Jane Austen at Penguin

The correspondence deserves a better class of cover.

You can recognise a favourite edition from across a bookshop. Now you can mail one. Jane Austen at Penguin brings together 50 postcards celebrating ten decades of Austen book covers, from Helen Binyon’s illustrated 1938 Pride and Prejudice to a wartime Northanger Abbey published to keep troops supplied with comforting reading. Coralie Bickford-Smith’s much-loved Clothbound Classics designs appear alongside a 2025 edition of Austen’s juvenilia. A small history of reading Austen, told through the covers readers remember.

“I have now attained the true art of letter writing,” Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra. This boxed collection is an invitation to practise yours, whether that means a thoughtful note, a reading recommendation or a very civil account of someone else’s appalling behaviour. Created for Austen’s 250th anniversary year, it’s also rather tempting to keep the whole lot. Correspondence can be a complicated business.

Details

• By Penguin
• Boxed set of 50 postcards featuring Jane Austen book covers
• Celebrates Penguin cover designs across ten decades
• Includes Helen Binyon’s 1938 illustrated Pride and Prejudice, a wartime Northanger Abbey, Clothbound Classics designs by Coralie Bickford-Smith, and a 2025 edition of Austen’s juvenilia
• Published to mark Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary in 2025

Perfect for

• Austen devotees who can justify owning another edition by its cover alone
• Letter writers with excellent manners and a quietly wicked sense of humour
• Book-design enthusiasts who enjoy tracing a classic through changing tastes