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Jane Austen image
Public domain image of Jane Austen, from a drawing by her sister Cassandra.

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Literary criticism and analysis for the nineteenth-century English novelist Jane Austen. Academic web sites and peer-reviewed journal articles. Links take you directly to articles.


Introduction | Biography | Northanger Abbey | Sense and Sensibility | Pride and Prejudice | Mansfield Park | Emma | Persuasion | Lady Susan | Jane Austen & Movies | Themes | Bibliographies


Introduction

"Virtual Tour of Jane Austen's House in Chawton." If you can't get there, you can see photos of her house, exteriors and interiors, her writing table, a patchwork quilt made by her, and Austen family furnishings on the internet. Web site from Jane Austen's House Museum, Chawton, Hampshire, England.

"Hampshire, the Inspirational Home of Jane Austen." Biography, Jane Austen's homes, locations, and discussion of the film versions of her novels. Web site by the Hampshire County Council.

"A Woman's Wit: Jane Austen's Life and Legacy." Austen's manuscripts and letters in close-up detail. Exhibit from the Morgan Library and Museum.

"Jane Austen." Contains short entries on Victorian women authors, their typical themes, and the publishing environment. From the exhibit Women in the Literary Marketplace, by the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University.

Clark, Robert. "Jane Austen." An introduction to Jane Austen, from a database that provides signed literary criticism by experts in their field, and is available to individuals for a reasonably-priced subscription. On Emma; On Persuasion Literary Encyclopedia 8 Jan. 2001. Eds. Robert Clark, Emory Elliott, Janet Todd [subscription service].


Biography & Biographical Studies

Austen-Leigh, Joan. "My Aunt, Jane Austen." Persuasions 11 (1989).

Ketcham, Carl H. "The Still Unknown Lover." Persuasions 11 (1989).

McDonald, Irene B. "The Chawton Years (1809-1817) - 'Only' Novels." Persuasions 22 (2001).

Parsons, Farnell. "A Note on a Jane Austen Connection with the Massachusetts Historical Society: Justice Story, Admiral Wormeley, and Admiral Francis Austen." Persuasions 23 (2002).

Tomalin, Claire. The first chapter of Jane Austen: A Biography (Viking 1997).

Walker, Linda Robinson. "Why was Jane Austen sent away to school at seven? An empirical look at a vexing question." Persuasions 26 (2005).


Northanger Abbey [pub. 1818]

Benedict, Barbara. "Reading by the Book in Northanger Abbey." Persuasions 20 (1999).

Cummins, Nichola. "Northanger Abbey: Catherine Morland and the Vice of the 'Sympathetic Imagination.'" Deep South 1 (1995). On the importance of candor.

Gilbert, Deirdre E. "'Willy-Nilly' and Other Tales of Male-Tails: Rightful and Wrongful Laws of Landed Property in Northanger Abbey and Beyond." Persuasions 20 (1999).

Rogers, Henry N. "Of Course You Can Trust Me!": Jane Austen's Narrator in Northanger Abbey. Persuasions 20 (1999).

Schaub, Melissa. "Irony and Political Education in Northanger Abbey." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Wiesenfarth, Joseph. "The Invention of Civility in Northanger Abbey." Persuasions 20 (1999).


Sense and Sensibility (1811)

Chapman, Geoff. "Colonel Brandon: an Officer and a Gentleman in Sense and Sensibility." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Dinkler, Michal Beth. "Speaking of Silence: Speech and Silence as a Subversive Means of Power in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Lerman, Rachel. "The Sense and Sensibility of Jane Austen." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Shubinsky, Diane. "Sense and Sensibility: An Eighteenth-Century Narrative." Persuasions 20 (1999).


Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Bonaparte, Felicia. "Conjecturing possibilities: reading and misreading texts in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice." Studies in the Novel 37, 2 (Summer 2005) pp 141-161 [free at jstor].

