Researching the reception history of Austen's works
There are many different ways to approach finding both contemporary and newer reviews of Austen's novels along with scholarship on her readers and reception. This section will highlight a few.
1. Books / Ebooks
Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage (2 vols) by Call Number: Clemons & Ivy PR4037 .S59ISBN: 9780710029423Publication Date: 1968A compilation of critical response to Austen's works. Find the ebook versions online by searching Virgo for "Jane Austen, 1811-1870: Vol. 1" and "Jane Austen, 1870-1940: Vol. 2"
The Reception of Jane Austen and Walter Scott: A Comparative Longitudinal Study by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in VirgoISBN: 9780826495464Publication Date: 2007Of all the great novelists of the Romantic period, only two, Jane Austen and Walter Scott, have been continuously reprinted, admired, argued about, and read, from the moment their works first appeared until the present day. In a pioneering study, Annika Bautz traces how Scott's nineteenth-century success among all classes of readers made him the most admired and most widely read novelist in history, only for his readership to plummet sharply downwards in the twentieth century. Austen's popularity, by contrast, has risen inexorably, overtaking Scott's, and bringing about a reversal in reputation that would have been unthinkable in the authors' own time. To assess the reactions of readers belonging to diverse interpretative communities, Bautz draws on a wide range of indicators, including editions, publisher's relaunches, sales, reviews, library catalogues and lending figures, private comments in diaries and letters, popularisations. She maps out the long-run changes in the reception of each author over two centuries, explaining literary tastes and their determinants, and illuminating the broader culture of the successive reading audiences who gave both authors their uninterrupted loyalty. The first ever comparative longitudinal study, firmly based on empirical and archival evidence, this book will be of interest to scholars in Romanticism, Victorianism, book history, reading and reception studies, and cultural history.
Women Reviewing Women in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Call Number: E-book: Use link in Virgo record to accessISBN: 9780754698579Publication Date: 2010Giving special attention to critical reception of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot, Joanne Wilkes offers in-depth examinations of reviews by eight female critics: Maria Jane Jewsbury, Sara Coleridge, Hannah Lawrance, Jane Williams, Julia Kavanagh, Anne Mozley, Margaret Oliphant, and Mary Augusta Ward. What they wrote about women writers, and what their writings tell us about the critics' sense of themselves, reveals the distinctive character of nineteenth-century women's contributions to literary history.
Jane Austen in Context by Call Number: E-book: Use link in Virgo record to accessISBN: 9781316036525Publication Date: 2005This collection of essays covering many aspects of Austen's life, works and historical context provides the fullest introduction in one volume to the life and times of Jane Austen. Jane Austen in Context is a generously illustrated collection of short, lively contributions arranged alphabetically, and covering topics from biography to portraits and agriculture to transport. An essay on the reception of Austen's work is also included, showing how criticism of Austen has responded to literary movements and fashions. The volume emphasises the subtle interactions between Austen's life and times and her novels.
Jane Austen: Two Centuries of Criticism by Call Number: Ebook - Access online using link in VirgoISBN: 9781571137678Publication Date: 2011A comprehensive look at the academic criticism of Jane Austen from her time down to the present. Among the most important English novelists, Jane Austen is unusual because she is esteemed not only by academics but by the reading public. Her novels continue to sell well, and films adapted from her works enjoy strong box-office success. The trajectory of Austen criticism is intriguing, especially when one compares it to that of other nineteenth-century English writers. At least partly because she was a woman in the early nineteenth century, she was long neglected by critics, hardly considered a major figure in English literature until well into the twentieth century, a hundred years after her death. Yet consequently she did not suffer from the reaction against Victorianism that did so much to hurt the reputation of Dickens, Tennyson, Arnold, and others. How she rose to prominence among academic critics - and has retained her position through the constant shifting of academic and critical trends - is a story worth telling, as it suggests not only something about Austen's artistry but also about how changes in critical perspective can radically alter a writer's reputation.
2. Secondary Source Databases
The database Orlando includes snippets of critical reviews peppered throughout the list/timeline of Austen's writings.
Also check out the British Fiction Database of Circulation & Reception (1800-1829) online for publishing information, some reviews, and related information for Austen's novels.
You might find articles or books listed in MLA International Bibliography that discuss the reception or review of a particular title
3. Primary Source Databases
Finally, you can access some of our primary source periodical and newspaper databases to look for contemporary reviews of Austen's works. For a list of other newspaper and periodical collections of possible interest, see the Primary Sources - Find Historical Newspapers, Periodicals, Diaries, & More tab of the English Language & Literature Guide.
Times Literary Supplement (TLS) Historical Archive includes the complete online fully-searchable edition of the TLS from the first edition in 1902 through 2019.
PAO: Periodicals Archive Online allows you to search the full text of nearly 400 international humanities and social sciences journals published from 1770 to the 1990s.
JSTOR also includes historical publications, so run a search in this database and limit your results to the time period just after the work was published to find contemporary reviews.
British Periodicals includes hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth (some up to 1939), reproduced in high-resolution facsimile page images. The periodicals cover literature and the arts, as well as philosophy, history, science, and social science.
British Library Newspapers includes newspapers sourced from the extensive holdings of the British Library. It includes over 160 newspaper titles that span up into the twentieth century.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers includes key newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Defender, Chicago Tribune, Norfolk Journal and Guide, Pittsburgh Courier, NY Amsterdam News, Baltimore Afro-American, Washington Post, and The Guardian & The Observer.
Researching the publication history of a book
In addition to biographical and reception information, the records in Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles also include detailed information on publication, particularly initial publication information, for works by Austen and others.
Others have compiled information on Austen's publications, including:
A Bibliography of Jane Austen (2nd edition) by Call Number: Clemons Z8048 .G54 1997ISBN: 9780198183839Publication Date: 1997This book includes original editions, first American editions, translations, editions published by Richard Bentley, and lots more.
A Companion to Jane Austen Studies by Call Number: E-book: Use link in Virgo record to access (also in print)ISBN: 9780313306624Publication Date: 2000Essays include:
"Austen's Northanger Abbey: A Bibliographic Study"
"Degrees of Maturity: The Bibliographic History of Jane Austen's Persuasion"
"Child's Play: A Short Publication and Critical History of Jane Austen's Juvenilia"
"Lady Susan: A Bibliographical Essay"
and more!
View other resources for finding publication history for books in the Publishing History section of the 20th-Century American Bestsellers guide created by John Unsworth, or contact Sherri to talk more about your specific publication research interests.