Stunning New Editions of Jane Austen's Books Feature Wallpaper From Her Hampshire Home

Aug 20, 2023

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The wallpaper lined Jane Austen's house as she wrote these novels.

No matter how many copies of Jane Austen's novels you already own, there's always room on your bookshelf for more.

As we were scrolling on #BookTok, we saw Chapters Books and Gifts, an indie bookstore in Seward, Nebraska, post about new editions of Jane Austen's most popular works. "The patterns on the covers are literal wallpaper designs from Jane Austen's house from the time that she lived there!" bookseller Tory Hall shares in the video. "What a fun, cool idea that is. So this pattern was literally on the walls in her house as she was writing these books."

On August 15, the Macmillan Collector's Library is re-releasing three of Austen's most famous novels—Emma, Pride & Prejudice, and Sense & Sensibility featuring heritage wallpaper patterns from Austen's own home in Hampshire. The books also include original illustrations Hugh Thomson and bonus material by Sophie Reynolds, a curator at Jane Austen's House.

The wallpaper has a fascinating history all on its own: after finding fragments of wallpaper in the dining room, drawing room, and family room, Jane Austen's House Museum worked with Hamilton Weston Wallpapers to recreate the prints and install them.

Below, the new wallpaper editions:

The new edition of Emma features Chawton Leaf wallpaper, a design which was found in Austen's dining room, where she handwrote her stories. (See the original pattern here.) According to Hamilton Weston, "This design has been recreated from fragments of wallpaper discovered behind cupboard panelling in the Dining Room. The leaf is thought to be inspired by a type of Dead Nettle or Lamium, such as Lamium Maculatum. Outlined in white, the focal colour is a bright 'arsenic' green, which was very popular in the early 19th Century."

Pride and Prejudice features the Chawton Vine design, which is now in the drawing room of Austen's home. As the Jane Austen House notes, the "fragments of historic wallpaper were discovered in the Drawing Room in the late 1940s, when Jane Austen’s House was being turned into a museum. They were found on the plaster covering a bricked-up window, now hidden behind Rev Austen’s Bookcase." (See original wallpaper here.)

The new edition of Sense and Sensibility uses the Apprentice Ribbon Trellis & Chawton Rosebud Moire pattern, which was found in the family room shutter boxes (see the original fragments here), which was likely featured in Jane's bedroom. "The Ribbon (Apprentice) Trellis wallpaper decorated Jane Austen’s bedroom and original pieces of this wallpaper can still be seen in the room’s window shutter boxes," Hamilton Weston explained. "We were able to faithfully recreate the original design for this room too. The Austen family was quite poor when moving to Chawton and Jane’s chosen bedroom wallpaper design was somehow incorrectly printed and therefore less expensive. Wallpaper was a costly item and heavily taxed in this period."

Emily Burack (she/her) is the news writer for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.

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