A New Jane Austen

How Americans Brought Us the World's Greatest Novelist

Juliette Wells

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781350365537
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Completing Juliette Wells' groundbreaking trio of books on Austen's readers, this latest volume revolutionizes our understanding of how Austen came to be viewed as the world's greatest novelist. Wells shows that Austen's global reputation was established not by British scholars, as is commonly believed, but by visionary American writers and collectors, working largely outside academia. Drawing on extensive research, Wells weaves together colorful, compelling case studies of men and women who, from the 1880s to the 1980s, helped readers appreciate Austen's novels, persuasively advocated for her place in the literary canon, and preserved artifacts vital to her legacy. Engagingly written and abundantly illustrated, A New Jane Austen will inform and delight scholars and Austen fans alike.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• 1 Austen for Americans, and for the World: Oscar Fay Adams, Critical Editor and Biographer
• 2 Canonizing “the giant Jane”: William Dean Howells, Interpreter and Advocate
• 3 Topaz Crosses Plus Treasures of Another Kind: Charles Beecher Hogan, Collector and Keeper of Reading Journals
• 4 A Labor of Love and Friendship: Alberta H. Burke, Averil Hassall, and the Building of a Transatlantic Austen Archive
• Afterword: Jane Austen Anew
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright