Women in the Bookman's Paradise

In 1896 Morgan acquired the manuscripts of two French novels by George Sand (one of which is shown here) and soon added manuscripts by the nineteenth-century English authors Anne and Charlotte Brontë. In 1893 Morgan passed on Lady Susan, the only surviving manuscript of a novel by Jane Austen. The Morgan Library eventually acquired it in 1947, long after Pierpont’s death.

While today most collectors prefer literary manuscripts to retain their original format, in Morgan’s day booksellers often had them sumptuously bound. This heavily gold-tooled leather binding by the London firm Riviere & Son is a typical example.