Customer Reviews

Jane Austen: A Biography

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Elizabeth Jenkins's robust 1949 biography "Jane Austen" holds up extraordinarily well fifty years on, an indication that Jenkins did quality research and analysis. Her perspective from 1949 adds a nice counterpart to many of today's biographies, writing in the immediate aftermath of World War II when many young women lacked suitable marriage partners.

Jenkins' approach to Jane Austen's life is a chronological one, into which she interweaves carefully reasoned literary criticism of her novels in the rough order in which they were believed to have been written. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of the author and of her novels. Jane Austen was clearly a gifted writer from an early age, and Jenkins captures her evolving talent, especially as expressed in the six completed novels. While the respective popularity of the novels has changed since 1949, the literary criticism is well worth reading.

There are some items of perhaps particular interest to Jane Austen fans. Jenkins considers that Jane Austen's flirtation with Tom LeFroy in 1796 was just that. She does give full faith and credit to Cassandra Austen's account of the brief relationship with an unknown but apparently suitable young man at Sidmouth in 1802, cut short by his unexpected death. Jenkins sees this as a genuine tragedy in Jane Austen's life, accounting for a period of limited writing and for some of the flavor of "Persuasion." Finally, Jenkins offers an entirely rational explanation for Jane Austen's acceptance and then refusal of Harris Bigg-Withers' marriage proposal.

"Jane Austen" is very highly recommended to fans of Jane Austen and her novels, as an in-depth biography still well worth reading.

This used book arrived in good condition. In its former life it had been in a public library then "withdrawn from stock." | enjoyed it thoroughly.