Wild for Austen - by Devoney Looser (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Incisive, funny, and deeply-researched insights into the life, writing, and legacy of Jane Austen, by the preeminent scholar Devoney Looser. Thieves! Spies! Abolitionists! Ghosts! If we ever truly believed Jane Austen to be a quiet spinster, scholar Devoney Looser puts that myth to rest at last in Wild for Austen. These, and many other events and characters, come to life throughout this rollicking book. Austen, we learn, was far wilder in her time than we've given her credit for, and Looser traces the fascinating and fantastical journey her legacy has taken over the past 250 years. All six of Austen's completed novels are examined here, and Looser uncovers striking new gems therein, as well as in Austen's juvenilia, unfinished fiction, and even essays and poetry. Looser also takes on entirely new scholarship, writing about Austen's relationship to the abolitionist movement and women's suffrage. In examining the legacy of Austen's works, Looser reveals the film adaptations that might have changed Hollywood history had they come to fruition, and tells extraordinary stories of ghost-sightings, Austen novels cited in courts of law, and the eclectic members of the Austen extended family whose own outrageous lives seem wilder than fiction. Written with warmth, humor, and remarkable details never before published, Wild for Austen is the ultimate tribute to Jane Austen"--

Book Synopsis

USA Today Bestseller!

Incisive, funny, and deeply-researched insights into the life, writing, and legacy of Jane Austen, by the preeminent scholar Devoney Looser.

Thieves! Spies! Abolitionists! Ghosts! If we ever truly believed Jane Austen to be a quiet spinster, scholar Devoney Looser puts that myth to rest at last in Wild for Austen. These, and many other events and characters, come to life throughout this rollicking book. Austen, we learn, was far wilder in her time than we've given her credit for, and Looser traces the fascinating and fantastical journey her legacy has taken over the past 250 years.

All six of Austen's completed novels are examined here, and Looser uncovers striking new gems therein, as well as in Austen's juvenilia, unfinished fiction, and even essays and poetry. Looser also takes on entirely new scholarship, writing about Austen's relationship to the abolitionist movement and women's suffrage. In examining the legacy of Austen's works, Looser reveals the film adaptations that might have changed Hollywood history had they come to fruition, and tells extraordinary stories of ghost-sightings, Austen novels cited in courts of law, and the eclectic members of the Austen extended family whose own outrageous lives seem wilder than fiction.

Written with warmth, humor, and remarkable details never before published, Wild for Austen is the ultimate tribute to Jane Austen.

Review Quotes

"Jane the prim and proper is laid to rest here, so that Jane the satirist, Jane the subversive, Jane the wild can rise and make her trouble. This reading of all her work, some of her biography and family history, and many of the reactions--as criticism, as movies, as fandom--gallops along, as exhilarating as it is illuminating. Devoney Looser is a superb interpreter and astonishingly erudite scholar of all things Austen, and she brings her expertise to bear deftly, amusingly, informatively, leaving us with an Austen who's ready to roll." - Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me

"Wild for Austen is the ultimate collection of essays about the beloved Jane and her place in history, literature, and even Hollywood. Devoney Looser places Jane in the pantheon, with her canon of novels, poems, stories, and unfinished works. Looser expertly chronicles how Jane Austen influences the adaptations of her own work after her death and inspires new storytelling through her characters, settings and style. Surprising and new facts unveiled and secrets revealed. I couldn't put it down!" - Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Shoemaker's Wife and The View From Lake Como

"By examining the people and events around Jane Austen, Looser makes a vivid and inviting case in Wild for Austen as to why Austen matters in ways both unconventional and challenging. From controversial relatives and acquaintances (accused shoplifters! International spies!) to Austen's brothers' abolitionist efforts, Looser unearths, sometimes single-handedly, enough fascinating personal histories to prove the famous line from Pride and Prejudice: 'people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them forever.' The very same can be said about Austen's legacy over the centuries, and the essays collected here are a joyful, thought-provoking exploration of why we continue to debate, defend, or debunk the Victorian-era persona of a sheltered spinster who lived behind her quill pen. The reader will come away from this collection not only with new and enriching ways of looking at Austen and her books, but with an appreciation for the limits of biography, the histories that still remain hidden, and the compass that great writing can provide to move forward through it all." - Natalie Jenner, internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, The Bloomsbury Girls, and Austen at Sea