Casal, Elvira. "Laughing at Mr. Darcy: Wit and Sexuality in Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions 22 (2001).

Deresiewicz, William. "Community and Cognition in Pride and Prejudice." ELH 64, 2 (Summer 1997) pp 503-35 [free at jstor].

Ellwood, Gracia Fay. "How Not To Father: Mr. Bennet and Mary." Persuasions 22 (2001).

Fulford, Tim. "Sighing for a Soldier: Jane Austen and Military Pride and Prejudice." Nineteenth-Century Literature 57, 2 (Sept. 2002) pp 153-78 [jstor preview/purchase].

Halliday, E.M. "Narrative Perspective in Pride and Prejudice." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 15, 1 (June 1960) pp 65-71 [free at jstor].

Halperin, John. "Inside Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions 11 (1989).

Harmsel, Henrietta Ten. "The Villain-Hero in Pamela and Pride and Prejudice." Comparison with Samuel Richardson's 18th-century novel Pamela. College English 23, 2 (Nov. 1961) pp 104-8 [free at jstor].

Hudson, Glenda A. "Sibling Love in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions 11 (1989).

Kaplan, Laurie. "The Two Gentlemen of Derbyshire: Nature vs. Nurture." Persuasions 26 (2005).

Knuth, Deborah J. "Sisterhood and Friendship in Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions 11 (1989).

Koppel, Gene. "Pride and Prejudice: Conservative or Liberal Novel - Or Both?" Persuasions 11 (1989).

Macpherson, Sandra. "Rent to Own; or, What's Entailed in Pride and Prejudice." On the legal and political specifics of "the most famous entail in literary history," that of the Bennet family. Representations 82, 1 (Spring 2003) pp 1-23 [preview/purchase at jstor].

Margalit, Efrat. "On Pettiness and Petticoats: The Significance of the Petticoat in Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions 23 (2002).

McAleer, John. "The Comedy of Social Distinctions in Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions 11 (1989).

McCann, Charles J. "Setting and Character in Pride and Prejudice." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 19, 1 (June 1964) pp 65-75 [free at jstor].

Moler, Kenneth L. "Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen's 'Patrician Hero.'" Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 7, 3 (Summer 1967) pp 491-508 [free at jstor].

Morgan, Susan. "Intelligence in Pride and Prejudice." Modern Philology 73, 1 (Aug. 1975) pp 54-68 [free at jstor].

Morris, Ivor. "Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Moses, Carole. "Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Collins, and the Art of Misreading." Persuasions 23 (2002).

Newton, Judith Lowder. "Pride and Prejudice: Power, Fantasy, and Subversion in Jane Austen." Feminist Studies 4, 1 (Feb. 1978) pp 27-42 [free at jstor].

Redmond, Luanne Bethke. "Land, Law and Love." Persuasions 11 (1989). On entailment and property law in Pride and Prejudice.

Rytting, Jenny Rebecca. "Jane Austen Meets Carl Jung: Pride, Prejudice, and Personality Theory." Persuasions 22 (2001).

Salber, Cecilia. "'Excuse my interference': Meddling in Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Sherrod, Barbara. "Pride and Prejudice: A Classic Love Story." Persuasions 11 (1989).

Sherry, James. "Pride and Prejudice: The Limits of Society." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 19, 4 (Autumn 1979) pp 609-22 [free at jstor].

Stoval, Bruce. "Secrets, Silence, and Surprise in Pride and Prejudice." Persuasions 11 (1989).

Wiesenfarth, Joseph. "Violet Hunt Rewrites Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Their Lives (1916)." On Austen's approach to the novel of manners. Persuasions 11 (1989).

Wilson, Jennifer Preston. "'One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it': The Development of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice." Notes Wilson, "The experience of reading Pride and Prejudice can become one of verisimilitude, a movement toward recognition of Darcy as a good man and abandonment of prejudice against him on the part of the reader that mirrors Elizabeth's own awakening. However, Austen does offer subtle signals of Darcy's development throughout her novel." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Wingard, Sara. "Reversal and Revelation: The Five Seasons in Pride and Prejudice." How Austen's use of the seasonal cycle as narrative framework links her to both the eighteenth century and the Romantic period. Persuasions 11 (1989).

