[Works.] Pride & Prejudice. Northanger Abbey. Sense & Sensibility. Mansfield Park. Emma. Persuasion. With Twenty-Four Coloured Illustrations by C.E. Brock. [The Series of English Idylls.]

Notes

A very nice set of Austen's works with new watercolour illustrations by C. E. Brock. Brock and his brother Henry had split the work of illustrating Dent's 1898 10-volume set of Austen's works, the first to have colour illustrations, but this edition is larger in form and features almost three times as many plates. It was issued in several versions, with this one in the middle of the spread - deluxe copies had the same design but on vellum bindings, and a cheaper version was in lighter cloth with less gilt on the front boards.
The set was presented by Roland L'Estrange Bryce (1889-1953), son of the Liberal MP for Aberdeen Annan Bryce, to a Miss Bessie Allan, in thanks for her service in the last year of the First World War (when Bryce worked in the Foreign Office). A woman of that name was a VAD nurse at Keir House near Dunblane around 1915 and it seems plausible that she served the Bryce family in some way after that, though the connection does not seem to be publicly recorded.