What author would you like to learn more about? I always love learning more about Jane
Austen.
Living with Jane Austen is Janet Todd’s journey
through Austen. It was written to
celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth this
year. It is Todd’s relationship with Austen
throughout her life as well as a deep dive into different topics in Austen’s
life and in her novels.
My thoughts on this book:
· I thought this was interesting and it gave me a lot to ponder about Austen. For example, it made me want to read Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson. Austen enjoyed the novel and apparently the estate in it has similarities to Pemberley. It is one of the longest novels in the English language which sounds daunting.
· This was a literary analysis mixed with memoir.
· Todd compared and contrasted Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen’s lives and works. I thought that was interesting. Their lives were so very different but were around the same time period.
· The book is arranged by themes such as: The Brightness of Pemberly, the Darkness of Darcy, Poor Nerves, Into Nature, How to Die, etc. I liked this arrangement and learning more about these topics.
· This was a slower read for me, but it was thought provoking and fascinating.
Overall, Living with Jane Austen by Janet Todd is part
scholarly literary analysis part memoir, but 100 % intriguing. It’s a great book for anyone that is
interested in Jane Austen and her works.
Book Source: Review
copy from Cambridge University Press as part of the Austenprose PR Book Tour.
Thank-you! Opinions expressed in this
review are completely my own.
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Fanny Price, in Mansfield Park, tells her persistent suitor that “we have all a better guide in ourselves...than any other person can be.” Sometimes, however, we crave external guidance: and when this happens we could do worse than seek it in Jane Austen's own subtle novels.
Written to coincide with Austen's 250th birthday, this approachable and intimate work shows why and how - for over half a century - Austen has inspired and challenged its author through different phases of her life. Part personal memoir, part expert interaction with all the letters, manuscripts and published novels, Janet Todd's book reveals what living with Jane Austen has meant to her and what it might also mean to others.
Todd celebrates the undimmable power of Austen's work to help us understand our own bodies and our environment, and teach us about patience, humour, beauty and the meaning of home.
ADVANCE PRAISE
“Intimate, knowledgeable and frequently unexpected, this is a book for all Jane Austen's readers by one of the very best of those readers.” —Richard Cronin, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Glasgow
“A timely, moving and masterful book by one of the English-speaking world’s foremost literary historians and a trailblazing scholar-heroine in Jane Austen studies.” —Devoney Looser, author of The Making of Jane Austen
AUTHOR BIO
Janet Todd is an internationally renowned novelist and academic, best known for her non-fiction feminist works on women writers including Jane Austen, Aphra Behn and Mary Wollenstonecraft. In recent years, she has turned her hand to writing novels, publishing Lady Susan Plays the Game (2013), A Man of Genius (2016) and Don’t You Know There’s a War On? (2020).
Janet has worked in universities around the world including Ghana, Puerto Rico, North America and India. She was a professor of English Literature at UEA, Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities, before becoming president of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge (2008-2015), Cambridge where she established the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. She is now an Honorary Fellow of Newnham and Lucy Cavendish Colleges. In 2013, Janet was given an OBE for her services to higher education and literary scholarship. Connect with her online at www.janettodd.co.uk.
Sounds like a book that you have to very slowly assimilate.
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