Jane Austen discussion

Last year I read The Tortoise and the Hare. I was really affected by it, but did not get a review posted at the time. I am looking back over it, and discovered in the Hilary Mantel introduction that Jenkins was key in founding the Jane Austen Society and saving and restoring Chawton cottage in the 1940s. I love the connection of Jane's life to the lives of so many other authors.

Jenkins is also the author of the first modern, non-family-memoir biography of Jane Austen. It's a nice book -- I blogged about it earlier this year.

http://www.deborahyaffe.com/blog/4586...

Yes, Deborah, I tweeted you that I had found your blog review. I hope you are well. I refer people to your book so often.

I am still savoring the reread of this excellent Jenkins novel, and I want to soon find her Jane biography. It makes me think, thankfully, about those early 20th century women that worked to preserve things connected to Jane's life and to start the Society.

Thanks for the referrals (and the tweet, which I haven't seen -- will go look for it!) Yes, we do owe a great debt to the people (not only women) who founded the JA Society and preserved Chawton Cottage -- it could so easily have been torn down. The horror.