A Jane Austen Companion

A Critical Survey and Reference Book

including Index Macmillian

Hardcover

First Edition 1973

342 Pages

There is much insight here into what the milieu of the artist especially her large and affectionate family. I felt Cecil's insight into the late eighteenth century attitudes of the English gentry quite valuable. For instance, he corrects the mistaken view that Austen was middle class. She was related to members of the aristocracy and the closest her family came to being middle class was to have members in banking and law.

Where I disagreed with the author was when he judged that her romantic disappointment when young was not that big an event in her life.