Jane Austen's Cults and Cultures

Claudia L. Johnson is the Murray Professor of English Literature at Princeton University. She is the author or editor of several books, including Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel and Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender, and Sentimentality in the 1790s, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

"Johnson's book makes sense, directly and indirectly, of the factual-fiction impulse behind novels like Pattillo's Jane Austen Ruined My Life, telling the fascinating story of how the mystique of Austen was gradually created, maintained, and spun out in unpredictable ways in the years after her death in 1817. Johnson unearths both the many-sided truths and the wide-ranging implications of our false fantasies of Austen, drawing conclusions from evidence ranging from portraits and memorials to fairy tales and relics." (Los Angeles Review of Books) "Johnson's prose is lively and witty.... Her writing is infused with nuanced appreciation of Austen's sophisticated art." (Times Literary Supplement) "Even the most devoted Janeite will learn much from this delightful book.... Essential." (Choice)"