Jane Austen
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Cents and Sensibility
While readers today might think of Jane Austen novels as the equivalent of 18th century bodice rippers, money, wealth, and economics played a major role both in their creation and in their narrative. Austen wrote as much for financial benefit…
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Nobody Likes Mansfield Park
You think your mom was a harsh critic? Slate published an excerpt of criticism about Mansfield Park from Jane Austen’s friends and family. Austen compiled the criticism in an 8-page document, which just shows that even successful novelists are insecure.
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Lit Fic Is Just Another Genre
Jane Austen wrote for money. She also made readers laugh. So why are her books considered literature rather than genre fiction? Clever marketing, claims Elizabeth Edmondson over at the Guardian. Despite many attempts to define “literary fiction” as something dry…
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Jane Austen Would Be Eating Top Ramen Too
With writers, it’s usually neither rags to riches nor riches to rags. Marx had Engels, Austen had her family. Read this and rest assured: some cool people lived with their parents. Austen didn’t start out rich and she never got…
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I Can’t Believe This One Weird Trick to Make Book Titles More Clickable
What if classic authors had been raised in the era of Upworthy headlines and titled their books accordingly? At the Millions, Janet Potter rewrites book titles as clickbait. Who wouldn’t, for example, want to read Jane Austen’s masterpiece He Didn’t Want…
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FUNNY WOMEN #107: Lifetime Does the Classics
To celebrate our growing female fan base (99.98%!) we’re remaking some of the great classics–only this time the women are stronger, deadlier, and more passionate than ever.
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Fanfiction Gathers Force
Ever since Fifty Shades of Grey, originally written with characters from Twilight as its protagonists, struck gold, the mainstream publishing world has had to take a closer look at fanfiction. In the (increasingly unlikely) event you’re unfamiliar with the world of fanfiction,…
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Celebrate The Bennet Family’s 200th Year
“Darcy: How odd. I’m strangely attracted to this uncouth woman who shows so little deference!” Want to celebrate the 200th birthday of Pride and Prejudice without actually reading the classic? Check out the very abridged, illustrated version that Jen Sorensen…
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Maiden Aunt Takes Up Expensive, Time-Consuming Hobby
“How did a woman from a small village in Hampshire come to write six of the most beloved novels in the English language?” Humanities seeks to answer that question with a thorough sketch of Jane Austen’s life as she worked…
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FUNNY WOMEN #65: Literary-Minded Sister is One of the Guys
As the only girl in a family of five boys, Sarah Thompson always felt left out. “It was like, because I didn’t have a penis, I wasn’t allowed to pee standing up,” she recalls, shaking her head. Matters weren’t helped…
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FUNNY WOMEN #54: Thomas Hardy Isn’t Jane Austen; Get Over It
They hated the ending. I knew they would. They always hate the ending. “They” means my university students. “The ending” means the last chapters of Thomas Hardy’s novel Far From the Madding Crowd (1874).
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FUNNY WOMEN #45: One-Handed Reading
Loads of people have slept with authors or well-read individuals, but what would it be like to sleep with a book?