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Christian Encounters Series
Jane Austen
In this Christian Encounter Series biography, author Peter J. Leithart explores the life of Jane Austen, beloved author of such books as Pride and Prejudice and Emma.
Jane Austen is now what she never was in life, and what she would have been horrified to become—a literary celebrity.
Austen’s novels achieved a timelessness that makes them perennially appealing. Kipling and Churchill found solace in her writings during times of war and illness. Mark Twain had a love/hate relationship with her work. And then, there’s our celebrity culture: the television hit Pride and Prejudice, the award-winning 1995 film Sense and Sensibility, and all the remakes and prequels and sequels. Modern-day Jane Austen fans just can’t seem to leave her characters alone.
“Janeia” is the author’s term for the mania for all things Austen. This biography captures the varied sides of Austen’s character and places her Christian faith in a more balanced light and with less distortion than has been achieved previously. It is a delightful journey through a life spent making up stories that touched the lives of millions.
Jane Austen
“I was riveted by Leithart's excellent biography of Austen, the woman who profoundly influenced me to search for the universal truth in my novels. I was able to see the flesh-and-blood woman I've admired since my teens. Highly recommended for Janeites like me!”
--Colleen Coble, best-sellingauthor of The Lightkeeer's Daughter
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2010
47 people are currently reading
380 people want to read
About the author
Peter J. Leithart
130 books364 followersPeter Leithart received an A.B. in English and History from Hillsdale College in 1981, and a Master of Arts in Religion and a Master of Theology from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1986 and 1987. In 1998 he received his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England. He has served in two pastorates: He was pastor of Reformed Heritage Presbyterian Church (now Trinity Presbyterian Church), Birmingham, Alabama from 1989 to 1995, and was founding pastor of Trinity Reformed Church, Moscow, Idaho, and served on the pastoral staff at Trinity from 2003-2013. From 1998 to 2013 he taught theology and literature at New St. Andrews College, Moscow, Idaho, where he continues to teach as an adjunct Senior Fellow. He now serves as President of Trinity House in Alabama, where is also resident Church Teacher at the local CREC church. He and his wife, Noel, have ten children and five grandchildren.
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September 5, 2022DNF. This begins with the following premise:
“Austen has become what she never was in life, what she would have been horrified to be: a literary celebrity.”
Why the assumption Jane be horrified to be a literary celebrity? She wanted to earn money for her work and even laughingly resented Walter Scott’s shift from poetry to novels because he was more competition for her. There were literary celebrities who were her contemporaries, so what in her letters and novels indicate she wouldn’t have wanted that success?
“The current obsession with everything Austen might be taken as a form of dementia.”
What? Dementia? A love of Austen means you have a progressive loss of intellectual functioning? Geez, just let people enjoy things.
The attempt to shoehorn her Christian faith into the forefront of her life and work felt disingenuous. And the author kept calling her Jenny because of ONE letter her father wrote calling her that when she was born.
Cannot recommend as an intro to Austen or to diehard Austen fans…who apparently are suffering from dementia.
I received an arc from NetGalley
“Austen has become what she never was in life, what she would have been horrified to be: a literary celebrity.”
Why the assumption Jane be horrified to be a literary celebrity? She wanted to earn money for her work and even laughingly resented Walter Scott’s shift from poetry to novels because he was more competition for her. There were literary celebrities who were her contemporaries, so what in her letters and novels indicate she wouldn’t have wanted that success?
“The current obsession with everything Austen might be taken as a form of dementia.”
What? Dementia? A love of Austen means you have a progressive loss of intellectual functioning? Geez, just let people enjoy things.
The attempt to shoehorn her Christian faith into the forefront of her life and work felt disingenuous. And the author kept calling her Jenny because of ONE letter her father wrote calling her that when she was born.
Cannot recommend as an intro to Austen or to diehard Austen fans…who apparently are suffering from dementia.
I received an arc from NetGalley
October 7, 2021
A lovely blend of readable scholarship
December 17, 2022
Jane Austen: A Literary Celebrity is a delightful biography of an author who has proven herself worthy of much praise and research. This book is an excellent dive into her life and works, and I emerged from its pages knowing a great deal more about Jane (or Jenny, as the author occasionally calls her) than I did before. It also inspired me to buy a few collections of her letters, which I look forward to reading. And I think that's what good books do: they lead one to further exploration and reflection. Just like Austen's six classic novels do.
Jane Austen's life, from the 21st century's perspective, would appear rather bland and uninteresting, but there is much to be learned from her peaceful and pious life. Her sarcasm, wit, and style came from somewhere, after all.
There were two things about this book I wasn't particularly fond of, and the first might have been corrected later in the publication process, as I was reading an ARC. Two spots mistook character names, nothing major. And the second thing was merely a critique of the first third of the novel, which dragged a bit more than the rest. Perhaps it was just my mindset was wrong - I will probably return to this biography again to revive my recollection someday.
All in all, if you are at all interested in Jane Austen, I would definitely recommend this book. It's a great biography. Peter Leithart's other book on Austen, Miniatures and Morals, is also excellent and dives in to each of her books on a deeper level than this one.
At her best, Jane Austen wrote out of laughter. Her art came from the impish glee of a precocious teenager amused by the follies of the world around her, wanting to get us in on the joke. Her final voice is modulated, deepened, but it is still the voice of the juvenilia, the joyous voice of Pride and Prejudice, the voice of the narrator in Emma and of the comic passage in the unfinished Sanditon. It is the playful voice whose resonance is enriched by the piety that is always in, with, and under it. It is the voice of the supremely talented, supremely meticulous writer who lived and died as Jenny, whose greatness as a woman and as an artist is the greatness of one who became, and remained, a little child. || quote from an unfinished ARC, possibly not the same as in the final published edition
I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for a review. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.
Jane Austen's life, from the 21st century's perspective, would appear rather bland and uninteresting, but there is much to be learned from her peaceful and pious life. Her sarcasm, wit, and style came from somewhere, after all.
There were two things about this book I wasn't particularly fond of, and the first might have been corrected later in the publication process, as I was reading an ARC. Two spots mistook character names, nothing major. And the second thing was merely a critique of the first third of the novel, which dragged a bit more than the rest. Perhaps it was just my mindset was wrong - I will probably return to this biography again to revive my recollection someday.
All in all, if you are at all interested in Jane Austen, I would definitely recommend this book. It's a great biography. Peter Leithart's other book on Austen, Miniatures and Morals, is also excellent and dives in to each of her books on a deeper level than this one.
At her best, Jane Austen wrote out of laughter. Her art came from the impish glee of a precocious teenager amused by the follies of the world around her, wanting to get us in on the joke. Her final voice is modulated, deepened, but it is still the voice of the juvenilia, the joyous voice of Pride and Prejudice, the voice of the narrator in Emma and of the comic passage in the unfinished Sanditon. It is the playful voice whose resonance is enriched by the piety that is always in, with, and under it. It is the voice of the supremely talented, supremely meticulous writer who lived and died as Jenny, whose greatness as a woman and as an artist is the greatness of one who became, and remained, a little child. || quote from an unfinished ARC, possibly not the same as in the final published edition
I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for a review. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.
June 10, 2023
Thank you to Netgalley and Nelson Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
As an Austenite, I was excited to see a new biography about Jane Austen. Much of my undergraduate work centered around Austen and I plan on centering a thesis partially around her work. One could say that I love Austen and one would be right. All of that said, I found this biography to be quite disrespectful to Austen and to her body of work.
Like many other dismissive academics, Leithart writes condescendingly and narrow-mindedly about Austen as well as fans of her work. He assumes a lot about her which is ironic considering he goes into her personal life, her relationships, who she was and yet, he completely misses the point about who Jane Austen was and who she is to fans and Austenites.
Even coming at this biography from an objective viewpoint, it's just not very well-written. It's a very run of the mill biography that offers nothing new or poignant to Austen scholarship. As an Austenite, I absolutely detested this. It was disrespectful, lazy, presumptuous, condescending, and dismissive.
I would not recommend this as any kind of introduction to Austen nor would I recommend it to anybody familiar with her work.
EDIT: The shoehorning of her as a Christian author is also incredibly lazy and a morally crappy thing to do as a biographer. Her religious views did not play as large a role in her writing as Leithart would have you believe. UGH.
As an Austenite, I was excited to see a new biography about Jane Austen. Much of my undergraduate work centered around Austen and I plan on centering a thesis partially around her work. One could say that I love Austen and one would be right. All of that said, I found this biography to be quite disrespectful to Austen and to her body of work.
Like many other dismissive academics, Leithart writes condescendingly and narrow-mindedly about Austen as well as fans of her work. He assumes a lot about her which is ironic considering he goes into her personal life, her relationships, who she was and yet, he completely misses the point about who Jane Austen was and who she is to fans and Austenites.
Even coming at this biography from an objective viewpoint, it's just not very well-written. It's a very run of the mill biography that offers nothing new or poignant to Austen scholarship. As an Austenite, I absolutely detested this. It was disrespectful, lazy, presumptuous, condescending, and dismissive.
I would not recommend this as any kind of introduction to Austen nor would I recommend it to anybody familiar with her work.
EDIT: The shoehorning of her as a Christian author is also incredibly lazy and a morally crappy thing to do as a biographer. Her religious views did not play as large a role in her writing as Leithart would have you believe. UGH.
