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

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

A selective list of online literary criticism on Jane Austen, favoring signed scholarly articles and books, peer-reviewed sources, sources supervised by (named) editors, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Web Sites.

Main Page | 19th-Century Literature | 19th-Century Novel | About literaryhistory.com.

Biographical Studies

Grey, J. David. "Henry Austen: Jane Austen's 'Perpetual Sunshine.'" Persuasions Occasional Papers 1 (1984).

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

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

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

Nicolson, Nigel. "Jane Austen in Bath." On Jane Austen's feelings about her time in Bath. The Spectator (2003).

Nokes, Edward. The first chapter of Jane Austen: A Life. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.

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).

Austen's Novels & Themes

Auerbach, Emily. "'A barkeeper entering the kingdom of heaven': Did Mark Twain really hate Jane Austen?" Virginia Quarterly Review (1999) (taken offline).

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

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

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

Cohen, Paula Marantz. "Jane Austen's rejection of Rousseau: A novelistic and feminist initiation." Papers on Language and Literature (1994).

DeForest, Mary and Eric Johnson. "Computing Latinate Word Usage in Jane Austen's Novels." A description of a computer-aided study developed to identify the use of Latinate language by characters in Jane Austen. Computers and Text (2000).

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).

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 (2006).

Khaleque, M. Abdul. "Jane Austen's Idea of a Home." Persuasions 26 (2005).

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).

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 (2007).

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 (2000).

Miller, Christopher R. "Jane Austen's aesthetics and ethics of surprise." Narrative (2005).

Moody, Ellen. "Jane Austen and Time: a study of her use of the almanac." A collection of writings on Jane Austen posted by Professor Moody. Includes "A Calendar For Sense and Sensibility," and another detailed study of the calendars in Austen's novels. Also Jane Austen on Film for a discussion of film versions of the novels.

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

Morini, Massimiliano. "Who evaluates whom and what in Jane Austen's novels?" Style (2007).

Nelles, William. "Omniscience for atheists: or, Jane Austen's infallible narrator." Narrative (2006). On the comparison of the narrator to God.

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 (2004).

Rohrbach, Emily. "Austen's later subjects." Studies in English Literature (2004).

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).

White, Laura Mooneyham. "Beyond the Romantic Gypsy: Narrative Disruptions and Ironies in Austen's Emma." Papers on Language and Literature (2008).

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

Woods, Karen. "'It is a Truth Universally Acknowledged': Dance and the Truth in Two Novels by Jane Austen." The Austen Quarterly 3 (1999). On the meaning of social dancing in Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

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

Emma (1815)

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

Bader, Ted. "Mr. Woodhouse is not a Hypochondriac!" Persuasions 21 (2000).

Caplan, Clive. "The Source for Emma's William Larkins." 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).

Gamer, Michael. "Unanswerable Gallantry and Thick-Headed Nonsense." Gamer writes, "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." Re-reading Box Hill: reading the practice of reading everyday life, ed. by W. Galperin. Romantic Circles (2001).

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." College Literature (2004). [Jane Austen's Emma]

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).

Levine, George. "Box Hill and the Limits of Realism," "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." Re-reading Box Hill: reading the practice of reading everyday life, ed. by W. Galperin. Romantic Circles (2001).

Lynch, Deidre. "Social Theory at Box Hill: Acts of Union." On the Box Hill episode in Emma, sees the scene as an acting out of several contradictory imperatives of nationhood and British identity. Re-reading Box Hill: reading the practice of reading everyday life, ed. by W. Galperin. Romantic Circles (2001).

Mills, Jane. "Clueless: transforming Jane Austen's Emma." Australian Screen Education (2004) (taken offline).

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." Persuasions 26 (2005).

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

Potkey, Adam. "Leaving Box Hill: Emma and Theatricality." Potkey traces Austen's stated preferences for Cowper and Johnson in pursuing issues of theatricality and display, to an ultimately deconstructive result. Re-reading Box Hill: reading the practice of reading everyday life, ed. by W. Galperin. Romantic Circles (2001).

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

Walling, W. "Saying What One Thinks: Emma at Box Hill." Walling considers the problem of anachronism, especially as it relates to views that either praise Austen's progressivism or bemoan her cultural limitations. Re-reading Box Hill: reading the practice of reading everyday life, ed. by W. Galperin. Romantic Circles (2001).

Wolfson, Susan J. "Boxing Emma; or the Reader's Dilemma at the Box Hill Games." A close reading of the Box Hill episode and its ramification in Emma, which demonstrates how the character of Miss Bates is essential to a shifting idea of community in the novel. Re-reading Box Hill: reading the practice of reading everyday life, ed. by W. Galperin. Romantic Circles (2001).

Mansfield Park (1814)

Aragay, Mireia. "Possessing Jane Austen: Fidelity, authorship, and Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park (1999)," On the film version of Mansfield Park. Literature/Film Quarterly (2003).

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).

Davis, Gregson. "Jane Austen's Mansfield Park: the Antigua Connection." Provides historical, biographical and socio-economic contexts, illuminating the references to Antigua in Mansfield Park, includes historic map. From Antigua and Barbuda Country Conference, November 13-15, 2003.

Despotopoulou, Anna. "Fanny's gaze and the construction of feminine space in Mansfield Park." The Modern Language Review (2004).

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).

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

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).

