CHRISTOPHER GILLIE is an Arts Tutor for the Open University having for a long period served Trinity Hall, Cambridge as a lecturer in English. Among other books he has compiled the Longman Companion to English Literature and in 1983 published the volume on E M Forster for the present series.

• List of illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction Part One: Biographical Background 1 Character and Family Background 2 Religion 3 Mysteries and Uncertainties 4 Juvenilia Part Two: Literary Background 5 Augustan Sense and Sensibility 6 Literary Contemporaries: Isolation and Involvement 7 The Eighteenth-century Novel8 The Arts and the Social Order 9 Women in Life and Literature Part Three: The Art of Jane Austen 10 Characterization: Heroines and Heroes 11 The Construction of the Novels 12 Emma 13 Jane Austen's Place in English Fiction Part Four: Reference Section Index