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Jane Austen, obstinate heart : a biography by Valerie Grosvenor Myer is a biography available to read on EtoBox.

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At the heart of Jane Austen's story lies a mystery: how a woman of "genteel poverty," the seventh child of a country clergyman, an unmarried spinster for whom life was often a struggle against the indignities of financial dependency, could have produced works of such magnificent warmth and wisdom. Valerie Grosvenor Myer's flawless research proves Austen's books grew from the preoccupations of her social set - respectability, financial security, and most of all, marriage. "It is a truth universally acknowledged," begins Pride and Prejudice, "that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." In that one line are revealed the principal forces at work in Austen's novels - and in the world from which they were drawn. For many middle-class women of Austen's day, marriage was paradoxically the only method of achieving independence. Marriage could also be a life sentence. Myer shows that by many accounts Austen was pretty and flirtatious (though occasionally also sharp-tongued), and the object of at least two proposals, but obstinate in her refusal to marry for other than love. Her obstinacy condemned her to reliance on her family for financial support. As Myer

Who reads Jane Austen, obstinate heart : a biography?

Author

Valerie Grosvenor Myer

Publisher

Arcade Pub. : distributed by Little, Brown and Co

Published

1997

Language

EN

ISBN

9781559704359

Category

biography

Subjects

Literary Fiction, Memoir, Fiction

Rating

3.22 / 5 (18 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14