Reading with Jane Austen

Elaine Bander is retired from Dawson College in Montreal, Canada, where she taught English for three decades. She is the author of dozens of essays and several book chapters on Austen and other writers and served as president of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Canada) as well as of the Burney Society (North America).

• AbbreviationsIntroduction1. Jane Austen’s Words2. Reading Frances Burney3. Robert Burns, Sir Charles Grandison, and Sir Edward Denham4. Charlotte Smith in “Catharine, or the Bower”5. Mrs. Smith in Northanger Abbey6. Reading Mysteries at Bath and Northanger7. Reading Marianne Dashwood8. From Cecilia to Pride and Prejudice: “What becomes of the moral?”9. Reading Mr. Darcy10. Fanny Price: “all the heroism of principle”11. Love and Friendship in Emma12. The Smiths in PersuasionConclusion: The Sea, “Sanditon,” and SpeculationAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

"Bander appreciates and illuminates the eclecticism of Austen's wide-ranging reading habits. . . . Austen fans will delight in thinking about what she read, and what her reading added to her writing." - Library Journal"Reading with Jane Austen sets out to help us re-see the great novelist's aims and achievements by carefully, clearly, and productively describing them alongside the significant writings of her best-loved contemporaries. Elaine Bander's fine book will have you rereading Austen in engaging, surprising, and powerful new ways." - Devoney Looser, author of Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane"Reading with Elaine Bander is a delicious and rewarding experience. She introduces us to the authors and the books that Jane Austen and her readers loved and admired, tracing the ways Austen both subverts conventions and clichés and reimagines what the novel can be. Reading with Jane Austen is a gift." - Susan Allen Ford, author of What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why)"Light, bright, and sparkling, Bander's account of her own life of teaching and writing under the sign of Austen brought me enormous delight and deserves a place in every Austen fan's library." - Jenny Davidson, author of Reading Jane Austen"Reading with Jane Austen is a meticulous and innovative study illuminating the literary culture that shaped Austen's art. With scholarly precision and fresh insights, Elaine Bander draws on a lifetime spent with Austen and her precursors to reconstruct what Austen read and might have read—revealing new dimensions of her taste, intelligence, and creative engagement." - Peter Sabor, coeditor of Jane Austen's Manuscript Works"A long-awaited manuscript from a respected Austen scholar, Elaine Bander's Reading with Jane Austen offers significant insights into Austen's creative process." - Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey, author of Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness"Reading with Jane Austen is thoughtful and accessible in its exploration of Austen's fictional subversions. Bander draws insightful connections between Austen's works and those of her literary predecessors." - Hilary Havens (author of Revising the Eighteenth-Century Novel: Authorship from Manuscript to Print