Paper Jane: 250 Years and Counting

Paper Jane reflects Austen’s heady reputation as a revered canonical author, even while her books are simultaneously enjoyed as "chick lit." Jane Austen's growing fame is measured at fifty-year intervals: in 1825, 1875, 1925, 1975, and 2025.  

In the semiquincentennial year of Jane Austen (1775–1817), she is arguably the best-known author in the English language after Shakespeare. However, this reputation was hard-won and was many years in the making. 

This book traces Jane Austen’s ascendence as a literary celebrity through print—from fine first editions to mass-market paperbacks, supplemented by manuscripts, movie posters, graphic novels, theater bills, play scripts, and paper currency. The temporal dimension makes this not only the story of Austen’s growing fame but also traces the changes in readers and reading culture over the last two centuries and a half. It demonstrates that cheap books are, in fact, the force that made “Miss Austen” canonical. 

Paper Jane accompanies an exhibition at The Grolier Club, drawing from private collections by Janine Barchas, Mary Crawford, and Sandra Clark.

Janine Barchas holds the Chancellor’s Council Centennial Professorship in the Book Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. An internationally recognized Jane Austen scholar, she is the author of Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity, The Lost Books of Jane Austen, and The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography. 

Retired from Morgan Stanley after a forty-year career in financial services, bibliophile Mary E. Crawford now serves on three non-profit boards: The Grolier Club, the Mint Theater, and the Bibliographical Society of America.

Sandra Clark is a former school teacher, retired entrepreneur, and book collector who lives in Port Aransas, Texas.