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OverviewThe first detailed account of Austen’s characters’ reading experience to date, this book explores both what her characters read and what their literary choices would have meant to Austen's own readership, both during her life and today. Jane Austen was a voracious and extensive reader, so it's perhaps no surprise that many of her characters are also readers—from Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice to Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. Beginning by looking at Austen’s own reading as well as her interest in readers’ responses to her work, the book then focuses on each of her novels, looking at the particulars of her characters’ reading and unpacking the multiple (and often surprising) ways in which what they read informs our reading. What Jane Austen’s Characters Read (and Why) uses Austen's own love of reading to invite us to rethink the ways in which she imagined her characters and their lives beyond the novels. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Susan Allen Ford (Delta State University, USA)Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic ISBN: 9781350416727ISBN 10: 135041672 Pages: 280 Publication Date: 11 July 2024 Audience: College/higher education , General/trade , Tertiary & Higher Education , General Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsIntroduction: Drawing Character, Reading Books: Building a Society of Readers Chapter 1: “Her Reading Was Very Extensive”: Austen and Her Community of Great Readers Chapter 2: Readers of Feeling: Northanger Abbey and Sensibility Chapter 3: “What Becomes of the Moral?” Reading Conduct Books and Pride and Prejudice Chapter 4: “In the Midst of Theatrical Nonsense”: Performative Reading in Mansfield Park Chapter 5: Becoming a Renter, a Chuser of Books in Mansfield Park Chapter 6: Meaning to Read More: Emma and the Clever Reader Chapter 7: Readers of Romance: Persuasion and Sanditon BibliographyReviewsThis is an excellent book on the importance of books and reading in Jane Austen’s life and works. Underpinned by careful research and insightful close readings of the novels, it clearly explains how understanding Austen’s literary allusions illuminates her work in vital new ways. * Professor Katherine Halsey, University of Stirling, UK * This is an excellent book on the importance of books and reading in Jane Austen’s life and works. Underpinned by careful research and insightful close readings of the novels, it clearly explains how understanding Austen’s literary allusions illuminates her work in vital new ways. * Professor Katherine Halsey, University of Stirling, UK * Susan Allen Ford’s scholarship on literary allusions in Jane Austen’s novels has long informed critical reading of Austen’s writing. With its focus on what Austen’s characters read, this publication not only offers brilliant new insights into those characters but also insights into Austen’s own reading and her deep critical familiarity with her predecessors and contemporaries. This book goes beyond those insights, however, to address, in graceful, accessible prose, Austen’s relationship with her own imagined readers and her expectations for those readers, indisputably proving Austen’s acute self-awareness of herself as an author and all that awareness implies. * Mary McBryde Mintz, President, Jane Austen Society of North America and Emerita Librarian, American University * Author InformationSusan Allen Ford is Professor of English Emerita at Delta State University, USA, and has been editor of Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal and Persuasions On-Line since 2006. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |