ABSTRACT
Jane Austen is seen as a quintessentially “English” author, and thus the focus on her reception history – at least in the first six decades of the nineteenth century – has largely been on her home country (and, to an extent, elsewhere in western Europe). However, an examination of the way her novels were printed, marketed and reviewed in America during the first half of the nineteenth century is equally worthy of attention. Philadelphia printer Mathew Carey published a two-volume edition of Emma in late 1816, not long after the novel first appeared in England. While it didn’t seem to be a critical success, it laid the foundation for later editions from Carey’s firm: two-volume, standardized versions of all six novels in 1832–3, then a one-volume edition of all six novels in 1838. Carey & Lea’s construction of an authorial persona for Austen was deliberate – and different than her English publisher at the time. Carey & Lea took pains to ensure that Austen’s novels appeared as a standalone set, billing her in their advertisements as a top author. Austen in 1830s Philadelphia was given a kind of authorial status she did not yet have in England, an aspect of her reception history that has largely been overlooked.
