Rare Book & Manuscript Library

In addition to first editions of Austen’s novels, this page contains works by Austen’s contemporaries, including a handful of works mentioned directly in Austen’s novels. Austen’s characters often read poetry to one another, particularly while forming a romantic attachment. Romantic poetry is often taught separately from Austen’s novels, but the works are contemporary to one another, and in conversation to a certain degree: scholars have studied narrative irony in Byron’s and Austen’s works side-by-side, for example. Austen notes works by Byron, Radcliffe, and Lathom in passing in her letters.

Works Included