I picked this book up after reading _Everyday Life In Regency and Victorian England_, which I thought did a decent job of describing the mundane details of English life in the 1800's. Daniel Pool's book is immensely more interesting, detailed, and enjoyable.

_What Jane Austen Ate..._ is divided into two parts: a series of essays on daily life in the 19th century, and an exhaustive glossary of words common to the folk of the period, but not to us. Both parts are engaging and

interesting, suggesting all sorts of interesting ideas for characters, scenes, plots, and schemes (Most people will read this for background on other works, but I read it to ensure historical accuracy in something I'm working on). Pool refers to classical works by Dickens, Austen and Eliot when describing a certain facet of life to help pull it all together.

This book gets 5 stars not because it's the greatest book in the world, but because it's clearly the best of its kind. Readers and writers of 19th century fiction would do well to read it.

If you've read everything by Austen, lots of Trollope and Dickens, you'll enjoy this survey of 19th century English society. I found much in this book that filled in the missing pieces of my understanding of the unwritten rules of this era.

The book is divided into two parts: the first has more lengthy explanations of various aspects of Victorian society--marriage, the military, class, money, law, parliament, etc. Diagrams of class rank and period illustrations are helpful. Quotes from some of the most famous novels of the time are used to illustrate the explanations. There are brief histories of the monarchs interspersed throughout, as well as some medieval history that explains how many of the customs came to be. The second half is a dictionary of commom terms you'll come across in novels from the period.

While the editing of this book leaves a little to be desired, it is an enjoyable read and a decent reference. Serious anglophiles will find it very basic, but the avid novel reader who's history is only "so-so" will find it invaluable.

I certainly wish that I had this book before I started reading Jane Austen, because it would have answered many of my questions. I had tried to use the dictionary and was not always successful. Daniel Pool's excellent book changed all of that! Have you ever wondered why Fanny Price was so dizzy after drinking NEGUS? What exactly was the difference between a GIG and a CURRICLE? Where in the Order of Precedence did Sir William Lucas fall as a BARONET? It is all here in this thoroughly engaging and delightful book. It is here that I finally learned about the daily life of 19th-century England, and the overall social structure of the time. Jane Austen is not the only author covered: Charles Dickens, George Eliot, The Brontes, Thomas Hardy, and Anthony Trollope are well discussed. The glossery is excellent, and full of terms that I could not find even when I used The Oxford Dictionary. The only area that needed further clarification was the chapter about Entails and Protecting The Estate. I never quite understood how Miss Ann De Bourgh was able to inherit her father's estate upon his death, since "A girl should not inherit because if she remained single the line could die out and if she married the estate would pass in possession to someone outside the family." (see pg. 90 hardcover edition) Apart from that, I still feel comfortable giving this book 5 stars, and would advise anyone who loves 19th-century English Literature to add it to their collection. It is a great reference guide of the period.

This biography is an enjoyable read for the lover of Jane Austen novels. Written by an accomplished novelist, it sidesteps the droning tone and monotonous succession of facts that characterize most biographies. Instead, its short chapters tell a story that is both interesting in its own right and a worthwhile companion to a study of Jane Austen's literature.

As a serious biography, however, this account seems to fall short. It's light on facts (partly due to the unrecorded nature of much of Jane Austen's life - still, there's little in the way of factual information that couldn't be summarized in a magazine article) and its information is not well-documented. There are certainly more thorough, factual accounts. Moreover, what Shields' book lacks in hard facts it makes up for in conjecture, the kind of soft-sided narrative that makes for interesting reading but spongy research material.

Still, to Jane Austen fans looking for context, this is a suitable resource. It's written with an eye to her novels and their interaction with her life as well as the emotional and practical trappings of authorship. It gives readers insight into the atmosphere of her life, the people she knew and the places she lived, what her days were like. It's interesting and well-written, and short, and sweet.

This is one of several volumes in the Penguin Lives Series, each of which written by a distinguished author in her or his own right. Each provides a concise but remarkably comprehensive biography of its subject in combination with a penetrating analysis of the significance of that subject's life and career. I think this is a brilliant concept. My only complaint (albeit a quibble) is that even an abbreviated index is not provided. Those who wish to learn more about the given subject are directed to other sources.

