The Real Jane Austen

Who was the real Jane Austen? Overturning the traditional portrait of the author as conventional and genteel, bestseller Paula Byrne’s landmark biography reveals the real woman behind the books. Each chapter begins with an object that conjures up a key moment or theme in Austen’s life and work—a silhouette, a vellum notebook, a topaz cross, a laptop writing box, a royalty cheque, a bathing machine, and many more and the woman who emerges is far tougher, more socially and politically aware, and altogether more modern than the conventional picture would allow. This lively book brings Austen dazzlingly into the twenty-first century.