My only previous foray into all things Austen - as opposed to the novels themselves - was Claire Tomalin's biography of a few years ago, so I was interested to read Claire Harman's analysis of Jane's place in culture, popular and otherwise, in Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World.
Beginning with her family's early attempts to protect and preserve her memory, and moving on through periods when she was out of mind and her books out of favour, to her wider reception in the world (cf the extreme liberties taken by her early French translator) and her present day immense popularity, the book is full of interest and very readable.
Not everyone is a fan of "the Divine Jane's", however, and while Sir Walter Scott emphatically was, Mark Twain was not: "Every time I read Pride and Prejudice", he wrote, "I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone"! Charlotte Bronte was another who wasn't keen, but Kipling certainly was and made much of her appeal in his story The Janeites. That leads neatly on to how widely she was read at the front during the first world war, and the therapeutic use of her books in convalescence, and then to Churchill's turning to her while engaged in the planning for D-Day.
From the ultimate in comfort reading to a satirical take on Austen scholarship, as Claire Harman reminds us that in David Lodge's Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses Professor Zapp's great project was to "work through the Austen canon, 'saying absolutely everything that could possibly be said' with a view to closing the subject down".
And with that thought, perhaps I'd better shut up!
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The Janeites is one of THE great short stories.
Posted by: Lindsay | 15 April 2009 at 09:21 PM
I need to read the Claire Tomalin book, is it good?
Posted by: Simon S | 15 April 2009 at 11:02 PM
Have you seen the article in this month's issue of Prospect magazine?
Posted by: B MacLeod | 16 April 2009 at 05:50 AM
Thank you for featuring this - I'm making a note of it. I loved the Tomalin bio. by the way.
Posted by: tara | 16 April 2009 at 04:54 PM