Christie’s reported that the three-volume set, combining the two volumes of Wuthering Heights with Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey, achieved £1,206,500 including buyer’s premium in The Exceptional Sale. The auction house noted this marked the first time a textually complete first edition in the publisher’s original cloth binding had appeared at auction since 1908. The result established new world records for any work by Emily Brontë, for 19th-century literature and for any printed book authored by a woman, according to Christie’s post-sale statement. Only about 250 copies of the first edition were printed in 1847.
Christie’s books and manuscripts specialist Mark Wiltshire has tracked surviving copies and determined that just six remain in public collections in their original binding. The example sold had resided in the same undisclosed aristocratic private library in England since shortly after publication. Wiltshire told The Art Newspaper that the copy was likely purchased in 1847 to be read immediately. Wuthering Heights shows signs of reading while Agnes Grey is described as immaculate.
The volumes are bound in diagonally ribbed grey-green cloth with floral patterns and arabesques stamped on the covers and the spine lettered in gilt. Wiltshire said in an interview with The Art Newspaper that the vast majority of surviving first editions were rebound for collectors or libraries over the years. “It is a work of art. It is not the text but the objects, these books in their original binding, which are so important and so extraordinarily rare,” Wiltshire said. The first edition is notorious for its typographical errors, including occasional misspellings of the word “heights,” which resulted from rushed production after the success of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, according to Wiltshire.
The Brontë sisters published under male pseudonyms to overcome Victorian gender prejudices in literature, with Emily as Ellis Bell and Anne as Acton Bell. Wuthering Heights initially drew mixed reviews but has since inspired countless adaptations including films, operas, ballets and a pop song. A 2026 film adaptation starring Margot Robbie renewed public interest in the novel, several reports in The Washington Post and other outlets observed at the time of the sale.
The set went on free public display at Christie’s London headquarters from June 26 for four days ahead of the auction. This exhibition offered what may prove the only public viewing of the volumes outside institutional settings. Wiltshire said after the sale that the item was a true survival and a landmark result for Brontë collecting. He added that it was an honor to have been entrusted with such an exceptional work.
Comparable institutional copies in original binding are held at the British Library, the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford and the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds, according to Wiltshire’s research. One other copy in a private collection last sold at Christie’s in 2009. The strong price achieved reflects sustained demand for high-quality literary first editions in the rare book market, Christie’s figures show from recent seasons.
