Editing Jane Austen (section)

===19th century===
[[File:Pickering - Greatbatch - Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice - She then told him what Mr. Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia.jpg|thumb|upright=.80|left|One of the first two published illustrations of ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'', from the [[Richard Bentley (publisher)|Richard Bentley]] edition.<ref>Gilson (2005), 127.</ref> Caption reads: "She then told him [Mr Bennett] what Mr Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment."]]

Because Austen's novels did not conform to [[Romanticism|Romantic]] and [[Victorian literature|Victorian]] expectations that "powerful emotion [be] authenticated by an egregious display of sound and colour in the writing",<ref>Duffy (1986), 98–99; MacDonagh (1991), 146; Watt (1963), 3–4.</ref> <!-- which critic said this? (Awadewit) Not Duffy, and I don't have Watt or MacDonagh handy right now to check. Let's note for later (Simmaren) --><!-- this needs checking. VE --> some 19th-century critics preferred the works of [[Charles Dickens]] and [[George Eliot]].<ref>Southam (1968), 1; Southam (1987), 2.</ref> Notwithstanding Walter Scott's positivity, Austen's work did not win over those who preferred the prevailing aesthetic values of the elite Romantic zeitgeist.<ref name="Litz, A pages 669">Litz, A. Walton "Recollecting Jane Austen" pp. 669–682 from ''Critical Inquiry'', Vol. 1, No. 3, March 1975 p. 672.</ref> Her novels were republished in Britain from the 1830s and sold steadily.<ref>Johnson (2014), 232; Gilson (2005), 127.</ref> Austen's six books were included in the canon-making Standard Novels series by publisher Richard Bentley, which increased their stature. That series referred to her as "the founder of a school of novelists" and called her a genius.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Austen|first=Jane|title=Sense and Sensibility: A Novel|location=London|publisher=Richard Bentley |year=1833|page=xv}}</ref>

The first French critic who paid notice to Austen was [[Philarète Chasles]] in an 1842 essay, dismissing her in two sentences as a boring, imitative writer with no substance.<ref name="auto">King, Noel "Jane Austen in France" from ''Nineteenth-Century Fiction'' pp. 1–28, Vol. 8, No. 1, June 1953 p. 23.</ref> Austen was not widely appreciated in France until 1878,<ref name="auto" /> when the French critic Léon Boucher published the essay {{lang|fr|Le Roman Classique en Angleterre}}, in which he called Austen a "genius", the first French author to do so.<ref name="auto1">King, Noel "Jane Austen in France" from ''Nineteenth-Century Fiction'' pp. 1–28, Vol. 8, No. 1, June 1953 p. 24.</ref> The first accurate translation of Austen into French occurred in 1899 when [[Félix Fénéon]] translated ''Northanger Abbey'' as ''Catherine Morland''.<ref name="auto1" />

In Britain and North America, Austen gradually grew in the estimation of both the public and the literati. In the United States, Austen was being recommended as reading in schools as early as 1838, according to Professor Devoney Looser.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Looser|first=Devoney|title=The Making of Jane Austen|location=Baltimore, MD|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=2017|page=181|isbn=978-1421422824}}</ref> The philosopher and literary critic [[George Henry Lewes]] published a series of enthusiastic articles in the 1840s and 1850s.<ref>Southam (1968), 152; Southam (1987), 20–21.</ref> Later in the century, the novelist [[Henry James]] referred to Austen several times with approval, and on one occasion ranked her with Shakespeare, [[Miguel de Cervantes|Cervantes]], and Henry Fielding as amongst "the fine painters of life".<ref>Southam (1987), 70.</ref>

The publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh's ''[[A Memoir of Jane Austen]]'' in 1869 introduced Austen's life story to a wider public as "dear aunt Jane", the respectable maiden aunt. Publication of the ''Memoir'' spurred another reissue of Austen's novels. Editions were released in 1883 and fancy illustrated editions and collectors' sets quickly followed.<ref>Southam (1987), 58–62.</ref> The author and critic [[Leslie Stephen]] described the popular mania that started to develop for Austen in the 1880s as "Austenolatry". Around the start of the 20th century, an intellectual clique of ''[[Janeite]]s'' reacted against the popularisation of Austen, distinguishing their deeper appreciation from the vulgar enthusiasm of the masses.

In response, Henry James decried "a beguiled infatuation" with Austen, a rising tide of public interest that exceeded Austen's "intrinsic merit and interest".<ref>Southam (1987), 46–47, 230 (for the quote from James); Johnson (2014), 234.</ref> The American literary critic [[A. Walton Litz]] noted that the "anti-Janites" in the 19th and 20th centuries comprised a formidable literary squad of [[Mark Twain]], Henry James, [[Charlotte Brontë]], [[D. H. Lawrence]], and [[Kingsley Amis]], but in "every case the adverse judgement merely reveals the special limitations or eccentricities of the critic, leaving Jane Austen relatively untouched".<ref>Litz, A. Walton "Recollecting Jane Austen" pp. 669–682 from ''Critical Inquiry'', Vol. 1, No. 3, March 1975 p. 670.</ref>