Happy 2020 everyone. In the spirit of learning more about Jane Austen and the world she lived in, I am determined to finish reading the 12 books highlighted in this post. I purchased most of these books years ago and have used many for reference. Alas, I finished none completely. By the end of 2020, I will have read them all.
Like many of you, my rooms are filled with stacks of books on the floor, by my bedside, and in piles on tables. I purchase more than I can read.
What are your resolutions regarding your reading goals? Do you own any of the books listed below? Have I piqued your interested in purchasing a few? Inquiring minds want to know.
Four books that help readers understand the world Jane Austen lived in.
- Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England: How Our Ancestors lived Two Centuries Ago, Roy and Leslie Adkins, Abacus, 2001, 422 pages, ISBN: 978-0-349-13860-2, Amazon. Product Information: A survey and guide to daily life in Jane Austen’s England.
- Jane Austen’s Country Life: Uncovering the rural backdrop to her life, her letters and her novels, Deirdre Le Faye, Francis Lincoln Limited Publishers, London, 2014, 269 pages, ISBN: 978-0-7112-3158-0, Amazon. Product information: “Richly illustrated with contemporary depictions of country folk, landscapes and animals, Jane Austen’s Country Lifeconjures up a world which has vanished more than the familiar regency townscapes of Bath or London, but which is no less important to an understanding of this most treasured writer’s life and work.”
- Jane Austen at Home: A Biography, Lucy Worsley, Martin’s Press, New York, 2017, 385 pages, ISBN: 978-1-250-13160-7, Amazon. Product Information: “…historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen’s childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses–both grand and small–of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life.
- The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, Paula Byrne, Harper Collins, New York, 2013, 380 pages, ISBN: 978-0-06-199909-3, Amazon. Product Information: “Just as letters and tokens in Jane Austen’s novels often signal key turning points in the narrative, Byrne explores the small things – a scrap of paper, a gold chain, an ivory miniature – that held significance in Austen’s personal and creative life.”
The three books discuss the factors that influenced Jane Austen’s writing and understanding of her world, and how and why her fame spread.
- Reading Austen in America, Juliette Wells, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017, 256 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1350012042, Amazon. Product Information: “Reading Austen in America presents a colorful, compelling account of how an appreciative audience for Austen’s novels originated and developed in America, and how American readers contributed to the rise of Austen’s international fame.”
- Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, Helena Kelly, First Vintage Book Edition, Alfred A. Knopf, 2016, 318 pages, ISBN:978-0-525-43294-4, Amazon. Product Information: “Kelly illuminates the radical subjects–slavery, poverty, feminism, the Church, evolution, among them–considered treasonous at the time, that Austen deftly explored in the six novels that have come to embody an age. The author reveals just how in the novels we find the real Jane Austen: a clever, clear-sighted woman “of information,” fully aware of what was going on in the world and sure about what she thought of it.”
- Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity, Janine Barchas, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2012, 336 pages, ISBN: 9781421411910, JHUPbooks. Product Information: “InMatters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity, Janine Barchas makes the bold assertion that Jane Austen’s novels allude to actual high-profile politicians and contemporary celebrities as well as to famous historical figures and landed estates. Barchas is the first scholar to conduct extensive research into the names and locations in Austen’s fiction by taking full advantage of the explosion of archival materials now available onlin”
The Regency era wasn’t all civility and manners. Georgian London boasted over 50,000 prostitutes and young heirs won and lost fortunes gambling. Austen’s wit, as evidenced in her letters, novels, and Juvenilia, could be biting, as Robert Rodi points out in his analysis of her novels.
- Madams: Bawds & Brothel-Keepers of London, Fergus Linnane, The History Press, 2009, 256 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0750933070, Amazon. Product Information: “Fergus Linnane reveals the other side of London’s years of pomp and splendor, painting a vivid picture of the bawds, their girls, and their clients. Madamsis fresh and original, offering humor, insight, and a very candid view of the sexual behavior of Londoners through the ages.”
- Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling, David G. Schwartz, Gotham Books, Penguin Group, New York, 2006, 570 pages, Amazon, ISBN 1-592-40208-9. Product Information: “Gambling is the second oldest profession. Dice were found in the tombs of the ancients. Roman soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ garments at the foot of the cross. Gambling, it seems, has had a role in virtually every civilization, from the earliest of times. It is sometimes important to be reminded of this reality. Roll the Bones: The History of Gamblingdoes just that.”-William R. Eadington, University of Nevada.
- Bitch in a Bonnet: reclaiming Jane Austen from the stiffs, the snobs, the simps and the saps. (Volume 2: Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion), Robert Rodi, Creative Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2014, 526 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1499133769, Amazon. Product Information: I bought this book because I loved, loved, loved Rodi’s bitingly sharp, often satiric male take on Jane Austen’s novels in Bitch in a Bonnet, (Volume 1), which covers Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park. The reviews are mixed for Volume 2– some people think Rodi is off on Northanger Abbey, but even a Rodi book a little off its feed is better than 90% of critical essays about and analysis of Austen’s great novels. I can’t wait to read Volume 2. – Vic
A day well spent is a day perusing used book sales and digging up fantastic finds, like these two early 20th century books, which are hard to find in their original editions. A Brighton edition sells online for $150 U.S., but ABE books offers a single second edition for $26.78. Shipping to the U.S. costs another $24.68, bringing the total cost over $50 U.S. My book was published in 1948 and contains a smattering of black and white photographs.
- Brighton, Osbert Sitwell & Margaret Barton, 2nd edition, 1938, Published by Faber, London, 1959, 294 pages. Hardcover edition, very good, clean and tight. Jacket has loss to the rear. ABE books.
Paul Reilly’s Introduction to Regency Architecture has been republished by Forgotten Books, which offers a treasure trove of books now out of print as downloadable PDFs, ebooks, or print purchase, such as Georgian England, 1714-1820 by Susan Cunnington. My heavily illustrated hardcover book shows no date of publication, but according to the inside jacket it originally cost $2.50. Lucky me purchased it at a library sale for $1.50.
- Introduction to Regency Architecture (Classic Preprint), Paul Reilly, Forgotten Books, 2018, 100 pages, ISBN-13: 978-13330278703. Product Information: With this book, author Paul Reilly had two ends in view. The first is to introduce the ever fewer examples of Regency buildings while they still exist. The second is to explain the historical role of Regency architecture, to show in what way it was a true descendant of the 18th century and in what way it broke new ground.”
Treasures of old books can be found anywhere. I hope to uncover more during 2020.
Other sources for finding books:
- Thrift books
- Ebay
- Better World Books
- ABE Books, also in the UK
The Lost Books of Jane Austen by Janine Barchas is a beautiful book – a bound hardcopy with almost one hundred color photographs of affordable, mass-produced novels that, outside of expensive hand pressed editions, contributed to Jane Austen’s ever-increasing fame. The detective work and scholarship that Dr. Barchas embarked on for a decade to find hundreds of inexpensive, disposable Jane Austen books to study their role in Austen’s rapidly growing popularity is awe inspiring.
Author Bio:
As almost all Jane Austen enthusiasts know, her unfinished novel, Sanditon, has been adapted for a limited television series by Andrew Davies. It aired on ITV in Great Britain in the fall and will be shown on PBS Masterpiece Classics starting January 12, 2020. It seems that after the first episode, Mr. Davies deviated from the complex world Jane Austen created to insert his male sensibilities into the plot, but I am getting ahead of myself. (More to come in January.) The intent of this review is a plea for Jane Austen fans to read Sanditon before watching the PBS series. You will be doing yourself a favor.
Jane Austen's World 