![]() Family members destroyed the bulk of Austen's correspondence, and her remaining letters were edited and censored, leaving the false impression that she was ''dedicated to trivia.'' Her fiction, after all, was never particularly autobiographical, and no diaries, if they ever existed, survived. Tomalin points out, Austen has been a notoriously elusive subject for biographers. She not only depicts a life that was considerably more worldly than commonly supposed, but also delineates an emotional experience ''full of events, of distress and even trauma,'' which permanently shaped Austen's apprehension of the world.Īs Ms. In her marvelous new biography of Austen, the English writer Claire Tomalin strips away this mythology to reveal a tough, humorous and highly resourceful woman. It is an observation that has been echoed over the centuries by many biographers and critics who have wondered how the shy, retiring daughter of a country clergyman ended up producing such sophisticated books how this English spinster, memorialized by her family for ''the sweetness of her temper,'' became the author of such ironic and fiercely modern novels. ![]() ''Of events her life was singularly barren,'' Jane Austen's nephew once observed, ''few changes and no great crisis ever broke the smooth current of its course.'' ![]()
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