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Jane Austen's Bookshelf
A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
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Narrated by:
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Rebecca Romney
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By:
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Rebecca Romney
About this listen
From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, an enthralling literary adventure that introduces listeners 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.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2025 Rebecca Romney (P)2025 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758. To Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of a wealthy French shipowner, the high walls of Saint-Malo are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are busy trying to secure advantageous marriages, Luce spends her days secretly being taught to sail by Samuel, her best friend—and an English smuggler. Only he understands how the waves call to her. Then one stormy morning, Luce rescues a drowning man from the sea.
By: Kell Woods
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Bibliophobia
- A Memoir
- By: Sarah Chihaya
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners”. Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland.
By: Sarah Chihaya
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Printer's Error
- Irreverent Stories from Book History
- By: Rebecca Romney, J. P. Romney
- Narrated by: J.P. Romney
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the Gutenberg Bible first went on sale in 1455, printing has been viewed as one of the highest achievements of human innovation. But the march of progress hasn't been smooth; downright bizarre is more like it. Printer's Error chronicles some of the strangest and most humorous episodes in the history of Western printing. Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible. While the book is regarded as the first printed work in the Western world, Gutenberg's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.
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Porn for Ye Old Bibliophiles
- By George M. Liveakos on 03-24-17
By: Rebecca Romney, and others
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The Rebel Empresses
- Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France, Power and Glamour in the Struggle for Europe
- By: Nancy Goldstone
- Narrated by: Tamsin Kennard
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When they married Emperors Franz Joseph and Napoleon III, respectively, Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France became two of the most famous women on the planet. Not only were they both young and beautiful—becoming cultural and fashion icons of their time—but they played a pivotal role in ruling their realms during a tempestuous era characterized by unprecedented political and technological change. Fearless, adventurous, and independent, Elisabeth and Eugénie represented a new kind of empress—one who rebelled against tradition and anticipated and embraced modern values.
By: Nancy Goldstone
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Austen at Sea
- A Novel
- By: Natalie Jenner
- Narrated by: Rupert Graves
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In Boston, 1865, Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson, daughters of a Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice, have accomplished as much as women are allowed in those days. Chafing against those restrictions and inspired by the works of Jane Austen, they start a secret correspondence with Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving brother, now in his nineties. He sends them an original letter from his sister and invites them to come visit him in England.
By: Natalie Jenner
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Twist
- A Novel
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Colum McCann
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence—words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at an unfathomable depth.
By: Colum McCann
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Upon a Starlit Tide
- By: Kell Woods
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758. To Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of a wealthy French shipowner, the high walls of Saint-Malo are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are busy trying to secure advantageous marriages, Luce spends her days secretly being taught to sail by Samuel, her best friend—and an English smuggler. Only he understands how the waves call to her. Then one stormy morning, Luce rescues a drowning man from the sea.
By: Kell Woods
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Bibliophobia
- A Memoir
- By: Sarah Chihaya
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners”. Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland.
By: Sarah Chihaya
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The Secret History of the Rape Kit
- A True Crime Story
- By: Pagan Kennedy
- Narrated by: Claire Danes
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1972, Martha "Marty" Goddard volunteered at a crisis hotline, counseling girls who had been molested by their fathers, their teachers, their uncles. Soon, Marty was on a mission to answer a question: Why were so many sexual predators getting away with these crimes? By the end of the decade, she had launched a campaign pushing hospitals and police departments to collect evidence of sexual assault and treat survivors with dignity. She designed a new kind of forensics tool—the rape kit—and new practices around evidence collection that spread across the country.
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Long Overdue …
- By M. Ganapol on 01-20-25
By: Pagan Kennedy
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The Ride
- Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America
- By: Kostya Kennedy
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Timed for the 250th anniversary of one of America’s most famous founding events: Paul Revere’s legendary ride, newly told with fresh research into little-known aspects of the myth that every American learns in school.
By: Kostya Kennedy
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Deep Cuts
- A Novel
- By: Holly Brickley
- Narrated by: Jayme Mattler
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall of 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. Hall and Oates is on the jukebox, and Percy—who has no talent for music, just lots of opinions about it—can’t stop herself from overanalyzing the song, indulging what she knows to be her most annoying habit. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. And he could listen to Percy talk all night. Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs—and the results kick off a partnership that will span years.
By: Holly Brickley
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Integrated
- How American Schools Failed Black Children
- By: Noliwe Rooks
- Narrated by: Noliwe Rooks
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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On May 17, 1954 the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education determined that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. Heralded as a massive victory for civil rights, the decision's goal was to give Black children equitable access to educational opportunities and clear a path to a better future. Yet in the years following the ruling, schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods were shuttered or saw their funding dwindle, Black educators were fired en masse, and Black children faced discrimination and violence from their white peers.
By: Noliwe Rooks
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Accidentally on Purpose
- By: Kristen Kish
- Narrated by: Kristen Kish
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Accidentally on Purpose dives into Kristen Kish’s childhood as a Korean adoptee in the Midwest, finding purpose in kitchens, and becoming the season 10 winner of—and now host—of Top Chef all the while navigating life in the spotlight, coming out in her adult years, and all the life lessons in between.
