Jane Austen Publications in America.
We were pleased to find a detailed article titled “The Early American Editions of Jane Austen” in the Autumn 1969 edition of The Book Collector.
Pages 340 to 352.
The article is by a D. J. Gilson (see below).
It appears, according to his researches, that Jane was unaware of the existence, both of the three French translations published in her lifetime (Raison et Sensibilite, 1815., La Nouvelle Emma. 1816., and Le Parc de Mansfield, 1816), and also of the American edition of Emma, published by Mathew Carey of Philadelphia in 1816 (see Title Page image reproduced below right). This was only a year prior to her death.
According to D. J. Gilson, only two recorded copies are known.
A complete set of her works were published in Philadelphia inbetween 1832 and 1833; this, some fifteen years after her death in 1817, aged only 42.
These remain exceedingly rare, with one complete, but poorly bound, set known to be in the Jane Austen Memorial Trust (see image below).
The Jane Austen's House Museum (see below) is a small independent museum in the village of Chawton near Alton in Hampshire.
It is a writer's house museum occupying the 17th-century house (informally known as Chawton Cottage) in which novelist Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life, during which time she wrote, revised and made ready to be published all six of her novels, and the fragment Sanditon.
The museum has been a Grade I listed building since 1963.
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