Jane Austen Postage Stamps: 2013 & 1975
By Nava Atlas | On September 6, 2017 | Updated June 8, 2022 | Comments (0)
On January 28, 2013, the Royal Mail of Britain celebrated the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with a set of six postage stamps.
Her other novels received the “royal” treatment equally, and included the five that rounded out her set of six: Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey (there were two unfinished novel as well, Sanditon and The Watsons, in addition to a posthumously published early work, Lady Susan).
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When the stamps were issued, a spokesman for the postal system was quoted as saying: “When you think of great British authors, Jane Austen inevitably comes to mind. Her novels have contributed immeasurably to British culture over the last two centuries.”
Artist Angela Barrett illustrated the set of stamps, which, even in such diminutive form, display an immense amount of detail. Let’s take a look at the stamps individually:
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Sense and Sensibility (1811)
“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
I require so much!”
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Pride and Prejudice (1813)
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune,
must be in want of a wife.”
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Mansfield Park (1814)
“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”
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Emma (1815)
“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure;
seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”
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Northanger Abbey (1818)
“The person, be it gentlemen or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
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Persuasion (1818)
“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy.
Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”
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This wasn’t the first time that a set of stamps celebrating Austen’s immense contribution to British literature. In 1975, a set of stamps was issued to honor the bicentennial of her birth in 1775. These were illustrated by Barbara Brown and focused on characters from the novels.
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Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (1975)
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Mary and Henry Crawford from Mansfield Park (1814)
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Emma and Mr. Wodehouse from Emma (1815)
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Catherine Moreland, from Northanger Abbey (1818)
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