When preparing to review various volumes in this series, I have struggled with determining what would be of greatest interest and assistance to those who read my reviews. Finally I decided that a few brief excerpts and then some concluding comments of my own would be appropriate.

On Austen's focus: "Jane Austen chose to focus on daughters rather than mothers in her writing (with the exception of her short and curious novel Lady Susan), but nevertheless mothers are essential in her fiction. They are the engines that push the action forward, even when they fail to establish much in the way of maternal warmth. Daughters achieve their independence by working against the family constraints, their young spirits struck from the passive, lumpish postures of their ineffectual or distanced mothers." (page 15)

On one of her dominant themes: "Because of her bright splintery dialogue is so often interrupted by a sad, unanswerable tone of estranged sympathy, stirred by complacent acts of hypocrisy or injustice, the reader of Austen's novels comes again and again to the reality of a persistent moral anger. It is a manageable anger, and artfully concealed by the mechanism of an arch, incontrovertible amiability." (page 57)

Nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh on her "isolation": "Jane Austen lived in entire seclusion from the literary world; neither by correspondence, nor by personal intercourse was she known to any contemporary authors. It is probable that she never was in company with any contemporary authors. It is probable that she never was in company with persons whose talents or whose celebrity equaled her own; so that her powers never could have been sharpened by collision with superior intellects, nor her imagination aided by their casual suggestions. Whatever she produced was a home-made article." (Page 142)

These brief excerpts guide and inform a careful reader's understanding of Austen's artistic achievement. They also suggest all manner of correlations between her art and personal life. As is also true of the other volumes in the "Penguin Lives" series, this one provides all of the essential historical and biographical information but its greatest strength lies in the extended commentary, in this instance by Carol Shields. She also includes "A Few Words About Sources" for those who wish to learn more about Jane Austen. I hope these brief excerpts encourage those who read this review to read Shields' biography. It is indeed a brilliant achievement.

At the begining of this biography, Carol Shields warns us that not enought documents and recollections remain to paint a realistic picture of Jane Austen.

Ms. Shields employs her acute sense of empaphy-- gloriously exhibited in "The Stone Diaries"-- to imagine the author behind "Emma" and "Sense and Sensibility". There is no way to confirm the veracity of Ms. Shields meditation, but it doesn't matter.

If the "Jane Austen" exhibited, in this enthralling member of the Penguin-Lipper "Lives" series, is a character who is purely Carol Shields' creation, she is fascinating: ironic, observant, and razor sharp.

In most books from the "Lives" series, the reader acquires not only an appretiation of the subject matter, but becomes familiar with the personality, open-minded analysis, and ethusiasm of the author.

Carol Shields is a terrific guide through Jane Austen's sensibilities and accomplishments.

This book is easy, fun, and entertaining. If you just looked at the sample pages provided by Amazon, you'd think it is nothing but a collection of quotations of people's opinions of Jane Austen. Well, there are a lot of opinionated quotations, from people you've heard of and people you haven't heard of. There are also Q&A interviews with knowledgable JA fans and actors who've played JA roles. There are quizzes.

Most of the pieces are short, so it's a good book for readers with limited attention spans. The book also has a magazinelike format: the pages are bordered, and there are insets and decorative separators between chunks of text.

I was delighted to learn that two columnists I admire, Miss Manners (Judith Martin) and Edith Lank, who writes about real estate and appears in our local house-and-garden section every Sunday, are big fans. That explains why I like them.

There's quite a lot of information in this book in spite of its "light" look, and it's entertaining, but if you prefer sustained discussion and development, you'll want to choose another book.

I am a newcomer to the joys of Jane Austen (kind of embarrassing because of my age)and I read this after having read Ms. Austen's 6 completed and most widely read novels. I really enjoyed reading this book,it has a little biographical info, trivia and insight into the stories themselves. Although I didn't agree with everything the author expressed, I would turn a page and learn something about something else. And of course, as I was reading it, I kept saying to myself, oh, I need to go back and reread this book and see what this author is talking about. How cannot you not recommend a book that inspires you to reread all of Jane Austen's books! This book could also be useful in a classroom of high school students, what a fun way to introduce Jane Austen to students who think she is boring or hard to read.