August 9, 2025
I loved this book! The beginning was rough for me, but once I got into it, it was easy to finish. Leithart does an excellent job painting a round picture of Jenny, and I’m excited to read Austen with a fresh perspective.
August 3, 2011
This was fascinating, and in some ways kind of an expose. I'm actually quite delighted by the fact that the far-inferior Bronte's really didn't like Austen at all. Especially as I know several people that always mix up who wrote what, which is simply inconceivable to me. It's like asking who wrote King Lear: Edward de Vere as Shakespeare or Stephanie Meyer.
What I chiefly had not known was the depth of her religious conviction. If you read the books, you get glimpses of it. Very little of that survives the screenwriters (if any), and it's typically forgotten. But this is a woman whose last words were "God grant me patience. Pray for me, oh pray for me."
She was delightful, flippant, lively, witty and at times downright savage in her prose. Consider a few examples. When a woman gave birth, or 'was brought to bed' untimely due to a fright, Austen speculated "I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband." Or in a letter to her sister, she commented "Expect a most agreeable Letter for not being overburdened with subject--(having nothing at all to say)--I shall have no check to my Genius from beginning to end." In what ended up being one of my favorite sections of Leithart's book, he quotes her as having said that she (and I quote): "attended the theater to see Don Juan, 'whom we left in Hell at 1/2 past 11.' One home was full of 'modern Elegancies,' but lacked an air of seriousness: 'if it had not been for some naked Cupids over the Mantlepiece, which must be a fine study for Girls, one should never have Smelt Instruction.' "
Not exactly the Austen that most people describe: far more vivacious, far less Victorian prudishness, let alone Edwardian weirdness that has been attributed to her as of late. She was a good deal more like Eliza Bennett than we typically seem to think, delighted and amused by the folly of others, and not the first person you'd want to cross swords with in the dinner-time chatter.
So this was a great book, an especially fine read after just going through her novels. Also, I was called in to arbitrate as to which was better: Persuasion or Northanger Abbey. In an attempt to avoid being slain by a very diminutive, Chesterton loving girl, I shall gladly (and nervously) say that Persuasion is Austen's finest serious novel, but of all her books (which is to say, of all her heroines), the one I'll return to most often out of a simple, childlike affection will be the lovely Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.
What I chiefly had not known was the depth of her religious conviction. If you read the books, you get glimpses of it. Very little of that survives the screenwriters (if any), and it's typically forgotten. But this is a woman whose last words were "God grant me patience. Pray for me, oh pray for me."
She was delightful, flippant, lively, witty and at times downright savage in her prose. Consider a few examples. When a woman gave birth, or 'was brought to bed' untimely due to a fright, Austen speculated "I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband." Or in a letter to her sister, she commented "Expect a most agreeable Letter for not being overburdened with subject--(having nothing at all to say)--I shall have no check to my Genius from beginning to end." In what ended up being one of my favorite sections of Leithart's book, he quotes her as having said that she (and I quote): "attended the theater to see Don Juan, 'whom we left in Hell at 1/2 past 11.' One home was full of 'modern Elegancies,' but lacked an air of seriousness: 'if it had not been for some naked Cupids over the Mantlepiece, which must be a fine study for Girls, one should never have Smelt Instruction.' "
Not exactly the Austen that most people describe: far more vivacious, far less Victorian prudishness, let alone Edwardian weirdness that has been attributed to her as of late. She was a good deal more like Eliza Bennett than we typically seem to think, delighted and amused by the folly of others, and not the first person you'd want to cross swords with in the dinner-time chatter.
So this was a great book, an especially fine read after just going through her novels. Also, I was called in to arbitrate as to which was better: Persuasion or Northanger Abbey. In an attempt to avoid being slain by a very diminutive, Chesterton loving girl, I shall gladly (and nervously) say that Persuasion is Austen's finest serious novel, but of all her books (which is to say, of all her heroines), the one I'll return to most often out of a simple, childlike affection will be the lovely Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.
June 9, 2023
I haven't read many books that can claim to be both offensive and dull, but here we are.
I couldn't actually finish this one. It sat on my shelf half-read for weeks before I came to terms with the happy fact that I'm never going to finish it. Honestly, I'm relieved.
Apart from his strangely biased account of Jane's life and ideas where he openly states his assumptions as though they are facts, the author also calls Victorian feminism an "overreaction" and writes under the impression that strong female characters getting married to their intellectual equals is somehow unfeminist?
I also find the patronising tone used throughout and the frequent references to Jane as her childhood nickname "Jenny" uncomfortable and unnecessary. No doubt, the author was attempting to make Jane sound more human by using the nickname, but it just doesn't achieve that for me.
Apart from the unpleasant style and unpalatable opinions, the worst thing about this book is how uninformative it is. I was excited to see if there was anything new, but what I read seemed very bland. The author makes too many sweeping statements about Jane's character which he either doesn't qualify, or supports with unsatisfactory evidence generally to the affect of "her brother was like this so she must have been too". Even if I disagreed with it all, it would be more interesting if the author put forward his opinions and lazy interpretations as just that, and at least attemptee to back them up in a logical way.
It also read as someone with an agenda who warped and invented things to fit to his narrative, which seems to be "omg she's so Christian", rather than a curious author delving into Jane's relationship with religion and seriously debating what it meant to her.
The only interesting and informative passages were long compositions of Jane Austen's herself, which can stand alone and don't require much interpreting by the author.
There also seemed to be annoying misunderstandings that bothered me, such as calling some of Jane's comments "severe" when they actually read as tongue-in-cheek. The author does acknowledge Jane's wicked sense of humour but then doesn't always seem to understand it or interpret it accurately.
Anyway, I'm going to go and be sick now and purge this book's foulness from my mind and body.
I couldn't actually finish this one. It sat on my shelf half-read for weeks before I came to terms with the happy fact that I'm never going to finish it. Honestly, I'm relieved.
Apart from his strangely biased account of Jane's life and ideas where he openly states his assumptions as though they are facts, the author also calls Victorian feminism an "overreaction" and writes under the impression that strong female characters getting married to their intellectual equals is somehow unfeminist?
I also find the patronising tone used throughout and the frequent references to Jane as her childhood nickname "Jenny" uncomfortable and unnecessary. No doubt, the author was attempting to make Jane sound more human by using the nickname, but it just doesn't achieve that for me.
Apart from the unpleasant style and unpalatable opinions, the worst thing about this book is how uninformative it is. I was excited to see if there was anything new, but what I read seemed very bland. The author makes too many sweeping statements about Jane's character which he either doesn't qualify, or supports with unsatisfactory evidence generally to the affect of "her brother was like this so she must have been too". Even if I disagreed with it all, it would be more interesting if the author put forward his opinions and lazy interpretations as just that, and at least attemptee to back them up in a logical way.
It also read as someone with an agenda who warped and invented things to fit to his narrative, which seems to be "omg she's so Christian", rather than a curious author delving into Jane's relationship with religion and seriously debating what it meant to her.
The only interesting and informative passages were long compositions of Jane Austen's herself, which can stand alone and don't require much interpreting by the author.
There also seemed to be annoying misunderstandings that bothered me, such as calling some of Jane's comments "severe" when they actually read as tongue-in-cheek. The author does acknowledge Jane's wicked sense of humour but then doesn't always seem to understand it or interpret it accurately.
Anyway, I'm going to go and be sick now and purge this book's foulness from my mind and body.
June 16, 2010
Quite as delightful as reading Austen herself.
December 4, 2020
Excellent! Really interesting and well-paced. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book in one day but this one kept me going!
May 17, 2024
Not overly impressed but I still enjoyed this book. It was interesting. I feel like I know more about Jane Austen than I did before and I look forward to reading more of her books.
November 11, 2010
The Christian Encounters Series is a collection of biographies that focus on the religious aspects in the lives of historical figures. Some of these important individuals are known and for their religious beliefs and acts, while others are not. The one trait all these historical figures have in common is that they were all Christians. These biographies are packaged in a petite yet pleasing volume, around two hundred pages in length, and are complete with appendixes and endnotes. Published by Thomas Nelson, this series includes biographies on Winston Churchill, Johann Sebastian Bach, Saint Francis, Saint Nicholas, Isaac Newton, Galileo and many others.
While she is known for being a clergyman's daughter, or as Dr. Leithart aptly identifies her, a PK (a Preacher's Kid), Jane Austen is best known for is her satirical wit, her keen observations of human nature, and biting social commentary. Sometimes referred to as being “waspish” and possessing a “sharp tongue,” Jane Austen doesn't always present the picture of a devout and pious Christian. However, Jane Austen was a faithful Christian who read sermons and wrote prayers. In addition, many characteristics of the Christian faith can found in her writing. In this biography, Dr. Leithart reveals the characteristics of Christianity that are most visible and predominant in Jane Austen and her writing.
To continue reading, go to: http://janeaustenreviews.blogspot.com...
While she is known for being a clergyman's daughter, or as Dr. Leithart aptly identifies her, a PK (a Preacher's Kid), Jane Austen is best known for is her satirical wit, her keen observations of human nature, and biting social commentary. Sometimes referred to as being “waspish” and possessing a “sharp tongue,” Jane Austen doesn't always present the picture of a devout and pious Christian. However, Jane Austen was a faithful Christian who read sermons and wrote prayers. In addition, many characteristics of the Christian faith can found in her writing. In this biography, Dr. Leithart reveals the characteristics of Christianity that are most visible and predominant in Jane Austen and her writing.
