Searching for Jane Austen

"In this illustrated and lively work, Auerbach surveys two centuries of editing, censoring, and distorting Jane Austen's life and writings. Auerbach samples Austen's flamboyant, risque adolescent works featuring heroines who get drunk, lie, steal, raise armies, and throw rivals out of windows. She demonstrates that Austen constantly tested and improved her skills by setting herself a new challenge in each of her six novels." "In addition, Auerbach considers Austen's final irreverent writings, discusses her tragic death at the age of forty-one, and ferrets out ridiculous modern adaptations and illustrations, including ads, cartoons, book jackets, newspaper articles, plays, and films from our own time. An appendix reprints a ground-breaking article that introduced Mark Twain's "Jane Austen," an unfinished and unforgettable essay in which Twain and Austen enter into mortal combat."--Jacket.