Reading Austen in America by Juliette Wells

But, oh, those books-Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma, among them-possess staying power, and have inspired both literary and cinematic adaptations. and Canadian chapters (including one in Maryland), convene for their Annual General Meeting (AGM)- part literary conference, part toasting of the author and part dress-up party-all of them under the spell of their heroine, who, in her short life (she died in 1817 at 41), wrote only six major novels.

And each year since 1979, the Janeites, with representatives from the society’s 75-plus U.S. Through original archival research, Wells establishes the significance to reception history of two transatlantic friendships: the first between ardent Austen enthusiasts in Boston and members of Austen's family in the nineteenth century, and the second between an Austen collector in Baltimore and an aspiring bibliographer in England in the twentieth.They call themselves-proudly, affectionately and, perhaps, with a wink-Janeites: the 5,000 members of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), whose devotion to the works and life of the late-18th/early-19th century English novelist borders on the obsessive. She reveals the responses of this book's varied readers and creates an extended portrait of one: Christian, Countess of Dalhousie, a Scotswoman living in British North America. Drawing on a range of sources that have never before come to light, Juliette Wells solves the long-standing bibliographical mystery of how and why the first Austen novel printed in America-the 1816 Philadelphia Emma-came to be.

Book excerpt: Reading Austen in America presents a colorful, compelling account of how an appreciative audience for Austen's novels originated and developed in America, and how American readers contributed to the rise of Austen's international fame. This book was released on with total page 256 pages. Book Synopsis Reading Austen in America by : Juliette Wellsĭownload or read book Reading Austen in America written by Juliette Wells and published by Bloomsbury Publishing.

Reading Austen in America by Juliette Wells