Janine Barchas

Janine Barchas holds the Chancellor’s Council Centennial Chair in the Book Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is a professor in the English Department. In addition to authoring books, she is the creator behind the free digital museum called What Jane Saw, which reconstructs two Georgian blockbusters as witnessed by Jane Austen. She has also curated brick-and-mortar museum exhibitions (e.g. at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Harry Ransom Center, and Grolier Club) and written essays for popular venues such as the Washington Post, New York Times, Lit Hub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Her graphic biography "The Novel Life of Jane Austen" is ecstatically illustrated by Isabel Greenberg and focuses on the relationship between sisters Jane and Cassandra Austen. The book is already available in a Dutch translation, and forthcoming in German, French, Spanish, and Chinese editions.

Her award-winning "The Lost Books of Jane Austen" tracks Jane Austen's popular reception by means of the unsung, cheap editions that scholarly libraries have not bothered to collect. She describes it as "hardcore bibliography meets the Antiques Roadshow."

Born in The Netherlands, she has also translated her late father's memoirs about life in occupied Holland during World War Two.