I must have read about this, or heard it on a podcast. I was very interested.
Here’s the blurb …
The first detailed account of Austen’s characters’ reading experience to date, this book explores both what her characters read and what their literary choices would have meant to Austen’s own readership, both at the time and today.
Jane Austen was a voracious and extensive reader, so it’s perhaps no surprise that many of her characters display a similar appetite for the written word, from Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice to Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. Beginning by looking at Austen’s own reading as well as her interest in readers’ responses to her work, the book then focuses on each of her novels, looking at the particular works that her characters read and unpacking the multiple (and often surprising) ways in which these inform the reading of Austen’s works. In doing so, it uses Austen’s own love of reading to invite us to rethink the way in which she thought about her characters and their lives beyond the novels.
This was fascinating. There is a chapter on each Austen novel (Mansfield Park gets two!). And the author describes how Austen is using contemporary literature in her novels. Ideas that the readers of the time would appreciate, and which add nuance to the novels. For example, in the chapter on Pride and Prejudice, Allen Ford discusses Conduct Literature – Fordyce’s Sermons, among others.
It is extraordinary and if I could only bring myself to read these books, I would have a greater insight into Austen’s novels.
It was very easy to read, no academic jargon, and Allen Ford has a conversational style.
A review.