Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1992. In an age when genteel women wrote little more than personal letters, how did Jane Austen manage to become a novelist? Was she an isolated genius who rose to fame through sheer talent? Did she draw strength from the support of her family or from women writers who went before her? In Jane Austen among Women, Deborah Kaplan argues that these explanations are either misleading or insufficient. Austen, Kaplan contends, participated actively in a women's culture that promoted female authority and achievementa culture that not only helped her become a novelist but also influenced her fiction.
Trade ReviewKaplan builds a convincing picture of Austen's own women's culture, and her mode of argument is unusually vivid, subtle, and sesnitive.
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Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsAcknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: Divided Loyalties
Chapter 1. Genteel Domesticity
Chapter 2. Compliant Women
Chapter 3. The Women's Culture
Part II: Portraits of the Woman Writer
Chapter 4. Circles of Support
Chapter 5. Assuming Spinsterhood
Part III: Representing Two Cultures
Chapter 6. The Juvenilia: Convenient Ambiguities
Chapter 7. The "Middle" Fictions: Visible Conflicts
Chapter 8. Pride and Prejudice: Cultural Duality and Feminist Literary Criticism
Notes
Index