Wootton, Sarah. "The Byronic in Jane Austen's Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice." The Modern Language Review 102, 1 (Jan. 2007) pp 26-39 [free at jstor].


Mansfield Park (1814)

Burns, Melissa. "Jane Austen's Mansfield Park: Determining Authorial Intention." Persuasions 26 (2005).

Capitani, Diane. "Moral Neutrality in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park." Provides economic and political details about slavery in the West Indies, as context for Sir Thomas Bertram's Antigua plantation. Persuasions 23 (2002).

Edmundson, Melissa. "A Space for Fanny: The Significance of Her Rooms in Mansfield Park." Persuasions 23 (2002).

Ellwood, Gracia Fay. "'Such a Dead Silence:' Cultural Evil, Challenge, Deliberate Evil, and Metanoia in Mansfield Park." Persuasions 24 (2003).

Kondelik, Marlene. "From Mary Crawford to Kate Croy and Back Again: One Reader's Response to Mansfield Park." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Koppel, Gene. "Mansfield Park and Morgan's Passing: Jane Austen's and Anne Tyler's Problem Novels." Persuasions 20 (1999).

Muse, Sarah J. "The View and Patronage of Mansfield Park." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Palmer, Sally B. "Slipping the Leash: Lady Bertram's Lapdog." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Perkins, Moreland. "Mansfield Park and Austen's Reading on Slavery and Imperial Warfare." Persuasions 26 (2005).

Sheehan, Colleen A. "To Govern the Winds: Dangerous Acquaintances at Mansfield Park." Persuasions 25 (2004).


Emma (1815)

Anderson, Kathleen. "Fathers and Lovers: The Gender Dynamics of Relational Influence in Emma." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Craig, Sheryl Bonar. "The Value of a Good Income: Money in Emma." Persuasions 22 (2001).

Duckworth, W. "Reading Emma: Comic Irony, the Follies of Janeites, and Hermeneutic Mastery." Persuasions 24 (2003).

Fry, Paul H. "Georgic Comedy: The Fictive Territory of Jane Austen's Emma." Studies in the Novel 11, 2 (Summer 1979) pp 129-46 [free at jstor].

Galperin, W., ed. "Re-reading Box Hill: reading the practice of reading everyday life." Six articles on the Box Hill scene in Emma. "Unanswerable Gallantry and Thick-Headed Nonsense" by Michael Gamer. "Part of my aim is simply to show its complexity of signification, particularly the degree to which Austen frustrates even the most fundamental acts of interpretation and upsets rudimentary correspondences between signifiers and apparent signifieds." "Box Hill and the Limits of Realism," by George Levine. "Perhaps the most difficult thing for a modern reader of Emma to do is to take it straight, to accept Mr. Knightley as the moral authority the story seems to make him." "Social Theory at Box Hill: Acts of Union," by Deidre Lynch, who sees the scene as an acting out of several contradictory imperatives of nationhood and British identity. "Leaving Box Hill: Emma and Theatricality," by Adam Potkey, who traces Austen's stated preferences for Cowper and Johnson in pursuing issues of theatricality and display, to an ultimately deconstructive result. "Saying What One Thinks: Emma at Box Hill," by W. Walling, who considers the problem of anachronism, especially as it relates to views that either praise Austen's progressivism or bemoan her cultural limitations. "Boxing Emma; or the Reader's Dilemma at the Box Hill Games," by Susan J. Wolfson, who offers a close reading of the episode and its ramification in Emma. Wolfson contends it demonstrates that the character of Miss Bates is essential to a shifting idea of community in the novel. Romantic Circles (2001).

