Growing Older with Jane Austen Hardcover – November 1, 2014

Ms. Lane, as ever, presents a thoughtful and scholarly examination of the Austen canon, character by character. She brings to her task a love of her subject, and a respect for the possible/probable motivations of the author, about whom too little is known. Weaving biographical facts with the author's fiction, the reader is left with the feeling of knowing Jane Austen and her world better. Lane wisely avoids overlaying her text with feminist rancor, but leaves the reader to draw his/her own horrified conclusions about the luck-of-the-draw nature of a woman's fate in the early 19th century, when the words "entail" and "jointure" were terms that could determine one's future, for good or ill. I thoroughly relished this book, as will any student of Austen, of feminist history, or the historical period it covers.

This is a fascinating look at aging in Jane Austen's writings and world. The author discusses youth and beauty, family relationships, older men and women, widows, dowagers, and old maids, financial considerations, illness, and death in Austen's world. She draws from Austen's familiar novels, as well as her less familiar books and fragments (Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon), her letters, family records and writings, and other sources, to pull together a wide-ranging and often humorous picture.

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. The author chronologically moves through Jane Austen's life with excerpts from her novels and letters and historical information. It is like witnessing a woman growing older and wiser. The book is a wonderful edition to add to any Janeite's library!

Good book, well researched, but a bit slow in places. Easy to pick up and insert between other books, so that's a plus

Informative without being .. Easy to read