Product Description

Explains Austen's methods, motivations, and morals

The fun and easy way(r) to understand and enjoy Jane Austen

Want to know more about Jane Austen? This friendly guide gives the scoop on her life, works, and lasting impact on our culture. It chronicles the events of her brief life, examines each of her novels, and looks at why her stories - of women and marriage, class and money, scandal and hypocrisy, emotion and satire - still have meaning for us today.

Discover
* Why Austen is so popular
* The impact on manners, courtships, and dating
* Love and life in Austen's world
* Her life and key influences
* Her most memorable characters

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #140058 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470008294
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"If you begin this book as dummy, you won’t be one when you finish." (Financial Times, Sat 7th July)

From the Back Cover
Explains Austen's methods, motivations, and morals

The fun and easy way® to understand and enjoy Jane Austen

Want to know more about Jane Austen? This friendly guide gives the scoop on her life, works, and lasting impact on our culture. It chronicles the events of her brief life, examines each of her novels, and looks at why her stories — of women and marriage, class and money, scandal and hypocrisy, emotion and satire — still have meaning for us today.

Discover

• Why Austen is so popular
• The impact on manners, courtships, and dating
• Love and life in Austen's world
• Her life and key influences
• Her most memorable characters

About the Author
Joan Klingel Ray, PhD, is an English professor at the University of Colorado. She has written articles for numerous magazines and appeared on the A&E biography of Jane Austen.

Customer Reviews

Deep Learning and Clear Explanations
I hate the name of this series, but this volume by Joan Klingel Ray, president of the Jane Austen Society of North America is a terrific, clear, concise, and inviting set of explanations for all of those questions that newer readers of Austen have about her world: Why doesn't Elizabeth Bennet just get a job? Why will Mrs. Bennet have to leave Longbourn if Mr. Bennet dies? How rich IS Darcy?

Plus, because Ray's learning is so deep, the chapter on manners, for instance, is framed not by vague ideas of "well, we all want to behave nicely, don't we?" but by Castiglione and the translations of it into Latin and English. This kind of learning is in evidence in every chapter.

I've been reading Austen since I was 13--more than 35 years--and I find new information in this volume. Plus, it's fun to read sections and see just how much I already knew.

For instance, do you know how to navigate via the Tube and trains to the Austen sites in the countryside? I didn't. Dr. Ray tells all.

I do love a clear explanation!

Pamela Regis, Professor of English
McDaniel College
Westminster, MD

Great book and not just for "Janites"
I found this book to be really a great read. It is a good, solid, reference book. There is so much about Jane Austen that is known but this is one place where you can get a lot of information in one place. For non-Janites it is a great introduction to some of the things about Jane. All in all I would recommend this to everyone Janites and non-Janites. You will enjoy it.

Think You Know Jane Austen?
You may be surprised to learn how much you don't know about Jane Austen.
Glance over the Table of Contents of Jane Austen for Dummies and you
can't help but envy Professor Joan Klingel Ray's students. She manages to
present in an informative and very entertaining manner Jane Austen's
life, works, literary predecessors, legacy, and so much more. This book
is for everyone who reads Jane Austen - and for those who don't. Think
Jane Austen is only for ladies who sip tea? Think Jane Austen favored the
aristocracy? Think Jane Austen lived a sad, lonely life and never
traveled? Read this book and discover the truth of the matter. You can
buy countless books about Jane Austen and spend the next decade or so
reading them, or you can get just this one.