To continue reading, go to: http://janeaustenreviews.blogspot.com...
November 6, 2025
I went in expecting a good biography on the life and faith of Jane Austen, but this book still turned out much better than I expected! I delved into this biography after completing Lucy Worsley’s very definitive book on Jane Austen. Though I felt that Worsley did not cover Jane’s faith sufficiently. This biography also provides a great account of Jane’s life, as well as a careful treatment of her faith. Leithart is incredible well read in the secondary literature of Austen, and he is well-versed in the cultural popularity of the Georgian author.
Leithart desires to emphasize the humorous, noble, and humble character of Jane Austen. According to Leithart, art demands humility, and this principle is best exhibited in Jane who wrote for laughs. She desired to let the reader in on the joke about the absurdities of certain social practices and standards of her day. Jane Austen understood ordinary life well. She was a great observer of persons and situations, and she understood human nature very well. There are no grandiose adventures or epic characters in her novels. The ordinariness of the characters and events on her novels reveals a very special and deep imagination that sees a universe of depth in common things.
Jane was born into a world of upheaval. She was very close to her family and raised in an intellectual and faithful Christian household. Jane did not want to be preach about the morals and lessons in her book. Her faith is often under appreciated by readers because she keeps the morals understated in her books. She desires for the reader to collect moral lessons from her novels. Leithart also shows that Jane is not just a great novelist, but also a great thinker whose thought has come to be appreciated by philosophers and ethicists (Alisdair Macintyre) alike.
Jane’s family attempted to “repaint” her life and character shortly after her death to make her look much more domestic and according to the feminine standards of her day. Indeed, the Victorian period mischaracterized Jane entirely. But much modern Jane Austen scholarship, including Leithart’s work, have recovered the much more complex and satirical character of Jane. This is a very well paced biography. It is short and to the point, and paints a very accurate picture of Jane’s Austen.
Leithart desires to emphasize the humorous, noble, and humble character of Jane Austen. According to Leithart, art demands humility, and this principle is best exhibited in Jane who wrote for laughs. She desired to let the reader in on the joke about the absurdities of certain social practices and standards of her day. Jane Austen understood ordinary life well. She was a great observer of persons and situations, and she understood human nature very well. There are no grandiose adventures or epic characters in her novels. The ordinariness of the characters and events on her novels reveals a very special and deep imagination that sees a universe of depth in common things.
Jane was born into a world of upheaval. She was very close to her family and raised in an intellectual and faithful Christian household. Jane did not want to be preach about the morals and lessons in her book. Her faith is often under appreciated by readers because she keeps the morals understated in her books. She desires for the reader to collect moral lessons from her novels. Leithart also shows that Jane is not just a great novelist, but also a great thinker whose thought has come to be appreciated by philosophers and ethicists (Alisdair Macintyre) alike.
Jane’s family attempted to “repaint” her life and character shortly after her death to make her look much more domestic and according to the feminine standards of her day. Indeed, the Victorian period mischaracterized Jane entirely. But much modern Jane Austen scholarship, including Leithart’s work, have recovered the much more complex and satirical character of Jane. This is a very well paced biography. It is short and to the point, and paints a very accurate picture of Jane’s Austen.
May 10, 2010
A compact view of "Jenny Austen's" life through a Christian lense
There are several biographies in print on Jane Austen (1775-1817) revealing her life, family and her inspiration to become a writer. Two very famous books come to mind: Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin (1998) and oddly the same title published in the same year by David Nokes. Both books were extensively researched and are quite lengthy. This new slim volume by Austen scholar Dr. Peter Leithart runs 153 pages and fills an entirely different niche. While the lengthier and exhaustive expositions might appeal to historical researchers, biography enthusiasts and her dedicated fans, the size alone would intimidate the average reader or student seeking the “sparks notes” version so-to-speak of her life. In addition, very few biographies reflect upon the influence of her Anglican faith as a guide to the Christian morality in her life and novels. In the introduction Dr. Leithart’s summarizes his motivation for writing the book and its emphasis:
“In the brief compass of this biography, I have tried to capture the varied sides of Austen’s character. Early biographers often turned her into a model of Victorian Christian domestic femininity, and emphasized her Christian faith in an evangelical idiom she never used. In reaction, many more recent biographers all but ignore her faith. Both of those extremes distort Austen’s life and personality. I have tried to depict accurately the depth and sincerity of her Christianity, as well as her Anglican discomfort with religious emotion, but without losing sight of the other sides of her complex character –her playfulness, her satiric gift for ridicule, her ‘waspishness,’ her rigid morality. I have attempted to capture Jane Austen in full.” (pp xvi)
The introduction is entitled Janeia, a term penned by Dr. Leihart to describe “the current obsession with everything Austen” by the media and her fervent fans. If you admit you are one of her disciples, then you are a Janeiac. One fellow reviewer described it as a disease. Leihart describes it as dementia while elaborating on Austen’s pop-culture phenomena and its inaccurate memory of depicting her life and characters. “Austen has become what she never was in life, what she would have been horrified to be: a literary celebrity.” With mild academic disdain we are taken on a brief tour through her rise in readership through the 19th to 21st centuries and her recent Hollywoodization through movies, books and spinoff’s. In my view, this was not the best way to begin a biography for readers who may not have read about Austen’s life before. That, and I am feigning my own “Austen fandom ridicule fatigue” from being poked at by zombie fans, the media and Austen nay-sayers for the past few years. I am an Austen fan and I do embrace a sense of the ridiculous, but enough already. Go pick on Bronte fans for a while, please.
Besides this eyebrow raising beginning, this is really an excellent compact biography on an important literary figure and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Leithart includes all the important moments of Austen’s life and also gives us great background on her family and others in her circle who influenced her education, her social and religious views and her writing. In seven succinct chapters we learn of Austen’s wholly English world, her gentry-class family background as a minister’s daughter, home-school education, early manuscripts, disruptions in her writing, final publication, death, and later widespread growth in popularity. There is also a helpful appendix of family, friends, and neighbors and a second appendix of characters in her novels that are mentioned in this biography.
Even though Jane Austen: Christian Encounters has its charms, I must point out a few foibles. Technically it is lacking in an index which I find imperative in biographies no matter how brief or long. Leithart draws from many reputable scholarly sources such as Claire Tomalin, David Cecil, Claudia Johnson, Deirdre Le Faye, Claire Harman and many family letters and recollections citing them in the notes in the back of the book by chapter. I prefer footnotes so you do not have to flip back and forth. Small quibble I know, but it adds to quicker reference and less disruptive reading. Repeatedly he refers to Jane Austen as “Jenny” but failed to cite the one reference that we know of where she is called this nick name by her father Rev. George Austen when he wrote to his sister on the event of her birth. His reasoning for the repeated use of “Jenny” was to emphasize the young child-like qualities she retained throughout her life. “Childlikeness might not strike us an apt description of a “serious” novelist like Austen, but this only highlights how pretentious we are about art and artists. Anyone who spends her life making up stories has got to have more than her fair share of whimsy, and nearly all Austen’s virtues, personal and artistic, as well as nearly all of her vices, are those of a woman who, at the center of her soul, remained “Jenny Austen” all her life.” This is debatable, but an interesting opinion.
Pastor, professor and Austen scholar Dr. Peter Leihart has a passion for Austen and her works that permeates throughout this biography. Readers could equate him to a modern-day C.S. Lewis or more accurately the 21st-century version of George Saintsbury who coined the term Janeite in 1894. Even though I had my concerns about how Leithart would present Christianity in Jane Austen’s life and novels, in the long-run it all fit together quite seamlessly. This was not Mr. Collins sermonizing or Edmund Bertram being priggish, but a natural extension of what formed Jane Austen’s character and fueled her brilliant imagination for the enjoyment of millions of readers. Kudos to publisher Thomas Nelson for resurrecting this biography after its first publisher Cumberland House Press folded in 2009 and sold its catalogue to Sourcebooks who then passed on publishing it. This was a considerable surprise given that Sourcebooks is the largest publisher of Jane Austen sequels in the world. Like oil and water, do Austen biographies and sequels not mix? I know it is business, but this is the oddest publishing putdown I have heard of in some time and all the more reason to obtain this lovely slim volume for your own edification and enjoyment. Oh, and Dr, Leihart thinks “Real men read Austen.”
