Reading Austen in America

Juliette Wells is the Elizabeth Conolly Todd Distinguished Professor of English at Goucher College, USA. An acclaimed speaker and writer for popular audiences, she is the author of Everybody’s Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination (Bloomsbury Academic, 2011) and the editor of Penguin Classics’ 200th-anniversary deluxe annotated editions of Austen’s Persuasion (2017) and Emma (2015).

Juliette Wells creates living portraits of Austen’s earliest American readers and admirers and of their devotion to a novelist who would gradually become known and beloved around the world.

• List of IllustrationsList of AbbreviationsIntroductionPart 1: The 1816 Philadelphia Emma and Its ReadersChapter One The Origins of the First Austen Novel Printed in America What did it mean to “reprint” Emma?Who was “M. Carey,” and why did he choose Emma?When in 1816 was Carey’s Emma published, and how many copies were issued?How did the Philadelphia Emma compare to the London edition, and why have so few copies of the American edition survived?How did readers first become aware of Carey’s Emma?How did Americans first learn of Austen’s authorship? Chapter Two Tales of Three Copies: Books, Owners, and ReadersLovers of books, if not of Austen: the du Pont sisters of DelawareA careful and curious reader: Jeremiah Smith of New HampshireUnimpressed by Emma: subscribers to a Rhode Island circulating libraryChapter Three An Accomplished Scotswoman Reads Austen Abroad: Christian, Countess of Dalhousie in British North AmericaPlants, drawing, reading, riddles: girlhood educationA literary marriageEncounters with Austen’s novels during a “transatlantic life”Reading tastes and book acquisitionPart 2: Transatlantic Austen ConversationsChapter Four Enthusiasts Connected Through the “Electric Telegraph of Genius”: The Quincy Sisters of Boston and the Francis W. Austen family of PortsmouthRecommended reading and fertile imaginationsAdmirers, rewarded with a relic, envision a society of devoteesTwo families meet during Anna’s literary pilgrimageAmericans contribute to Austen’s international fameChapter Five Collectors and Bibliographers: Alberta H. Burke of Baltimore and David J. Gilson of OxfordUnusual approaches to collecting AustenBalancing erudition with enthusiasmAppendix: Census of Surviving Copies of the 1816 Philadelphia Emma Bibliography