Jane S Fame

Jane's Fame tells the fascinating story of Jane Austen's renown, from the years of rejection the author faced during her lifetime to the global recognition and adoration she now enjoys. Almost two hundred years after her death, Austen remains a hot topic, constantly open to revival and reinterpretation and known to millions of people through film and television adaptations as much as through her books. In Jane's Fame, Claire Harman gives us the complete biography—of both the author and her lasting cultural influence—making this essential reading for anyone interested in Austen's life, works, and remarkably potent fame.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR NPR • Time Magazine • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Boston Globe A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians—a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister, Jane, whose obscurity and poverty were matched only by her brother’s fame and wealth but who, like him, was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator. Making use of an astonishing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered, Jill Lepore brings Jane Franklin to life in a way that illuminates not only this one extraordinary woman but an entire world.

Rachel M. Brownstein considers Jane Austen as heroine, moralist, satirist, romantic, woman, and author, along with the changing notions of these categories over time and texts. She finds echoes of many of Austen's insights and techniques in contemporary Jane-o-mania, a commercially driven, erotically charged popular vogue that aims to preserve and liberate, correct and collaborate with old Jane.

“A vivacious portrait. . . . Byrne’s Austen emerges as a worldly woman, profoundly enmeshed in a wider world than she’s often acknowledged to occupy. This is an Austen with a sense for the political as well as for the finer points of sensibility—and one who will be unfamiliar (though never unrecognizable) to many readers.” — Publishers Weekly In The Real Jane Austen, acclaimed literary biographer Paula Byrne provides the most intimate and revealing portrait yet of a beloved but complex novelist. Just as letters and tokens in Jane Austen’s novels often signal key turning points in the narrative, Byrne explores the small things – a scrap of paper, a gold chain, an ivory miniature – that held significance in Austen’s personal and creative life. Byrne transports us to different worlds, from the East Indies to revolutionary Paris, and to different events, from a high society scandal to a case of petty shoplifting. In this ground-breaking biography, Austen is set on a wider stage than ever before, revealing a well-traveled and politically aware writer – important aspects of her artistic development that have long been overlooked. The Real Jane Austen is a fresh, compelling, and surprising biography of the author of some of our most enduring classic books – from Pride and Prejudice to Sense and Sensibility, Emma to Persuasion – and a vivid evocation of the world that shaped her.

There’s something about Jane... Jane Austen lived only just into her forties, never married, never had children, lived all her life in the south of England and rarely strayed far from the genteel and orthodox social circle into which she was born. She completed only six novels, and achieved little fame in her lifetime. Yet 200 years after her death, she remains one of our most revered writers, and one of the most regularly adapted for television and film. Her novels are beloved by readers all over the world who continue to be inspired, beguiled and delighted by her often comic, and always shrewd insights into the calculations, and complexities of human hearts and minds. This short biography aims to get to the heart of the enigmatic woman who was Jane Austen, and to the enduring qualities in her work which make it so universally loved and admired. CAROLINE SANDERSON has done jobs in both bookselling and publishing and now works as a writer, editor and books journalist. She is the author of three works of non-fiction: Someone Like Adele, Kiss Chase & Conkers: The Games We Played; and: A Rambling Fancy: In the Footsteps of Jane Austen, a travel book about Jane Austen’s life and locations. Caroline’s articles, book reviews and author interviews have appeared in The Times, The Independent on Sunday, Mslexia, newbooks and Books for Keeps. She is non-fiction editor of The Bookseller, the weekly magazine for the UK book trade. Caroline is a regular broadcaster, and public speaker to WI & Probus groups, and also regularly chairs events at book festivals. She is a judge for the 2013 Costa Biography Award. Caroline lives in Gloucestershire with one husband and two children, in a house with too few bookshelves. When not reading or writing, she tries to improve her bad Flamenco dancing.