A classic account of Jane Austen in the context of eighteenth century feminist ideas and contemporary thought. Margaret Kirkham shows that Jane Austen's views on the status of women, female education, marriage, the family and the representation of women in literature were remarkably similar to thsoe of feminists in her own day.
Lady Susan – Jane AustenLady Susan is an epistolary novel written by Jane Austen that was published in 1871 but was believed to have been completed by Austen sometime during 1794. The novel is written using diary entries, news clippings, letters etc. Lady Susan is unlike any other female protagonist that was created by Jane Austen as she is a very selfish and conniving woman. She is a married woman who is also trying to have a relationship with another man. Lady Susan not only walks a different path for a protagonist but as a fictional character she also managed to stay away from the principles of a romance novel making her a very interesting character to study.
Readings of Jane Austen tend to be polarised: she is seen either as conformist - the prevalent view - or quietly subversive. In "General Consent in Jane Austen", Barbara Seeber overcomes this critical stalemate, arguing that general consent does not exist as a given in Austen's texts.
The first full-length study of animals in Jane Austen, Barbara K. Seeber's book situates the author's work within the serious debates about human-animal relations that began in the eighteenth century and continued into Austen's lifetime. Seeber shows that Austen's writings consistently align the objectification of nature with that of women and that Austen associates the hunting, shooting, racing, and consuming of animals with the domination of women.
