What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved

by John Mullan

Overview

Which important Austen characters never speak? Is there any sex in Austen? What do the characters call one another, and why? What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage? In What Matters in Jane Austen? John Mullan shows that we can best appreciate Austen's brilliance by looking at the intriguing quirks and intricacies of her fiction. Asking and answering some very specific questions about what goes on in her novels, he reveals the inner workings of their greatness.

In twenty short chapters, each of which explores a question prompted by Austen's novels, Mullan illuminates the themes that matter most in her beloved fiction. Readers will discover when Austen's characters had their meals and what shops they went to; how vicars made good livings; and how wealth was inherited. What Matters in Jane Austen? illuminates the rituals and conventions of her fictional world in order to reveal her technical virtuosity and daring as a novelist. It uses telling passages from Austen's letters and details from her own life to explain episodes in her novels: readers will find out, for example, what novels she read, how much money she had to live on, and what she saw at the theater.

Written with flair and based on a lifetime's study, What Matters in Jane Austen? will allow readers to appreciate Jane Austen's work in greater depth than ever before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620400425
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	10/07/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

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

Virginia Woolf once remarked that of all great writers Jane Austen was “the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness.” If only she’d had Mullan’s delightful, though repetitive, book at hand, perhaps Woolf would have discovered the reasons that Austen remains among the greatest, yet most enigmatic, of English authors. Austen expert Mullan (How Novels Work), an English professor at University College London, cleverly captures the novelist’s brilliance by answering a set of 20 questions—ranging from unpromising ones such as “How much does age matter?” and “Why is the weather important?” to more seductive ones such as “Do sisters sleep together?” and “Is there any sex in Jane Austen?”—that uncover the details that give Austen’s novels their depth and lasting appeal. Through his answers, Mullan demonstrates that Austen “introduced free indirect style to English fiction, filtering her plots through the consciousness of her characters,” and “perfected fictional idiolect, fashioning habits of speaking for even minor characters that rendered them utterly singular. In one amusing chapter, he provides many examples of the subtle ways that Austen requires the reader to think about sex. Mullan’s humorous guidebook encourages first-time Austen readers to pick up her novels and lovers of Austen to re-read for new details. Agent: Derek Johns, AP Watt. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

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