Overview

Jane Austen's richly textured worlds have enchanted readers for centuries and this neatly organised, playful book provides Austen enthusiasts and students alike with a unique insight into the much-loved writer's way with words. Using a lively A-Z structure, Greaney provides fresh angles on familiar Austen themes (D is for dance; M is for matchmaking), casts light on under-examined corners of her imagination (R is for risk; S is for servant), and shows how current social and cultural concerns are re-shaping our understanding of her work (Q is for queer; W is for West Indies). Through this approach, we learn how attention to the tiniest linguistic detail in Austen's work can yield rewarding new perspectives on the achievements of one of our most celebrated authors. Sharply focused on textual detail but broad in scope it broaches questions that, like Austen's work, will intrigue, delight and inspire: Why are children so marginal in her storylines? Who is the best exponent of matchmaking in her fiction? Why are many of her female characters – but none of her heroines – called Jane? Providing a new close-up encounter with one of our most celebrated writers, this book invites a renewed appreciation of the infinite subtlety and endless re-readability of a body of writing in which every word counts.

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9781350254206

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Reviews

The 26 pint-sized essays comprising A Jane Austen A-Z are stuffed full of insights. Each is a masterpiece in miniature. Learned yet playful, Michael Greaney teaches readers new things about the forms and preoccupations of Austen’s fiction. * Deidre Lynch, Professor of Literature, Harvard University, USA * A unique guide to the life and career of a much-loved author. … It sheds new light on key images, ideas, objects, people and places in Jane Austen’s writings. … This neatly organised book provides Austen enthusiasts and students alike with a unique insight into the much-loved writer’s way with words. * Lancashire Life * Michael Greaney’s Jane Austen A to Z is a perfectly judicious and highly entertaining atlas of the great novelist’s life and writings. Each short chapter is an informative delight, from A for Accident to Z for Zig-Zag, in a book cleverly written both for those in want of an engaging first primer, as well as those who already know Austen down to a T. * Devoney Looser, Regents Professor of English and Global Sport Scholar, Arizona State University, USA *

The 26 pint-sized essays comprising A Jane Austen A-Z are stuffed full of insights. Each is a masterpiece in miniature. Learned yet playful, Michael Greaney teaches readers new things about the forms and preoccupations of Austen's fiction. * Deidre Lynch, Professor of Literature, Harvard University, USA * Michael Greaney's Jane Austen A to Z is a perfectly judicious and highly entertaining atlas of the great novelist's life and writings. Each short chapter is an informative delight, from A for Accident to Z for Zig-Zag, in a book cleverly written both for those in want of an engaging first primer, as well as those who already know Austen down to a T. * Devoney Looser, Regents Professor of English and Global Sport Scholar, Arizona State University, USA *

Author Information

Michael Greaney is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Lancaster University, UK where he teaches a first-year module on Austen’s unfinished works and a third-year module on her major works. He is the author of three monographs, the most recent of which is Sleep and the Novel: Fictions of Somnolence from Jane Austen to the Present.

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