Laurel Ann, Austenprose
There are several biographies in print on Jane Austen (1775-1817) revealing her life, family and her inspiration to become a writer. Two very famous books come to mind: Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin (1998) and oddly the same title published in the same year by David Nokes. Both books were extensively researched and are quite lengthy. This new slim volume by Austen scholar Dr. Peter Leithart runs 153 pages and fills an entirely different niche. While the lengthier and exhaustive expositions might appeal to historical researchers, biography enthusiasts and her dedicated fans, the size alone would intimidate the average reader or student seeking the “sparks notes” version so-to-speak of her life. In addition, very few biographies reflect upon the influence of her Anglican faith as a guide to the Christian morality in her life and novels. In the introduction Dr. Leithart’s summarizes his motivation for writing the book and its emphasis:
“In the brief compass of this biography, I have tried to capture the varied sides of Austen’s character. Early biographers often turned her into a model of Victorian Christian domestic femininity, and emphasized her Christian faith in an evangelical idiom she never used. In reaction, many more recent biographers all but ignore her faith. Both of those extremes distort Austen’s life and personality. I have tried to depict accurately the depth and sincerity of her Christianity, as well as her Anglican discomfort with religious emotion, but without losing sight of the other sides of her complex character –her playfulness, her satiric gift for ridicule, her ‘waspishness,’ her rigid morality. I have attempted to capture Jane Austen in full.” (pp xvi)
The introduction is entitled Janeia, a term penned by Dr. Leihart to describe “the current obsession with everything Austen” by the media and her fervent fans. If you admit you are one of her disciples, then you are a Janeiac. One fellow reviewer described it as a disease. Leihart describes it as dementia while elaborating on Austen’s pop-culture phenomena and its inaccurate memory of depicting her life and characters. “Austen has become what she never was in life, what she would have been horrified to be: a literary celebrity.” With mild academic disdain we are taken on a brief tour through her rise in readership through the 19th to 21st centuries and her recent Hollywoodization through movies, books and spinoff’s. In my view, this was not the best way to begin a biography for readers who may not have read about Austen’s life before. That, and I am feigning my own “Austen fandom ridicule fatigue” from being poked at by zombie fans, the media and Austen nay-sayers for the past few years. I am an Austen fan and I do embrace a sense of the ridiculous, but enough already. Go pick on Bronte fans for a while, please.
Besides this eyebrow raising beginning, this is really an excellent compact biography on an important literary figure and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Leithart includes all the important moments of Austen’s life and also gives us great background on her family and others in her circle who influenced her education, her social and religious views and her writing. In seven succinct chapters we learn of Austen’s wholly English world, her gentry-class family background as a minister’s daughter, home-school education, early manuscripts, disruptions in her writing, final publication, death, and later widespread growth in popularity. There is also a helpful appendix of family, friends, and neighbors and a second appendix of characters in her novels that are mentioned in this biography.
Even though Jane Austen: Christian Encounters has its charms, I must point out a few foibles. Technically it is lacking in an index which I find imperative in biographies no matter how brief or long. Leithart draws from many reputable scholarly sources such as Claire Tomalin, David Cecil, Claudia Johnson, Deirdre Le Faye, Claire Harman and many family letters and recollections citing them in the notes in the back of the book by chapter. I prefer footnotes so you do not have to flip back and forth. Small quibble I know, but it adds to quicker reference and less disruptive reading. Repeatedly he refers to Jane Austen as “Jenny” but failed to cite the one reference that we know of where she is called this nick name by her father Rev. George Austen when he wrote to his sister on the event of her birth. His reasoning for the repeated use of “Jenny” was to emphasize the young child-like qualities she retained throughout her life. “Childlikeness might not strike us an apt description of a “serious” novelist like Austen, but this only highlights how pretentious we are about art and artists. Anyone who spends her life making up stories has got to have more than her fair share of whimsy, and nearly all Austen’s virtues, personal and artistic, as well as nearly all of her vices, are those of a woman who, at the center of her soul, remained “Jenny Austen” all her life.” This is debatable, but an interesting opinion.
Pastor, professor and Austen scholar Dr. Peter Leihart has a passion for Austen and her works that permeates throughout this biography. Readers could equate him to a modern-day C.S. Lewis or more accurately the 21st-century version of George Saintsbury who coined the term Janeite in 1894. Even though I had my concerns about how Leithart would present Christianity in Jane Austen’s life and novels, in the long-run it all fit together quite seamlessly. This was not Mr. Collins sermonizing or Edmund Bertram being priggish, but a natural extension of what formed Jane Austen’s character and fueled her brilliant imagination for the enjoyment of millions of readers. Kudos to publisher Thomas Nelson for resurrecting this biography after its first publisher Cumberland House Press folded in 2009 and sold its catalogue to Sourcebooks who then passed on publishing it. This was a considerable surprise given that Sourcebooks is the largest publisher of Jane Austen sequels in the world. Like oil and water, do Austen biographies and sequels not mix? I know it is business, but this is the oddest publishing putdown I have heard of in some time and all the more reason to obtain this lovely slim volume for your own edification and enjoyment. Oh, and Dr, Leihart thinks “Real men read Austen.”
Laurel Ann, Austenprose
January 25, 2024
I enjoyed this book because Austen’s stories have meant so much to me over the years. This would probably have been a pretty boring read otherwise. Austenites, enjoy!
November 10, 2017
This book was a Christmas gift I received a few years ago. It got lost from sight and memory not long after the holidays ended, but fortunately resurfaced when I moved last year. Given the title, I expected it to talk in depth about Jane Austen's religious views. Instead, it read more like a typical biography that occasionally mentions religion. The language is concise and simple, but well-researched at the same time. I found it especially interesting to compare the information here to the movie PBS aired a few years ago, Miss Austen Regrets. Doing so made me feel impressed with how much of the movie was real, nonfictionalized information about her life.
Another nonfiction text I read a few years ago was 101 Things You didn't Know About Jane Austen. With its Q & A format, that was good reading for a little pop-culture two-minute Jane Austen fix, rather like a nice sugary snack. Enjoyable, but not totally filling. I like the more in-depth view this biography offers. It is certainly not the most comprehensive text about Miss Austen's life, but it is just about the right amount for the interested casual reader who isn't a serious literary scholar looking for sources for their dissertation. This book is like the good, just-full-enough feeling after a normal dinner, rather than the overstuffed, barely-able-to-move sensation that comes after Thanksgiving at the buffet restaurant. It makes me now want to read Jane Austen's Juvenalia, which happens to have appeared for me under the tree just last Christmas. How providential!
My one main criticism is the author's fondness for talking about "Jenny" throughout the book. Jenny? Who is Jenny? I see from other reviews here that evidently her father called Jane "Jenny" in that one letter that one time. It was rather strange that Mr Leithart's theme for the whole biography then was that, in spite of everything that happened in Jane's life, she still remained "Jenny," without ever explaining why he calls her that in the first place. Perhaps that little explanation was deleted by accident during the editing process. Other than that puzzling oddity, it was a fine biography of a fine authoress.
Another nonfiction text I read a few years ago was 101 Things You didn't Know About Jane Austen. With its Q & A format, that was good reading for a little pop-culture two-minute Jane Austen fix, rather like a nice sugary snack. Enjoyable, but not totally filling. I like the more in-depth view this biography offers. It is certainly not the most comprehensive text about Miss Austen's life, but it is just about the right amount for the interested casual reader who isn't a serious literary scholar looking for sources for their dissertation. This book is like the good, just-full-enough feeling after a normal dinner, rather than the overstuffed, barely-able-to-move sensation that comes after Thanksgiving at the buffet restaurant. It makes me now want to read Jane Austen's Juvenalia, which happens to have appeared for me under the tree just last Christmas. How providential!
My one main criticism is the author's fondness for talking about "Jenny" throughout the book. Jenny? Who is Jenny? I see from other reviews here that evidently her father called Jane "Jenny" in that one letter that one time. It was rather strange that Mr Leithart's theme for the whole biography then was that, in spite of everything that happened in Jane's life, she still remained "Jenny," without ever explaining why he calls her that in the first place. Perhaps that little explanation was deleted by accident during the editing process. Other than that puzzling oddity, it was a fine biography of a fine authoress.
January 12, 2022
This book was just the right length and was helpful in terms of perspective. One surprising thing for me was just how boring Jane Austen really was from a biographically perspective. She had almost zero interesting things happen to her, knew very few interesting people, and all in all lived a pretty quiet and simple life. Only near the very end of her life did she achieve any literary "fame" or money. Probably the height of her fame came when Sr. Walter Scott wrote a review of Emma, which was very complimentary. She only lived to the age of 41, and probably had Addison's disease.
For those who are interested in Austen particularly though, this will be an enjoyable read. Her wit certainly shines through in her personal life and letters, and you'll be smiling a lot as you read through her correspondence with nieces and nephews.
Leithart's writing is typically solid, and it stayed the course here. What makes him a good author (especially of theological material) is his outside the norm thinking. He's one of a handful of thinkers who I may not agree with, but genuinely enjoy reading, and try to buy every book he has just to challenge my thinking on matters literary and theological.
For those who are interested in Austen particularly though, this will be an enjoyable read. Her wit certainly shines through in her personal life and letters, and you'll be smiling a lot as you read through her correspondence with nieces and nephews.
Leithart's writing is typically solid, and it stayed the course here. What makes him a good author (especially of theological material) is his outside the norm thinking. He's one of a handful of thinkers who I may not agree with, but genuinely enjoy reading, and try to buy every book he has just to challenge my thinking on matters literary and theological.
November 30, 2014
(Drawing from the book) Two remarks about Jane Austen. Her novels contain penetrating, often humorous observations about the differences between men and women. In our time gender differences, despite John Gray, etc., are being suppressed and slighted in pursuit of an equality of interchangeable function and a disembodied sexuality. Given this state of affairs, her analyses in her artful portrayals seem just what the doctor ordered. G.K. Chesterton commended Austen for being able to do what neither George Eliot not Charlotte Brontë could do: "she could cooly and sensibly describe a man." It is interesting that she always wrote from a female narrator's perspective, from the perspective of a woman in the room. Despite her depth of insight into men, perhaps this was as a recognition of her limitation. "For all we know, she never even attempted to describe an all-male scene...no rough manly male-only conversations," writes Peter Leithart.
The other thing is I thought I would mention that Rudyard Kipling wrote this story about men taking Austen's novels to the war front, called "The Janeites":
http://www.jasna.org/membership/janei...
