Claire Tomalin

Recounts the life of the English novelist, and reveals how her works both reflected her times and differed from the world she experienced.

A Life

Jane Austen

Danielle Raymond 

From her study of the Austen family papers, Claire Tomalin paints a rich, tragi-comic picture of the Austen clan and their neighbours, reaching the conclusion that the facts of Jane Austen's life were even more extravagant and romantic than her fiction.

Maria Bono

Kali Olson

The novels of Jane Austen depict a world of civility, reassuring stability and continuity, which generations of readers have supposed was the world she herself inhabited. Claire Tomalin's biography paints a surprisingly different picture of the Austen family and their Hampshire neighbours, and of Jane's progress through a difficult childhood, an unhappy love affair, her experiences as a poor relation and her decision to reject a marriage that would solve all her problems - except that of continuing as a writer. Both the woman and the novels are radically reassessed in this biography.

Jane Austen A Life

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