Publisher's Weekly Review of A-Z Guide to Austen's World
- Jul 9
- 1 min read
I'm surprised and delighted to receive this early review of my new Austen A-Z book. Here for convenience is the text of the review:
Brodey (Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness), an English professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, delivers a rich guide to the language, objects, customs, and history that shaped Jane Austen’s life and work. Arranged in alphabetical order, the terms illuminate Austen’s stature as a pioneering wordsmith. She was the first writer, for example, to use the word “zigzag” to describe a mental process (in Emma, after a character unexpectedly declares his love for another, the characters are filled with so much anger there is “no room for the little zigzags of embarrassment”). Biographical details are also elucidated, like how Austen likely knew so much about constellations, which make frequent appearances in her novels, because her brothers were in the Royal Navy, where they learned astronomy. Several entries shed light on the Regency era, like the chapter “M is for Money,” which includes a chart breaking down the worth of British currency at the time. Throughout, Brodey offers up insightful literary analyses, as in the section on Austen’s frequent use of games in her work; Emma, Brodey suggests, is about “the danger of cynically or callously treating life as a game and others as pawns.” Austen acolytes will find much to savor. (Oct.)
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