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The Real Jane Austen
- A Life in Small Things
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
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Publisher's Summary
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things offers a startlingly original look at the revered writer through a variety of key moments, scenes, and objects in her life and work. Going beyond previous traditional biographies which have traced Austen's daily life from Steventon to Bath to Chawton to Winchester, Paula Byrne's portrait - organized thematically and drawn from the most up-to-date scholarship and unexplored sources - explores the lives of Austen's extended family, friends, and acquaintances.
Through their absorbing stories, we view Austen on a much wider stage and discover unexpected aspects of her life and character. Byrne transports us to different worlds - the East Indies and revolutionary Paris - and different events - from a high-society scandal to a petty case of shoplifting, She follows Austen on her extensive travels, setting her in contexts both global and English, urban and rural, political and historical, social and domestic - wider perspectives of vital and still underestimated importance to her creative life.
Literary scholarship has revealed that letters and tokens in Austen’s novel’s often signal key turning points in the unfolding narrative. This groundbreaking biography explores Jane's own story following the same principle. As Byrne reveals, small things in the writer's world - a scrap of paper, a simple gold chain, an ivory miniature, a bathing machine - hold significance in her emotional and artistic development.
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things introduces us to a woman deeply immersed in the world around her, yet far ahead of her time in her independence and ambition; to an author who was an astute commentator on human nature and the foibles of her own age. Rich and compelling, it is a fresh, insightful, and often surprising portrait of an artist and a vivid evocation of the complex world that shaped her.
What listeners say about The Real Jane Austen
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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- Frances K. Harville
- 06-10-20
I keep re-listening to it!
I didn't discover Jane Austen until just after college. She has become my favorite writer over the years. I've read several biographies, but this one is different. It's about her development as a writer and a human being, appropriately through the lens of small details, some of which we wouldn't ordinarily associate with her. It's the first book I've read about her that comes closest to making Austen's personality three-dimensional, brings her to life, so to speak. Every time I listen, I better understand the subtlety of her genius, especially in the context of the times in which she lived, and how they are reflected in her books. The Narrator, Kate Reading, is a familiar voice to me, having listened to the entire Pink Carnation series she narrated. I like her reading, and her tone is just right for the subject. As an English teacher, Austen reader, and literary analyst, I thoroughly recommend this book.
5 people found this helpful
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- Eee
- 08-11-13
For fans of Austen, Regency England
Absolutely loved this book. The author weaves in historical events, places, objects, existing correspondence to/from/about Austen, and quotes from Austen's writing to give a fascinating view of Jane Austen and her world. It's well written and Kate Reading's narration is, as always, wonderful.
5 people found this helpful
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- Myrtle
- 12-01-15
Understanding what could have informeher writing
A lot of the biographies didn't make sense. Her writings are not at all uninformed of "the stormy sisterhood" of the passions as the Bronte (I think ) criticism states. This work follows logical and detailed paths to discover what in her life would have given her such depth of knowledge.
3 people found this helpful
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- Conceptsalso
- 08-15-19
Reference Book...NOT for Pleasure Reading!
Very technical and boring...probably better in print, as an actual study guide then a real easy listening biography of Jane Austen. I had to return it...it was putting me to sleep. :( I needed a book to keep me awake!
1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-27-17
A very enjoyable and personal biography
A long book, but still interesting. It brings a unique and detail oriented view of Jane Austen and her life and writings.
1 person found this helpful
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Interesting, and yet . . .
- By sanguine_air on 05-02-18
By: Helena Kelly
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Sense and Sensibility
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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When Mrs. Dashwood is forced by an avaricious daughter-in-law to leave the family home in Sussex, she takes her three daughters to live in a modest cottage in Devon. For Elinor, the eldest daughter, the move means a painful separation from the man she loves, but her sister Marianne finds in Devon the romance and excitement which she longs for.
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Superb - Justice to Jane Austen and Emma Thompson
- By Jo on 11-19-06
By: Jane Austen
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Godmersham Park
- A Novel of the Austen Family
- By: Gill Hornby
- Narrated by: Bessie Carter
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 21, 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At thirty-one years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge—twelve-year-old Fanny Austen—Anne’s arrival is all novelty and excitement.
