{"id":1385,"date":"2019-03-06T14:29:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T14:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/?p=1385"},"modified":"2025-09-21T18:31:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T22:31:04","slug":"juliette-wells-reading-austen-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/2019\/03\/06\/juliette-wells-reading-austen-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Juliette Wells, Reading Austen in America<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Juliette Wells, Reading Austen in America<\/em><\/h1>\n\n
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Katherine Scheil<\/a><\/div>\n\n
in <\/span>Book review<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Cover<\/a><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Juliette Wells. Reading Austen in America. <\/em>London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. 256 p. ill. ISBN 978-1350012042. $US68 hardcover, $US22.95 paper.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Juliette Wells\u2019s Reading Austen in America<\/em> considers Austen\u2019s influence outside of Britain, and it serves as a prequel to her earlier book, Everybody\u2019s Jane: Austen in the Popular<\/em> Imagination<\/em> (Bloomsbury, 2011). It complements other recent works such as Paula Byrne\u2019s The Genius of Jane Austen<\/em> (2017), Devoney Looser\u2019s The Making of Jane Austen<\/em> (2017), and Deidre Lynch\u2019s Janeites: Austen\u2019s Disciples and Devotees<\/em> (2000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe 1816 Philadelphia edition of Emma<\/em> is the centerpiece of\nWells\u2019s study, serving both as its inspiration (Wells comes across\na rare copy of this book in her own institution\u2019s library) and as\nthe focus of the first half of the book. Reading Austen<\/em>\nbegins with a discussion of the origins of the 1816 Philadelphia\nEmma<\/em>, including circulation, comparison with the London\nedition, promotion, and impetus for publication. Wells then turns to\ncase studies of three surviving copies of this rare edition–from the\nduPont sisters of Delaware, New Hampshire judge and governor Jeremiah\nSmith, and a Rhode Island circulating library. The last section\ndemonstrates how Austen\u2019s novels were read in nineteenth-century\nAmerica by a Scotswoman, the Countess of Dalhousie, who lived in\nHalifax and Quebec.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWells is especially adept at making these various readers come to\nlife. In describing the copy of Emma<\/em> in Jeremiah\u2019s Smith\u2019s\nlibrary (now held by Dartmouth), she notes that Smith\u2019s book is in\nmuch poorer shape than the other copies. Pages are detached from the\nstitching and appear to have been chewed, and evidence survives of an\nattempt at mending with a needle and thread. Wells blames these\ndetails on the \u201ccheap production values\u201d of the edition (65), but\neven so, the lived experience of this book is clear. Smith made many\nannotations in his book, including corrections of printers\u2019 errors\nand underlining, and his notes about Austen\u2019s life on the endsheets\noffer \u201cthe fullest evidence available of a devoted American reader\nof Austen before the 1830s\u201d (73). Wells\u2019s final case study of\nthe 1816 Emma<\/em> focuses on the copy held by James Hammond\u2019s\ncirculating library in Newport, Rhode Island. Wells recounts the\nmarginalia of two different readers in this copy, including the\nhumorous note that Emma<\/em> is a \u201cSilly Book\u201d and \u201cnot worth\nreading whoever the author, as their time had better been spent in\nreading than inventing\u201d (75). This reader also left a chart of\njudgments of characters, deeming Mr. Knightley \u201ctolerable,\u201d Emma\n\u201cintolerable,\u201d and Woodhouse as \u201cgrouty,\u201d an Americanism for\n\u201csulky, cross, ill-tempered\u201d (75-6).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe second half of Reading Austen<\/em> comprises two chapters of\n\u201cTransatlantic Austen Conversations.\u201d The first concerns the new\ncomplete edition of Austen\u2019s novels, published in Philadelphia in\nthe early 1830s, and the Quincy sisters of Boston, who were\npassionate devotees of Austen and who carried on a transatlantic\nfriendship with Austen\u2019s brother, Admiral Sir Francis W. Austen. \nThe final chapter of Reading Austen<\/em> centers on correspondence\nbetween dedicated collector Alberta H. Burke of Baltimore and\nbibliographer David Gilson of Oxford. Burke and Gilson exchanged\ndetails about editions and translations of Austen\u2019s novels, but\nalso developed a deep friendship based on their shared experience as\n\u201cuncredentialed, self-taught experts in Austen book history who\nwere also enthusiasts\u201d (188). It seems fitting to end this\nfascinating and compelling book with a discussion of the connections\nmade across the Atlantic between these two vastly different\nindividuals who were united by their shared enthusiasm for Austen\u2019s\nnovels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since this is a book about how real readers read, it is worth pointing out Wells\u2019s address to her own readers. She notes that her aim is to write for \u201cboth academic and nonacademic readers,\u201d so she keeps data and historical context to a minimum. The end result is an accessible book that will appeal to a wider range of readers from undergraduates to Janeites. An appendix of surviving copies of the 1816 Philadelphia Emma<\/em> and eighteen illustrations further increase the appeal and usefulness of this important and accessible book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katherine Scheil, University of Minnesota<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juliette Wells\u2019s Reading Austen in America considers Austen\u2019s influence outside of Britain, and it serves as a prequel to her earlier book, Everybody\u2019s Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination (Bloomsbury, 2011). It complements other recent works such as Paula Byrne\u2019s The Genius of Jane Austen (2017), Devoney Looser\u2019s The Making of Jane Austen (2017), and Deidre Lynch\u2019s Janeites: Austen\u2019s Disciples and Devotees (2000). \u261b \u261e<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"wp-custom-template-post-template-reviews","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1888],"tags":[1896,1942,1954],"class_list":["post-1385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-19th-century","tag-north-america","tag-reading-readership"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1385"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5702,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385\/revisions\/5702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}