The Grolier Club exhibition “Paper Jane: 250 Years of Jane Austen” celebrates the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth. The exhibition was curated by Mary Crawford, Sandra Clark and Janine Barchas, Chancellor’s Council Centennial Professor in the Book Arts at The University of Texas at Austin and author of several books on Austen. Her most recent book, “Paper Jane,” which shares the exhibition’s title, was co-written with Crawford and Clark.
Crawford, a retired financial services executive, began collecting Austen books and rare family items in 1980. Clark, a lifelong member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, has been collecting Austen editions for over 50 years. The exhibition is curated chronologically, with a mix of 110 items sourced solely from the curators’ personal collections. Organized in 50-year intervals (1825, 1875, 1925, 1975 and 2025), the collection includes an array of manuscripts, rare Austen first-editions, illustrations, playbills, movie posters and more. It also provides a glimpse into Austen’s familial relationships, their influence on her creative development and how they shaped her posthumous legacy.
As the exhibition reveals, much of Austen’s literary legacy was shaped after her death by generations of Austen family descendants.
At the time of her death in 1817 at just 41, Austen had only published four novels anonymously: “Sense and Sensibility,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Mansfield Park” and “Emma.” Two more novels would be published after her passing, and her final novel, “Sanditon,” was left unfinished.
As the exhibition reveals, much of Austen’s literary legacy was shaped after her death by generations of Austen family descendants. It was her older brother, Henry Austen, who revealed her identity in a posthumous publication of her novels “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion.” During her life, Austen had published anonymously under the name “a Lady.”
The curators uncovered a large body of work from generations of the Austen family, who had attempted to complete Austen’s unfinished manuscripts they had inherited or create their own fiction based on her existing novels.
“Paper Jane” illustrates how Austen’s work increasingly spread to wider audiences in the decades following her death. As Barchas explained in a digital tour of the exhibition that “suddenly, Jane Austen (was) no longer Jane of the elite readers,” as book prices decreased and working-class readers now had access to her work.
Beginning in the Victorian era, her readership diversified further as students were introduced to Austen at school, often receiving her books as a reward for good attendance or exemplary academic performance. During World War I, Austen’s books were sent to the front lines by the War Service Library. A rare surviving copy of “Pride and Prejudice” that was read by soldiers during the war is available to view at The Grolier Club. Even after entering mainstream culture, Austen would not begin to receive academic recognition or be considered a great English novelist until the 1940s.
“Paper Jane” explores how Austen’s work became gendered over time. It introduces the concept of “pinking” Austen in the ’50s and ’60s, which set the stage for her works to become known as “chick lit” largely associated with college-aged women, despite their popularity across gender, age and class.
The 1935 stage adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” by Helen Jerome was a massive hit in London’s West End, and led to the production of the 1940 film version, starring Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennet and Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy.
The final section of the exhibition features the last 50 years of Austen history and displays posters from the many Austen screen adaptations, including the 1985 BBC “Pride and Prejudice” series starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the 2005 film version starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen and the 2020 film version of “Emma” starring Anya Taylor-Joy. It also displays Austen memorabilia such as Mr. Darcy paper dolls, comics, children’s books, various spoofs, parody books and even fan fiction.
This section of “Paper Jane” is a testament to Austen’s continued cultural relevance — revealing that Austen’s novel “Emma” was the little-known inspiration behind the iconic 1995 film “Clueless,” which is a “pretty much perfect rendition, in a different time and geography, of Emma,” Crawford said.
“Paper Jane” celebrates the continued influence of Austen’s work on modern culture and art, honoring a legacy that has only grown stronger over 25 decades. It reveals how Austen’s family heavily shaped her personal and literary legacy, and it tracks an evolution of societal perception of her work spanning more than two centuries.
You can view “Paper Jane: 250 Years of Jane Austen” at The Grolier Club of New York Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., until Feb. 14, 2026. The exhibition is also available to be viewed virtually on The Grolier Club’s website.
