Jane Austens novels have become part of the fabric of English life, and have reached new audiences through recent dramatizations on screen and stage. This book, which draws o her letters, describes Janes life in the vicarage at Steventon and later at Bath and Chawton, her relationships with family and friends-especially her beloved sister, Cassandra, […]
Of all Jane Austens heroines, Emma Woodhouse is the most flawed, the most infuriating, and, in the end, the most endearing. Pride and Prejudices Lizzie Bennet has more wit and sparkle; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey more imagination; and Sense and Sensibilitys Elinor Dashwood certainly more sense–but Emma is lovable precisely because she is so […]
Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect Austen heroine: intelligent, generous, sensible, incapable of jealousy or any other major sin. That makes her sound like an insufferable goody-goody, but the truth is shes a completely hip character who ,if provoked, is not above skewering her antagonist with a piece of her exceptionally sharp, yet?ÿalways?ÿpolite, 18th-century wit. The […]
She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older – the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning. Anne Elliot seems to have given up on present happiness and has resigned herself to living off her memories. More than seven years earlier she complied with duty: persuaded to view […]