Jane Austen and the Popular Novel The Determined Author [Hardcover]

This book offers a reinterpretation of Austen's later novels by exploring their interactions with the fiction of the 1810s. Building on recent bibliographic research into the novel, this study situates Austen in the literary marketplace and offers new insights into the nature of her 'innovation', which arises from her sensitivity to the genre.List of Tables of Figures List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements PART 1: THE LITERARY CONTEXT AND AUSTEN'S EARLY FICTION Introduction: Fiction and the Literary Marketplace, 1785-1820 Jane Austen and Fiction, 1787-1809 Getting Published at Last, 1811-13 PART II: AUSTEN'S REGENCY NOVELS Making the Popular Polite: Mansfield Park and the Moral-Domestic Novel Woman as Genius/Genius Loci : Emma as an English National Tale The Business of Novel-Writing: Walter Scott and Persuasion Conclusion: The Canonization of Jane Austen Notes Bibliography Index

'Jane Austen and the Popular Novel ought to transform our understandings of this celebrated author. In his groundbreaking study, Anthony Mandal overturns key assumptions about Austen's authorship, presenting new research on her publishers and would-be publishers and offering illuminating readings of Regency-era fiction. Anyone serious about his or her Austen should read this book.' - Devoney Looser, Department of English, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA

'Such detailed knowledge of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century publishing trade makes this an especially important contribution to Austen Studies. [...] Jane Austen and the Popular Novel may be unassuming in appearance but its scope and significance are far from modest.' - Fiona Stafford, Somerville College, Oxford - BARS Bulletin & Review

ANTHONY MANDAL is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Cardiff, UK. His research focuses on the Romantic novel, book history and the Gothic. He is editor of the journal Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 17ló0