"Expect a most agreeable letter, for not being overburdened with subject (having nothing at all to say), I shall have no check to my genius from beginning to end." - Letter to Cassandra, 1801
Jane Austen's Letters
(Jane Austen, Deirdre Le Faye (Editor))
Jane Austen's letters afford a unique insight into the daily life of the novelist: intimate and gossipy, observant and informative, they bring alive her family and friends, her surroundings and contemporary events with a freshness unparalleled in modern biographies. R W Chapman's ground-breaking edition of the Letters first appeared in 1932, and a second edition followed twenty years later. For this third edition Le Faye has added new material that has come to light since 1952, and reordered the letters into their correct chronological sequence. She has provided new biographical, topographical and general indexes, discreet annotation, and information on watermarks, postmarks and other physical details of the manuscripts. The edition has also been redesigned for ease of reading and reference.
Jane Austen: A Companion
(Josephine Ross)
The only best-selling authors in Jane Austen’s league in the English language today are Shakespeare and Dickens. In the twenty-first century her boundless appeal continues to grow following the enormously successful TV and film adaptations of Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, and of course, Sense and Sensibility.
This illuminating, entertaining, up-to-date companion is the only general guide to Jane Austen, her work, and her world. Josephine Ross explores the literary scene during the time Austen’s works first appeared: the books considered classics then, the "horrid novels" and romances, and the grasping publishers. She looks at the architecture and décor of Austen’s era that made up "the profusion and elegance of modern taste": Regency houses for instance, Chippendale furniture, "picturesque scenery." On the smaller scale she answers questions that may baffle modern readers of Austen’s work. What, for example, was "hartshorn"? How did Lizzy Bennet "let down" her gown to hide her muddy petticoat? Ross shows us the fashions, and the subtle ways Jane Austen used clothes to express character. Courtship, marriage, adultery, class and "rank," mundane tasks of ordinary life, all appear, as does the wider political and military world—especially the navy, in which her brothers served.
This book will add depth to all readers’ enjoyment of Jane Austen, whether confirmed addicts or newcomers wanting to know what all the fuss is about.
Jane Austen: A Life
(Claire Tomalin)
The author of Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and other comedies of manners gets a biography similar in tone to her own books: intelligent but not intellectual, witty without being nasty. Claire Tomalin, author of four previous biographies of notable British women, treats Jane Austen (1775-1817) with the respect her genius deserves. Tomalin eschews gossip and speculation in favor of a sober account of the writer's life that nonetheless sparkles with sly humor. Perceptive analyses of each of Austen's novels, with autobiographical links suggested but never insisted upon, add to the value of Jane Austen: A Life.
Jane Austen: The Complete Novels
(Jane Austen)
With scenes from English life and her diversity of light-hearted, witty, wise, or patient heroines, Jane Austen has delighted generations of readers while exploring the social and moral values of the early nineteenth century with elegantly barbed perception. This edition includes all six of Austen's completed novels--Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Predjudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Also included are Catherine, a key work of her youth; Lady Susan, which was unpublished in her lifetime; and the unfinished novels The Watsons and Sanditon. All demonstrate the irony, wit, and skill in characterization, as well as faultless control of tone and narrative, which mark them as timeless classics of provincial romance and intrigue.
Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels
(Deirdre Le Faye)
To peruse this lovely volume is to step back in time and experience the world of Georgian and Regency Britain-the world of Jane Austen's enduringly popular fiction. From grand country houses to humble villagers' cottages, from formal dinners to intimate family suppers, from the streets of Bath to the Cobb at Lyme Regis, the author revisits the places familiar to Austen and her characters as she explores in depth the social and physical environment that formed the backdrop for such classics as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. This meticulously detailed account is an essential source of background information for all students and enthusiasts of Jane Austen's books.
Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel
(Claudia L. Johnson)
"By looking at the ways in which Austen domesticates the gothic in Northanger Abbey, examines the conventions of male inheritance and its negative impact on attempts to define the family as a site of care and generosity in Sense and Sensibility, makes claims for the desirability of 'personal happiness as a liberating moral category' in Pride and Prejudice, validates the rights of female authority in Emma, and stresses the benefits of female independence in Persuasion, Johnson offers an original and persuasive reassessment of Jane Austen's thought."--Kate Fullbrook, Times Higher Education Supplement