The Content Reader

Jane Austen’s popularity never seems to cease. New biographies enter the market at regular intervals. Thank you to  Endeavour Press , who provided me with a review copy, I have read Jane Aiken Hodge’s biography of Austen’s life, from 1972. It still feels very modern. It could be that a newer biography would have more revelations on Austen’s life, but I am not sure. The main problem writing about Jane Austen’s life is, that there are not that many facts to base it on. Some letters survive, but many were destroyed by her sister Cassandra after her death. Jane Aiken Hodge has written a charming biography of one of the most popular English writers. This was not the case in her own time though. Apart from Pride and Prejudice, which was the most popular, the others did not do that well. She wrote the first books several years before they were actually published. The first book she wrote, which her father managed to sell to a publisher, was Susan. It was never published and years later,...