By chance, Romney, a rare-books collector, comes upon a 1778 novel by a woman who turns out to have been one of Jane Austen’s favorite authors. Suddenly it occurs to Romney that perhaps her beloved ...

“Jane Austen’s Bookshelf” contends that virtually every part of that sentence is wrong. Rebecca Romney, the author and occasional “Pawn Stars” guest who wrote “Bookshelf,” is a fan of Austen. But her ...