Biographies of Jane Austen adopt a reverent tone when extolling her prodigious literary gifts, yet little is known about Austen herself; many of the letters that could cast light on her short life were destroyed by her sister Cassandra. Paula Byrne dissembles the myths surrounding Austen by focusing on the minutiae of life in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Key scenes, objects and experiences pivotal to Austen's fiction become the anchor with which to reveal The Real Jane Austen.
"Her novels were grounded in the real world," Byrne writes. "In order to create them, she drew upon the reality she knew: the people, the places, the events." She uses personal artifacts such as a topaz cross and Austen's vellum notebooks, as well as scenes from the novels, to support or debunk modern perceptions about the author. A family profile becomes the preamble for a general discussion on the custom of childless couples adopting distant relations as heirs; a description of a shawl imported from East India leads to a treatise on poverty and its effects on a woman's prospects for marriage and survival--a very real threat for dowry-less daughters and a theme of great significance in Austen's fiction.
Under Byrne's scrutiny, Austen's satirical and wickedly delicious wit, her worldly ways and confidence in her craft serve as an antithesis to the image of a staid, naïve maiden living a simple country life. The result is a fresh behind-the-scenes look at an author who, for many, stands behind only Shakespeare as the greatest English writer. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant