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Review: JANE AUSTEN'S BOOKSHELF by Rebecca Romney
- Sophia Rose
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
ABOUT THE BOOK
From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, a page-turning literary adventure that introduces readers to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen—and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves. 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. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more. 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. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice” came from Frances Burney’s second novel, Cecilia. 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 broader 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. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s.
Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.
Opening Lines: “It all started with a book that made me curious.”
GUEST REVIEW by Sophia Rose
Is it a memoir about a rare bookseller? Is it a collection of mini biographies of 18th-century women writers? Is it a literary critique? Is it a how-to in rare book collecting? Rebecca Romney, rare book dealer, collector, and Pawn Stars TV show regular, does all the above with Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend.
The book opens with what set Romney on her journey to explore the authors and books Jane Austen enjoyed, leading us to ponder just why Jane Austen became a literary superstar, and why these other prominent women writers of their day are obscure reading today. Like many other Jane Austen fans, the author thirsted for more of the same after devouring The Six, Austen's other works, letters, and biographies. She noted Austen wasn’t shy to mention her own book favorites in letters or her own novels, and this gave Romney the place to start.
While this was a book in which I appreciated all the subjects the author explored, it came with busy internal distractions, doing a lot at once. I did better when I took the book in small-sized bites and absorbed it slowly. The author’s approachable writing revealed as much about herself as she does about the writers from the past. Written for armchair readers to serious scholars, all can appreciate Romney's analysis of the books she read and her comparisons and contrasts of those books to Austen’s works. I enjoyed paging through the Bibliography and Notes as well as exploring the rare book world, but, above all, I loved learning about some literary talents heretofore unknown to me.
Did Jane Austen’s Bookshelf ultimately answer Romney’s original question and show her finishing her quest to discover these Austen contemporary authors and why they were all but forgotten? Yes, it did. Rebecca Romney left me with a strong desire to make a similar journey, trying out writings from these talented women authors, and added to that, a delight in collecting books that take my fancy—rare or not.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and the cofounder of Type Punch Matrix, a rare book company based in Washington, DC. She is the rare books specialist on the HISTORY Channel’s show Pawn Stars, and the cofounder of the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize. She is a generalist rare book dealer, handling works in all fields, from first editions of Jane Austen to science fiction paperbacks. Her work as a bookseller or writer has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, Variety, The Paris Review, and more. In 2019, she was featured in the documentary on the rare book trade, The Booksellers. She is on the Board of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) and the faculty of the Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS-Minnesota). Connect with Rebecca via her website.
ABOUT SOPHIA ROSE, REVIEWER
Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, baseball, cats, Scooby Doo, and chocolate.
As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. In 2012, she submitted her first book review and is currently an associate reviewer.
Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener, which allows her to experience many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Sorry, no horror...or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby. Connect with Sophia via FACEBOOK GOODREADS TWITTER
