“Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone”. — Mark Twain
Some people–like Devoney Looser–love Jane Austen, other people can’t stand her–like Twain. I’m more in the Love Austen camp. I’ve read all her books. I’ve read a couple biographies of Austen. And, of course, in the process of taking courses in a doctoral program to earn my Ph.D., I read a lot of literary criticism of Jane Austen.
If you’re wild for Austen, you’ll enjoy Devoney Looser’s Wild for Austen. Looser’s book is a fan’s take on her favorite writer. Explorations of family life, romance, and women’s limited freedom all get a good airing in these enthusiastic pages.
Looser takes a chronological approach to Jane Austen’s works and devotes entire chapters to her major works. But there’s plenty of Austen background information and a useful insights in how our regard for Jane Austen has changed over the centuries. If you’re a big fan of Jane Austen, this book is for you! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
PART 1: WILD WRITINGS
- Introduction: Austen gone wild — 3
- Fierce, wild, and ruthless : Austen’s juvenilia — 16
- The controversial case of Sophia Sentiment — 25
- Running wild : the winning immorality of Lady Susan — 35
- Wildest : Sense and Sensibility (1811) — 46
- Almost wild : Pride and Prejudice (1813) — 58
- Bewildering Mansfield Park (1814) — 65
- Wild speculation : Emma (1816) — 77
- Wild to know : Northanger Abbey (1818)
- The young people were all wild : Persuasion (1818) — 100
- Wild-goose chase : unfinished Sanditon — 111
- Oh, subjects rebellious : The Watsons and Last words — 122
- Jane, the wild beast, and the progressive Burdetts — 127
- Cousin Eliza’s statesman, singer, and spy — 148
- The Leighs as learned literary ladies — 161
- The sensational shoplifting trial of Aunt Jane Leigh Perrot –173
- Three Austen brothers and the abolition of slavery — 189
- The Austen family legacy, suffrage, and anti-suffrage — 201
- Seeing Jane Austen’s ghost — 215
- Sense and Sensibility goes to court — 225
- Jane’s imaginary lover in Switzerland — 233
- Almost Pride and Prejudice : the wild films that never were — 241
- Wild and wanton : the rise of Austen erotica — 254
- Loving (and hating) Jane Austen — 262
- Coda: Austen after 250 — 274
Acknowledgments –279
Notes –281
I will speak up for these who like Austen, but could see where Twain’s irritation, however overstated, was coming from. I think Clemens was most annoyed by that which was Cute in his own work, much less thatin Austen (whom I suspect he thought could Do Better or at least more stridently, but, one could note, he certainly pulled some punches as well, sometimes…happily for us, not at all times).
Todd, Twain was fighting for recognition for American Literature. Austen’s novels of English domesticity rubbed Twain the Wrong Way.
The seeming default acceptance of class structure, etc. Not the last inhabitant of stratified perches to rub an egalitarian the wrong way.
But it was a different kind of being ticked off than his response to James Fenimore Cooper, to be sure.
Todd, Twain’s criticisms of James Fenimore Cooper are valid. Though I’ve read JFC and can ignore many of his flaws because he tells compelling stories.
So not for me. I don’t hate Austen, but I don’t get the deification either. I’ve only read one of her books – Pride and Prejudice – and have seen a few movie adaptations. I hated the PBS show about her sister burning Austen’s letters after her death, and didn’t make it through the first episode. I really should try another of her books, but there are so many other things I want to read more.
Jeff, every year, there’s a big Jane Austen confab in England. Most of the attendees are women. Austen is deified because she achieve early success when so many other women authors failed.
I like Austen and have read all of her books. However, I haven’t read much literary criticism of her work, and, frankly, I really can’t see myself starting now.
Deb, the literary criticism runs to either Love Austen (she’s a genius!) or a variation of Mark Twain’s distain for Austen.
I very much enjoyed all the Jane Austen I have read (and re-read).
And am irked by the hack writers who exploit her works in tons of pastiches, “sequels”, fantasies, rom-coms, horror tales, and murder mysteries.
Leave Jane Austen Alone !!!!!
Jee Jay, I share your annoyance with the hijacking of Jane Austen for pastiches, “sequels”, fantasies, rom-coms, horror tales, and murder mysteries. Agatha Christie killed Poirot in Miss Marple in an attempt to avoid their being hijacked after her death…but it didn’t work. Money changes everything.
I’m with Twain! I tried several times to read one of her books and stopped after three chapters! Same with THE GRET GATSBY! Give me Mickey Spillane any day!
Bob, I’m a fan of Mickey Spillane, too! THE GREAT GATSBY is Beth Fedyn’s favorite novel!
I have read them all more than once and seen every film version so this goes on my list! If you prefer Spillane to Austen or Fitzgerald it is because you are reading only to be entertained. I think some of us read to be enlightened, to explore the human condition, to read about life in other times, to read for the love of words, ideas, etc. Nothing wrong with being entertained but is that all there is?
Patti, I for one find Jane Austen entertaining and challenging. I love her characters and her unique writing style!
That would be the case for Twain/Clemens, as well. His “purest” entertainments are often his least-interesting work (“Tom Sawyer, Detective”–at best a novelet, and at best readable–even TS ABROAD, a novella with Huck and Jim as well, while lightweight, has more points to make, and makes them more interestingly). Even most of his purely humorous shorter works have a heft to them (I went through the Neider collections along with the novels when around 8-12yo–still mean to read the last one or two I haven’t yet).
Todd, Mark Twain liked to make fun of the English and Europeans. Jane Austen was a tempting target for his comic antics!