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Godmersham Park review
- By Renee Walker on 02-20-23
By: Gill Hornby
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The Life and Works of Jane Austen
- By: Devoney Looser, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Devoney Looser
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Original Recording
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Born to the ranks of the lower English gentry in 1775, Jane Austen led what some have mistakenly described as an ordinary and unremarkable life - a life that ended all too soon at the age of 41. But from this life, Austen drew inspiration for six novels that all rank as literary masterpieces, including the widely beloved Pride and Prejudice. So, what do we really know about Austen’s life and influences?
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A great class!
- By Miamigrrl on 04-14-21
By: Devoney Looser, and others
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The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
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Emma
- An Audible Original Drama
- By: Jane Austen, Anna Lea - adaptation
- Narrated by: Emma Thompson, Joanne Froggatt, Isabella Inchbald, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
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Austen wrote, 'I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like' and thus introduces the handsome, clever, rich - and flawed, Emma Woodhouse. Emma is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage; nothing however delights her more than matchmaking her fellow residents of Highbury. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.
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Background sonds RUINED this
- By Sandra Dodd on 09-09-18
By: Jane Austen, and others
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The Jane Austen Society
- A Novel
- By: Natalie Jenner
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists. Now, it's home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate. With the last bit of Austen's legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen's home and her legacy. These people - a laborer, a young widow, the local doctor, and a movie star, among others - could not be more different and yet they are united in their love for the works and words of Austen.
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Why so much bad language? Ruined a good book
- By Anonymous User on 08-12-20
By: Natalie Jenner
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The Jane Austen Collection
- An Audible Original Drama
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Claire Foy, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Billie Piper, and others
- Length: 45 hrs
- Unabridged
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Renowned as much for her wit and satirical social commentary as for her stories of love and romance, Jane Austen remains unfailingly relevant and one of Britain’s best loved authors. In this Audible Original collection, an all-star list of narrators (Billie Piper, Claire Foy, Emma Thompson, Florence Pugh and Gugu Mbatha-Raw) capture Austen’s pin-sharp humour and tone in these dramatisations of her six beloved novels accompanied by a full cast.
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Not a faithful rendition
- By Anne McClain on 12-13-20
By: Jane Austen
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Bloomsbury Girls
- A Novel
- By: Natalie Jenner
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans.
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Boring
- By Amazon Customer on 05-29-22
By: Natalie Jenner
Related to this topic
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Jane Austen at Home
- A Biography
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Ruth Redman
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Take a trip back to Jane Austen's world and the many places she lived as historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen's childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses - both grand and small - of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life.
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As a Devoted Janeite - I loved this book!
- By Dorothy on 07-17-17
By: Lucy Worsley
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The Invisible Woman
- The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
- By: Claire Tomalin
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857; she was 18, a hard-working actress performing in his production of The Frozen Deep, and he was 45, the most lionized writer in England. Out of their meeting came a love affair that lasted 13 years and destroyed Dickens's marriage while effacing Nelly Ternan from the public record.
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Interesting
- By Jean on 01-21-13
By: Claire Tomalin
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Thomas Hardy
- By: Claire Tomalin
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Hardy's work challenged sexual and religious conventions in a way that few other authors of the time dared. Though his modesty and kindness allowed some to underestimate him, or even to pity him, they did not prevent him from taking on the central themes of human experience: time, memory, loss, love, fear, grief, anger, death. This engrossing biography identifies the inner demons and the outer mores that drove Hardy and presents a complex portrait of one of the greatest figures in English literature.
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A Sensitive Portrait
- By peter on 04-10-07
By: Claire Tomalin
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Charlotte Brontë
- A Fiery Heart
- By: Claire Harman
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Charlotte Brontë's life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired. Like Jane Eyre, she was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to a brutally strict boarding school at a young age. Charlotte grew up and watched helplessly as, one by one, her five beloved siblings sickened and died; by the end of her short life, she was the only child of the Brontë clan remaining.