This is easily one of the most entertaining books I've read on Jane Austen (and, believe me, I've read lots!). It's a must-have for Janeites everywhere and is loaded with fascinating facts, fun tidbits and even interviews from actresses to authors to scholars who have been involved in Jane Austen work in varied forms. This is the kind of book that you would return to over and over again. This book, along with Daniel Pool's "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew," is one of the best ever written on Ms. Austen. Highly recommended!

I am not normally a fan of this type of novel (hell, I read science fiction), but I read this book for an English AP class this summer, and I must say that I liked it. As a snapshot of English social life at the time it was written, it is faultless. The plot, while somewhat inconsequential by today's so-called "standards", is entertaining, and leaves the reader in a state of suspense up 'till the conclusion. The dialogue is also very charming, witty, and definately a product of it's time, but relevant. There are novels throughout the history of literature that stand as epoches for certain time periods, and Emma can be realistically called one of them. It wraps up the early 19th century English social life period very well, and more realistically and less sense of being dated than Pride and Prejudice or some of Jane Austen's other novels (or those of her contemporaries.) If you like this type of novel it is a must read, or, if you're like me, it is something interesting to pick up when you want something different from what you usually read.

I definitely recommend this book to first time Jane Austen readers, and especially to young girls, for it is so cute and so amusing. I wish I were "forced" to read this in High School for I would have surely written good papers on it. I can't see how anyone can dislike this classic. Jane Austen's character "Emma" has her faults of course, be she is a true character that is amusing and utterly charming, unlike those characters in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, which by no doubt are wonderful books, but Emma truly has to be my favorite Austen work. It is predictable, even without having seen the movie that was based on this work (that mind some of you was written over 200 years before Alicia Silverstone existed...gosh!) but the predictability of it made it all the more enjoyable, like a sort of mystery in romance. I definitely recommend this book to anyone over the age of 11 or 12. I know I'll make my kids read it some day. It is superb!

Emma is the first Jane Austen novel I ever read, and 13 years later it's still my favorite. It's also the most accessible, easy to read Austen novel. I literally could not put this book down. I thought all the characters, especially Emma, were wonderful. The title character, whie arrogant, was well meaning in her attempts to play matchmaker for the people around her. I could really relate to her, because I recognized that I've met people like her. She was at once funny, well intentioned, spoiled, controlling, and sweet. This book is really funny. The introduction is very useful in helping the reader keep all the events of the story straight. As well, it gives readers insight into the times, and into Austen's views about society. I really appreciated having the cast of characters printed at the beginning of the book, because there are alot (sometimes, it seems, too many) characters inhabiting the book. Because each person in the novel is so distinct and well drawn, the occasional confusion is worth it. I highly reccommend this book to anyone!

This book really is the story about a girl who lives in her books and learns to live outside of the imaginary world she creates. The book is a satire of the Gothic novel, but I think it is more than that. It's the story how the words one person says may be reflected onto someone else and how they can be interpreted to either enrich or ruin another's life. The way that John Thorpe, in order to make himself look better, "enriched" Catherine's story; the diverging opinions of James & Isabella; the general falseness of Isabella & John; and how the simplest statement can be misconstrued & almost ruin a friendship.

Catherine, by living in her novels (aided by Henry, of course), sees things that aren't really there when she visits Northanger Abbey. She makes mountains out of mole-hills. Thankfully, Henry acknowledges the role he had in creating these fantasies and is able to help her laugh it off.

This is a great Austen novel, and although you can tell that it was her first, I think it ranks right up there with the others.

I spent most of the story wishing to dance with the witty Henry Tilney, slap the artful and manipulative Isabella, lose my temper with the deceitful John, and give Catherine Morland a good shake to knock some sense into her.

That said, any book that can drag me into the characters' lives as Northanger Abbey did is praiseworthy. It's an easy read once you get the hang of the language.

I really enjoyed Austen's tongue-in-cheek lambasting of novelists whose heroines never read novels - "Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ingenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding-joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust." Her derision for the flights of fancy of the Gothic novelists of the day are readily apparent throughout the novel. Catherine imagines herself in romantic, mysterious situations (found in her favorite novel, Udolpho), as when she first thinks of her upcoming visit to the Abbey: "To see and explore either the ramparts and keep of the one, or the cloisters of the other, had been for many weeks a darling wish, though to be more than the visitor of an hour had seemed too nearly impossible for desire." Yet when she arrives she is disappointed in its modernity and normalcy - something that wouldn't be tolerated in a Gothic tale!

