An unusually snark-free review of Becoming Jane
This is probably less a review and more of an editorial. Read Heather L.’s review on her personal blog, because it pretty much says what we would have. –Ed.
“You have drawn two pretty pictures; but I think there may be a third — a something between the do-nothing and the do-all.” - Emma, Vol. I, Ch. 1
Okay, okay, we know there’s not a whole lot to go on when it comes to Jane Austen biography. The perfidious Cassandra Austen burnt all her sister’s letters (no doubt full of breathless descriptions of love affairs and complaints about having to feed the pigs when she really wanted to be wandering aimlessly through the woods caressing trees and writing angsty melodrama) and the uptight Victorian relatives were better at dodgy past-laundering than Paris Hilton’s publicist, so what scarce material exists must be plumped out with speculation. In most biographies of Jane Austen, such speculation varies in adherence to the real story, some biographers venturing further afield than others. Those who do take greater liberties generally do so in the name of scholarship, so even if one disagrees with that biographer’s conclusions, one can, however grudgingly, accept the process. (more…)
