Jane Austen’s Wallpaper Designs Can Now Belong On Your Bookshelf & Walls
Images via Macmillan Collector’s Library
Just because their noses are stuck in their novels, it doesn’t mean bookworms don’t pay notice to the world around them. Jane Austen fans, rejoice! You can now take a leaf out of her books, quite literally, by enlivening your home with wallpaper revived from the author’s own abode.
The Macmillan Collector’s Library is publishing new editions of three iconic novels—Emma, Pride & Prejudice, and Sense & Sensibility—with covers splashed in patterns found in Austen’s house. One of them was even laced with arsenic (yikes!), but luckily, there will be no traces of the poisonous substance in this series, so go ahead and embrace that new book smell.
To recreate the author’s wallpaper, Jane Austen’s House Museum in Hampshire, England, teamed up with Hamilton Weston Wallpapers to reproduce the heritage patterns, which now adorn the updated classics arriving this August 15.
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Aptly, each wallpaper has a little story of its own, as Town & Country Magazine reports.
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The Chawton Leaf design, decked out on the latest publication of Emma, replicates fragments of arsenic green wallpaper found behind a cupboard in Austen’s dining room, where the author worked on her stories. The foliage featured is either inspired by “a type of Dead Nettle or Lamium, such as Lamium Maculatum,” the wallpaper restorer explains.
Image via Macmillan Collector’s Library
“Outlined in white, the focal color is a bright ‘arsenic’ green, which was very popular in the early 19th century.”
Image via Macmillan Collector’s Library
The Pride & Prejudice cover draws from tiny pieces of a pattern discovered in the cottage’s drawing room.
Lastly, the pastel artwork on Sense & Sensibility depicts the Apprentice Ribbon Trellis & Chawton Rosebud Moire pattern, which likely lined Austen’s bedroom.
Image via Macmillan Collector’s Library
This design, interestingly, offers a peek into the author’s savvier side. It’s a defective copy of a rather expensive piece, allowing Austen to purchase it for less.
“The Austen family was quite poor when moving to Chawton and Jane’s chosen bedroom wallpaper design was somehow incorrectly printed and therefore less expensive,” explains Hamilton Weston, which has faithfully recreated the cheaper version seen in her bedroom.
“Wallpaper was a costly item and heavily taxed in this period.”
Elsewhere, the novels come printed with original illustrations by Hugh Thomson and bonus material from Sophie Reynolds, a curator at Austen’s former house turned museum.
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Those who wish to imbue their homes with design sensibilities (heh) and pride will be delighted to know that Hamilton Weston has revived the trio in wallpaper form.
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Image via Hamilton Weston Wallpapers
Sounds like a dream in our books.
[via Literary Hub and Town & Country Magazine, images via various sources]
