Penny Gay

‘If you are afraid of half a dozen speeches,’ cries Mr Rushworth, as the rehearsals for Lovers’ Vows at Mansfield Park are getting underway, ‘what would you do with such a part as mine? I have forty-two to learn.’ Did the editors of the new Blackwell Companion to Jane Austen intend to evoke Mr Rushworth’s self-admiration or his barely disguised anxiety when they commissioned the forty- ... (read more)

Why do we need another edition of Mansfield Park? Particularly, what is the justification for an expensive one, when we can get a plain reprint for $5, or a well-annotated paperback for $10? The answer is the one that all scholarly editors are driven by: editorial principles have changed. What was considered acceptable textual practice even twenty years ago no longer fulfils readers’ desires to ... (read more)

John Wiltshire, the distinguished Austen scholar based at La Trobe University, has produced his fourth book on Jane Austen since 1992. Here, in a return to the critical bedrock of close reading, he invites us to share his pursuit of the ‘hidden’ Jane Austen – the supremely nuanced prose stylist. Wiltshire argues that historical context is ultimately less important than ‘the implicit sugge ... (read more)