Brits should dust off any old classics they may have hidden away as it may be worth a fortune after a collection of Jane Austen novels sold at auction for £250,000.
The first editions of all of Austen's major novels were owned by collector William Weiss, a pharmaceuticals businessman from Wyoming in the US.
He died in January last year, aged 78, and his family decided to sell the incredibly rare books.
A first edition of Austen's most famous work, Pride and Prejudice, fetched the highest figure of £103,295 followed by the rarest of Austen's novels, Sense and Sensibility, which sold for £79,015.
The other first editions in the sale were Mansfield Park, Emma, and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, which all sold for five-figure sums.
The books had a low estimate of £56,200, which they smashed, selling for a combined total of £258,930 including fees and premiums.
Sense and Sensibility was Austen's first published novel and only about 1,000 copies were printed.
She revised the work several times in 1797-98 and again in 1809-10 before Thomas Egerton agreed to publish the novel on a commission basis - at the author's risk.
Priced at 15 shillings, it sold out in less than two years and she wrote to her brother Francis: "You will be glad to hear that every copy of Sense and Sensibility is sold and that it has brought me £140 beside the copyright, if that should ever be of any value."
She wrote Pride and Prejudice in 1796-97, when she was 21, the same age as its fictional heroin Elizabeth Bennet. It was rejected by publisher Thomas Cadell before Egerton bought it in 1812 for £110.
It was published in January 1813, about 1,500 copies, and sold for 18 shillings, with Egerton selling a second edition by October that year.
Mansfield Park and Emma followed in 1814 and 1815, the last novels published while she was alive.
Austen's books were never published under her name in her lifetime, with the books after the first billed as 'by the author of Sense and Sensibility'.
She became ill in 1816 and died in July 1817, aged 41, and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were both published posthumously.
Gretchen Hause, from Hindman Auctioneers of Chicago, said: "Jane Austen created wonderful characters. She was one of the first writers to present complex and realistic characters in her works.
"Her works have been widely read and beloved, and have been adapted for television and film countless times.
"Austen's works remain relatively rare, it is believed that fewer than 1,000 copies of the first edition of Sense and Sensibility were printed.
"Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park were published in editions of approximately 1,500 copies and her later works, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published in editions of about 2,000 copies.
"The passion of private collectors for rare works of literature and first editions led to very competitive bidding on the Jane Austens. We are thrilled with the results and to see that the market for women authors continues to gain in strength."
