JASNA-WI Spring Program: Investigating Austen Artifacts with Juliette Wells

In honor of Austen's 250th birthday, Dr. Wells pays tribute to the ingenuity of collectors who recognized the genius in Austen's work.

Genius and Ingenuity: A Literary Detective Investigates Austen Artifacts

In honor of Austen's recent landmark birthday, Dr. Wells pays tribute to the ingenuity of knowledgeable Janeites, whom our favorite author entrusted would recognize her gneius. Chief among these was Alberta H. Burke*, the renowned twentieth-century collector, whose treasures included a dozen Austen manuscropts, including Cassandra's note on her sister's dates of composition. Dr. Wells raises new questions about this artifact and tells two other stories of her recent discoveries regarding mysterious portraits.

*Alberta H. Burke was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin and earned a masters degree in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin

Juliette Wells, Professor of Literary Studies at Goucher College, guest-curated the blockbuster 2025 exhibition A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250 at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. She is the author of three histories of Austen's readers and fans, all published by Bloomsbury Academic: A New Jane Austen: How Americans Brought Us the World's Greatest Novelist (2023), Reading Austen in America (2017), and Everybody's Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination (2011). For Penguin Classics, she created reader-friendly annotated editions of Mansfield Park (2025), Emma (2015), and Persuasion (2017).