Bloomsbury Everybody's Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination

The first book to investigate Jane Austen s popular significance today, Everybody s Jane considers why Austen matters to amateur readers, how they make use of her novels, what they gain from visiting places associated with her, and why they create works of fiction and nonfiction inspired by her novels and life.The voices of everyday readers emerge from both published and unpublished sources, including interviews conducted with literary tourists and archival research into the founding of the Jane Austen Society of North America and the exceptional Austen collection of Alberta Hirshheimer Burke of Baltimore.Additional topics include new Austen portraits; portrayals of Austen, and of Austen fans, in film and fiction; and hybrid works that infuse Austen s writings with horror, erotica, or explicit Christianity.Everybody s Jane will appeal to all those who care about Austen and will change how we think about the importance of literature and reading today. Review 'Awitty, erudite, and humane exploration of the varied ways that amateur readersof Jane Austen have sought closeness with the object of their affection, fromcollecting her works and visiting the places where she lived, to imagining Janein novels and films - or most extremely, in hybrid creations that featureElizabeth Bennett as a martial artist combating zombies, Jane Austen as avampire, or her characters as paragons of evangelical faith. Juliette Wellsapproaches all these manifestations of fandom without disparagement and with anopen mind.Her book, which is bothlearned and generous of spirit, illuminates the sometimes quirky culturalcreativity that ensues when Austen's readers follow their desires to connectpersonally with their beloved author (and the woman behind the writing), andthe enormous pull Austen and her works continue to exert on the popularimagination.' --, About the Author Juliette Wells is Assistant Professor of English at Manhattanville College, USA. She is editor (with Sandra Hagan) of The Brontes in the World of the Arts (Ashgate, 2008) and was features editor for the Penguin Classics enhanced e-book edition of Pride and Prejudice (2008).