Jane Austen For Dummies (3 page)

Text in sidebars:
Although interesting, sidebars aren't necessary to your understanding of the subject at hand. They're okay to skip — you won't miss anything you absolutely
need
to know. Sidebars appear in the gray boxes throughout the book.

Any text with a Technical Stuff icon:
You can also feel free to pass over anything with this icon (see the icon picture toward the end of this Introduction), which marks technical information — or as technical as reading literature ever gets. The information in this book doesn't compare with what's found in a book on rocket science, so there aren't many of these icons floating around.

Any text with the Trivia icon:
This icon flags the ins and outs of Austen info that you may not have known before. This info can be good to know if you're ever on a quiz show with Austen as a topic!

You've heard of Jane Austen, even if you've never read one of her novels.

You're a reader of Jane Austen, but want more information about how her life and surroundings influenced her writing.

You've read
Emma
twice but still don't get why it's such a big deal to Harriet Smith that Miss Woodhouse (whom Harriet never calls “Emma”) shakes her hand.

You're no longer confusing Jane Austen with
Jane Eyre.

You want to know more about Austen but want to find a lot of information in one reasonably priced and readable book.

You've seen one or more Jane Austen–based films or TV miniseries and want to know if the novel is as good as or perhaps better than the screen version (the answer to that is that the novel is always better!).

You're wondering why there are Jane Austen dating books, cookbooks, sequels, and books with her name in the title (instead of her name as an author).

You want to know why Jane Austen is read and loved nearly two hundred years after her novels were first published and why she's both a popular icon on T-shirts and tea cups as well as the subject of highly serious academic study (and no, this book doesn't have a test at the end!).

This part speculates about the burning question on everyone's mind: “Why is Jane Austen everywhere today?” I discuss Austen's unique popularity, what she meant by using the byline “by a Lady” and what her contemporary readers expected from that byline. Then I talk about the ups, downs, and ups of her popularity, especially since World War I, when British soldiers read her novels in the trenches to remember why they were fighting for England.

Placing Austen in her world and what that means come next with explanations of the class system inherent in her day. I also explain who the gentry were (the gentry is a major term and focus in Austen's writing). She writes about ladies and gentlemen at a time when people were actually called that not just because they were polite. For details on Austen's life, head to Chapter 3, the biographical chapter. In Chapter 4, I discuss some of the key influences — literary and life — on Austen as a writer.

Austen's novels deal with the courtship of young ladies and gentlemen. This part explains her characters' behaviors when they dance, when they court, and when they decide to marry. “Dating” in Austen's day and in her novels was totally different from what we assume dating to mean nowadays. Finally, this part looks at some of Austen's wily and flirtatious females and seductive males — none of whom ever makes it to hero or heroine status.

One of Austen's greatest skills is commenting on her world — socially, politically, and economically — with such subtlety that at times she doesn't call attention to her own dissatisfaction. But Austen wasn't only a writer of courtship novels; she was also a satirist — a satirist because she cared about what was going on in her world. One of Austen's most complex characters is
Mansfield Park
's Mary Crawford, who says, “‘I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong'” (MP 1:5). The same could be said of Austen as she looks at her society. She comments on women's rights and wrongs, men's prerogatives, home life, manners, and morals and religion. Then she lets the reader draw conclusions.

While Chapter 1 deals with Austen's long-lasting appeal, this part offers some modest tutoring on reading Austen beyond readers liking her. You get information and evaluations of how and why her work has been adapted by other media (stage, screen, and television), and some suggestions about whom and how she influenced in terms of literature — both the serious stuff and the popular literature.

Every
For Dummies
book contains a Part of Tens. Here, you find some easy-to-reference information and my personal opinions about Austen's ten most memorable characters, the ten best Austenisms and what they mean, the ten best Austen places to visit and how to get there from London (or if you're at Jane Austen's House in Chawton, how to get to other nearby places from her house so you don't waste time and money going back to London and starting all over again!), and the ten best books (besides this one!) to read about Jane Austen and related topics.

One last thing: If you want to check a date or historical event, the appendix provides a chronology of major events both in and around Austen's life.