Jane Austen and the Fiction of her Time

Mary Waldron

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511484667

This book presents Jane Austen as a radical innovator. It explores the nature of her confrontation with the popular novelists of her time, and demonstrates how her challenge to them transformed fiction. It is evident from letters and other sources, as well as the novels themselves, that the Austen family developed a strong scepticism about contemporary notions of the proper content and purpose of fiction. Austen's own writing can be seen as a conscious demonstration of these disagreements. In thus identifying her literary motivation, this book (moving away from the questions of ideology which have so dominated Austen studies in this century) offers a unifying critique of the novels and helps to explain their unequalled durability with the reading public.

‘… her evidence is so startlingly persuasive that all students of Austen will need to read her book with care.’

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Jane Austen and the Fiction of her Time

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Contents
pp vii-vii

Acknowledgements
pp viii-viii

Texts and abbreviations
pp ix-x

Introduction
pp 1-15

1 - The juvenilia, the early unfinished novels and Northanger Abbey
pp 16-36

2 - The non-heiresses: The Watsons and Pride and Prejudice
pp 37-61

3 - Sense and the single girl
pp 62-83

4 - The frailties of Fanny
pp 84-111

5 - Men of sense and silly wives – the confusions of Mr Knightley
pp 112-134

6 - Rationality and rebellion: Persuasion and the model girl
pp 135-156

7 - Sanditon – conclusion
pp 157-166

Notes
pp 167-182

Bibliography
pp 183-189

Index
pp 190-194

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Jane Austen and the Fiction of her Time

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