Sutherland, John. "Edward Said's useful errors," includes a discussion of Said's charges that Mansfield Park rests on imperialism. Times Literary Supplement, 16 March, 2005. (taken offline).

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).

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 (1996).

Gottlieb, Sidney. "Persuasion and cinematic approaches to Jane Austen." Literature/Film Quarterly (2002).

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).

Macomber, Lenore. "A New View of Jane Austen's Persuasion." Persuasions 24 (2003).

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

Wootton, Sarah. "The Byronic in Jane Austen's Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice." The Modern Language Review (2007) [poet Lord Byron].

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

Young, Kay. "Feeling embodied: consciousness, Persuasion, and Jane Austen." Narrative (2003).

Pride and Prejudice (1813)

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

Bonaparte, Felicia. "Conjecturing possibilities: reading and misreading texts in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice." Studies in the Novel (2005).

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

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

Glancy, Kathleen. "What Happened Next? or The Many Husbands of Georgiana Darcy." Persuasions 11 (1989).

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

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

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).

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).

Millard, Mary. "Pride and Prejudice Quiz." Persuasions 11 (1989).

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

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

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).

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

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

Stasio, Michael J. and Duncan, Kathryn. "An evolutionary approach to Jane Austen: prehistoric preferences in Pride and Prejudice." Studies in the Novel (2007)

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

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

Wiesenfarth, Joseph. A comparison of two novels illuminates Austen's approach to the novel of manners. "Violet Hunt Rewrites Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Their Lives (1916)." 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." Persuasions 25 (2004). 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."

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

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).

Goldman, Rene. "Jane Austen in Vienna: Some Reflections on a Curious Socio-Historical Application of Her Two Illustrious Antinomies." Persuasions 21 (2000).

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

Ray, Joan Klingel. "'The Amiable Prejudices of a Young [Writer's] Mind': The Problems of Sense and Sensibility." Persuasions 26 (2005).

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

Lady Susan

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

Scholarly Journals and Texts

Persuasions, the Journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America, published its first full-text online edition in 1999. Indexed in literaryhistory.com through Vol. 26, (2005).

The Jane Austen Quarterly, Spring 1999 edition, published by the American Society of Jane Austen Scholars. Also archived copies, 1996-1998.

Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. A scholarly journal devoted to the study of women's literature of all periods and nationalities [Feminist and Women's Studies].

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 for viewing, requires registration.

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

"Jane Austen Works and Studies (2004)." Ed. Barry Roth. Persuasions 26 (2005).

"Jane Austen Works and Studies (2003)." Ed. By Barry Roth. Persuasions 25 (2004).

"Jane Austen Works and Studies (2002)." Ed. Barry Roth. Persuasions 24 (2003).

"Jane Austen Works and Studies (2001)." Ed. Barry Roth. Persuasions 23 (2002).

"Jane Austen Works and Studies (1999)." Ed. Barry Roth. Persuasions 22 (2001).

Introduction & Lighter Reading

Clark, Robert. "Jane Austen." 8 Jan., 2001. Literary Encyclopedia. Eds. Robert Clark, Emory Elliott, Janet Todd. 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.

Shields, Carol. "The Case of the Wimpy Heroine." Salon Magazine 17 Jan., 1998. About the problem of not liking the heroine, Fanny Price, in Mansfield Park.

"Award-Winning Love." PBS News Hour transcript. 14 Feb., 1996. A discussion on Jane Austen's books and films, with Elizabeth Farnsworth, Carol Shields, Cynthia Heimel, and Roger Rosenblatt.

Rapping, Elaine. "The Jane Austen Thing." The Progressive (1996). Rapping asks, "What is the appeal of these highly mannered and moralistic tales of rigidly choreographed courtship and marriage rituals to a generation of young women brought up to assume they could 'have it all.'"

Matthews, Athalie. "Jane Austen Wins More Fans than Zadie Smith." The Independent (London) (2003). Matthews writes, "Despite the huge commercial success of modern authors such as J K Rowling, Zadie Smith and Helen Fielding, Austen's bittersweet social comedy Pride and Prejudice - written in 1813 - topped a survey of the greatest women writers yesterday."

Kaplan, Deborah. The Pride of Austen Critics: a Prejudice? Chronicle of Higher Education 11 March, 2005. How academic literary critics are responding to Jane Austen's popularity, which extends from high to popular culture.

Mosel, Tad. "Jane Austen's Two Inches of Ivory." Persuasions Occasional Papers 1 (1984).

"Jane Austen." Women in the Literary Marketplace. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell U. Contains short entries on Victorian women authors, their typical themes, the publishing context, and of first editions.

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

Pelling, Rowan. "Erotic literature." New Statesman, 4 Dec., 1998. A humorous first person essay, in which the writer contends that the novels of Jane Austen and Emily Bronte are more genuinely erotic than those of D.H. Lawrence (taken offline).

Waldman, Adelle. "Cents and Sensibility: The surprising truth about sales of classic novels." Slate, 2 April, 2003. On Jane Austen's novels as money-makers for publishers (taken offline).

Roberts, Michele. "When Jane Austen describes meals, they are never innocent events." New Statesman, 21 July, 2003 (taken offline).

Reviews of Scholarship on Jane Austen.

Main Page | 19th-Century Literature | 19th-Century Novel | About literaryhistory.com.

1998-2010 by Jan Pridmore.