Jane Austen

The book offers some valuable lessons for those first meeting Austen. It clarifies well how her free indirect discourse grew from her recognizing the limits of epistolary style; how sentimental histrionics can function as indirect social critique; how her overlooked biting wit hearkens back to Fielding and ahead to Waugh... * John Morillo, NC State University, Eighteenth-Century Fiction *
The work is an engaging and timely introduction to the ingenious, inexhaustible Jane Austen. * Janet Todd, Times Literary Supplement *
To wish this book longer is not to cast any kind of shadow on what it does achieve. Writing with an economy and lucidity of style befitting his subject, Keymer packs in the thought-provoking insights, not just about Austen's writing and the social and political world in which it moved, but also about the way in which has subsequently been received. * Joe Bray, Cercles *
A light, sure-footed guide [...] Keymer has insightful things to say about all Austen's fiction, from the pitilessness of the hilarious early sketches to the intensity and passion of Persuasion. It is great fun to follow him as he nails Austen's effects in delightful phrases. * Jane Spencer, The Review of English Studies *
Janeites of all stripes should take note of this critically robust account. * Everett Jones, Publishers Weekly *
Highly recommended. * Emily Bowles, Library Journal *
Tom Keymer reminds us, in timely fashion, of the delights and the unexpected rewards in reading Jane Austen with close attention. He presents a writer whose output is unified and varied, who offers us puzzles and problems and who prefers exploration to polemic and eloquent silences to explanations. She questions all she sees: the novel, society, and politics. Nothing escapes her teasing, critical gaze. This is an assured and witty introduction to a subtle and complex genius and a welcome invitation to look and think again. * Kathryn Sutherland, editor of Jane Austen: Teenage Writings *
To illuminate literary greatness in a short book is a tall order. Tom Keymer's Jane Austen: Writing, Society, and Politics delivers precisely that, with admirable clarity and characteristic brilliance, in a captivating style that's worthy of the author herself. * Devoney Looser, author of The Making of Jane Austen *
Keymer's introduction to Jane Austen is a delight to read, and every chapter offers something I hadn't known or considered before ... One might even claim that, though deep, its clear; though informed, yet not dull; strong but not kneejerk; without o're-flowing, full. * Cynthia Wall, University of Virginia *