Mavis Batey takes the reader on a relaxed written tour of the pastoral Britain of Jane Austen's time. She has researched the philosophical and poetic background--Cowper, Gilpin, Rousseau, Repton and others--of the late 1700s and early 1800s to help the reader understand the literary climate that influenced Jane's own written portraits of life in her time. I particularly enjoyed the warm pictures she painted of Austen family life--as the Austens worked in their gardens and walked through their shrubberies . . Mavis connects each of Jane's books with Jane's response to the familial and intellectual landscape of the correlating time. And she does all this without wearying us. I think this is one book about Jane of which Jane would approve. I also found it in my university library, and I want it!

I checked this book out of my university library several times and finally had to buy it. Batey's scholarship is thorough and impeccable. I have turned to the book as a resource repeatedly, and also have joyfully read the work for the sheer pleasure of it. If you need to know about Gilpin and the Picturesque, Austen and the Rousseau connection, or the Responsible Landlord in Austen's novels, get this book for your reference shelf. A must for serious Janites.