A new book alert:  Jane Austen & Marriage by Hazel Jones, to be published in July 2009, is now available for pre-order.

 

Jane Austen & Marriage

by Hazel Jones

Continuum Books, 2009

 “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” –Pride and Prejudice

Description:

The question of marriage lies at the center of Jane Austen’s novels. The issues bound up in the pursuit of love, happiness, money, and status were those of her day and informed the plots and morals of her work. In this fascinating book, Hazel Jones explores the ways in which these themes manifest themselves in Jane Austen’s life and fiction, against the backdrop of contemporary conduct manuals, letters, diaries, journals and newspapers. Drawing on original research, this entertaining and detailed study provides a charming and profound insight into the world of Jane Austen. 

 

Table Of Contents:

 

Acknowledgements

 

Introduction

1: The Advantage of Choice

2: The Power of Refusal

3: An Acquaintance Formed in a Public Place

4: White Satin and Lace Veils

5: Where N Takes M, For Better, For Worse

6: Wedding Journeys

7: Scandal and Gossip

8: A Contract of Mutual Agreeableness

9: Domestic Happiness Overthrown

10: The Simple Regimen of Separate Rooms

11:The Years of Danger

12:  An Old Maid at Last

 

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Review at Continuum Books:

Hazel Jones has written a masterful accounting of the crucial role played by marriage in Jane Austen’s novels and the world she and her characters lived in. Brilliantly researched and documented  — including information taken from the fascinating and sometimes troubling “conduct manuals” on the proper interaction between the sexes — Jane Austen and Marriage offers deep insights that inform not only one’s reading of Austen’s novels but of the treacherous social bedrock underlying the lives of women living in that time. And in so doing, Hazel Jones has presented the reader with another testament to the long, hard march of women throughout history. It is a book that reflects Jane Austen’s own penetrating gaze and insight into Regency society and no doubt will find a place in the library of even the most sophisticated “Janeite”.’  

[Alice Steinbach, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman.]

About the Author:

         

Hazel Jones taught English at Exeter University, specializing in Jane Austen. She tutored courses on the novelist for the thriving Summer Academy Programme, which attracted students from all over the world. She continues to organize Jane Austen residential courses for adults at various venues in the UK, focusing on her novels and her life and times.

 

Pre-order at Continuum Books [$29.95] or Amazon.com [$19.77]