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Jane Austen's Bookshelf

The Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend

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Jane Austen's Bookshelf

By: Rebecca Romney
Narrated by: Julia Winwood
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It all started with a book that made me curious.

When rare books dealer Rebecca Romney found an emerald clothbound edition of Evelina by Frances Burney, she was happy to discover that she'd stumbled across a novel by one of Jane Austen's favourite authors. Inspired by the connection between the two writers, she returned to Austen's books with a new lens, picking out clues sprinkled throughout her works that pointed to the writers she had admired.

Austen read William Shakespeare, John Milton, Daniel Defoe, and Samuel Richardson, all authors Rebecca had read. But Austen also read Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Hannah More, Charlotte Smith, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth, all authors Romney hadn't. These female writers all sat proudly on Austen's bookshelf, but have disappeared from ours.

Romney became fascinated with these writers and wanted to answer three important questions: What were the stories behind the lives of these women? Why have they disappeared from our bookshelves? Who wrote them out of history? She had a mission, an obligation: she needed to collect Jane Austen's bookshelf.
'Everything a reader could desire: wit, passion, mystery, brilliant detective work, a love of rare books, a deep dive into literary history and, best of all, the restoration of reputation for a group of great women authors whose names should never have been forgotten' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love©2025 Rebecca Romney (P)2025 W.F. Howes Ltd. Art & Literature Authors Literary History & Criticism Women
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A wonderful exploration of the women authors who were read a d known to Austen but slowly disappeared from a wider readership. the case is made for both reading these authors and creating your own canon of authors. Excellent!

Find your own canon

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I really enjoyed finding out about all these authors who inspired my favourite author. There was a heavy focus on the way female authors of that time are now viewed or vanished due to how history chose to view female authors. Glad this book is bringing them back into the light.

Interesting

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Such an odd book. The author alternately flaunts her deep knowledge of the book trade with an apparent lack of knowledge about 18th-century female writers.

Surely it’s one or the other? I’m not an English scholar and I knew more than she apparently started with. She acts as tho nobody’s ever heard of these writers. They’re known, just not very well.

So the book continually flips between ‘of course I know all about this as a book dealer’ and ‘gosh, women had it bad before, who knew?’ Then ‘how unknown this book was, so of course I bought a copy at this special price’.

The tone is lumpy and quite smug. Her startling naivety sits right next to showing off her book skills. I simply don’t believe someone so deep in the book trade knew so little about these writers.

Plus she has breathtakingly odd views of Britain.

Infuriating

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