader a privileged glimpse of the Library's special literary treasures. Materials from the Library's rare book, manuscript, and fine print collections range from handwritten diaries, letters, worksheets, and notebooks to portraits, drawings, photographs, and etchings. Because of their excessive rarity and fragility, most of these evocative objects are seldom displayed and are usually accessible only to scholars. This series also marks an unprecedented partnership between The New York Public Library and Bertelsmann NA and its divisions of Doubleday and Doubleday Direct. All royalty earnings from the Collector's Editions will be used to preserve and support the collections of The New York Public Library.

Madame Bovary, Jane Eyre, and Emily Dickinson: Three Extraordinary Women Launch the Series

Madame Bovary, the quintessential story of romantic rebellion, caused an uproar in France for lacking "one single principle by virtue of which the adulteress is stigmatized." This beautiful new Collector's Edition enhances the novel's power all the more by looking through the eyes of two artists inspired by Flaubert's wizardry. In handwritten excerpts from Vladimir Nabokov's brilliant lectures on Madame Bovary at Cornell University, one master of enchantment shows us the "world of fancy" conjured up by another. And drawings by Alfred de Richemont open a window on this world with classic French elegance and panache.

A landmark novel, Jane Eyre also gives voice to what Joyce Carol Oates has called a "unique and iconoclastic female rebelliousness." This gripping tale of an orphan girl's struggle to find a wider and richer life, regarded as one of the most powerful yet poetic works of English literature, still speaks to us today. This Collector's Edition evokes the life and milieu of Brontë through beautifully rendered lithographs by the English printmaker Ethel Gabain, along with a famous letter from Brontë to her publisher, in which she responds to unfounded rumors about her relationship with William Makepeace Thackeray. Photographs of Brontë's portable escritoire and a slip of flocked wallpaper from her husband's study further offer the reader an intimate look into Brontë's world.

Selected Poetry of Emily Dickinson offers poetry lovers a gateway into the interior world of this singular 19th-century poet, who has been "regarded as a supreme master of poetry in English and one of the true geniuses of poetic imagination." Enhancing the collection of both well-known and more obscure poems by Dickinson, this edition includes three handwritten letters by Dickinson, portraits of the poet as a girl and young woman, as well as portraits of three writers held in highest esteem by Dickinson: Emily Brontë, George Eliot, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Each book is crafted with special features to contribute to its appeal as a reading edition and to its value as a collector's item, including a contemporary design, fully reset and easy-to-read type, and for some books, a carefully selected translation to assure readability and authenticity. Books also feature such enhancements as a biography of the author, suggestions for further reading, and a short essay about the illustrations and artifacts from the Library's collections -- and the intriguing stories behind them. Books are moderately priced between $15 and $20. They are available at The Library Shop and bookstores everywhere.

Now available in The New York Public Library Collector's Editions:

• Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
• Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
• Selected Poetry of Emily Dickinson

Coming in September:

• Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser
• Louisa May Alcott: An Intimate Anthology
• Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

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