By: Kristen Kish
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Fearless and Free
- A Memoir
- By: Josephine Baker, Ijeoma Oluo - foreword, Sophie Lewis
- Narrated by: Anam Zafar, Sophie R. Lewis, Ijeoma Oluo, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Published in the US for the first time, Fearless and Free is the memoir of the fabulous, rule-breaking, one-of-a-kind Josephine Baker, the iconic dancer, singer, spy, and Civil Rights activist. After stealing the spotlight as a teenaged Broadway performer during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Josephine then took Paris by storm, dazzling audiences across the Roaring Twenties. In her famous banana skirt, she enraptured royalty and countless fans—Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso among them.
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A incongruous mess
- By AppleCedAR on 02-15-25
By: Josephine Baker, and others
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Big Chief
- By: Jon Hickey
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack’s reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack’s estranged sister and Mitch’s former love.
By: Jon Hickey
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Boat Baby
- By: Vicky Nguyen
- Narrated by: Vicky Nguyen
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting in 1975, Vietnam’s “boat people”—desperate families seeking freedom—fled the Communist government and violence in their country any way they could, usually by boat across the South China Sea. Vicky Nguyen and her family were among them. Attacked at sea by pirates before reaching a refugee camp in Malaysia, Vicky’s family survived on rations and waited months until they were sponsored to America. But deciding to leave and start a new life in a new country is half the story…figuring out how to be American is the other.
By: Vicky Nguyen
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Saltwater
- A Novel
- By: Katy Hays
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan, Cassandra Campbell, Carlotta Brentan
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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In 1992, Sarah Lingate is found dead below the cliffs of Capri, leaving behind her three-year-old daughter, Helen. Despite suspicions that the old-money Lingates are involved, Sarah’s death is ruled an accident. And every year, the family returns to prove it’s true. But on the thirtieth anniversary of Sarah’s death, the Lingates arrive at the villa to find a surprise waiting for them—the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died.
By: Katy Hays
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Just Some Stupid Love Story
- A Novel
- By: Katelyn Doyle
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Tim Paige
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Molly Marks writes Hollywood rom-coms for a living—which is how she knows “romance” is a racket. The one and only time she was naive enough to fall in love was with her high school boyfriend, Seth—who she ghosted on the eve of graduation and hasn’t seen in fifteen years.
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love this story
- By Ashley jones on 02-05-25
By: Katelyn Doyle
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I'm That Girl
- Living the Power of My Dreams
- By: Jordan Chiles
- Narrated by: Angel Pean, Jordan Chiles
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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I'm That Girl has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.
By: Jordan Chiles
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Cleavage
- Men, Women, and the Space Between Us
- By: Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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What is the difference between men and women? Jennifer Finney Boylan, bestselling author of She’s Not There and co-author of Mad Honey with Jodi Picoult, examines the divisions—as well as the common ground—between the genders, and reflects on her own experiences, both difficult and joyful, as a transgender American.
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Author's honesty
- By AMY SCHROEDER on 02-21-25
What listeners say about Jane Austen's Bookshelf
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J. B.
- 02-20-25
Is you enjoy a Lucy Worsley book or deep dive documentary, you’ll love Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney.
Such a great read for any bibliophile! I don’t believe you have to be a Janeite to enjoy this book. It reminded me of reading 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. I am so excited to look up the remaining books mentioned that I haven’t read.
If you enjoy the SHEDUNNIT podcast you’ll probably find all the information about these almost forgotten writers interesting and informative.
I like the way Rebecca tells us about her experiences looking for readable copies of these old books by authors many people don’t remember. She shares her knowledge on how to obtain copies. It feels like you’re reading letters from a friend telling you about their reading journey.
Like reading A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz. I found both books engrossing to read how these books they were so reluctant to read affected their actual perspectives.
This will be a useful book to reread and listen to on audiobook for Jane Austen July preparation’s. I had to re read it as soon as I was done like The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner. I love a book about books and about readers.
I was counting the days till Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney came out. I pre ordered it on audible and in hardback. It was worth the wait and very worth my time.
Happy reading and listening everyone!
Rebecca thank you for all your research and behind the scenes information about the world of book publishing and book collecting. I love seeing these women’s work being introduced to the reading public of today. I truly appreciate you sharing your wonderful creation with us.
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- Heather B
- 02-20-25
What a page turner!
Rebecca has a way of captivating her audience and draws you into the story she is telling. I loved her previous book Printer's Error and this one didn't disappoint. I learned so much about Jane Austen and the women who inspired her. Upon reading the conclusion of her book this morning, I immediately jumped into The Female Quixote. Charlotte Lennox was one of the women who inspired Jane Austen and I'm excited to experience her described whit. I was excited to learn how these women influenced Jane Austen's work. I had not heard of any of these women before but I had heard and read a few of Jane Austen's books. I discovered Rebecca Romney's enthusiasm for books after I fell in love with Don Quixote and began to research it's history. Rebecca was captivating in all of her videos and her exitment for the written word was contagious. This book is great. Read it. Enjoy it. Collect it! Tell a friend. Read some more.
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