In honor of our year-long celebration of 250 years of Jane Austen’s life and novels, I have compiled a list of new books you can add to your personal library each month. My selection this month is a much-anticipated book by Rebecca Romney, rare book specialist, titled Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend.
Romney’s new book provides Janeites with a brand-new perspective on the female authors Jane Austen would have read during her lifetime. The very fact that Romney is a rare book specialist caught my eye! While many of the authors she highlights are known to us, this book takes a deeper look at their works and the reasons why their novels are unknown to the general public.
Release Date: February 18, 2025
Pre-order: HERE
Book Description
From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars Rebecca Romney comes a page-turning literary adventure that introduces readers to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen—and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves.
Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.
But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice” came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.
About the Author
Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and the cofounder of Type Punch Matrix, a rare book company based in Washington, DC. She is the rare books specialist on the HISTORY Channel’s show Pawn Stars, and the cofounder of the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize. She is a generalist rare book dealer, handling works in all fields, from first editions of Jane Austen to science fiction paperbacks. Romney is the author of Printer’s Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History (with JP Romney)and The Romance Novel in English: A Survey in Rare Books, 1769–1999. Her work as a bookseller or writer has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, Variety, The Paris Review, and more. In 2019, she was featured in the documentary on the rare book trade, The Booksellers. She is on the Board of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) and the faculty of the Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS-Minnesota).
Expertise In Rare Books
Rebecca Romney has been in the rare book trade since 2007, when she was hired by Bauman Rare Books for their new location in Las Vegas. In 2010, she became manager of that gallery. She eventually moved to Philadelphia to manage the central operations of the firm, where she also handled the acquisition of libraries and oversaw catalogue production. After a stint at the Brooklyn-based Honey & Wax Booksellers (where she co-founded a book collecting prize), she founded her own rare book firm, Type Punch Matrix.
Rebecca is on the board of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), the Council of the Bibliographical Society of America (BSA), and on the board and faculty of the Antiquarian Book Seminars. She is a member of the Grolier Club, the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie (AIB), the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), and the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI).
January New Release
While you’re waiting for Rebecca’s new book to arrive, if you’re looking for something brand-new for January, look no further!
Canterbury Classics released a refreshed Word Cloud Classics edition of Pride and Prejudice just last week. Featuring colorful sprayed edges and a heat-burnished cover with foil stamping, this edition of Pride and Prejudice is a stylish addition to your bookshelves!
Jane Austen Must-Reads for 2025
This is just the start of a wonderful journey. Many authors and publishers are coming out with new projects this year to celebrate Jane Austen’s 250th year. I am excited to explore all the options, learn a lot more about Austen, and expand my library this year. If I could attend some of the events in England this year, I would, but until then, I’ll live vicariously through online events and new books! What are you looking forward to most during this year-long celebration?
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