Title: EDWARD COPELAND and JULIET MCMASTER (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen
Abstract: THE second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen attests to a remarkable convergence of academic and popular cultures. Austen is the single female writer from the late Enlightenment–early Romantic period to elude scholarly pigeonholes, while challenging contemporary image makers to capture her art for a global audience. According to Kathryn Sutherland’s compelling new essay, ‘Jane Austen on Screen’, with a critical mass of film treatments of the novels and, recently, about the novelist, it is possible for an adaptation to have its ‘roots in film rather than novel, and in consequence we begin to discriminate the ways of seeing rather than the problematic differences between word and image’ (229). Like other larger-than-life artists, Austen and her work advance the cognitive practices of how we represent and understand her. The second Cambridge Companion addresses the actual matrix of Austen’s material and intellectual life in innovative new essays: ‘Making a Living’ by David Selwyn, ‘Gender’ by E. J. Clery, and ‘Sociability’ by Gillian Russell. Excellent chapters from the first edition are the illuminating ‘Chronology of Jane Austen’s Life’ by Deirdre Le Faye, ‘The Professional Woman Writer’ by Jan Fergus, ‘The Early Short Fiction’ by Margaret Anne Doody, ‘The Letters’ by Carol Houlihan Flynn, ‘Class’ by Juliet McMaster, ‘Money’ by Edward Copeland, ‘Jane Austen and Literary Tradition’ by Isobel Grundy, ‘Austen Cults and Cultures’ by Claudia L. Johnson, ‘Jane Austen on Screen’ by Sutherland, and Mary M. Chan’s ‘Further Reading’, made current from Bruce Stovell’s original. The authors of the essays represent a starry scholarly cast as befits their luminary subject.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-07-19
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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