Jane Austen : a life / Claire Tomalin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tomalin, Claire.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817.

Austen, Jane.

Women novelists, English--19th century--Biography.

Women novelists, English.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xii, 347 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map, facsimiles, portraits, genealogical table ; 21 cm

Edition:

First Vintage Books edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Vintage Books, 1999.

Summary:

At her death in 1817, Jane Austen left the world six of the most beloved novels written in English - but her shortsighted family destroyed the bulk of her letters; and if she kept any diaries, they did not survive her. Now acclaimed biographer Claire Tomalin has filled the gaps in the record, creating a remarkably fresh and convincing portrait of the woman and the writer. While most Austen biographers have accepted the assertion of Jane's brother Henry that "My dear Sister's life was not a life of events," Tomalin shows that, on the contrary, Austen's brief life was fraught with upheaval. Tomalin provides detailed and absorbing accounts of Austen's ill-fated love for a young Irishman, her frequent travels and extended visits to London, her close friendship with a worldly cousin whose French husband met his death on the guillotine, her brothers' naval service in the Napoleonic wars and in the colonies, and thus shatters the myth of Jane Austen as a sheltered and homebound spinster whose knowledge of the world was limited to the view from a Hampshire village. - Back cover.

Contents:

List of Illustrations ix

Map Showing Steventon and the Austens' Hampshire Neighbours xvi

1 1775 3

2 Meritocrats 13

3 Boys 23

4 School 33

5 The French Connection 44

6 Bad Behaviour 60

7 Weddings and Funerals 74

8 Neighbour 85

9 Dancing 101

10 The Doll and the Poker 108

11 A Letter 112

12 Defence Systems 118

13 Friends in East Kent 131

14 Travels with My Mother 141

15 Three Books 154

16 Twenty-five 167

17 Manydown 175

18 Brotherly Love 190

19 A Death in the Family 203

20 At Chawton 209

21 Inside Mansfield Park 222

23 The Sorceress 252

24 College Street 265

25 Postscript 272

Appendix I A Note on Jane Austen's Last Illness 283

Appendix II "An African Story" from Fanny Austen's Pocket-book, 1809, with a Note on Attitudes to Slavery 285

Short Bibliography 323

Family Tree 326.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-330) and index.

ISBN:

0679766766

9780679766766

OCLC:

60585140