Grossman, Jonathan H. "The Labor of the Leisured in Emma: Class, Manners, and Austen." Nineteenth-Century Literature 54, 2 (Sept. 1999) pp 143-64 [free at jstor].

Huggins, Cynthia E., ed. "The Victorian Governess: A Bibliography." A list of recommended books and articles on the governess in Victorian society and Victorian novels. At the Victorian Web.

Jackson, Karin. "The Dilemma of Emma: Moral, Ethical, and Spiritual Values." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Juhasz, Suzanne. "Reading Austen Writing Emma." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Kramp, Michael. "The woman, the woman, the gypsies, and England: Harriet Smith's national role" [Emma]. College Literature 31, 1 (Winter 2004) pp 147-68 [muse, extract].

Kuwahara, Kuldip Kaur. "Jane Austen's Emma and Empire: A Postcolonial View." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Lee, Marti D. "Aristos or Aristocracy? Alliances in Emma." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Moore, E. Margaret. "Emma and Miss Bates: Early Experiences of Separation and the Theme of Dependency in Jane Austen's Novels" [psychological and biographical approach]. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 9, 4 (Autumn 1969) pp 573-85 [free at jstor].

Morgan, Susan J. "Emma Woodhouse and the Charms of Imagination." Studies in the Novel 7, 1 (Spring 1975) pp 33-48 [free at jstor].

Morris. Ivor. "The Enigma of Harriet Smith." Persuasions 26 (2005).

Morse, Joann Ryan. "The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth: Shakespearean Comedy in Emma." Prof. Morse compares Austen's comedy in Emma to that of Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Persuasions 26 (2005).

Murray, James Gregory. "Measure and Balance in Jane Austen's Emma." College English 16, 3 (Dec. 1954) pp 160-66 [free at jstor].

Nardin, Jane. "Charity in Emma." Studies in the Novel 7, 1 (Spring 1975) pp 61-72 [free at jstor].

Pickrel, Paul. "Emma as Sequel." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 40, 2 (Sept. 1985) pp 135-53 [free at jstor].

Rogers, Susan. "Emma at Box Hill: A Very Questionable Day of Pleasure." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Stewart, Maaja A. "The Fools in Austen's Emma." Nineteenth-Century Literature 41, 1 (June 1986) pp 72-86 [free at jstor].

Thaden, Barbara Z. "Figure and Ground: The Receding Heroine in Jane Austen's Emma" [Emma as a type of heroine]. South Atlantic Review 55, 1 (Jan. 1990) pp 42067 [free at jstor].

White, Laura Mooneyham. "Beyond the Romantic Gypsy: Narrative Disruptions and Ironies in Austen's Emma." Papers on Language and Literature 44, 3 (Summer 2008) [questia sub ser].


Persuasion (1818)

Cohen, Monica F. "Persuading the Navy home: Austen and married women's professional property." Cohen contends that "Persuasion, by telling the story of how the navy is domesticated in the post-Napoleonic years, also tells the story of how domesticity is professionalized." NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 29, 3 (Spring 1996) pp 346-66 [jstor preview/purchase].

Jones, Susan E. "Thread-cases, Pin-cushions, and Card-racks: Women's Work in the City in Jane Austen's Persuasion." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Kaplan, Laurie. "Sir Walter Elliot's Looking-Glasses, Mary Musgrove's Sofa, and Anne Elliot's Chair: Exteriority/Interiority, Intimacy/Society." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Morris, Ivor. "Persuasion's Unwritten Story." Persuasions 23 (2002).

Yee, Nancy. "Friendship in Persuasion: The Equality Factor." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Young, Kay. "Feeling embodied: consciousness, Persuasion, and Jane Austen." Narrative 11, 1 (Jan. 2003) pp 78-92 [free at jstor].


Lady Susan

Ford, Susan Allen. "'No business with politics': Writing the Sentimental Heroine in Desmond and Lady Susan." Persuasions 26 (2005) [and Charlotte Smith's epistolary novel Desmond].

