Pride In Craft
- Style, wit, universality of theme and prose that hasn’t paled in 200 years makes Austen a world icon. But she also adopted a scrupulously realist method—she usually avoided writing dialogue between two isolated males, when not in the presence of female characters. Check to see if Darcy and Bingley speak when they’re alone!
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Jane Austen (1775-1817) is in a literary class by herself. A moderately successful English novelist of the early nineteenth century, she’s now an international icon. This year, across the world, her fans seek ways to honour her at the bicentenary of her death. No doubt the extent of her celebrity would come as a surprise to her, particularly the global part. It’s believed that Austen never travelled outside of Britain, although her brothers—especially the two who served in the Royal Navy—certainly did. One, Charles Austen, died of cholera in Pyay during the Anglo-Burmese War.
Yet Austen’s novels would end...
