Review by C.J. Bunce

Heads-up for fans of Jane Austen’s novels: A new, big book of Austen fandom, facts, history, and trivia is coming your way next week.  The Jane Austen Visual Encyclopedia, available for pre-order now here at Amazon, is a book for every fan of historical romance who has dreamed of walking in the author’s footsteps.  Whether your first encounter with her books was via high school English class or Colin Firth stepping out from a pond as Mr. Darcy in the A&E series Pride and Prejudice, “Janeite” author-fans Claire Saim and Gwen Giret take readers through her life, her homes, museums, book collections, and her history, along with modern fandom via hundreds of illustrations, photographs, and film posters.

And further fanning the fame of fandom, a set of Jane Austen Oracle Cards will drop you into imagining the world of Austen’s characters in your own day.

First, the book–

Although her professional body of work was only six completed novels and two incomplete novels, Austen’s books continue to be taught, read, and studied.  Why?  Some of that love can be gleaned through this book’s authors and their own fangirl enthusiasm for her works, which is heaped onto every chapter.

The book begins with an overview of Austen, the girl and woman, looking into her upbringing, her family, and the world she was born into, including the culture and challenges of her times.

One section includes a chronology of her works, including her unfinished novels and how modern readers came to be introduced to them.

But it’s the adaptations that many readers will be here for.  The book gives overviews of thirty TV series, movies and other works that include Austen’s books and even her own persona–from the Emma adaptations to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  This includes cast lists, release dates, and lots of photographs.

Fans who really want to dig more into Jane Austen fandom can examine all the festivals in her honor today, and learn more about many who have been influenced by her work.

Samples of some of her collected letters and early writings are included and discussed with input from selected experts.

Readers will learn more about Austen’s influences, with a two-page spread of the authors she read.  What did she look like?  Included is a discussion of that as well.  Other illustrations and photos document travelogue information about the England she lived in, and places she wrote about that can be visited today–the authors recount their own travels, including a trip to Austen’s home.

It’s a big 312-page hardcover, coffee table book featuring gold-foiled cover art.  And it’s just right for fans new to the works of Jane Austen.  Jane Austen Visual Encyclopedia is available for pre-order now here at Amazon, slated to arrive November 12, 2024.

If you think you want to explore your inner Elizabeth Bennet or Marianne Dashwood, you may also want to check out the new Jane Austen Oracle Cards, also published by Titan Books.  This is an attractive glossy box filled with 40 cards and a guidebook to aid you in using the cards.  Think of these like Tarot cards, but for the Regency set, with romance as the theme–something to muse over with friends over for tea.

The French designers who put the deck together really came up with an eye-popping homage to the author, filled with color and design elements that will evoke your favorite images from the novels.

Jane Austen Oracle Cards is available now here at Amazon, just released by Titan Books.