Soya, Michiko. "Lady Susan: A Game of Capturing the Last Word from Lady Susan to Jane Austen, and Then..." Persuasions 24 (2003).


Jane Austen and Movies

Francus, Marilyn. "Austen at the Movies." A review of Jane Austen in Hollywood. In The Eighteenth Century 41, 2 (Summer 2000) pp 160-68 [free at jstor].

Groenendyk, Kathi. "Modernizing Mansfield Park: Patricia Rozema's Spin on Jane Austen." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Moody, Ellen. Jane Austen on Film, a discussion of film versions of the novels. Prof. Moody's academic web site.

Parrill, Sue. "Metaphors of Control: Physicality in Emma and Clueless." Persuasions 20 (1999).

Robards, Brooks. "The Janeite Lens." Reviews Jane Austen on Screen by Gina MacDonald. The Women's Review of Books 21, 7 (April 2004) p 14 [free at jstor].

Sadoff, Dianne F. "Marketing Jane Austen at the Megaplex." NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 43, 1 (Spring 2010) pp 83-92 [summary].

Salber, Cecilia. "Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy: Art Imitating Art.. Imitating Art." Persuasions 22 (2001).

Turan, Kenneth. "Pride and Prejudice: An Informal History of the Motion Picture." On the 1940 movie version with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. Persuasions 11 (1989).


Themes

Ascarelli, Miriam. "A Feminist Connection: Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Auerbach, Emily. "'A barkeeper entering the kingdom of heaven': Did Mark Twain really hate Jane Austen?" Virginia Quarterly Review Winter 1999, pp 109-20.

Benson, Mary Margaret. "Mothers, Substitute Mothers, and Daughters in the Novels of Jane Austen." Persuasions 11 (1989).

Bray, Joe. "The source of 'dramatized consciousness': Richardson, Austen, and stylistic influence" [and novelist Samuel Richardson]. Style 35, 1 (Spring 2001) [questia sub ser].

Butler, Marilyn; and Irvin Ehrenpreis. "Jane Austen's Politics." A brief, sharp exchange on whether Jane Austen wrote politically conservative novels. NY Review of Books 5 April, 1979.

Cohen, Paula Marantz. "Jane Austen's rejection of Rousseau: A novelistic and feminist initiation." Papers on Language and Literature 30, 3 (Summer 1994) [questia sub ser].

Despotopoulou, Anna. "Fanny's gaze and the construction of feminine space in Mansfield Park." The Modern Language Review 99, 3 (July 2004) pp 569-83 [free at jstor].

Emsley, Sarah. "Laughing at Our Neighbors: Jane Austen and the Problem of Charity." Persuasions 26 (2005).

Enhoffer, Tina. "Chances Are: The Role of Fortune in Jane Austen's Novels." Persuasions 20 (1999).

Graham, Jean. "Austen and the Advantage of Height." Persuasions 20 (1999).

Graham, Peter W. "Born to Diverge: An Evolutionary Perspective on Sibling Personality Development in Austen's Novels." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Graves, David Andrew. "Vocabulary Profiles of Letters and Novels of Jane Austen and her Contemporaries." Persuasions 26 (2005).

Griffin, Michael. "Jane Austen and Religion: Salvation and Society in Georgian Society." Persuasions 23 (2002).

Gross, Gloria. "Mentoring Jane Austen: Reflections on 'My Dear Dr. Johnson.'" About author Samuel Johnson's influence on Jane Austen. Persuasions 11 (1989).

Hansen, Serana. "Rhetorical Dynamics in Jane Austen's Treatment of Marriage Proposals." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Hinnant, Charles H. "Jane Austen's 'wild imagination': romance and the courtship plot in the six canonical novels." Narrative 14, 3 (Oct. 2006) pp 294-310 [free at jstor].

