Last year, when Janeites around the world marked the English author’s 250th birthday, the State Library of Victoria (SLV) made a major acquisition: three leather-bound volumes of a first edition of Jane Austen’s Emma, bought from antiquarian booksellers Maggs Bros at Melbourne’s Rare Book Fair.
“As soon as it came up, we were so excited, because its provenance is so extraordinary,” philanthropist Helen Sykes says.
