Welcome to Litsy!

From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, 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.