If the ends of books are like desserts, then the end of Northanger Abbey could be compared to Jell-O rather than Cherries Jubilee, but the readers should focus on the meat and potatoes instead. All in all, an enjoyable read.

While this was one of the last Jane Austen novels published, it was the first one to be written. I read this book before I was familiar with the conventions of the Gothic novel, but this book is a worthy send up of all of those conventions. Even if you are not especially familiar with the works of Anne Radcliffe or Monk Lewis, this novel is worth your time. The opening three pages which describe why Catherine Morland really isn't the heroine type are as funny as anything you'd read today. Other great passages are when Austen defends the reading of fiction in a passionate aside, and when Catherine becomes convinced that General Tilney is keeping his wife locked up in the dungeon of Northanger Abbey.

In this book, we have the beginnings of Jane's devastating wit as she tears apart society. We also have the benefit of some witty one liners, flighty characters and hilarious situations. (Of special note is the fact that it would seem that college men have ALWAYS been drinking and swearing type guys... although Austen discretely blanks out the 'dirty' words so as not to offend her readers.)

I used to rush home from work to read this book, and was not disappointed in it at all, from beginning to end. This is the best place to start with Austen (well, you could also read her juvenilia if you want... it is more silly than anything, but entertaining nonetheless), and it's definitely a fun read.

Boy meets girl, they hate each other at first sight, then fall in love. Only Jane Austen could take such a cliche and turn it in a beautiful story, romantic but not corny, witty, and evocative. Okay, the dialogue is somewhat difficult to follow, especially for those of us whose first language is not English (the first time I tried to read this book I just couldn't get past the first couple of pages), but once you get used to it, you instantly fall in love with the story and the writer. I have read most of Jane Austen's books, but this one remains my favorite.

Did anyone else feel a distinct sense of disappointment at the revelation of the mercenary, materialistic nature of the otherwise handsome and dashing Mr Willoughby's character? However, I think Marianne's heart-break was eased by the stead-fast and loving Colonel Brandon. I love this novel. I had been forever avoiding experiencing any other Jane Austen novels for fear they would not live up to the high expectations created by the fabulous "Pride and Prejudice", however, when hearing of the imminent arrival of the fabulous Emma Thompson's adapted version at local cinemas, I decided to take the chance and read this book. I'm glad I did! This is another Austen gem. Elinor and Marianne are wonderful characters, as are all the others. If you are like I was and are afraid of spoiling your first Austen experience with another, don't be. "Sense and Sensibility" is another Austen triumph. Marriage, society and class are again given a unique Austen work over!

Anyone who gives this book a bad review has no class. Jane Austen is one of the most celebrated writers in history. You just have to get past the fancy words. Beneath that is a classic and romantic story. Sense and Sensibility is the best romance novel I have ever read. I would recommend watching the movie first, though, if your Old English vocabulary isn't very strong.

Like all devoted lovers of Jane Austen, I have long pondered why she chose to write this, of all books, at time she was experiencing the intoxicating success of Pride and Prejudice.

The protagonist is a loathesome little priss. Austen herself says so in her letters. Fanny Price is neurotic and oversensitive where Austen's other heroines are brash and healthy. Even Austen's own family found the ending as odd and disappointing as do subsequent generations of readers.

So there's a puzzle to be solved here. The answer may lie in the fact that this book was written when, after a lifetime of obscurity, Austen found herself, briefly, a huge success. As is so often the case with writers, the success of her earlier book may have given her the courage to decided write about something that REALLY mattered to her--and what that was was her own very complex feelings about the intensely sexual appeal of a morally unworthy person.

This topic, the charm of the scoundrel, is one that flirts through all her other books, usually in a side plot. However, the constraints of Austen's day made it impossible for her to write the story of a woman who falls for a scoundrel with a sympathetic viewpoint character.