---
Jane Austen's lines of praise from an elegiac poem for her deceased friend Madam Lefroy seem especially apt applied to the spinster Austen herself,
"Angelic Woman! past my power to praise
In Language meet, thy Talents, Temper, mind.
Thy solid Worth, thy captivating Grace!-
Thou friend and ornament of Humankind!-"
---
"(Jane Austen) was not absent from her fiction, but her presence was subtle enough to pay readers her greatest compliment- her confidence that we could figure out what we are supposed to think based on what she told us. Her narrative style is a humble style, which make it artistic."
-Peter Leithart, Jane Austen, pg. 114
The other thing is I thought I would mention that Rudyard Kipling wrote this story about men taking Austen's novels to the war front, called "The Janeites":
http://www.jasna.org/membership/janei...
---
Jane Austen's lines of praise from an elegiac poem for her deceased friend Madam Lefroy seem especially apt applied to the spinster Austen herself,
"Angelic Woman! past my power to praise
In Language meet, thy Talents, Temper, mind.
Thy solid Worth, thy captivating Grace!-
Thou friend and ornament of Humankind!-"
---
"(Jane Austen) was not absent from her fiction, but her presence was subtle enough to pay readers her greatest compliment- her confidence that we could figure out what we are supposed to think based on what she told us. Her narrative style is a humble style, which make it artistic."
-Peter Leithart, Jane Austen, pg. 114
August 18, 2011
Really enjoyable intro to Jane's life. Whetted my appetite for more, which was why the lack of a recommended bibliography was disappointing. But my upcoming natal autoendowment shall at least include the unfinished novels and the juvenalia, my reading of which is long overdue.
Some of my favorite bits:
I loved the comparison of Jane and Flannery, two spinster authoresses who died young, leaving behind smaller bodies of work than their aficionados would prefer, who were vastly different in style, yet shared a keen understanding of human character. I don't know of record of Flannery's opinion of Jane, and of course Jane couldn't have had one of Flannery, but I indulge myself in believing that they are now fast friends who will, some millennia into the resurrection when those more deserving than I have had their chance, honor me with the opportunity of a conversation.
Despite Victorian attempts to make Jane out to be Fanny Priceish, it is clear she was more Elizabeth Bennet. Which has always been intuitively obvious to me. Only a Lizzy could have written a Lizzy. (Which is, let us be clear, not a slight on Fanny, whom I also love.)
My decidedly unfavorite bit:
If I ever discover that the author bears responsibility for the disastrous appendix that purports to list the characters in the various novels, I shall swallow my own bonnet. It appears rather to be the work of an unpaid intern on his last day at the publisher. Or perhaps the originated with the author, but was the victim of an unfortunate coffee spill and a lazy transcriber who decided (erroneously) that the legible bits would be sufficient.
P.S. I don't own a bonnet, so I'd have to procure one if the occasion arose for making a meal of it.
Some of my favorite bits:
I loved the comparison of Jane and Flannery, two spinster authoresses who died young, leaving behind smaller bodies of work than their aficionados would prefer, who were vastly different in style, yet shared a keen understanding of human character. I don't know of record of Flannery's opinion of Jane, and of course Jane couldn't have had one of Flannery, but I indulge myself in believing that they are now fast friends who will, some millennia into the resurrection when those more deserving than I have had their chance, honor me with the opportunity of a conversation.
Despite Victorian attempts to make Jane out to be Fanny Priceish, it is clear she was more Elizabeth Bennet. Which has always been intuitively obvious to me. Only a Lizzy could have written a Lizzy. (Which is, let us be clear, not a slight on Fanny, whom I also love.)
My decidedly unfavorite bit:
If I ever discover that the author bears responsibility for the disastrous appendix that purports to list the characters in the various novels, I shall swallow my own bonnet. It appears rather to be the work of an unpaid intern on his last day at the publisher. Or perhaps the originated with the author, but was the victim of an unfortunate coffee spill and a lazy transcriber who decided (erroneously) that the legible bits would be sufficient.
P.S. I don't own a bonnet, so I'd have to procure one if the occasion arose for making a meal of it.
October 2, 2022
Thanks to NetGalley for providing this eARC for review. There were some typos and spacing issues (i.e. spaces missing between words) that I assume were part of the ebook format and a hazard of reading an eARC.
What I liked: It is a good overview of the life and works of Jane Austen. There is only so much you can cram into 192 pages. The end notes include her family and circle of acquaintance and a list of characters from her works. This is an updated version of the book that was published in 2010. It includes information about film and TV adaptations of her work that have come out since the original, including some things that are set to release after the publication date of this book. I think the cover is more attractive as well. I liked that the author relied heavily on letters written by Austen. It is a much more reliable way to determine her true feelings than trying to glean them from her fiction.
What I didn't like: The author frequently (and I mean A LOT) refers to her as "Jenny". I hate this. He means to imply that her childish self was always a part of her personality. I've read a lot of Jane Austen biography and criticism. Never once have I seen her referred to as Jenny. This really put me off.
The author made points about Austen's Christianity. Originally this book was part of a series called Christian Encounters. This edition does not carry that designation. I haven't read the original, but I'm guessing it contained more discussion of her beliefs.
What I liked: It is a good overview of the life and works of Jane Austen. There is only so much you can cram into 192 pages. The end notes include her family and circle of acquaintance and a list of characters from her works. This is an updated version of the book that was published in 2010. It includes information about film and TV adaptations of her work that have come out since the original, including some things that are set to release after the publication date of this book. I think the cover is more attractive as well. I liked that the author relied heavily on letters written by Austen. It is a much more reliable way to determine her true feelings than trying to glean them from her fiction.
What I didn't like: The author frequently (and I mean A LOT) refers to her as "Jenny". I hate this. He means to imply that her childish self was always a part of her personality. I've read a lot of Jane Austen biography and criticism. Never once have I seen her referred to as Jenny. This really put me off.
The author made points about Austen's Christianity. Originally this book was part of a series called Christian Encounters. This edition does not carry that designation. I haven't read the original, but I'm guessing it contained more discussion of her beliefs.
August 27, 2010
I’ve long been a fan of Jane Austen’s books, but even after reading them and after taking a class on them, I knew relatively little about Austen herself. The Christian Encounters biography of Jane Austen by Peter Leithart was a great tool for changing that.
Leithart supplements his biography with letters by Austen and her friends and family, which adds a wonderfully personal touch. To hear her story through her own words and through the words of those who loved her allows the reader great insight into who she was. We see that the sharp wit and keen insight that make her books so much fun to read were present in every aspect of her life. She seems to have met every challenge with good humor and an ability to laugh. I like that this biography does address her Christian faith, but not in a heavy-handed way.
This biography was a fairly easy and quick read, although keeping up with all the names of friends and relatives was a bit difficult, especially as so many names are so similar. Overall, I enjoyed this book, and it has made me want to re-read Austen’s novels.
I received this biography for free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their book review blogger program, www.booksneeze.com.
Leithart supplements his biography with letters by Austen and her friends and family, which adds a wonderfully personal touch. To hear her story through her own words and through the words of those who loved her allows the reader great insight into who she was. We see that the sharp wit and keen insight that make her books so much fun to read were present in every aspect of her life. She seems to have met every challenge with good humor and an ability to laugh. I like that this biography does address her Christian faith, but not in a heavy-handed way.
This biography was a fairly easy and quick read, although keeping up with all the names of friends and relatives was a bit difficult, especially as so many names are so similar. Overall, I enjoyed this book, and it has made me want to re-read Austen’s novels.
I received this biography for free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their book review blogger program, www.booksneeze.com.
December 11, 2017
Biographers of Jane Austen have a difficult task because Jane’s sister, Cassandra, destroyed much of her correspondence. But Peter Leithart endeavors to give us a sense of her in Jane Austen, part of publisher Thomas Nelson’s Christian Encounter series. He draws from what letters we do have from her as well as others’ writings and remembrances of her. In his introduction he writes:
I particularly enjoyed these observations:
This being part of a Christian Encounter Series, part of it focuses on her faith. This was what particularly drew me to this book, because some kind of faith is evident in her books, but I wasn’t sure if it was a general, surface faith or a heartfelt personal one.
I generally love biographies, but, although I hate to do so, I must admit this is not a favorite. First of all, Leithart begins by going into great detail about a plethora of Jane’s relatives. That section got quite confusing and, though some of that information was necessary to understand Jane in context, to me the bulk of it detracted from rather than enhanced focus on her. Secondly, Leithart insisted on calling her “Jenny” at least half the time, if not more, without documenting that she was ever called that. In my search to discover whether she was actually ever called Jenny, I came across a review of this book which mentions that her father spoke of her as “Jenny” to his sister shortly after Jane was born. But that hardly qualifies it as a permanent nickname, especially since none of the other correspondence or memorials of her call her Jenny. To make it worse, Leithart speaks of “Jenny” as if she were the “real” Austen. He evidently used the name to emphasize her child-likeness.
Quotes like these samples seem to imply that she was conscious of “being Jenny” when her “being Jenny” seems to me to be an implication only of Leithart.
Leithart comes across to me as pretentious in other ways as well: in his coining of his own word for Jane Austen mania (“Janeia”), in his criticism of other Austen biographers, and in what seems to me to be his mischaracterizations of her (“In another age, Austen might have written for Saturday Night Live.”)
