Just Finished Reading: Jane’s Fame – How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman



Ah, another impulse buy in the 3 for 2 section of Waterstone’s…… Or at least semi-impulse. After all I am a big fan of Ms Austen’s work. Or at least of the one book I’ve actually read – pre-Blog so there’s no review to check out…..


Anyway….. I think I first fell in love with Jane’s work – and not incidentally Lizzie Bennet – through the BBC’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Much later, after loving the BBC version of Persuasion (though not as much as P&P) I renewed my love of Austen’s work with the recent Kiera Knightly movie version of Pride and Prejudice (reviewed her on 9th August 2010). After that I had to read the book – which I did with relish, much chuckling and a growing realisation of why her books are such timeless classics.


This book is unusual for me in several ways. For one thing I don’t normally read books about books. Also, in general, I have little or no interest in the lives of the artists I enjoy. This crosses all boundaries from authors, musicians, actors or indeed actual artists. I have no desire to know anything about their personal lives or personal histories. So although the first part of this book didn’t bore me at all, I didn’t take any great delight in the uncovering of the details of Jane’s early life (interestingly told though it was). About the only thing that came as any great surprise was at how young she was when she died – probably of cancer – in her 40’s. The rest of her family lasted so much longer. I did wonder what would’ve happened if Ms Austen had lived long enough to produce more than 6 books. Or maybe the fact that she produced so few highly polished works is part of her everlasting appeal. What did interest me much more was the growth of the love of her books which rose from relative absurdity not long after her death to the towering place they occupy today. The number of books about Jane and her work, the websites, societies and much else besides – to say nothing of the increasingly odd-ball spin-offs – continues to grow at an amazing pace and shows no signs of subsiding.


I found this book honestly delightful and passed a very pleasant few days in its company over the Christmas break. It has prompted me, if such prompting was required, to read the rest of her books over the coming year or so as well as other classics from around that time – presently gathering dust on my bookshelves. I hope that her other works, after falling in love with P&P and Elizabeth all over again, live up to my first introduction to her work. I have every expectation that they will. I highly recommend this to all Austen fans and anyone else interested in a true publishing phenomena.