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Full Description
Hardcore bibliography meets Antiques Roadshow in an illustrated exploration of the role that cheap reprints played in Jane Austen's literary celebrity—and in changing the larger book world itself.
Gold Winner of the 2019 Foreword INDIES Award for History by FOREWORD Reviews
In the nineteenth century, inexpensive editions of Jane Austen's novels targeted to Britain's working classes were sold at railway stations, traded for soap wrappers, and awarded as school prizes. At just pennies a copy, these reprints were some of the earliest mass-market paperbacks, with Austen's beloved stories squeezed into tight columns on thin, cheap paper. Few of these hard-lived bargain books survive, yet they made a substantial difference to Austen's early readership. These were the books bought and read by ordinary people.
Packed with nearly 100 full-color photographs of dazzling, sometimes gaudy, sometimes tasteless covers, The Lost Books of Jane Austen is a unique history of these rare and forgotten Austen volumes. Such shoddy editions, Janine Barchas argues, were instrumental in bringing Austen's work and reputation before the general public. Only by examining them can we grasp the chaotic range of Austen's popular reach among working-class readers.
Informed by the author's years of unconventional book hunting, The Lost Books of Jane Austen will surprise even the most ardent Janeite with glimpses of scruffy survivors that challenge the prevailing story of the author's steady and genteel rise. Thoroughly innovative and occasionally irreverent, this book will appeal in equal measure to book historians, Austen fans, and scholars of literary celebrity.
Contents
Preface
Vignette I. Marianne & Gertrude
Introduction. Austen on the Cheap
Vignette II. Emma at the Seaside
Chapter 1. Paperback Fighter: Austen for the People
Vignette III. The Old Sea Captain & William Price
Chapter 2. Sense, Sensibility, and Soap: Lever Promotions in the 1890s
Vignette IV. Charlotte & a Real Castle
Chapter 3. Looking Divine: Wrapping Austen in the Religious
Vignette V. Young Heman's Summer in Paris
Chapter 4. Selling with Paintings: A Curious History of the Cheap Prestige Reprint
Vignette VI. Lady Isabella's Mansfield Park
Chapter 5. Pinking Jane Austen: The Turn to "Chick Lit"
Vignette VII. Annie's Prized Gift
Coda
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Works Cited
Index
