Jane's Fame : How Jane Austen Conquered the World

from katiekrug

An engaging study of Jane Austen's life and works, and their reception and appreciation (or lack thereof) at different times in history. This is not a weighty academic tome, but it is filled with interesting tidbits about Austen's relationships with various family members; Harman makes a convinci...

from Murphy-Jacobs

This isn't a biography, at least not in the traditional sense -- it's the history of her fame, really. It's about how her audience(s) has thought about, reacted to, derived from, understood and misunderstood both her and her writing.That's quite an unusual subject for a book.What made me give it ...

from MickyFine

An exploration of Jane Austen's literary, critical, and popular reputation from during her lifetime until the 21st century, Harman takes an intriguing approach to Jane Austen's life and works. The book is fascinating for its depth and breadth and deals with everything from the various biographica...

from VictoriaLouiseHill

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which combined scholarship with readability. I found it very interesting to read a book on Jane Austen which explored her changing influence after her death, as opposed to focussing simply on her life. Harman's ideas on why Austen's novels have stood the test of ti...

from SamSattler

I have been no great admirer of Jane Austen, having long considered her the mother of the romance and chick-lit genres, but still an author whose reputation demands that her work be sampled. I have, in fact, read only four of her six novels. My opinion of her work falls between that of Mark Twain...