简·奥斯丁是19世纪英国小说家。除《曼斯菲尔德庄园》外，简·奥斯丁的主要作品还有《理智与情感》、《傲慢与偏见》、《爱玛》、《诺桑觉寺》。其中，《傲慢与偏见》是我国读者最为熟知的一部小说。

有评论认为，“在所有伟大的作家中，简·奥斯丁是最难在伟大的那一瞬间捉住的。”换句话说，在简·奥斯丁笔下的那些形形色色人物形象的喜剧性笑谈的背后，暗示了各种微妙的社会关系、人情世故以及道德价值取向。这部介绍简·奥斯丁的传记按照时间顺序，较为详细地介绍了简。奥斯丁的生平和创作。除此之外，该书的编者还在书中配有许多具有史料价值的图片，为我们深入研究简·奥斯丁的个人生活、作品手稿、出版情况、风土人情、社会风貌等提供了宝贵的视觉资料。

Jane Austen is one of the best-known and best-loved authors in the Englishspeaking world. Her works are enduringly popular, always in print, and are frequently adapted for stage, screen and television. Yet the writer herself is often felt to be something of an enigma, her thoughts and feelings relayed to us only through her surviving letters and in the accounts and memoirs of her family members.

In this lively illustrated biography, Deirdre Le Faye emphasises the importance of Jane's family connections in developing the milieu from which she drew the inspiration for her novels. Her brothers' experiences at sea, her cousin Eliza's marriage to a French count, later executed during the French Revolution, her aunt's trial on a trumped-up theft charge, all served to bring the wider world into Jane's drawing room.

The illustrations, drawn from The British Library's unparalleled collection of literary manuscripts and many other sources, attractively complement the text in conveying the people and places that Jane knew, and the social fabric of her world.

INTRODUCTION

STEVENTON

WIDER CIRCLES

BATH AND THE WEST COUNTRY

SOUTHAMPTON

CHAWTON

EPILOGUE

CHRONOLOGY

FURTHER READING

INDEX