This new biography explores the forces that shaped the interior life of one of the most beloved novelists in the English language. Each chapter begins by evoking an object that conjures up a key moment or theme in Austen's life and work. The woman who emerges is far tougher, more socially and politically aware, and altogether more modern that the conventional picture. The book looks at the biographical influence on her work, as well as her boundless...

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 thirteen years and destroyed Dickens’s marriage while effacing Nelly Ternan from the public record.
 
In this remarkable work of biography and scholarly reconstruction, the acclaimed biographer...

"A Most Clever Girl follows Jane Austen's journey to hone her craft, finding her place in the world amid joys and sorrows, and writing her famous novels"--

"1851: a year of political unrest and social inequality, industrial progress and artistic innovation, it is also a turbulent year in the private life of Charles Dickens, as he copes with a double bereavement and a home in danger of falling apart. But this formative year will become perhaps the greatest turning point in his life and writing, as he embraces his calling as a chronicler of ordinary people's lives and establishes himself as an important...

"Before she was the beloved author of Pride and Prejudice and other classic novels, Jane Austen was a young woman wrestling with society's expectations and challenges of the heart. Her own story involves choices that changed literary history--and perhaps even the choice to walk away from love. This graphic imagining of Jane Austen's youth includes her creative awakening and her much-speculated-upon encounters with Tom Lefroy, a brash law student"--Adapted...

"Step into the world of Georgian England and learn more about the genteel life of this beloved author. Although Jane Austen's works were first published anonymously and brought her little personal recognition, today they are rarely out of print and have inspired movies, television shows and mini-series, literary anthologies, and many other adaptations all around the world. Her writing--principally her five novels--is a critique of the British landed...