Brief Lives: Jane Austen - Softcover

Stafford, Fiona

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843919060 ISBN 13: 9781843919063

Publisher: Hesperus Press Ltd, 2008

Synopsis

The Brief Lives series offers short, authoritative biographies of the world's best-known literary figures. Both informative and entertaining, each title introduces the modern reader to the early life, writing career and literary legacy of a renowned novelist, poet or essayist.

About this title

Review:

'This beautifully produced book starts with a real advantage. Full-length biographies of Jane Austen, like those of Shakespeare, immediately face the problem of what do with the years in their subject's life for which there is scant (sometimes no) source material. Having solved this by imaginative re-creation, they confront the opposite problem: how to restrict literary analysis of the plays or the novels without reducing a masterpiece such as Hamlet or Emma to a reductive summary. Fiona Stafford's slim volume has no such difficulties: the major focus of this sympathetic study is Jane Austen's writing, which is used to provide the chronological frame for the life, and the treatment of the novels is profound enough to stir the reader into intellectual assent or argumentative disagreement.' --Times Literary Supplement

'...short and sweet' --The Jane Austen Society

'This brief life by Fiona Stafford, with its rich insights and its mine of fascinating detail, is one of the best overviews of the author and her work that you are likely to read.' --JASA Chronicle

Stafford's brief biography is beautifully written, subtly weaving together accurate information about the events of Austen's life with an elegant analysis of the works. Stafford's approach is never heavy handed, and she neatly avoids the major pitfalls of biographical criticism. --British Association for Romantic Studies: Bulletin and Review

All Austenites will find that Stafford's cleverly assembled, 115 page account of Austen's whole life and works contains a great deal that is to the point. Stafford's biographical and critical readings offer the same enticing balance between intimacy and distance that she discerns in Jane Austen's life and art. --Notes and Queries journal (published by Oxford University Press)

Synopsis:

Born in Hampshire in 1775, Jane Austen was one of seven children and began writing at an early age. In this new biography, leading scholar Fiona Stafford offers a fresh perspective on Austen's life and work, discussing such classics as "Pride and Prejudice", "Sense and Sensibility" and "Emma" in the context of the world in which they were published. This book gives an informative and enjoyable insight into the life of Austen as both a woman and a writer and will appeal to literature students and general readers alike.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hesperus Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1843919060
• ISBN 13: 9781843919063
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112