Professor Sabor’s project Reading with Austen is a virtual recreation of Edward Austen Knight’s library at his Godmersham  Park estate in Kent. You can access and spend many an hour yourself perusing what Jane read: http://www.readingwithausten.com/. Books that are at Chawton or books that have been found in other libraries or personal collections are situated on their original shelves and with the click of a mouse you can see the actual book, it’s binding, title page, any important marginalia, and the all-important bookplate.

Most of the books in both libraries had one of several Knight family bookplates. This has become the primary way of locating titles and hence the formation of the Godmersham Lost Sheep Society (GLOSS), a research group of scholars and bibliophiles looking for those still-missing books, and we are asking for your help! You can either contact us with information on any books you might find (institutional libraries, individual’s private collections, bookseller shelves, auction sales); or you can donate to the cause and become an official GLOSSer: there are a number of books that are now for sale or will in the future come up for auction, and we would like to keep a fund set aside for such purchases, The goal is to return as many of these missing books back to the Library at Chawton House as possible.

If you have found one of these books or would like to donate, please fill in the form on the CONTACT page. Thank you.

You can also donate directly to the GLOSS fund via the North American Friends of Chawton House here: please check the box “Check here if your donation is strictly for the GLOSS fund (Lost Sheep Campaign)”.

‘Let me thank you again and again’
Jane Austen
Pride & Prejudice (1813)

Library at Chawton House