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Jane Austen's bookshelf : a rare book collector's quest to find the women writers who shaped a legend Cover Image

Jane Austen's bookshelf : a rare book collector's quest to find the women writers who shaped a legend / Rebecca Romney.

Romney, Rebecca, (author.).

Summary:

Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen's books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. But Austen wasn't a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers--and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen's work. The women that populated Jane Austen's bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn't Romney--despite her training--ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon? Jane Austen's Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen's heroes--women writers who were erased from the Western canon--to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten.

Record details

ISBN: 9781982190248
ISBN: 1982190248
Physical Description: 455 pages ; 24 cm
Edition: First Marysue Rucci Books hardcover edition.
Publisher: New York : Marysue Rucci Books, 2025.
Copyright: ©2025

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 357-432) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction -- Jane Austen (1775-1817) -- Frances Burney (1752-1840) -- Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) -- Charlotte Lennox (c. 1729-1804) -- Hannah More (1745-1833) -- Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) -- Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1832) -- Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (1741-1821) -- Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Appendix: Selected books from the Jane Austen bookshelf -- Bibliography -- Notes -- Index.