So what I think Austen may have decided to do was to write this story using Edmund--a male--as the sympathetic character who experiences the devastating sexual love of someone unworthy. Then, through a strange slight of hand, she gives us a decoy protagonist--Fanny Price, who if she is anything, is really the judgemental, punishing Joy Defeating inner voice--the inner voice that probably kept Jane from indulging her own very obvious interest in scoundrels in real life!

In defense of this theory, consider these points:

1. Jane herself loved family theatricals. Fanny's horror of them and of the flirting that took place is the sort of thing she made fun of in others. Jane also loved her cousin, Eliza, a married woman of the scoundrelly type, who flirted outrageously with Jane's brother Henry when Jane was young--very much like Mary Crawford. The fact is, and this bleeds through the book continuously, Austen doesn't at all like Fanny Price!

To make it more complex, Fanny's relationship with Henry Crawford is an echo of the Edmund-Mary theme, but Austen makes Henry so appealing that few readers have forgiven Austen for not letting Fanny liven up a little and marry him! No. Austen is trying to make a case for resisting temptation, but in this book she most egregiously fails.

2. Austen is famous for never showing us a scene or dialogue which she hadn't personally observed in real life, hence the off-stage proposals in her other books.

Does this not make it all the more curious that the final scene between Edmund and Mary Crawford in which he suffers his final disillusionment and realizes the depths of her moral decay comes to us with some very convincing dialogue? Is it possible that Jane lived out just such a scene herself? That she too was forced by her inner knowlege of what was right to turn away from a sexually appealing scoundrel of her own?

3. Fanny gets Edmund in the end, but it is a joyless ending for most readers because it is so clear that he is in love with Mary. Can it be that Austen here was suggesting the grim fate that awaits those who do turn away from temptations--a lifetime of listening to that dull, upstanding, morally correct but oh so joyless voice of reason?

We'll never know. Cassandra Austen burnt several years' worth of her sister's letters--letters written in the years before she prematurely donned her spinster's cap and gave up all thoughts of finding love herself. Her secrets whatever they were, were kept within the family.

But one has to wonder about what was really going on inside the curious teenaged girl who loved Samual Richardson's rape saga and wrote the sexually explicit oddity that comes to us as Lady Susan. Perhaps in Mansfield Park we get a dim echo of the trauma that turned the joyous outrageous rebel who penned Pride and Prejudice in her late teens into the staid, sad woman when she was dying wrote Persuasion--a novel about a recaptured young love.

So with that in mind, why not go and have another look at Mansfield Park!

this book was interesting enough. i love jane austen. my two personal faves were pride and prejudice and emma. this was interesting, the plot was intriguing and everything. i just thought that way too much was going on throughout the book. it was event after event after event. it was definitely suspenseful. the end was satisfying enough. fanny is not the best of jane austen's heroines. my favorite character was sir thomas. he was cool. i enjoy reading books of this sort generally. fanny could have been more interesting. i don't get why she was so totally in love with edmund the whole time that he was in love with mary crawford. it is a good read if you have time. it took me a month or so to read it because i had to read in the few spare moments i have aside from school reading and other work. i do recommend it to people who enjoy jane austen and those who are willing to take a good chunk of time out of their day to read.

I have read all of Austen's works and "Mansfield Park" is one of the best. I could usually feel for the main character, Fanny Price, and relate to her. By loving her cousin Edmund so completely, she suffered greatly when Mary Crawford drew his attention and admiration. I would have been rather angry if I were Fanny been left sitting alone for a whole hour while they walked through the woods. Mr. Crawford's love of Fanny rather surprised me, because he didn't deserve her after flirting so mercilessly with her cousins. I was a glad that there was a happy ending. I believe the most satisfying reads (like those by Jane Austen) always have happy endings.

"Lady Susan" by Jane Austen is an epistolary novel comprising only letters among the characters. Lady Susan is a vile woman who is flirting her way through England after the death of her husband. She comes early in the short book to stay with her late husband's brother's family. Her sister-in-law, Catherine Vernon, shares horrified letters with her mother about Lady Susan's designs on her brother, Reginald de Courcy. She is also horrified by Lady Susan's treatment of her daughter with the late Lord Vernon, Frederica.

