Jane Austen the Reader explains Austen's excellence and endurance by showing how her writing developed as a response to the writing of others: as parody, satire, criticism and even, on occasion, homage. Seeing Austen as a critic offers new insights into her creativity, and new interpretations of her novels.
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: Jane Austen the Reader 1. Jane Austen, Criticism and the Novel in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries 2. What's not in Austen? Critical Quixotry in Love and Freindship and Northanger Abbey 3. Texts and Pretexts: Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice 4. Reading Criticism in Mansfield Park 5. Emma and the 'Plan of a Novel' 6. Persuasion and the Last Works 7. Appendix: What Happened to Jane Austen's Books? Notes Bibliography Index
