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laura_skel's review against another edition
4.0
This is the first biography of Jane Austens life that I have read and I found it really interesting. Unlike other biographies it is not in chronological order instead it is divided in to chapters focusing on different aspects of Austens life. The author uses items connected to Austens life as a starting point for each chapter, each chapter focuses on different forces in her life and how they shaped her and moreover her writing.
If you have not read all of Austens six completed novels, a lot of this book will be lost on you as the author constantly refers to sections in the different books to show the relevance of what she is saying. She also regularly refers to Austens juvenilia writings and her uncompleted works.
Anyone looking for a straight forward chronological account of Austens life should look elsewhere, as this book skips forward and backward in her life from chapter to chapter. however if you just want to know more about Austen and are not worried about keeping dates straight in your head I highly recommend this book.
If you have not read all of Austens six completed novels, a lot of this book will be lost on you as the author constantly refers to sections in the different books to show the relevance of what she is saying. She also regularly refers to Austens juvenilia writings and her uncompleted works.
Anyone looking for a straight forward chronological account of Austens life should look elsewhere, as this book skips forward and backward in her life from chapter to chapter. however if you just want to know more about Austen and are not worried about keeping dates straight in your head I highly recommend this book.
hdavitz's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
this book has so many details about jane austen's life i never knew. not just a recount of her life that paints her in a nice picture. analyzes clues from her letters and novels to provide insight about her as a person and her life. truly "a life in small things"
bookbelle5_17's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
relaxing
slow-paced
Review of Jane Austen in Real Life: A Life in Small Things
By: Paula Byrne
Last year, for Jane Austen July, I read Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters by William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh, which was a sort of biography composed of letters written by Jane Austen or letters written to her. Each section centered around her main novels and the progress of her life and career. It was one that showed Jane Austen’s real voice through the surviving letters. While Jane Austen in Real Life is a work that does something different by focusing on items that were used by her and the family members such as shawls from India, miniature portraits, Barouche carriages, writing desks etc.…. Byrne introduces each chapter talking about that item and then using it to lead into talking about the family and the author herself. It is a fun take on exploring who Austen was, because these objects are things that she would use and reflect her world, literally. Most biographies state the facts, but this one went from a specific and narrow point of view bringing you closer to her through learning about these items. Byrne includes sketches made by Cassandra Austen or other family members showing what these objects looked like, even sketches of the family. Byrne also describes them before she does a deep dive into the history of the family. I enjoyed this take on Jane Austen, though it did talk about stuff that was included in Her Life and Letters as well but did it in a different way.
lisa_mc's review against another edition
3.0
A good biography informs readers not only about the life of the subject, but about the history of the time -- the context of the person’s life. A great biography leaves readers knowing the subject so personally that it feels as if they’ve actually spent time together. Paula Byrne’s new biography of Jane Austen falls into the latter category: after reading it, we feel that we’re practically friends with Jane, having such an intimate understanding of her life and times.
“The Real Jane Austen” takes a different tack from many biographies, including previous Austen biographies. Instead of proceeding chronologically, the author has selected 18 objects -- from the commonplace to the exotic -- and uses them to tell the story of Austen’s life, her family history, the places that influenced and informed her writing, and the larger context of Regency-era England. As Byrne puts it near the beginning, “the intense emotions associated with love and death are often refracted through objects.”
For example, an East Indian shawl opens the door to both British colonialism and the French Revolution. Through events that happened to Austen’s relatives, we see how Austen the author -- whose life and work was often regarded as provincial and domestic -- was both aware of the larger world and engaged with it. An aunt who traveled to India on the “fishing fleet” for the purpose of finding a husband may have inspired a character in an early Austen novella, and references to items brought back from India, such as a shawl, pop up in later works. And family members who witnessed the violence of the French Revolution ensured that the Austen family was aware of the events in France and their potential influence on Britain; oblique references to the threat of riots arise in “Northanger Abbey.”
Byrne takes a simple card of lace and uses it as the starting point to delve into the social world of Bath. Austen drew upon her own firsthand knowledge of the city and its vibrant social season to create such realistic scenes -- of both the city’s geography and its social affairs -- in “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion.”
And a painting of the daughters of Lord Mansfield -- a leading abolitionist who adopted two girls, one his white niece and one the illegitimate daughter of his nephew and a black slave -- opens the door to the Austen family’s opinions on slavery (opposed, in spite of the fact that the family had some connections to colonial plantations) as well as the link between the name of Lord Mansfield and Austen’s novel “Mansfield Park.” That novel has as the seeds of its plot the trouble that Sir Thomas -- Fanny Price’s uncle -- is having with his Antigua estates, and its villains, Mr. and Mrs. Norris, share their surname with an infamous British slave trader.