There is an odd mix-up of characters from different books when Leithart says “Fanny Price is ignored and lost within the constant din of domestic life. She feels liberated when Frank Churchill shows up to take her into the open air.” Fanny is from Mansfield Park and Frank is from Emma.
While I don’t know that Leithart accurately “captured” Austen, this book does present a compact overview of her life, times, and career.
In the brief compass of this biography, I have tried to capture the varied sides of Austen’s character. Early biographers often turned her into a model of Victorian Christian domestic femininity, and emphasized her Christian faith in an evangelical idiom she never used. In reaction, many more recent biographers all but ignore her faith. Both of those extremes distort Austen’s life and personality. I have tried to depict accurately the depth and sincerity of her Christianity, as well as her Anglican discomfort with religious emotion, but without losing sight of the other sides of her complex character –her playfulness, her satiric gift for ridicule, her ‘waspishness,’ her rigid morality. I have attempted to capture Jane Austen in full.
I particularly enjoyed these observations:
The best marriages in Austen’s novels are marriages of minds and temperament, marriages that make both husband and wife more fully themselves.
Austen believed there was a moral dimension to social behavior. Manners and morals do not exist in separate realms of life. Manners are a moral concern, and morals take specific shape in the gestures of manners.
Jane…was satirizing Romanticism before Romanticism existed.
Sir Walter Scott wrote of Austen’s “exquisite touch which renders ordinary common-place things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment.”
This being part of a Christian Encounter Series, part of it focuses on her faith. This was what particularly drew me to this book, because some kind of faith is evident in her books, but I wasn’t sure if it was a general, surface faith or a heartfelt personal one.
In his biographical sketch of his sister, Henry described her piety: “Jane Austen’s hopes of immortality were built upon the Rock of ages. That she deeply felt, and devoutly acknowledged, the insignificance of all worldly attainments, and the worthlessness of all human services, in the eyes of her heavenly Father. That she had no other hope of mercy, pardon, and peace, but through the merits and suffers of her Redeemer.” Jane never used such Evangelical language, preferring the more formal cadences of prayer-book Anglicanism, but that doesn’t falsify the substance of Henry’s characterization.
The Austens’ Christianity was not the excitable Christianity of Bunyan or John Newton, but a cooler, more rational and more ethically focused Christianity, which expressed itself chiefly in acts of charity.
Despite her comparative reticence and her careful avoidance of moralizing, Austen’s faith was sincere and deep.
Biographers minimize Austen’s Christianity mainly because they cannot believe that her acerbic, sometimes childishly cruel wit, her satires of the clerical imbecilities of Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton, and her playful silliness are compatible with deep Christian faith…the assumption that Christian faith is incompatible with a satirical spirit is entirely wrongheaded.
I generally love biographies, but, although I hate to do so, I must admit this is not a favorite. First of all, Leithart begins by going into great detail about a plethora of Jane’s relatives. That section got quite confusing and, though some of that information was necessary to understand Jane in context, to me the bulk of it detracted from rather than enhanced focus on her. Secondly, Leithart insisted on calling her “Jenny” at least half the time, if not more, without documenting that she was ever called that. In my search to discover whether she was actually ever called Jenny, I came across a review of this book which mentions that her father spoke of her as “Jenny” to his sister shortly after Jane was born. But that hardly qualifies it as a permanent nickname, especially since none of the other correspondence or memorials of her call her Jenny. To make it worse, Leithart speaks of “Jenny” as if she were the “real” Austen. He evidently used the name to emphasize her child-likeness.
Childlikeness might not strike us an apt description of a “serious” novelist like Austen, but this only highlights how pretentious we are about art and artists. Anyone who spends her life making up stories has got to have more than her fair share of whimsy, and nearly all Austen’s virtues, personal and artistic, as well as nearly all of her vices, are those of a woman who, at the center of her soul, remained “Jenny Austen” all her life.
She recognized her own smallness, and she achieved artistic greatness because she recognized her limitations and joyfully worked within them, because she refused to outgrow being Jenny.
Quotes like these samples seem to imply that she was conscious of “being Jenny” when her “being Jenny” seems to me to be an implication only of Leithart.
Leithart comes across to me as pretentious in other ways as well: in his coining of his own word for Jane Austen mania (“Janeia”), in his criticism of other Austen biographers, and in what seems to me to be his mischaracterizations of her (“In another age, Austen might have written for Saturday Night Live.”)
There is an odd mix-up of characters from different books when Leithart says “Fanny Price is ignored and lost within the constant din of domestic life. She feels liberated when Frank Churchill shows up to take her into the open air.” Fanny is from Mansfield Park and Frank is from Emma.
While I don’t know that Leithart accurately “captured” Austen, this book does present a compact overview of her life, times, and career.
May 20, 2018
In this theologically grounded nonfiction approach to one of the leading English novelists of the 19th century, Leithart reveals his appreciation of the mastery of the drawing room milieu by this pre-eminent literary historian of manners. Jane Austen’s insight into her characters was remarkable for the times in which she lived. So universal are they that they live on till this day, featured in countless television and film remakes, prequels and sequels. In his introduction to Jane Austen, Leithart stresses that “the whole point of an Austen novel is to record the ironic discrepancies between surface and reality, to express social masks as masks.” He provides a brief overview of “Janeia,” the plethora of publications and reworked versions that have stemmed from Austen’s most notable works: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility. Leithart attributes the perennial appeal of Austen’s work to her minimization of contemporary references, which lends her novels a sense of timelessness.
Leithart asserts that, in this relatively brief biography of 153 pages, he has attempted to reveal the many different sides to Austen’s character. His holistic portrayal of the novelist is an attempt “to depict accurately the depth and sincerity of her Christianity, as well as her Anglican discomfort with religious emotion, but without losing sight of the other sides of her complex character—her playfulness, her satiric gift for ridicule, her ‘waspishness’, her rigid morality.”
Leithart’s conversational and colloquial style renders this biography a gentle introduction to the world and writings of this most eminent of Regency novelists. Though his approach highlights the Christian aspects of the writer’s work and life, his approach is not at all polemic, as he emphasizes the humanity and humaneness breathing forth from her accurate portrayals of small town and rural middle-class and landed gentry life at the start of the 19th century.
Jane Austen is well researched, and contains many excerpts from other works about Jane Austen, as well as extracts from her own correspondence. As a distinguished author and theologian in his own right, Leithart is well positioned to have written such an informative biography. In addition to the main text of this book, he also includes an annotated alphabetical listing of Austen’s family, friends and neighbors, lists the characters in Austen’s novels, and notes the sources on which he draws.
Jane Austen should find a wide readership among all those interested in the author’s work, as well as among those who are interested in the faith aspects of this author’s life and works.
Leithart asserts that, in this relatively brief biography of 153 pages, he has attempted to reveal the many different sides to Austen’s character. His holistic portrayal of the novelist is an attempt “to depict accurately the depth and sincerity of her Christianity, as well as her Anglican discomfort with religious emotion, but without losing sight of the other sides of her complex character—her playfulness, her satiric gift for ridicule, her ‘waspishness’, her rigid morality.”
Leithart’s conversational and colloquial style renders this biography a gentle introduction to the world and writings of this most eminent of Regency novelists. Though his approach highlights the Christian aspects of the writer’s work and life, his approach is not at all polemic, as he emphasizes the humanity and humaneness breathing forth from her accurate portrayals of small town and rural middle-class and landed gentry life at the start of the 19th century.
Jane Austen is well researched, and contains many excerpts from other works about Jane Austen, as well as extracts from her own correspondence. As a distinguished author and theologian in his own right, Leithart is well positioned to have written such an informative biography. In addition to the main text of this book, he also includes an annotated alphabetical listing of Austen’s family, friends and neighbors, lists the characters in Austen’s novels, and notes the sources on which he draws.
Jane Austen should find a wide readership among all those interested in the author’s work, as well as among those who are interested in the faith aspects of this author’s life and works.
April 3, 2024
As it can be found on my Facebook page, Moni's Reading Journey.
I wanted to love this book, but I have to say that it really didn't deliver, and I found myself drifting off, then having to rewind because I didn't pay attention. Maybe it's the quality of the writing, or maybe it's just my mind, not ready to discover the mystery of the woman who wrote some of my favorite books ever. Going through this book I realized I preferred my ignorance regarding the life of the real Jane Austen to a revealing truth that I might not like or might be different from what I knew (for example she used to be called Jenny 🤔 and I don't like that. "Jane" is so upscale and noble, while Jenny sounds so common and blah!!!)
Couple of things I discovered that I liked: all my life I felt a peng of sorrow that someone who wrote about love so beautifully did not know love herself and didn't find her happily ever after, but this book revealed her side of not wanting marriage and children because she was so devoted to her craft and she knew the burden of becoming a wife and a mother would hinder her aspirations of becoming a published writer!!! How forward thinking this approach was... how brave, how out of the ordinary, and admirable! I can't believe I didn't see it from that angle: me... my independent self!!! Mind-blowing! 💣🎆🤯
Another great discovery made (& something I didn't think of either): Jane was a "late bloomer", not per sei, but it took her over a decade of constant rejections until her first novel was published... and, in all this time, she never lost hope and kept improving her older books and writing the newer ones. She had more than a decade to rewrite and polish "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" and to transform them into the timeless masterpieces they became. And we, the readers, were the lucky ones getting the best versions of these amazing works, as they might not have been so grandiose had they been published in their infancy! Basically, the delay made them reach perfection!
