Jane Austen Encyclopedia

Perhaps the first modern novelist, Jane Austen (1775-1817) has left an indelible mark on the world of letters. She is best known as the author of penetrating studies of domestic life and manners, and her novels such as Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Mansfield Park (1814) continue to be read and appreciated today. Yet Austen also wrote numerous other pieces and a substantial body of letters. While her novels have received large amounts of critical attention, scholars have also increasingly studied her other writings, and Austen scholarship continues to grow each year. This reference book is an accurate, comprehensive, and detailed guide to her life and career.

A chronology outlines the principal events in her life and places her within larger literary and historical contexts. The several hundred alphabetically arranged entries that follow identify characters and family members, discuss works and themes, and synthesize the large body of criticism that has grown around her works. Every one of her texts, including all of her minor writings, has a separate entry, as have most of her fictional characters. Entries for individual works typically provide details of composition and publication, a plot summary and critical commentary, a list of characters, and bibliographical references. The volume closes with an extensive bibliography of works by and about her.

Through chronologies, alphabetically arranged entries, and extensive bibliographies, this encyclopedia provides detailed and comprehensive information about Austen's life, works, and critical reputation.

Library Journal

This superb reference examines Austen's life, her work, and the body of criticism about both. The biographical sections consist of three chronological listings. They trace her life and literary development (with a map of key locations and a genealogical chart of the Austen family), the social and historical era in which Austen lived (with sketches of period costumes and methods of transportation), and the literary world in which she is embedded (including notes on books Austen read or knew). The heart of the encyclopedia is an alphabetical listing of extensive entries on her works, characters, plots, themes, and critical reception. This section addresses all of Austen's texts, be they juvenilia, minor works, or major novels. The work's final section, a three-part bibliography, lists all of Austen's works (with publication history and all scholarly editions); critical books on Austen published up to 1996 (presented in standard bibliography format and also in chronological order so that the development of Austen studies can be traced), and selected essays and articles. While there are many works on Austen and several good reference books on her work, most notably The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (Cambridge Univ., 1997) and David Grey's The Jane Austen Companion (Macmillian, 1986), this work is unique in its scope and in its integration of biographical, literary, and critical contexts. The straightforward style and wealth of information makes this work highly suitable for public libraries, but D.H. Lawrence scholar Poplawski (Trinity Coll.) has created an encyclopedia that is a boon to Austen scholars, making this an essential purchase for all academic libraries.--Neal Wyatt, Chesterfield Cty. P.L., VA

PAUL POPLAWSKI is Director of Studies at Vaughan College, University of Leicester. He has taught widely in 19th and 20th century literature and specializes in D. H. Lawrence, Modernism, and Jane Austen. He recently published a revised 3rd edition of Warren Robets' A Bibliography of D. H. Lawrence (2001). He is also the author of D. H. Lawrence: A Reference Companion (Greenwood, 1996), and A Jane Austen Encyclopedia (Greenwood, 1998), and editor of Writing the Body in D. H. Lawrence (Greenwood, 2001).