Jane Austen's Cults and Cultures - Claudia L. Johnson

Jane Austen is the inventor of the modern novel and an inspirational figure in English literary history. She is also venerated with wild intensity for being a brilliant stylist or a provincial bore, a benign aunt or a nasty spinster, oppressively normal or dazzlingly fabulous. Examine what “the divine Jane” has meant to readers over the past two centuries and still does, today.