What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Essential Questions Answered

by John Mullan

Overview

"An Austen lover's greatest wish is for more of her novels. This intimate guide to the world of her books in the next best thing." -The Atlantic

Marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, What Matters in Jane Austen? solves the mysteries of Austen's fictional world.

Is there any sex in Jane Austen?

What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage?

Which important characters never actually speak?

Jane Austen's novels have been a staple of the English canon since the nineteenth century. Yet critics of the time did not appreciate the true complexity of her work. Nothing, John Mullan argues, is accidental or coincidental in Austen. As Austen herself said, she wrote for readers who have "a great deal of ingenuity themselves."

What Matters in Jane Austen? gets to the heart of what it is that makes Austen's work so singular. In twenty chapters, answering questions her novels have posed for over two centuries, Mullan uncovers the hidden truth of an extraordinary fictional world and reveals the true brilliance-and underappreciated complexity-of Austen's work.

Jane Austen is the author of classics including Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense and Sensibility. 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Austen's birth, and this beautiful, insightful book is the perfect gift for every Austen fan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620400449
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	01/29/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	732 KB

About the Author

John Mullan is Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. He has published widely on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, his books including The Artful Dickens (Bloomsbury, 2020). He has edited Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Emma for Oxford World's Classics. He is also a broadcaster and journalist, writing on contemporary fiction for the Guardian. He has taught Austen to university students for over three decades, and has lectured widely to lovers of her fiction in both the UK and the US.

Table of Contents

A Note on References ix

Introduction 1

1 How Much Does Age Matter? 11

2 Do Sisters Sleep Together? 24

3 What Do the Characters Call Each Other? 39

4 How Do Jane Austen's Characters Look? 56

5 Who Dies in the Course of Her Novels? 70

6 Why Is It Risky to Go to the Seaside? 86

7 Why Is the Weather Important? 101

8 Do We Ever See the Lower Classes? 115

9 Which Important Characters Never Speak in the Novels? 132

10 What Games Do Characters Play? 147

11 Is There Any Sex in Jane Austen? 162

12 What Do Characters Say When the Heroine Is Not There? 179

13 How Much Money Is Enough? 196

14 Why Do Her Plots Rely on Blunders? 211

15 What Do Characters Read? 226

16 Are III People Really to Blame for Their Illnesses? 243

17 What Makes Characters Blush? 258

18 What Are the Right and Wrong Ways to Propose Marriage? 274

19 When Does Jane Austen Speak Directly to the Reader? 289

20 How Experimental a Novelist Is Jane Austen? 304

Notes 321

Bibliography 329

Acknowledgements 333

Index 335

Editorial Reviews

Sends the reader back to the originals with fresh pleasure.” —Tessa Hadley, The Guardian

“Delightful . . . Mullan's humorous guidebook encourages first-time Austen readers to pick up her novels and lovers of Austen to re-read for new details.” —Publishers Weekly

“Highly entertaining . . . reveals a quite unexpected aspect to the novelist and her books.” —Daily Mail

“A box of 20 literary chocolates for Austen fans to savor.” —Kirkus Reviews

“An Austen lover's greatest wish is for more of her novels. This intimate guide to the world of her books in the next best thing.” —The Atlantic

“Any new book on Jane Austen raises the urgent question, Would I get more pleasure from reading this than from re-reading my favourite Jane Austen novel? If you decide to give What Matters in Jane Austen a chance you'll know after a few pages that you've made the right choice.” —John Carey, Sunday Times

“Mullan's close reading will provide serious fans with plenty of new insights for the next time they pick up one of Austen's books.” —Booklist

“[Mullan] brings fresh new and insights into the literary details and truths found within Jane Austen's fiction.” —Shelf Awareness

“This collection of essays will delight. Mullan's intent is to reveal Austen's cleverness and revolutionary approach, and he succeeds, deftly sharing with readers his enthusiasm and knowledge gleaned from Austen scholarship in this enjoyable read. Fans will appreciate the clarity and perspective Mullan brings to a beloved author's works.” —Library Journal

“[A] fine collection of essays . . . Like all good literary critics, he has the happy knack of making you read even familiar works with fresh eyes, and the essays in this book are among the best of their kind.” —Daily Telegraph

“A detailed primer on Jane Austen's attitudes to sex, money, class and even the weather.” —Sunday Times, "Must Reads"

“There is plenty to enjoy in this parade of Austen micro-knowledge.” —Evening Standard

“Fascinating . . . If you love Jane Austen, you'll love this book too-it's almost as good as finding an unpublished novel.” —The Lady

From the Publisher

Austen enthusiast and Guardian columnist Mullan (English/Univ. College London; Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature, 2008, etc.) poses and answers 20 questions about Austen's novels and her technique. Not all the questions are "crucial," but most are interesting. The author begins by wondering if Austen knew how good she was and quickly reveals his great admiration for her work. Then, off he sails toward his 20 islands, each of which he explores in conventional fashion: introductory paragraph(s) followed by paragraphs of literary proof (quotations, incidents), virtually all featuring a topic sentence. Conventions aside, Mullan returns from his voyages with some "novel" insights. He notes the significance of the ages of her characters (the women in the books are invariably younger than their screen counterparts), the rarity of a woman's using a man's first name in conversation, the rarity of death, the seductions of the seaside, the significance of weather, and why some characters talk a lot and some are silent altogether. We learn about games characters play (Austen herself liked cards) in a chapter Mullan slyly follows with one about sex (yes, there is some in Austen; no, it's not very obvious). He examines the relevance of money (who talks about it and why?) and the significance of blunders (Emma is the queen of them, as he notes) and illness and even blushing. "Austen requires her readers," writes Mullan, "to be interpreters of blushes." Near the end (as in an Austen novel), marriage becomes a focus, and the last two chapters deal with Austen as a technical innovator. Mullan notes how she rarely intrudes in the narration (unlike Thackeray and Trollope) and how she pioneered the "free indirect style." A box of 20 literary chocolates for Austen fans to savor.

Kirkus Reviews