Jane Austen: A Life

Rating:
Summary: A great treat
Review: Tomalin wrote this book in part as a response to those (like Austen's brother and cousin) who noted the great novelist's life was one of little incident. Despite her noble intentions, Tomalin doesn't prove anything to the contrary--Austen's life was pretty routine, and we have so few documents pertaining to the particulars of it (since her sister and niece burned so many of her letters) that we have yet to find a biographer who can shed great light on her inestimable genius.

Tomalin, however, gives us a full and beautifully detailed analysis of what we CAN learn about Austen's life from the documents which are still extant. Best of all, she enriches this information by presenting rich, gossipy details about the many fascinating people whom Austen knew and loved. The somewhat nouveau riche society (pretending to be landed gentry) of late eighteenth-century makes for reading almsot as much fun as Austen's own books, and Tomalin writes with great verve. This is a marvelous read.