This is an OK book that can be recommended to people interested in the subject, but I am sure there are better books out there.
I wanted to love this book, but I have to say that it really didn't deliver, and I found myself drifting off, then having to rewind because I didn't pay attention. Maybe it's the quality of the writing, or maybe it's just my mind, not ready to discover the mystery of the woman who wrote some of my favorite books ever. Going through this book I realized I preferred my ignorance regarding the life of the real Jane Austen to a revealing truth that I might not like or might be different from what I knew (for example she used to be called Jenny 🤔 and I don't like that. "Jane" is so upscale and noble, while Jenny sounds so common and blah!!!)
Couple of things I discovered that I liked: all my life I felt a peng of sorrow that someone who wrote about love so beautifully did not know love herself and didn't find her happily ever after, but this book revealed her side of not wanting marriage and children because she was so devoted to her craft and she knew the burden of becoming a wife and a mother would hinder her aspirations of becoming a published writer!!! How forward thinking this approach was... how brave, how out of the ordinary, and admirable! I can't believe I didn't see it from that angle: me... my independent self!!! Mind-blowing! 💣🎆🤯
Another great discovery made (& something I didn't think of either): Jane was a "late bloomer", not per sei, but it took her over a decade of constant rejections until her first novel was published... and, in all this time, she never lost hope and kept improving her older books and writing the newer ones. She had more than a decade to rewrite and polish "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" and to transform them into the timeless masterpieces they became. And we, the readers, were the lucky ones getting the best versions of these amazing works, as they might not have been so grandiose had they been published in their infancy! Basically, the delay made them reach perfection!
This is an OK book that can be recommended to people interested in the subject, but I am sure there are better books out there.
January 29, 2023
Although my favourite biography of Jane is by Park Honan, this was a lovely one which emphasizes her Christianity, and her humanity. As well as discussing Jane's life and relationships, Leithart gives a mostly spot-on analysis of her writing, and he also gives priority to her playfulness. He also writes about her romances, and her superior knowledge of people.
He appears to be almost a bit sneery at times, however, about Jane's writing about ordinary life, and her 'ignoring' the wars, and politics. He even seems to think this about Mansfield Park, disregarding Jane's being an abolitionist, and slavery being a fairly obvious feature of the novel if you look at it closely? The navy also plays a huge part in this book, and in Persuasion.
I also think that Leithart makes some statements without providing much, or indeed any evidence. For example, he writes that 'prior to the eighteenth century, many Church of England clergymen were little more than peasants...'. I am not sure about this! There is no footnote here, and I am not sure where the evidence for this opinion comes from. I have read about many Anglican clergymen who lived before the eighteenth century, who were extremely well-educated, and nothing like peasants! John Donne, anyone?
He also criticises Jane's education, and states that she doesn't reference Shakespeare in her novels. However, there are plenty of high-brow literary references in Austen's novels. As he states, her father had an extensive library, and Jane was extremely well-read.
I would read more books by Leithart, but watch out for statements like this.
I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.
He appears to be almost a bit sneery at times, however, about Jane's writing about ordinary life, and her 'ignoring' the wars, and politics. He even seems to think this about Mansfield Park, disregarding Jane's being an abolitionist, and slavery being a fairly obvious feature of the novel if you look at it closely? The navy also plays a huge part in this book, and in Persuasion.
I also think that Leithart makes some statements without providing much, or indeed any evidence. For example, he writes that 'prior to the eighteenth century, many Church of England clergymen were little more than peasants...'. I am not sure about this! There is no footnote here, and I am not sure where the evidence for this opinion comes from. I have read about many Anglican clergymen who lived before the eighteenth century, who were extremely well-educated, and nothing like peasants! John Donne, anyone?
He also criticises Jane's education, and states that she doesn't reference Shakespeare in her novels. However, there are plenty of high-brow literary references in Austen's novels. As he states, her father had an extensive library, and Jane was extremely well-read.
I would read more books by Leithart, but watch out for statements like this.
I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.
January 7, 2024
This is a short biography of Jane Austen that claims it's more focused on her Christian faith. I have read several Jane Austen biographies and while this one mentioned her faith some, it wasn't the focus of the book.
This biography was informative, but not more than others I've read and on the whole it frustrated me. It felt like the Leithart was trying to be different from other Austen biographers, but he really miss the mark especially because so many assumptions were made about her.
Leithart referred to Jane as 'Jenny' pretty often throughout the book because of a letter of her father's where he called her Jenny. I have never seen Jane called Jenny in any other books or articles about her so I found this highly annoying. Leithart was trying to use 'Jenny' to indicate when Jane was more childish, but it still felt out of place.
Shockingly, Leithart mixed up two of Austen's novels which was really a nail in the coffin for me: "When she comes back home from Mansfield, Fanny Price is ignore and lost within the constant din of domestic life. She feels liberated when Frank Churchill shows up to take her into the open air." Fanny Price is from Mansfield Park and Franck Churchill is from Emma.
There were some interesting points about Jane's nephew James framing her in a more Victorian light and smoothing out her satirical nature, but overall I was not impressed with this biography.
This biography was informative, but not more than others I've read and on the whole it frustrated me. It felt like the Leithart was trying to be different from other Austen biographers, but he really miss the mark especially because so many assumptions were made about her.
Leithart referred to Jane as 'Jenny' pretty often throughout the book because of a letter of her father's where he called her Jenny. I have never seen Jane called Jenny in any other books or articles about her so I found this highly annoying. Leithart was trying to use 'Jenny' to indicate when Jane was more childish, but it still felt out of place.
Shockingly, Leithart mixed up two of Austen's novels which was really a nail in the coffin for me: "When she comes back home from Mansfield, Fanny Price is ignore and lost within the constant din of domestic life. She feels liberated when Frank Churchill shows up to take her into the open air." Fanny Price is from Mansfield Park and Franck Churchill is from Emma.
There were some interesting points about Jane's nephew James framing her in a more Victorian light and smoothing out her satirical nature, but overall I was not impressed with this biography.
June 3, 2023
A decent overview about the life of Jane Austen.
I picked this book up because I wanted to get to know more about Jane Austen. She’s considered the titan of the romantic genre, but I didn’t know much about her. This was my entre into her life. I’m glad I read it.
I learned quite a bit about Austen and can now say I respect her writing even more that I know her. This book would be great for hardcore Austen fans and enlightening for those who want to know a little more.
The writing is utilitarian and serves the purpose of telling her story, but there were times it needed a bit more personality. I liked the story and liked learning about Austen, but there were times the author referred to her as Jenny. It’s not incorrect, but got a bit confusing, especially early on. I also got a little lost in the family tree descriptions early on. That’s not to say this is a bad book. Far from it. It’s a nice pocket read, but one has to read it with the notion there will be rereading involved.
If you’re a fan of Austen and want to know how her faith somewhat influenced her, how her life went and want something quick, then this might be the book for you. Give it a try.
I picked this book up because I wanted to get to know more about Jane Austen. She’s considered the titan of the romantic genre, but I didn’t know much about her. This was my entre into her life. I’m glad I read it.
I learned quite a bit about Austen and can now say I respect her writing even more that I know her. This book would be great for hardcore Austen fans and enlightening for those who want to know a little more.
The writing is utilitarian and serves the purpose of telling her story, but there were times it needed a bit more personality. I liked the story and liked learning about Austen, but there were times the author referred to her as Jenny. It’s not incorrect, but got a bit confusing, especially early on. I also got a little lost in the family tree descriptions early on. That’s not to say this is a bad book. Far from it. It’s a nice pocket read, but one has to read it with the notion there will be rereading involved.
If you’re a fan of Austen and want to know how her faith somewhat influenced her, how her life went and want something quick, then this might be the book for you. Give it a try.
March 3, 2024
3.5ish stars
This book was an informative source of insight into Jane Austen’s life, family, and career, so in that sense, it was a success. That being said, I really didn’t love it. The writing style was a bit dry, and I wasn’t a big fan of much of the way the writer characterized Austen, including his insistence on referring to her as “Jenny” at several points in the text. As much as I wanted to learn more about her, I didn’t really feel that the book told any kind of cohesive or engaging story, so I wasn’t terribly invested in the narrative itself. I don’t regret reading it, but I suspect others have written similar books that I would appreciate much more.
An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book was an informative source of insight into Jane Austen’s life, family, and career, so in that sense, it was a success. That being said, I really didn’t love it. The writing style was a bit dry, and I wasn’t a big fan of much of the way the writer characterized Austen, including his insistence on referring to her as “Jenny” at several points in the text. As much as I wanted to learn more about her, I didn’t really feel that the book told any kind of cohesive or engaging story, so I wasn’t terribly invested in the narrative itself. I don’t regret reading it, but I suspect others have written similar books that I would appreciate much more.
An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
January 28, 2018
Fantastic biography of Jane Austen, which seems to pain a truer picture of her character than others. Using excerpts from her letters and quotes from family members and friends who knew her, the author shows her to be quite like her most famous character, Elizabeth Bennett, in temperament - lively, sharp-witted, and quick to laugh.
The author also speculates on her reasons for writing and discusses the varying reception of her works. He includes several quotes from famous authors - including E.M. Forster, Sir Walter Scott, and Virginia Woolf - that I thought were both interesting and helpful in showing why her novels are so enduring.
