The Centre for the Book is delighted to be able to welcome back our very first-ever speaker, Prof. Janine Barchas, to present the research behind her forthcoming book, due out in October from Johns Hopkins University Press.

Prof, Barchas, the Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor in English Literature at the University of Texas at Austin, has provided the following abstract of her talk:

In the nineteenth century, inexpensive editions of Jane Austen’s novels targeted to Britain’s working classes were sold at railway stations, traded for soap wrappers, and awarded as school prizes.  At just pennies a copy, these reprints were some of the earliest mass-market paperbacks, with Austen’s beloved stories squeezed into tight columns on thin, cheap paper.  Few of these hard-lived bargain books survive, yet they made a substantial difference to Austen’s early readership.

I do hope you can join us to hear about the effects of these books and what they have done in the world.  The lecture is in the Moot Court Room, on the tenth floor of the Richardson Building, at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, 21 August.  Don’t miss this opportunity to hear about new work from a leading book historian and Jane Austen expert.

And if you’d like a sneak preview, but lacking the wonderful images, you can listen to Janine talking to Kim Hill on Saturday the 17th on Radio NZ.