Jane Austen: a life

At her death in 1817, Jane Austen left the world six of the most beloved novels written in English'but her shortsighted family destroyed the bulk of her letters; and if she kept any diaries, they did not survive her. Now acclaimed biographer Claire Tomalin has filled the gaps in the record, creating a remarkably fresh and convincing portrait of the woman and the writer. While most Austen biographers have accepted the assertion of Jane's brother Henry that "My dear Sister's life was not a life of events," Tomalin shows that, on the contrary, Austen's brief life was fraught with upheaval. Tomalin provides detailed and absorbing accounts of Austen's ill-fated love for a young Irishman, her frequent travels and extended visits to London, her close friendship with a worldly cousin whose French husband met his death on the guillotine, her brothers' naval service in the Napoleonic wars and in the colonies, and thus shatters the myth of Jane Austen as a sheltered and homebound spinster whose knowledge of the world was limited to the view from a Hampshire village. From the Trade Paperback edition.

1775 -- Meritocrats -- Boys -- School -- The French connection -- Bad behavior -- Weddings and funerals -- Neighbours -- Dancing -- The doll and the poker -- A letter -- Defence systems -- Friends in East Kent -- Travels with my mother -- Three books -- Twenty-five -- Manydown -- Brotherly love -- A Death in the family -- At Chawton -- Inside Mansfield Park -- Dedication -- The Sorceress -- College Street -- Postscript -- Appendix I: A note on Jane Austen's last illness -- Appendix II: "An African Story" from Fanny Austen's Pocket-book, 1809, with a Note on Attitudes to Slavery.