The female authors who influenced Jane Austen: NPR
Rare books collector Rebecca Romney holds The mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, published in 1794. The novel is one of the archives that inspired Jane Austen’s libraryRomney’s new book on women writers who influenced Austen.
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A fortuitous meeting with the novel by Frances Burney in 1778Evelina, sent a dealer of rare books Rebecca Romney in a quest for a year to find the women writers who influenced Jane Austen’s work. One of Romney’s specialties is the story of the novel. But names like Burney were absent from his memory of Austen’s reading list.
“Quickly, I realized that I had read all the men she had read … And then I read on all the women she loved, and I had not read any – most of whom I had Not even heard, “said Romney.” So I thought I needed a course correction because I had this gap in my own reading knowledge. “
In Jane Austen’s library, Romney gives life to neglected voices, highlighting eight women writers – including Charlotte Lennox, Hannah More and Maria Edgeworth – who shaped the literary world of Austen.
Romney’s gap in knowledge of women read by Austen quickly had a name.
Versions of Evelina And Cecilia By Frances Burney is displayed in archives of the Punch Matrix type, a rare bookstore at Silver Spring, MD.
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“I realized that the researchers also see it, because these women were so systematically excised from our understanding of the cannon and the development of the novel that they gave it a name. This name is the big forgotten,” She declared.
The Romney version of the Jane Austen library is assembled in her bookstore, Matrix Punch typeIn Silver Spring, Maryland. She co -founded the space with Brian Cassidy in 2019. Some of the literary treasures that are hosted there dates back to the 16th century.
The day NPR visited Romney at the store, the author shone at the sight of his collection and the voices represented.
Rebecca Romney book, Jane Austen’s library, is displayed like Punch Matrix, which houses the archives that inspired it.
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“Then you start to see this interaction between the authors, which, I think, was so fun. It was not only everything on Austen. Soon, it became its own constellation of writers in the 18th century, especially how Women talk to each other like artists and artists. “
She hopes that readers discover the book and the collection as a literary altar in a way – one with space for many stars.
The collector of rare books Rebecca Romney organizes novels such as Punch Matrix in Silver Spring, MD.
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Valerie Plesch for NPR
“What I try to do is not only to have an idea of their achievements as writers, but also to give them their due, the due which was removed from them in the hundreds of years during which Their reputation has slowly cut. “
The digital version of this story has been produced and modified for the web by Majd al-Waheidi.
