Table of Contents
A Note on References ix
Introduction 1
1 How Much Does Age Matter? 11
2 Do Sisters Sleep Together? 24
3 What Do the Characters Call Each Other? 39
4 How Do Jane Austen's Characters Look? 56
5 Who Dies in the Course of Her Novels? 70
6 Why Is It Risky to Go to the Seaside? 86
7 Why Is the Weather Important? 101
8 Do We Ever See the Lower Classes? 115
9 Which Important Characters Never Speak in the Novels? 132
10 What Games Do Characters Play? 147
11 Is There Any Sex in Jane Austen? 162
12 What Do Characters Say When the Heroine Is Not There? 179
13 How Much Money Is Enough? 196
14 Why Do Her Plots Rely on Blunders? 211
15 What Do Characters Read? 226
16 Are III People Really to Blame for Their Illnesses? 243
17 What Makes Characters Blush? 258
18 What Are the Right and Wrong Ways to Propose Marriage? 274
19 When Does Jane Austen Speak Directly to the Reader? 289
20 How Experimental a Novelist Is Jane Austen? 304
Notes 321
Bibliography 329
Acknowledgements 333
Index 335