Reading Austen in America by Juliette Wells

To Quincy, Admiral Austen wrote, “I can have no hesitation in assuring you that it was most gratifying to me to receive such a testimonial of the merits of my late sister’s works, and thereby to learn that their celebrity had reached across the Atlantic.” Many scholars believe this was the first piece of Jane Austen’s handwriting that went across the Atlantic, Wells said. In addition to a warm response and a biographical account of his sister, Quincy also received a full letter that had been written by Jane Austen to Admiral Austen’s second wife, Martha Loy. Wells continued that Admiral Austen did in fact reply, even going beyond what Susan Quincy had asked him for. “If you were Francis Austen, would you have written her back?” Wells asked. In her first letter to the admiral, Quincy asked if he might oblige Austen’s American readership with a relic of some kind, such as his sister’s signature or a piece of her handwriting. One case study Wells shared featured an 1852 correspondence between Eliza Susan Quincy – the daughter of a Harvard University president – and Francis Austen.

She believes these letters provide opportunities for scholars to gain new insight on the difference between Austen’s literary reception in England versus her reception in America. Wells presented both nineteenth- and twentieth-century correspondence between Austen fans across both continents. “Austen’s American reception contrasted to her reception in England has received relatively little scholarly attention, which led to my own interest in recovering the hidden stories of the readers on our own continent,” Wells said. Wells, a prominent Austen scholar, discovered a rare Austen archive while working on a book project that explores the transatlantic reception of Austen in America. Such a story may sound like Austen-inspired fan fiction, but for English professor Juliette Wells, this previously unknown story is an archival reality. Admiral Austen passes the afternoon regaling the American admirers with stories of Jane, adding depth to the character of his sister previously unknown in the brief biographies prefixed to her works. PROVO, Utah (Jan.15, 2016)-During the 19th century, an American Austen admirer and her family travel to England, where the aged, yet handsome, Admiral Francis Austen, brother of the late Jane Austen, warmly receives them. Juliette Wells discussed Austen’s literary reception in America and her recent Jane Austen archival discovery at a Women’s Studies colloquium.

Reading Austen in America by Juliette Wells