In this new biography of Jane Austen, David Nokes plays master sleuth and storyteller in presenting the great novelist "not in the modest pose which her family determined for her, but rather, as she most frequently presented herself, as rebellious, satirical, and wild."

David Nokes is a Reader in English Literature at King's College, London. He is the author of John Gay: A Profession of Friendship (1995), and Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed (1985).

"Eventful this life was not; but Nokes shows that Austen's moral penetration of the stifling society she nevertheless supported was as acute in her letters as in her novels."—New York Times Book Review, Notable Books of the Year

"Nokes does a splendid job of evoking 18th-century England and the often eccentric figures who populated Austen's world."—Linda Simon, Newsday

"Reads like one of Austen's novels."—Library Journal

"In Nokes's hands, Austen has become, in effect, one of the romantic heroines she delighted in crafting. It is a sensitive interpretation, overlaid with the confidence of one who feels that he has seized his subject's soul. Austen's verbal brilliance rings through Nokes's prose."—Stephanie Barron, Christian Science Monitor

"What a feast for Austen addicts!"—Joan Aiken, Washington Post Book World

"Nokes . . . redraws the map of Austen's life on a number of occasions. . . . He is critically and psychologically acute, and refreshingly heterodox on some well-worn issues."—Simon Jarvis, Times Literary Supplement

"[Nokes] strikes an extraordinary balance between detailed analysis and readability, and focuses, with a fiction writer's sensitivity, on the psychological drama in Austen's sedentary existence. The result is a suspenseful narrative, full of surprises."—Charles Wright, Biography

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR 1997