The author also speculates on her reasons for writing and discusses the varying reception of her works. He includes several quotes from famous authors - including E.M. Forster, Sir Walter Scott, and Virginia Woolf - that I thought were both interesting and helpful in showing why her novels are so enduring.
February 3, 2014
Almost everyone has heard of Jane Austen, and many have read her works. Very few people, however, have even the slightest clue as to who this woman really was. What was her personality, or her worldview? How did she relate to friends and family? What influenced her in her acutely realistic writing?
The truth is that most people do not have much of an idea. Jane Austen has been distorted and twisted into a popular myth so much so that the real Jane Austen is largely unknown, despite her books being standard reading in most high school and college literature classes.
Pastor and professor Peter Leithart, Ph. D., introduces us to a more accurate picture of Austen. His book, *Christian Encounters: Jane Austen*, focuses on the personality and viewpoints of “Jenny” Austen, as she was known to friends and family. Through a slim, but thoroughly researched biography, we are able to witness a playful, snarky, at times cruel and irreverent, but always fervently religious and kind-hearted young woman.
All of this is the opposite of what we seemingly know of the woman. She is made out to be staid, prim and proper, and exceedingly “high-church”. She very much would have been “high-church” by the definition of today, where all of Christianity seems to be emotive, but at the time, much of faith was very intellectual, and a regular part of life. When one keeps this in mind, one can see where the faith of young Jenny Austen intersected with the way that she lived, and the novels that she wrote.
The incredibly fun and witty side of Jenny is shown not simply in her published novels, but in an examination of her letters, and her early personal stories, called *Juvenalia*. As CS Lewis would later have his *Boxen*, his childhood stories, so Austen had her *Juvenalia*. The stories reveal a perceptive, witty, and sometimes biting and cruel wit. Austen is shown time and again to be more than willing to make the observations and comments that so many then, and even today, would consider to be rude or “best overlooked.”
The issue that the author contends with is two-fold. First, how can he reconcile the equally pious and snarky sides of Austen. He does this by looking at the whole person, and concludes that the Austen that most knew was a lively, but exceedingly moral young woman. Her correspondence, the views of family and friends, her novels, and other primary works are utilized to make this point.
The second potential stumbling-block that the author dealt with was an honest portrayal of Austen. I am a Christian, and I enjoy reading of how the Truth of God’s Word impacts the life of anyone, famous or otherwise. Despite this desire, I do not wish to lie about someone else just to make a point. People must not be placed in cookie-cutters, and made historically to favor our preferred viewpoint in the world. Thankfully, Leithart does not do this, but very honestly examines how the world of Austen was one of sometimes public religion absent private piety. Austen, it seems was privately and publicly pious, despite the fact that she did not emote in the way that we do today. Perhaps that is a sad thing for us. Perhaps we have lost our piety, our religious sense, in our constant quest for something akin to widespread public catharsis. Who knows? It’s something to think about.
The only problem that I could identify with the author is a lack of understanding for how the culture of the United States would have influenced the early perceptions of Austen and her works. At the same time that the Victorian ideas were in place as identified by the author, a very different view of women was at work in the US. Historians have called it “The Cult of True Womanhood”. While in the Victorian concept, women were relegated to roles for their own protection, in some absurd paternalistic notion, in the US, the role of women was very much that of moral arbiter, and really the de facto head of the household. As a spokeswoman for this idea, Catharine Beecher, and her sister, *Uncle Tom’s Cabin* author Harriet Beecher Stowe, might have agreed on some ideas with the Victorians, but not much, and certainly not the basis behind those ideas. Each was very much into an assertive style of women’s place in the world. While I think that some of the ideas were not right, they also were not the same simpering way of life that the British mode of domesticity was. How this different idea would have impacted the perceptions of Austen would, I think, have lead to a greater understanding of the reasons for the “lost Jenny Austen.”
I only mention this because the author mentions the misinterpretation of Jenny Austen, but leaves this, to my thinking, gaping hole in the narrative and argument.
Jenny Austen, the real Jane Austen is a pleasure to get to know, as well as very thought-provoking to learn about. I highly recommend this book.
--------------------
I received this biography of Jane Austen for free from Thomas Nelson publishers via their BookSneeze program. I am obligated to read it and give a review on my blog and on a commercial web site such as Amazon.com. I wanted to review it more fully here, as the reviews elsewhere are somewhat shorter to properly fit into those formats. Thomas Nelson emphasizes their desire for honest reviews, whether positive or negative, in order to help them create a better product. The opinions above are my honest viewpoint. I want to thank Thomas Nelson for allowing me to review this book, and thank you all for reading this.
The truth is that most people do not have much of an idea. Jane Austen has been distorted and twisted into a popular myth so much so that the real Jane Austen is largely unknown, despite her books being standard reading in most high school and college literature classes.
Pastor and professor Peter Leithart, Ph. D., introduces us to a more accurate picture of Austen. His book, *Christian Encounters: Jane Austen*, focuses on the personality and viewpoints of “Jenny” Austen, as she was known to friends and family. Through a slim, but thoroughly researched biography, we are able to witness a playful, snarky, at times cruel and irreverent, but always fervently religious and kind-hearted young woman.
All of this is the opposite of what we seemingly know of the woman. She is made out to be staid, prim and proper, and exceedingly “high-church”. She very much would have been “high-church” by the definition of today, where all of Christianity seems to be emotive, but at the time, much of faith was very intellectual, and a regular part of life. When one keeps this in mind, one can see where the faith of young Jenny Austen intersected with the way that she lived, and the novels that she wrote.
The incredibly fun and witty side of Jenny is shown not simply in her published novels, but in an examination of her letters, and her early personal stories, called *Juvenalia*. As CS Lewis would later have his *Boxen*, his childhood stories, so Austen had her *Juvenalia*. The stories reveal a perceptive, witty, and sometimes biting and cruel wit. Austen is shown time and again to be more than willing to make the observations and comments that so many then, and even today, would consider to be rude or “best overlooked.”
The issue that the author contends with is two-fold. First, how can he reconcile the equally pious and snarky sides of Austen. He does this by looking at the whole person, and concludes that the Austen that most knew was a lively, but exceedingly moral young woman. Her correspondence, the views of family and friends, her novels, and other primary works are utilized to make this point.
The second potential stumbling-block that the author dealt with was an honest portrayal of Austen. I am a Christian, and I enjoy reading of how the Truth of God’s Word impacts the life of anyone, famous or otherwise. Despite this desire, I do not wish to lie about someone else just to make a point. People must not be placed in cookie-cutters, and made historically to favor our preferred viewpoint in the world. Thankfully, Leithart does not do this, but very honestly examines how the world of Austen was one of sometimes public religion absent private piety. Austen, it seems was privately and publicly pious, despite the fact that she did not emote in the way that we do today. Perhaps that is a sad thing for us. Perhaps we have lost our piety, our religious sense, in our constant quest for something akin to widespread public catharsis. Who knows? It’s something to think about.
The only problem that I could identify with the author is a lack of understanding for how the culture of the United States would have influenced the early perceptions of Austen and her works. At the same time that the Victorian ideas were in place as identified by the author, a very different view of women was at work in the US. Historians have called it “The Cult of True Womanhood”. While in the Victorian concept, women were relegated to roles for their own protection, in some absurd paternalistic notion, in the US, the role of women was very much that of moral arbiter, and really the de facto head of the household. As a spokeswoman for this idea, Catharine Beecher, and her sister, *Uncle Tom’s Cabin* author Harriet Beecher Stowe, might have agreed on some ideas with the Victorians, but not much, and certainly not the basis behind those ideas. Each was very much into an assertive style of women’s place in the world. While I think that some of the ideas were not right, they also were not the same simpering way of life that the British mode of domesticity was. How this different idea would have impacted the perceptions of Austen would, I think, have lead to a greater understanding of the reasons for the “lost Jenny Austen.”
I only mention this because the author mentions the misinterpretation of Jenny Austen, but leaves this, to my thinking, gaping hole in the narrative and argument.
Jenny Austen, the real Jane Austen is a pleasure to get to know, as well as very thought-provoking to learn about. I highly recommend this book.
--------------------
I received this biography of Jane Austen for free from Thomas Nelson publishers via their BookSneeze program. I am obligated to read it and give a review on my blog and on a commercial web site such as Amazon.com. I wanted to review it more fully here, as the reviews elsewhere are somewhat shorter to properly fit into those formats. Thomas Nelson emphasizes their desire for honest reviews, whether positive or negative, in order to help them create a better product. The opinions above are my honest viewpoint. I want to thank Thomas Nelson for allowing me to review this book, and thank you all for reading this.
December 17, 2024
RATING 2.8 Stars
Jane Austen was a bigger part of my recent trip to England than you might expect. We visited a handful of sites that related to her life and times. So, since I had this book laying around, I thought I would dive in and fill in some gaps.
It's not the best biography. Simplistic in some regards, overreaching in others. It's a rather quick read, but also drags on at times so it's easy to walk away from with no intention of finishing. (I did finish).
There are probably better biographies of Austen out there.
Jane Austen was a bigger part of my recent trip to England than you might expect. We visited a handful of sites that related to her life and times. So, since I had this book laying around, I thought I would dive in and fill in some gaps.
It's not the best biography. Simplistic in some regards, overreaching in others. It's a rather quick read, but also drags on at times so it's easy to walk away from with no intention of finishing. (I did finish).
There are probably better biographies of Austen out there.
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