Companion to Jane Austen

Claudia L. Johnson joined the faculty at Princeton in 1994 and now serves as Department Chair. She specializes in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literature, with a particular emphasis on the novel. Her books include Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (Chicago, 1988), Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender and Sentimentality in the 1790s (Chicago, 1995), and The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft (Cambridge, 2002), along with editions of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (Norton, 1998), Sense and Sensibility (Norton, 2002), and Northanger Abbey (Oxford, 2003). Her research has been supported by major fellowships such as the NEH and the Guggenheim. She is now finishing a book about author-love called Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures, which traces permutations of "Jane mania" from 1817 to the present, and also working on another called Raising the Novel, which explores modern efforts to create a novelistic canon by elevating novels to keystones of high culture. Clara Tuite is Senior Lecturer in English, University of Melbourne. She is the author of Romantic Austen: Sexual Politics and the Literary Canon (Cambridge, 2002, 2008), as well as several essays on Austen, and the co-editor, with Gillian Russell, of Romantic Sociability: Social Networks and Literary Culture in Britain, 1770-1840 (Cambridge, 2002, 2006).Cover image: The Modern Living Room, from Humphry Repton's 'Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening', 1816, colour lithograph. Private Collection, The Stapleton Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library.

"While other companions provide scholarly summary-context and assessment-as a starting place for further research, this companion seems more individualized.... A Companion to Jane Austen offers the useful charms of knowledge, stimulation, judgment." (1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, September 2010) "The advantage is that the chapters tend to be manageable, clear, and focused-perfect, in fact, for assigning to undergraduate and beginning graduate students. I for one certainly plan on doing that. After all, one of the charms of enchantment is that it can be contagious." (Notes and Queries, March 2010)"This book would be a worthy addition to any university, school and even private library in a place where Austen is read and re-read." (Transnational Literature, May 2009)"Austenites should be delighted with this comprehensive survey of contemporary Austen studies. [...] This should become a standard Austen reference. Highly recommended." (Choice, August 2009)"How is it that fresh perspectives on Austen and her writing are still being thought up? Johnson and Tuite answer that the study of Austen today is a "diverse, expansive, excitable and critical life-form", growing and changing with new audiences and approaches to literary criticism. Arranged in five parts, this Companion covers the style and genre of her novels, including the history of manuscripts, editions and illustrations (with 13 black-and-white facsimiles); individual readings of the main texts, looking at how Austen was initially received by critics and readers alike and the success of Pride and Prejudice; Austen's literary style and technique, showing how the author used language and who she was influenced by; the political, social and cultural settings of her novels, discussing the French Revolution and feminism; and how Austen has been "reinvented" by different generations, from the “silver fork” novel of the Victorian era to "sexed-up" television adaptations of our screens today." (Reference Reviews, December 2009)

• List of Figures ix Notes on Contributors xList of Abbreviations xviiA Note to the Reader xviiiAcknowledgments xixIntroduction 1Claudia L. Johnson and Clara TuitePart I The Life and the Texts 111 Jane Austen's Life and Letters 13Kathryn Sutherland2 The Austen Family Writing: Gossip, Parody, and Corporate Personality 31Robert L. Mack3 The Literary Marketplace 41Jan Fergus4 Texts and Editions 51Brian Southam5 Jane Austen, Illustrated 62Laura Carroll and John WiltshirePart II Reading the Texts 796 Young Jane Austen: Author 81Juliet McMaster7 Moving In and Out: The Property of Self in Sense and Sensibility 91Susan C. Greenfi eld 8 The Illusionist: Northanger Abbey and Austen’s Uses of Enchantment 101Sonia Hofkosh9 Re: Reading Pride and Prejudice: "What think you of books?" 112Susan J. Wolfson10 The Missed Opportunities of Mansfi eld Park 123William Galperin11 Emma: Word Games and Secret Histories 133Linda Bree12 Persuasion: The Gradual Dawning 143Fiona Stafford13 Sanditon and the Book 153George JusticePart III Literary Genres and Genealogies 16314 Turns of Speech and Figures of Mind 165Margaret Anne Doody15 Narrative Technique: Austen and Her Contemporaries 185Jane Spencer16 Time and Her Aunt 195Michael Wood17 Austen's Realist Play 206Harry E. Shaw18 Dealing in Notions and Facts: Jane Austen and History Writing 216Devoney Looser19 Sentiment and Sensibility: Austen, Feeling, and Print Culture 226Miranda Burgess20 The Gothic Austen 237Nancy ArmstrongPart IV Political, Social, and Cultural Worlds 24921 From Politics to Silence: Jane Austen’s Nonreferential Aesthetic 251Mary Poovey22 The Army, the Navy, and the Napoleonic Wars 261Gillian Russell23 Jane Austen, the 1790s, and the French Revolution 272Mary Spongberg24 Feminisms 282Vivien Jones25 Imagining Sameness and Difference: Domestic and Colonial Sisters in Mansfield Park 292Deirdre Coleman26 Jane Austen and the Nation 304Claire Lamont27 Religion 314Roger E. Moore28 Family Matters 323Ruth Perry29 Austen and Masculinity 332E. J. Clery30 The Trouble with Things: Objects and the Commodifi cation of Sociability 343Barbara M. Benedict31 Luxury: Making Sense of Excess in Austen’s Narratives 355Diego Saglia32 Austen's Accomplishment: Music and the Modern Heroine 366Gillen D'Arcy Wood33 Jane Austen and Performance: Theatre, Memory, and Enculturation 377Daniel O'QuinnPart V Reception and Reinvention 38934 Jane Austen and Genius 391Deidre Lynch35 Jane Austen's Periods 402Mary A. Favret36 Nostalgia 413Nicholas Dames37 Austen's European Reception 422Anthony Mandal38 Jane Austen and the Silver Fork Novel 434Edward Copeland39 Jane Austen in the World: New Women, Imperial Vistas 444Katie Trumpener40 Sexuality 456Fiona Brideoake41 Jane Austen and Popular Culture 467Judy Simons42 Austenian Subcultures 478Mary Ann O'FarrellBibliography 488Index 513