Jane Austen and the Popular Novel

Jane Austen and the Popular Novel: The Determined Author offers a provocative reinterpretation of one of the most cherished authors in the English literary canon. Austen criticism has traditionally fixed her oeuvre within the ideological locus of the 1790s, ignoring the more topical elements displayed by her novels. Such accounts have consequently neglected the complex interactions that took place between Austen's works and newer forms of popular fiction, such as the Evangelical tale, the national romance, and historical novel. By situating Austen in the 1810s - the immediate literary period within which she published - this book argues for the inherently intertextual nature of her novels, positing that her 'innovation' lies not in her uniqueness, but in her polyvalent negotiations with other literary models. Jane Austen and the Popular Novel demonstrates the extent to which Austen was not only a determined author, but also an author determined by the literary marketplace itself. This publication offers a reinterpretation of Austen's later novels by exploring their interactions within the fiction of the 1810s, a period which witnessed the efflorescence of women's writing.