Jane Austen - a life

• David Nokes

Re-examining the letters and documents of her life as well as her novels, in order to trace the inner sources of her work's imaginative vitality and emotional power, the author has produced an intensely personal portrait. He argues that the seductive power of Austen's fiction comes from her struggle to create images of harmony out of the disruptions and upheavals of her private life. Her novels, for all their triumphant artifice, betray many disturbing reminders of the frustrations of female hopes and the penalties of social dependency.