Saturday, March 12, 2005

Austen in the news

A good short piece in the Guardian, by Zoe Heller on Austen's early satirical fiction: "The smallness of Jane Austen's fictional canvas is probably the best-known characteristic of her mature work; even those who have never read her six great novels have heard about her 'little bit (two inches wide) of ivory'. But as a teenager, Austen had yet to establish her distinctive boundaries. She was still experimenting. One of the pleasures her early stories afford us is a glimpse of a famously 'quiet' and domestic writer engaging with melodramatic incident, regal vice and other immoral behaviour in a gleefully direct way."

And a useful essay by Michael Caines in the 4 March TLS, but it's not up yet in the archive. Sorry...

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