Because I am always in search of sustaining my appetite in "needing to know more" I began a search for books based on the Regency Period that surrounded Jane Austen's life. As always my search began with Amazon.com and I had found what seemed to be what I was looking for. I enjoy using Amazon.com for book purchases because of the reviews, I've found so far that they have never lead me in the wrong direction when it comes to reading. The reviews on this book were great and since a good used copy was readily available I made my purchase.
This book begins with a detailed timeline of Jane Austen's life. The timeline gives various information headlined by the year and then by the months following.
For example:
1811
February: Starts Mansfield Park
April: Jane visits her brother Henry and his wife Eliza in London
November: Sense and Sensibility is published by Egerton
The layout of this timeline was easy to read and follow and I used it as I read through the chapters of the book as a reference to relate economic and social events to those of Jane's personal life.
The next chapter breaks down Jane's life into more detail. Her appearance and character are further explained as well as her attempts at publishing and her earnings in doing so. I'm always interested in learning the differences in the monetary value of items between the decades. I find myself complaining how much the price of something has gone up nowadays and the value of a dollar but to think about how things were in eras before always intrigues me.
The remaining chapters focus on the bread and butter of my "need to know complex" :)
The daily life of Jane Austen's time (Hooray!! I found myself whispering to myself, the good stuff lol)
Instead of going deeply into every chapter of this book (I don't want to spoil anything) here is a listing of just some of the very interesting points that this book goes into:
Beliefs and values, portraits, female relations, religion and church, love and relationships, meals and manners, housekeeping, dentistry, education, needlework, music and dance, courtship, theater, games and entertainment, travel, the royal family, politics and the military, farming and transportation, poetry and novels, gardening, the home and interiors...I could go on and on lol
Lastly the book dips into each of Jane's novels giving some background into the stories, theories into what Jane's thoughts could of been for writing that particular novel and the movie/theater adaptations of her novels.
The artwork throughout the book highly compliments the descriptive writing and adds to the imagination of thinking what life was life back then.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves Jane Austen's novels and the Regency Period. It is good reference material and definitely will provide good discussion for those who love history.
:)
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