Jane Austen's Names: Riddles, Persons, Places

Doody (John and Barbara Glynn Family Professor of Literature, Univ. of Notre Dame; The True Story of the Novel) makes a convincing argument that Jane Austen (1775–1817) imbued most, if not all, of her character and place names with historical, geographical, or social significance, and provides the historical and cultural context necessary to understand the import of each of these careful naming choices. She explains the gradations of address that would have implied much to Austen's contemporary readers but have since lost their significance, such as the vulgarity of Emma's Mrs. Elton referring to her husband as "Mr. E.," adding a new layer of complexity to Austen's beloved, much reread novels that will be illuminating even to devoted Janeites. Much of the book is essentially an extended footnote to Matters of Fact in Jane Austen, in which Janine Barchas briefly sketches out the relations among real-life families that included the Wentworths, Woodhouses, and Darcys in what Doody calls the Great Name Matrix.