Mostly Murders

Austen never viewed herself as the lone great woman writer of her era. And she wasn’t.

In Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, rare book dealer and book collector Rebecca Romney tackles the myth of Jane Austen being the first great Western female writer by examining not only the life and works of Jane Austen’s female literary predecessors, but also diving into the reason why they were left out of the literary canon that Jane Austen was afforded a space in.

History has had a tendency to overlook women, and the world of literature is no exception. Some female writers were denied recognition simply because they were female, while others committed the unspeakable faux pas of being independent, intelligent women in an era that didn’t appreciate ambition or wit in females. Rebecca Romney urges readers to re-examine these writers and judge their works from a modern standpoint devoid of the stiffling conventions and criteria of the 18th century.

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf is essentially a book about the joys of reading and collecting books, and a wakeup call to anyone who thinks that there are no great female writers worth mentioning before Jane Austen. It is a feminist rejection of a false reality that presents the talented female writer as a lone anomaly in Western history, and it is a love letter to the pleasure of reading, not for the sake of ticking off boxes on a somewhat arbitrary list of so-called worthy literature, but simply for the sake of enjoying an entertaining story for the story’s own sake.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in 18th century literature, female writers, Jane Austen’s literary legacy and the work of rare book dealers and collectors.

Nonfiction – 18th century literature