Showing results by author "Janet Todd" in All Categories

Fanny Price, in Mansfield Park, tells her persistent suitor that 'we have all a better guide in ourselves...than any other person can be'. Sometimes, however, we crave external guidance: and when this happens we could do worse than seek it in Jane Austen's own subtle novels. Written to coincide with Austen's 250th birthday, this approachable and intimate work shows why and how—for over half a century—Austen has inspired and challenged its author through different phases of her life.

After a troubled childhood, Ann St Clair achieves independence by earning her living as an author of cheap Gothic novels. Within a group of male writers, she meets and is enthralled by the supposed poetic genius, Robert James. They become uneasy lovers. Ann and Robert James travel from London through a Europe exhausted by the long Napoleonic wars.