A fresh approach to building the life of Jane Austen through her
letters, demonstrating that a well-known life can be reframed by being
grounded in evidence of that life
The Life of the Author: Jane Austen takes readers on a
literary-biographical journey through Austen's life in letters. Using a
unique non-linear approach, author Catherine Delafield explores three
frames for Austen's literary life--family, correspondents, and
fiction--to suggest new pathways for the interpretation of life writing
about one of the most popular and influential English novelists of all
time. Delafield addresses multiple aspects of Austen's epistolary
practice and the ways in which her letters, juvenile writings, and
unpublished novels have been overlaid on both biography and fiction.
Throughout the text, special attention is paid to the changing view of
women's correspondence as personal record and to Cassandra Austen's role
as editor of her sister's surviving letters. The book opens with
selected readings from Austen's letters and a review of the family
treatment of the life. Subsequent chapters discuss the female circle of
correspondents in both extant and missing letters, the letter content
and structure of Austen's novels, the use of letters as representations
of places and spaces based on Austen's own lived experience of
epistolary communication, and more.
- Discusses how the letters, correspondents, and novels supplement Jane
Austen's fiction and substantiate her life
- Highlights Austen's use of the letter as a conversation on paper,
rather than as an autobiographical tool
- Explores the letters within Austen's fictional writing as well as
recipes, accounts, and needlework with links to the letters
- Features a select chronology using letters as landmarks, tables
representing surviving letters by correspondent, and family trees
tracing names and relationships
The Life of the Author: Jane Austen is an excellent text for
undergraduate and graduate courses on the novel, women's writing,
British writing, and life writing, as well as for general readers with
interest in gaining new perspectives on Austen's chronological life and
literary output.