The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things

Byrne (Jane Austen and the Theatre) promises a novel addition to the body of scholarship on Jane Austen's life. Rather than taking a cradle-to-grave approach, Byrne begins each essay in this collection with an image and description of an object of particular importance to Austen, which leads into a discussion of how these items influenced her life and informed her work. This premise is stretched thin at some points—it is arguable whether a carriage, for example, ever profoundly affected Austen—but it is an engaging narrative technique and effectively persuades that Austen intentionally drew inspiration from life in order to add what was at that time an innovative realism and verisimilitude to her novels (e.g., a familiarity with the navy and life in India, noteworthy in someone generally considered a quiet spinster). Byrne contends Austen's authorial focus upon an object is a clue to readers that events of emotional importance are afoot. Less convincing are Byrne's arguments that other Austen biographers and Austen's own family were often mistaken about her character or writerly intentions.