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Jane Austen

April 16, 2014, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Research + Teaching

Jane Austen in Austin: A Regency display on view

Photo illustration by Janine Barchas.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mansfield Park, Jane Austen’s most ambitious and controversial novel. To celebrate both the author and the cultural history behind this complex work, students in English Professor Janine Barchas’s fall 2013 graduate seminar curated two display cases relating to Austen and… read more 

February 5, 2013, Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts, Research + Teaching

Researching Austen in Austin: Archival research reveals connections between Jane Austen’s characters and real-life celebrities and politicians

Humphry Repton‚ "Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening," Including Some Remarks on Grecian and Gothic Architecture. London: Printed by T. Bensley for J. Taylor, 1803. The hand-colored illustrations have unique folding flaps that show the "before" and "after" views of the changes that landscaper Repton wrought at great estates and at great expense.

Janine Barchas is an associate professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin. Barchas used the Ransom Center’s collections as she conducted research for her book Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity, published this past fall by John Hopkins University Press. She writes about… read more 

November 29, 2012, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts

Notes from the Undergrad: The Penguin Illustrated Collapse

"A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway. 1935. This edition of "A Farewell to Arms" was part of the initial ten-book print run of Penguin’s launch in 1935. Other titles in the series included Agatha Christie’s "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" and Dorothy Sayers’s "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club." As you can see from this cover, Penguin paperbacks emphasized the company’s branding rather than the subject or author of the work; the original covers included the trademark drawing of the penguin but only rarely included illustrations pertaining to the book’s content. The covers were color-coded: orange for fiction, green for crime, and blue for non-fiction.

Alyssa O’Connell is an English Honors junior in Professor Janine Barchas’s seminar, “The Paperback,” in which students used the Ransom Center’s collections to research the history of paperbacks.

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