The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen - Softcover

The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen is an absorbing collection of the author's sharpest, most profound and amusing observations - on human nature, money, marriage, life and society - taken from her novels and from her extremely entertaining letters. Austen's social insights remain as fresh today as when they were first published, and this delightful volume offers the reader a thematic distillation of her novels and letters. It also contains numerous quotes displaying Austen's sharp - indeed, often wicked - social observation and satirical wit. Jane Austen had little contact with society outside her extended family, and none whatsoever with London literary life. Yet, her novels earned her the acclaim of such literary figures as Sir Walter Scott, who praised her 'talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life'. Austen's novels are studies of universal human social traits - romantic innocence, self-delusion, gullibility, greed, snobbery, rudeness, arrogance, and obsequiousness - which focus principally on the antics of those seeking well-connected and well-appointed husbands and their efforts to elbow out their less 'suitable' rivals. Featuring quotes from such novels as Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Pride and Prejudice, alongside extracts from Austen's letters to her sister and confidante, Cassandra, The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen is a charming tribute to a writer whose work will resonate for centuries to come.

Dominique Enright is a freelance writer and editor. Her previous works for Michael O'Mara Books include The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill and The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen, and she is also the compiler and editor of selections from the verse of Burns, Keats, Kipling and Wordsworth. She lives in London with her husband, son and two daughters.