The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After

by Elizabeth Kantor

Overview

Have you stopped believing in happily ever after?

Women today are settling for less than we want when it comes to men, relationships, sex, and marriage. But we don’t have to, argues Elizabeth Kantor. Jane Austen can show us how to find the love we really want.

In The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After, Kantor reveals how the examples of Jane Austen heroines such as Elizabeth Bennett, Elinor Dashwood, and Anne Elliot can help us navigate the modern-day minefields of dating, love, relationships, and sex. By following in their footsteps—and steering clear of the sad endings suffered by characters such as Maria Bertram and Charlotte Lucas—modern women can discover the path to lifelong love and true happiness.

Charged with honesty and humor, Kantor's book includes testimonies from modern women, pop culture parallels, the author's personal experiences and, of course, a thorough examination of Austen's beloved novels.

Featuring characters and situations from all of Jane Austen’s books (including unfinished novels, and stories not published in her lifetime), The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After tackles the dating and relationship dilemmas that we face today, and equips modern women to approach our love lives with fresh insights distilled from the novels:

• Don’t be a tragic heroine
• Pursue Elizabeth Bennet’s “rational happiness” —learn what it is, and how you can find it
• Don’t let cynicism steal your happy ending
• Why it’s a mistake to look for your “soul mate”
• Jane Austen’s skeleton keys to a man’s potential
• How you should deal with men who are “afraid of commitment” (from Jane Austen’s eight case studies)
• Learn how to arrange your own marriage—by falling in love the Jane Austen way
  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596987845
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	04/02/2012
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Kantor is author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature and The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After. She earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. in philosophy from Catholic University of America. Kantor has taught English literature and written for publications ranging from National Review Online to the Boston Globe. An avid Jane Austen fan, she is happily married and lives with her husband and son in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Introduction: What Do Women Really Want from Jane Austen? ix

Chapter 1 In Love, Look for Happiness 1

Chapter 2 Don't Fall for a False Idea of Love 17

Chapter 3 Don't Be a Tragic Heroine 37

Chapter 4 Don't Let Cynicism Steal Your Happy Ending 53

Chapter 5 Do Take Love Seriously 65

Chapter 6 "Rational Happiness" 79

Chapter 7 Work on All Your Relationships 91

Chapter 8 "Right Conduct," "Self-Knowledge," and "Delicacy towards the Feelings of Other People" 103

Chapter 9 Friendship, the School of Love 115

Chapter 10 Don't Find Your Soul Mate 125

Chapter 11 Jane Austen's Skeleton Keys to a Man's Potential 139

Chapter 12 "He Had No Intentions at All" 159

Chapter 13 Are We the Weaker Sex, after All? 171

Chapter 14 Men Who Are "Afraid of Commitment" 191

Chapter Fiftteen The Real, Original "Rules" 213

Chapter 16 Arrange Your Own Marriage-in the Most Pleasant Manner Possible 235

Appendix: "The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After"-Really? 253

Acknowledgments 267

Notes 269

Index 351