Jane's Fame is a story of personal struggle, family intrigue, accident, advocacy and sometimes surprising neglect - as well as a history of changing public tastes and critical practices. In a wide-ranging study aimed at the general reader, Claire Harman traces the growth of Jane Austen's fame, the changing status of her work and what it has stood for. Starting with Austen's early experience as an author (and addressing her difficulties getting published and her determination to succeed), Harman unfolds the story of how her estate was handled by her family. She goes on to explore the swell of public interest in Austen in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, her emergence as a classic English author in the twentieth century, the critical wars that erupted as a result and, lastly, her powerful influence on contemporary phenomena such as chick-lit, romantic comedy, the heritage industry and film. Part biography and part cultural history, Jane's Fame is more than a fascinating story - it is essential reading for anyone interested in Austen's life, works and remarkably potent fame.
Jane's Fame is a story of personal struggle, family intrigue, accident, advocacy and sometimes surprising neglect - as well as a history of changing public tastes and critical practices. In a wide-ranging study aimed at the general reader, Claire Harman traces the growth of Jane Austen's fame, the changing status of her work and what it has stood for. Starting with Austen's early experience as an author (and addressing her difficulties getting published and her determination to succeed), Harman unfolds the story of how her estate was handled by her family. She goes on to explore the swell of public interest in Austen in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, her emergence as a classic English author in the twentieth century, the critical wars that erupted as a result and, lastly, her powerful influence on contemporary phenomena such as chick-lit, romantic comedy, the heritage industry and film. Part biography and part cultural history, Jane's Fame is more than a fascinating story - it is essential reading for anyone interested in Austen's life, works and remarkably potent fame.
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This most recent addition to Austen biography takes an interesting tack, covering not only the life of the author but the life of her work. Harman-affiliated with Manchester, Oxford, and Columbia universities and having had a distinguished history of critically acclaimed writings on literary figures (including Sylvia Townsend Warner, Fanny Burney, and Robert Louis Stevenson)-presents Austen in all her contradictory glory: at once the dutifully domestic daughter who also pursued the "oddish" feminist career of "authoress" and the author of modest success during her lifetime who fuels a multimillion-dollar "Austenmania" industry generations after her death. Fast paced and engaging, Jane's Fame illuminates Austen's writing and publishing history and traces the rise and fall (and rise again) of her popularity over the years. From being damned with faint praise from male critics to helping inspire the recent chick-lit craze, Austen's books have moved into Bollywood and beyond, becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Verdict Continuing interest in Austen's works, ignited by films and other derivative works, will create a popular audience for this accessible volume, which should also please the scholarly crowd.-Alison M. Lewis, formerly with Drexel Univ. Lib., Philadelphia Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
Diverting anecdotes pepper award-winning British biographer Harman's (Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson) sharp and scholarly analysis of Jane Austen's life and the posthumous exploitation of her as a "global brand" having "everything to do with recognition and little to do with reading." Tracing the rise and fall and rise of Austen's reputation against a larger historical backdrop, Harman chronicles the WWI-era worshipping "Janeites"; assessments of Austen that minimized her as an "accidental artist"; and modern post-feminist criticism that, in exploring her politics, sexual and otherwise, has placed Austen "in several mutually exclusive spheres at once." Harman notes that film versions have taken liberties with and overshadowed Austen's books, concluding that "[o]ne of the horrible ironies of Austen's currency in contemporary popular culture is that she is referenced so freely . in discussions of 'empowerment,' 'girl power,' and all the other travesties of womanly self-fashioning that stand in for feminism" today. Yet "it is impossible to imagine a time when she or her works could have delighted us long enough." Harman herself delights with this comprehensive catalogue of Austen-mania. Illus. (Mar.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
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