The novel isn't quite as rewarding as Austen's other works that I've read ("Pride and Prejudice," "Emma," "Persuasion," "Sense and Sensibility") in that the ending isn't as compelling and is a little predictable. The letter format of the book is charming, but difficult to read aloud, as we did. I found the characters more one-sided than Austen normally writes them. But I enjoyed reading it, and am looking forward to someday reading the last two, "Mansfield Park," and "Northanger Abbey."

Jane Austen loves scandal and Lady Susan is one of the best. In the first few pages we are introduced to a mother who flirts with a spoken-for man to detach him from his engagement so he'll be available to marry her daughter, all the while having her eye on a married man. Also featuring a hostile sister-in-law, a clueless brother, and an equally mischievous confidante named Alicia, the whole short novel is full of scheming, match-making, and more of Austen's usual forte, delicious gossip. 4 stars because the format of the novel, 40 letters and a conclusion, is confusing at times and makes keeping all the characters straight a challenge. Definitely rereadable, and lots of fun.

Jane Austen is known for six complete novels, each one a masterpiece. This Penguin Classics compilation features one novel unpublished in her lifetime and two unfinished fragments. This book is proof that even an incomplete Austen is better than no Austen at all.

"Lady Susan" is an epistolary novel whose eponymous anti-heroine, unlike the women featured in Austen's other works, is bad to the bone. When the book opens, Lady Susan, a stunningly beautiful widow in her upper thirties, has just been sent packing from the home of a family she had spent some months with, having been discovered carrying on a flagrant affair with the husband of the family, right under his wife's nose. She takes refuge with her kind-hearted brother and his sensible wife, who sees through Lady Susan from the day she enters the house and can't wait to see her leave. Also in the home are Lady Susan's teenage daughter, who has been expelled from boarding school after attempting to run away so that she won't be forced into marrying the rich, fatuous nobleman her mother has picked out for her; and the younger brother of Lady Susan's sister-in-law, who has heard intimations about Lady Susan's unsavory reputation; in retaliation for his initial disdain, Lady Susan sets out to captivate him and succeeds so well that she has him on the brink of proposing marriage to her, despite the fact that he is 12 years younger than she is, much to the alarm of his family. It looks as though he is about to fall into her clutches, when a chance meeting between him and the wife of Lady Susan's lover blows all Lady Susan's machinations, as well as her reputation, to smithereens. Lady Susan, to save what is left of her honor, ends up marrying the rich, fatuous nobleman she intended for her daughter; Jane Austen slyly hints that Lady Susan and her married lover will continue their affair under the noses of both their spouses. The book's ending is in a narrative style that appears simply tacked on, as if Austen got tired of both the story and the epistolary style she wrote it in; but on the whole, it's an enjoyable read, interesting mostly because it is so different in style and content from the books we're familiar with.

"The Watsons" is a delight from beginning to middle; I can't say "end" because, unfortunately, Austen never finished it. It's very much in the style of her six major works. Emma Watson is the youngest child of a large family and has been raised by her rich aunt since early childhood; she is thrown back on her impoverished family when her aunt makes an ill-advised second marriage. She is thus reintroduced at the age of 19 to her terminally ill father, two brothers and three unmarried sisters. Emma is a refreshingly original heroine very much in the style of Elizabeth Bennet; she's bright, astute, spirited, perceptive, down to earth, and unimpressed with mere good looks and money. She has no problem rejecting the town casanova who thinks he's all that and a bag of chips; nor is she especially impressed by the young lord of the manor who is infatuated with her. A footnote to the story says that Jane Austen told her sister how the book was to end; we could have guessed it even without the footnote, but it's a great story and would surely have been included in her major works if only she had lived to complete it.

"Sanditon" is probably the best known of Austen's unpublished works; it's also a fragment of a novel, very different in content from her finished works. Austen excels in writing about manners and morals; "Sanditon" is more about social commentary, and somehow, it doesn't work as well. The characters in "Sanditon" are not as interesting or compelling as the people in her other works; they are not nearly as well drawn; they're more like sketches or caricatures than three-dimensional persons. It's difficult to tell how she would have ended the book, and there's not really enough interest to the plot to make us want to know. "Sanditon" is the weakest of the three stories in this volume, but "The Watsons" and "Lady Susan" more than make up for its defects. One can see in these two works the development of a great writer.