Product Description

With a wealth of details about Jane Austen's life and times, this volume brings to life the world of her novels. Austen scholar Deirdre Le Faye first gives an overview of the period, from foreign affairs to social ranks, from fashion to sanitation. She goes on to consider each novel individually.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15259 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author
Deirdre Le Faye is an expert on Jane Austen, and the author of several books about her, including the definitive biography Jane Austen: A Family Record for the British Library, and a completely new edition of Jane Austen's letters. She lives in Portishead, North Somerset.

Customer Reviews

A pleasure more when reading Jane Austen
One of the pleasures of reading Jane Austen is trying to figure out what is left unsaid and unexplained. Also Tempora and Mores have changed, and the reactions and behaviour of the heroines can be rather odd at times, seen at a distance of 200 years and from across the North Sea.
Ever read Icelandic sagas? The sort in which Egil Egilsson's wife has left him - telling everyone in detail as to why - and throughout the next winter "people often talked about the matter" . I bet they did!
And Egil "thought about it, and he was not pleased". I bet he wasn't. Considering the mayhem that followed.
The joy is in imagining what is being said and thought, and why.
This pretty, well-illustrated book is a fine companion for imagining. We are explained the ins and outs of living in a pre-modern genteel society, the social graces, how to behave and almost more important: how not to behave. The characters in the novels by Jane Austen are by their very surroundings limited in what they can think, in what they can do. We must not forget the horizon was much lower then, and everyday living conditions and behaviour very different to ours. Trying to enter the spirit of the novels, so to speak, I find that Le Fayes book has helped me enormously.

brilliant presentation of Jane Austens world
Le Faye has written an exceptional book which truly sets the reader in the time period Austen was writing.What impressed me most was the very readable style it has been written in with close attention to all details mentioned in her novels truly assisting the reader to have a feel of what was going on in England socially and economically aswell as highlighting world affairs at the time.
A great companion to add depth in ones appreciation of Jane Austen novels as well as detailed explanations to social life and nuiances in Regency England.

Jane Austen's World brought to life
This is without a doubt one of the best Jane Austen related books. Le Faye starts with a concise biography of Jane Austen, to help readers put her life into some sort of historical context. The second part of the book deals with all sorts of Life & Times issues - carriages, clothing, occupations, architecture, coinage, filigree.... and of course she explains that Gowlands Lotion, so heartily recommended by Sir Walter Elliot in Persuasion, was actually a sort of chemical peel!

The third part of the book looks at each of the novels in turn, and includes the fragments The Watsons and Sandition. Le Faye gives a synopsis of the plot of each novel and along the way picks out things for us that would have needed no explanation to contemporary readers, but may now need some enlargement. For example in the Sense & Sensibility chapter she tells us about the places in London where the characters live or lodge, and what this says about them and their status.

On top of all this, the book is beautifully illustrated with period county maps, contemporary portraits that match Austen's character descriptions and of course illustrations of all the Life & Times elements discussed - filigree work, fashion plates, coinage examples, etc. In a word: Excellent!