Synopses & Reviews
Searching for Jane Austen demolishes with wit and vivacity the often-held view of "Jane," a decorous maiden aunt writing her small drawing-room stories of teas and balls. Emily Auerbach presents a different Jane Austen—a brilliant writer who, despite the obstacles facing women of her time, worked seriously on improving her craft and became one of the worlds greatest novelists, a master of wit, irony, and character development.
In this beautifully illustrated and lively work, Auerbach surveys two centuries of editing, censoring, and distorting Austens life and writings. Auerbach samples Austens flamboyant, risqué adolescent works featuring heroines who get drunk, lie, steal, raise armies, and throw rivals out of windows. She demonstrates that Austen constantly tested and improved her skills by setting herself a new challenge in each of her six novels.
In addition, Auerbach considers Austens final irreverent writings, discusses her tragic death at the age of forty-one, and ferrets out ridiculous modern adaptations and illustrations, including ads, cartoons, book jackets, newspaper articles, plays, and films from our own time. An appendix reprints a ground-breaking article that introduced Mark Twains "Jane Austen," an unfinished and unforgettable essay in which Twain and Austen enter into mortal combat.
Review
“Scholarly efforts at clarification of Austen's political sympathies are sometimes accompanied by efforts at reconstruction not of Austen but of her readers, as where Auerbach's stated purpose is to dispel popular notions of Austen as limited and priggish, and to redress ‘two centuries of putdowns and touch-ups. Though one would have thought these notions had long since been outmoded, she shows that, surprisingly enough, they persist, not only among readers of the recent past but in present-day students and readers as well, perhaps even, judging from her apologetics, Auerbach herself. . . . Her detailed knowledge of Austen's sources does give us a more complete impression of Austen's wide and eclectic interests.”—New York Review of Books
Review
"This 'search' for Jane Austen finds the playfulness and irreverence of her early writings present, to varying degrees, in all of the novels, but also finds a daring and powerful artist polishing her craft. Novel by novel, Auerbach overturns patronizing concepts about Austen's tiny canvas and limited view."—Booklist
Review
"Emily Auerbach's approach to Jane Austen is lively, engaging, and thoroughly modern. Like Austen, Auerbach wears her wide learning lightly, and imparts a great deal of information in a most enjoyable manner. A witty, approachable introduction to Jane Austen for today's readers, using modern analytical techniques to reveal new aspects of a great writer."—Margaret Drabble, editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature
Review
“Any fan of Austen will find Searching... an invaluable and most refreshing companion to the novels.”—Isthmus
Review
"Emily Auerbach writes with grace and elegance, and her prose is a pleasure to read." —Juliet McMaster, author of Jane Austen the Novelist and Jane Austen in Love
Review
"Searching for Jane Austen is innovative, indeed revolutionary, in the best sense of the word, and will take its place as a major study of Jane Austens work."—Joseph Wiesenfarth, author of Gothic Manners and the Classic English Novel
About the Author
Emily Auerbach is professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, cohost of Wisconsin Public Radios University of the Air, and director of the Courage to Write series of radio documentaries on brave women writers. She has won numerous teaching, broadcasting, and arts awards and has published books, guides, and articles on nineteenth-century literature. Auerbach holds a lifetime membership in the Jane Austen Society of North America.