This impeccably researched book revolutionizes our understanding of how Britain's best loved novelist entered the canon, asserting that the roots of her enduring literary significance originated not in the UK, as is commonly believed, but in America, via a collection of visionary writers and collectors who worked largely outside academia.

Completing Juliette Wells’ groundbreaking trio of books on Austen’s readers, this latest volume revolutionizes our understanding of how Austen came to be viewed as the world’s greatest novelist. Wells shows that Austen’s global reputation was established not by British scholars, as is commonly believed, but by visionary American writers and collectors, working largely outside academia. Drawing on extensive research, Wells weaves together colorful, compelling case studies of men and women who, from the 1880s to the 1980s, helped readers appreciate Austen’s novels, persuasively advocated for her place in the literary canon, and preserved artifacts vital to her legacy. Engagingly written and abundantly illustrated, A New Jane Austen will inform and delight scholars and Austen fans alike.

"Wells has done something quite unique in her newest contribution to Austen scholarship: written an incredibly engaging and unpretentious academic text. Despite an abundance of endnotes that speak to Wells’ depth of research, the tone is casual and welcoming." - Jane Austen Society of North America News

"Wells's recovery and championship of these American enthusiasts is descriptive, laudatory and accessible in style ... She gives space and a second hearing to voices and approaches whose love for all things Austen, she believes, has much to teach us." - Times Literary Supplement

"An insightful, illuminating and meticulously researched book. Wells animates her subjects with skill, energy and affection in a study that significantly deepens our understanding of early Austen experts and enthusiasts and their contribution to the field." - Lizzie Dunford, Director, Jane Austen's House, UK