250 Years of Jane Austen Coming to the Grolier Club

Paper Jane: 250 Years of Austen is a special exhibition at The Grolier Club to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen.

On view from December 4 through February 14, 2026, the exhibition will showcase the English author’s growing fame through more than 100 objects including rare first editions, manuscripts, popular reprintings, movie posters, illustrations, theater playbills, and other paper ephemera from the collections of Grolier Club members Janine Barchas, Mary Crawford, and Sandra Clark. 

In addition to chronicling the printed history of Austen’s novels from first editions to popular paperbacks, the exhibition will explore the influence of the Austen family on the writer’s legacy. A catalogue detailing all items in the exhibition is published by the Grolier Club.
 
“When Jane Austen died quietly in 1817, she had not seen her literary star shine much beyond a small circle of elite readers," write the curators. "In 2025, Austen is Hollywood’s darling, while supporting entire Janeite subgenres of creative adaptations, spoofs, and scholarly criticism. The kaleidoscopic mix of objects in the exhibition reflect Austen’s heady reputation as a revered canonical author, whose books simultaneously appeal as accessible, engaging fiction, studied in schools, while also enjoyed as ‘chick lit.’”

Highlights will include:

• an 1811 first edition of Sense and Sensibility as issued by her London publisher in plain paper-covered boards with simple paper labels on the spine
• the 1832 “First American” edition of Elizabeth Bennet; Or, Pride and Prejudice: A Novel (2 vols. Philadelphia, Carey & Lea, 1832), a former Amherst College library copy in which male students wrote their reactions in the margins - when Lady Catherine is “displeased” penciled annotations in multiple hands include “A fig for her displeasure", “A fig for your comment”, and “A poor novel so far”
• a bright green edition of Mansfield Park (Parlour Library, London, Simms and McIntyre, 1851) owned by a female butcher working in London’s Newgate Market
• a colorful example of Pride and Prejudice (2 vols. London, H. G. Clarke and Co., 1844) that looks like a small medieval primer
• the 'Peacock Edition' of Pride and Prejudice published in London in 1894 by George Allen with illustrations by Hugh Thomson

The Grolier Club will host related events including a lecture on Fashions on Paper: The Words of Regency Dress by Dr. Hilary Davidson on December 16, Austen’s 250th birthday and curator-led tours on various dates.