The ‘Reading with Austen’ website, spearheaded by Professor Peter Sabor*, has just been updated – with a total of twenty-one entries getting new or updated photos, and another forty with updated metadata. It has taken a while to get everything sorted, but with thanks to project manager Catherine Nygren and our web developer Nguyen Dinh, all has been finally accomplished.
We welcome you to the new and improved site, with all the recent finds of 2024 and 2025 now live with photos and information – for example:
– Moses Harris. The Aurelian: or, natural history of British insects, namely, moths and butterflies. London, 1773 – with its beautiful plates of insects:
– And books we have found elsewhere are now so recorded with images provided by the institution; for example this title found at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust:
Philip Miller. The Gardeners Kalendar. London, 1732.
At RwA: https://www.readingwithausten.com/east-wall-left.html?book-id=34#bookID-34
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The ‘Reading with Austen: Returning the Lost Sheep of Godmersham’ blog keeps us all current on latest finds. You can see what we have so far accomplished with these lists of Lost Sheep:
1. Lost Sheep we have found and returned to Chawton House: 26
2. Lost Sheep we have found in institutions or private collections – all are so noted on the website: 34
3. Lost Sheep we have either found then lost at auction, or those titles that at some point were in an auction or a bookseller’s catalogue – these are still lost to us but we know they exist and will hopefully show up again: 156
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None of this could have been done without the unfailing support and eagle eyes of our dedicated and generous group of GLOSSians! Keeping an eye on auctions and bookseller catalogues is the reason we have been able to find and return as many as we have. There are still many more out there, so let us know if you find anything. And if you would like to be added to our mailing list to be kept current on our ongoing book detective adventures, please contact us here.
In the meantime, please visit the website and explore: you will see exactly what Jane Austen would have seen on the shelves in her many visits to her brother Edward’s library at Godmersham Park.
*Peter Sabor will be giving an online zoom talk on the state of GLOSS and its finds to the Jane Austen Society on Saturday October 10, 2026, 11:00 am ET [4:00 pm UK] – if you are a JAS member you can register for the talk when they email the link to the membership.
Reading with Austen 