Rachel's Reviews > Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend

I’ve always thought of Jane Austen as being the first major female author of novels. But in reality there were many popular female authors before Austen that she read, referenced, and was influenced by that we just don’t hear about or read anymore. This book traces the rises, falls, and major works of Austen’s literary mentors and predecessors through the lens of a rare book collector who decides to collect what Jane Austen would have had on her bookshelf.

The premise of this book sounded great, but, honestly, it mostly just didn’t work for me. The biographical parts about these different female authors were fascinating, and I added some of their novels to my to-read list. But the other parts, where the author tries to tie their stories to her own life by the thinnest of threads in a memoir-like style did not work for me.

I also struggled with the sections on her acquiring these rare books for her own collection. I found those sections long, and binding descriptions and paper types and how and where and why she acquired it just didn’t do a lot for me.

The author also derides one of these female authors for being the morality police of her day, but then consistently does the same thing throughout the book, demanding that all readers believe and think the same as she does. She tells readers what to think instead of letting them draw their own conclusions. She has more similarities to this author she can’t stand than she realizes! But credit where credit is due, the author was able to acknowledge this one author’s contributions even if she disagreed with her opinions. Not a lot of people are willing to see the positive in those they disagree with.

In the end, I was dreading picking this up and finishing it just to finish it. If this had just been the biographies about these female authors who influenced Jane Austen, I would have really enjoyed it. But the memoir style, moralism, and descriptions of rare book collecting I could have done without.