Byrne draws largely on family correspondence for details (unfortunately, Austen’s sister, Cassandra, burned a significant portion Jane’s letters), but also literary works and documents of the time, later family accounts and, of course, Austen’s own novels. This means, though, that occasionally Byrne goes a bit overboard with family connections and distant relatives. Some passages read like the “begat” parts of the Bible, and in one particularly knotty description of who’s related to whom that attempts to connect Jane Austen and Lord Byron, even Byrne has to admit, “now it gets complicated.”
That aside, the sources for “The Real Jane Austen” provide a great deal of information and historical context. By choosing the topic-based approach, Byrne has pulled them all together to create a detailed, nuanced portrait of the life and times of one of the world’s most beloved authors.
“The Real Jane Austen” takes a different tack from many biographies, including previous Austen biographies. Instead of proceeding chronologically, the author has selected 18 objects -- from the commonplace to the exotic -- and uses them to tell the story of Austen’s life, her family history, the places that influenced and informed her writing, and the larger context of Regency-era England. As Byrne puts it near the beginning, “the intense emotions associated with love and death are often refracted through objects.”
For example, an East Indian shawl opens the door to both British colonialism and the French Revolution. Through events that happened to Austen’s relatives, we see how Austen the author -- whose life and work was often regarded as provincial and domestic -- was both aware of the larger world and engaged with it. An aunt who traveled to India on the “fishing fleet” for the purpose of finding a husband may have inspired a character in an early Austen novella, and references to items brought back from India, such as a shawl, pop up in later works. And family members who witnessed the violence of the French Revolution ensured that the Austen family was aware of the events in France and their potential influence on Britain; oblique references to the threat of riots arise in “Northanger Abbey.”
Byrne takes a simple card of lace and uses it as the starting point to delve into the social world of Bath. Austen drew upon her own firsthand knowledge of the city and its vibrant social season to create such realistic scenes -- of both the city’s geography and its social affairs -- in “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion.”
And a painting of the daughters of Lord Mansfield -- a leading abolitionist who adopted two girls, one his white niece and one the illegitimate daughter of his nephew and a black slave -- opens the door to the Austen family’s opinions on slavery (opposed, in spite of the fact that the family had some connections to colonial plantations) as well as the link between the name of Lord Mansfield and Austen’s novel “Mansfield Park.” That novel has as the seeds of its plot the trouble that Sir Thomas -- Fanny Price’s uncle -- is having with his Antigua estates, and its villains, Mr. and Mrs. Norris, share their surname with an infamous British slave trader.
Byrne draws largely on family correspondence for details (unfortunately, Austen’s sister, Cassandra, burned a significant portion Jane’s letters), but also literary works and documents of the time, later family accounts and, of course, Austen’s own novels. This means, though, that occasionally Byrne goes a bit overboard with family connections and distant relatives. Some passages read like the “begat” parts of the Bible, and in one particularly knotty description of who’s related to whom that attempts to connect Jane Austen and Lord Byron, even Byrne has to admit, “now it gets complicated.”
That aside, the sources for “The Real Jane Austen” provide a great deal of information and historical context. By choosing the topic-based approach, Byrne has pulled them all together to create a detailed, nuanced portrait of the life and times of one of the world’s most beloved authors.
froydis's review against another edition
4.0
4 1/2 stars - While I didn't really learn anything new about Austen's life, I thoroughly enjoyed the way the author formatted the book. She uses objects important to Austen's life in some way to illustrate the various aspects and events of her life. The book has a number of color photos of these objects as well as some black and white drawings in each chapter. As with other Austen biographies, I'm left feeling how much the world lost with her early death. This is a must read for all the Janites out there, as well as those new to her life and works.
jamietherebelliousreader's review
4.0
4 stars. Read for the Jane Austen July 2022 challenge - Read a non-fiction work about Jane Austen or her time. I found this to be very intriguing. I love learning new things about Jane Austen and this one definitely had some interesting and new to me tidbits which was fun. I liked the writing style and found it engaging and easy to get into. There was also a lot of cool pictures in this and really added to the reading experience. I’d recommend this for any Austen fan. It’s a pretty fascinating read.
amandacora's review against another edition
4.0
This book is very dense and sometimes hard to follow as the book as a whole isn’t chronological. Each chapter is chronological around a them though and it is super informative and helps gives context to Austen’s life and works.