"I'm wild about Devoney Looser. No one else wears such deep Austen scholarship so lightly. A brilliant book!" - Lucy Worsley, internationally bestselling author of Jane Austen at Home

"Roller-skating twenty-first century scholar meets iconic nineteenth-century author in this dazzling new book. Combining meticulous historical scholarship with acute understanding of present culture, Devoney Looser replaces the old reticent Jane Austen with a woman thoroughly embedded in her turbulent times--and ours." - Janet Todd, author of Living with Jane Austen

"A mesmerizing must-read . . . bursting with fresh and informative takes. . .Give yourself the gift and pleasure of Wild for Austen: it's a seriously fun and wonderfully intelligent wild ride of a read." - Soniah Kamal, author of Unmarriagable

"Devoney Looser takes us on a refreshing and entertaining romp into some of the most wild--and bewildering--aspects of Regency history, with Jane Austen as her companion." - Tilar J. Mazzeo, bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot

"Breezy, intimate, and unfailingly insightful, Looser again sets the Austen world on its head with her provocative and deeply engaging assessments of everything from Jane's precocious girlhood, her occasional oddball relative, and the complex souls of her most beloved characters. Thoroughly grounded in deep research and even deeper understanding of its subject, Wild for Austen is nothing short of brilliant." - Stephanie Barron, author of the Jane Austen Mystery series.

"An exuberant 'wet shirt lake swim' into Jane Austen's untamed genius, bold characters, and surprising legacy. With sharp humor and fresh insights, Looser explores Austen's wildest moments--from her unapologetically ruthless juvenilia to a surprising history of Austen erotica; this book makes a compelling case for Austen as literature's most unexpected wild child. This a must-read for anyone ready to get the 'tea' on the untamed side of a literary legend." - Nikki Payne, author of Pride and Protest

"Devoney Looser, who has been publishing wildly successful books and essays on Jane Austen for some thirty years, excels herself in this, her latest. Written with her customary brio and informed by a great deal of original research, it is replete with new insights on the full range of Austen's novels and manuscript works, on her extended family, and on her astonishing afterlife. There is nothing demure about Looser's Austen, who on one occasion called herself a 'wild Beast' and who lived up to the billing in her life and in her writings. Reading Jane Austen is a joy, and so too is reading Devoney Looser's Wild for Austen." - Peter Sabor, Distinguished James McGill Professor, McGill University

"With a fresh and funny take and plenty of serious scholarship mixed with personal anecdotes, this title is very enjoyable. A new, and overdue take on Jane Austen's wild side. Sure to delight Jane Austen fans." - Library Journal

"Wild for Austen skates the line between skillfully wrought academic argument and the sort of accessible, gripping romp one might expect from an author whose roller derby moniker was Stone Cold Jane Austen ... Wild for Austen will thrill any Austen fan with its revelation of a rebellious and wonderfully wicked Jane." - BookPage

"Thoughtful and in-depth ... An irreverent and loving take on the iconic Austen, celebrating her centuries of popularity and relevance." - Booklist

"Wide-ranging exploration ... There is a great deal of intriguing material on offer ... Austen fans will relish these fresh insights." - Publishers Weekly

"Looser aims her work at the general public with a breezy, conversational tone ... well informed and fun." - Kirkus

"Serious scholarship has rarely been so charming, entertaining, and revelatory all at once. . . Wild for Austen is a must-read for anyone who can't get enough of Jane Austen." - Chicago Review of Books

"Wild for Austen opens a conversation and suggests multiple metaphorical woodland paths for readers to follow as we explore her work outside the confines of domesticity and into the wild ... Wild for Austen is itself a big, galvanizing text. Let's all embrace the wildness of Austen." - Vox

About the Author

Devoney Looser, Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, is the USA Today bestselling author of Wild for Austen, Sister Novelists, and The Making of Jane Austen. A Guggenheim Fellow and an NEH Public Scholar, Looser has written for The Atlantic, New York Times, Salon, Slate, and The Washington Post. She is a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America and played roller derby under the name Stone Cold Jane Austen.