Lenckos, Elisabeth. "Inventing elegant letters, or, why don't Austen's lovers write more often?" Persuasions 26 (2005).

Litvak, Joseph. Caught in the Act: Theatricality in the Nineteenth-Century English Novel. U of California P, 1992. California Digital Library. A complete, book-length critical study. Litvak contends that private experience in Austen "is a rigorous enactment of a public script that constructs normative gender and class identities."

May, Leila S. "Jane Austen's 'schemes of sisterly happiness.'" Philological Quarterly 2002 [highbeam sub ser].

McCawley, Dwight. "Assertion and Aggression in the Novels of Jane Austen." McCawley makes use of the distinction between assertion and aggression from popular books on "assertiveness training" to discuss Austen's characters. Persuasions 11 (1989).

McGuinness, Frank. "Jane Austen in Ireland, 1845." Irish University Review: a journal of Irish Studies 37, 2 (Autumn/Winter 2007) pp 291-301 [free at jstor].

McMaster, Juliet and Victoria Kortes-Papp. "Teaching Austen by Editing: From the Juvenilia to Emma." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Michie, Elsie B. "Austen's powers: Engaging with Adam Smith in debates about wealth and virtue" [economist Adam Smith]. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 34, 1 (Autumn 2000) pp 5-27 [free at jstor].

Miller, Christopher R. "Jane Austen's aesthetics and ethics of surprise." Narrative 13, 3 (Oct. 2005) pp 238-60 [free at jstor].

Morini, Massimiliano. "Who evaluates whom and what in Jane Austen's novels?" Style 41, 4 (Winter2007) [questia sub ser].

Moody, Ellen. "Jane Austen and Time: a study of her use of the almanac." Includes "A Calendar For Sense and Sensibility," and another detailed study of the calendars in Austen's novels. Prof. Moody's academic web site.

Morgan, Susan. "Adoring the Girl Next Door: Geography in Austen." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Nelles, William. "Omniscience for atheists: or, "Omniscience for atheists: or, Jane Austen's infallible narrator." Comparing the narrator to God. Narrative 14, 2 (May 2006) [muse, extract].

Nixon, Cheryl L. and Louise Penner. "Writing by the Book: Jane Austen's Heroines and the Art and Form of the Letter." Persuasions 26 (2005).

Parker, Keiko. "Illustrating Jane Austen." Persuasions 11 (1989).

Powley, Tammy. "The Creation of Rhetorical Conversation." Persuasions 24 (2003).

Pritchard, W.H. "What's Been Happening to Jane Austen?" Hudson Review 57, 2 (Summer 2004) 303-10 [free at jstor].

Rohrbach, Emily. "Austen's later subjects." Studies in English Literature 44, 4 (Autumn 2004) pp 737-52 [muse, preview].

Rowlinson, Hugh. "The Contribution of Count Rumford to Domestic Life in Jane Austen's Time." Persuasions 23 (2002).

Thompson, Allison. "The Felicities of Rapid Motion: Jane Austen in the Ballroom." Persuasions 21 (2000).

Wiesenfarth, Joseph. "Jane Austen's Family of Fiction: From Henry and Eliza to Darcy and Eliza." Persuasions 22 (2001).

Zunshine, Lisa. "Why Jane Austen was different, and why we may need cognitive science to see it." Style 41, 3 (Fall 2007).


Scholarly Journals & Bibliographies

Persuasions, the Journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America, published its first full-text online edition in 1999. Articles are generously provided on an open-access basis from JASNA, and to the gratitude of indexers have not been given new urls over the years! Indexed here through Vol. 26 (2005); more recent articles are available at the JASNA web site.

Women's Writing, an international scholarly journal focusing on women's writing up to the end of the long nineteenth century. A sample copy is available.

"Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Feminist Bibliography" (2003). Ed. Misty G. Anderson.

"Jane Austen Works and Studies 2004." 2003. 2002. 2001. 1999. Ed. Barry Roth. Persuasions.


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