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Emma by Jane Austen Perhaps the out-and-out funniest of Jane Austen's books. Telling the story of a heroine Austen feared readers would actively dislike, Emma has turned out to be a character whose creation was necessary to the development of the spoiled rich kid genre of literature, TV and movies. Since Emma knows what's best for everybody, she sets about trying to straighten the world out. It doesn't work. Fortunately, before completely screwing up everyone else's life, she gets her head screwed on straight and for the first time sees what it's all about.

Jane Austen: The Complete Novels by Jane Austen This paperback edition includes all six of Jane Austen's completed novels (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion) as well as Lady Susan, which was unpublished during her lifetime.

Jane Austen's Letters by Jane Austen and Deirdre Le Faye (Editor) Jane Austen famously labeled her literary ambit a "little bit (two inches wide) of ivory." Luckily, her personal travels and those of her family were slightly more extensive, otherwise we should be without her letters. Not only should every Janeite possess them, but also every connoisseur of correspondence. Austen's wit is ubiquitous--even though some protest it edges into waspishness. E. M. Forster, for example, described the letters between Austen and her beloved sister, Cassandra, as "the whinnying of harpies."

Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon by Jane Austen A perfect match! An ensemble piece! A delight! This lesser known Austen novel follows the subterfuge of the recently widowed, beautiful, and flirtatious Lady Susan who attempts to secure a good marriage for herself at the same time that she is forcing a dismal match onto her long suffering daughter. Character is revealed, plot unfolds, suspense builds--all through the device of letters exchanged amongst Lady Susan, her family, friends, and enemies. Each letter writer is performed by a different actor, eliminating the potential for confusion and making this a lively and dramatic experience.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Though Jane Austen was writing at a time when Gothic potboilers such as Ann Ward Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto were all the rage, she never got carried away by romance in her own novels. In Austen's ordered world, the passions that ruled Gothic fiction would be horridly out of place; marriage was, first and foremost, a contract, the bedrock of polite society. Certain rules applied to who was eligible and who was not, how one courted and married and what one expected afterwards. To flout these rules was to tear at the basic fabric of society, and the consequences could be terrible. Each of the six novels she completed in her lifetime are, in effect, comic cautionary tales that end happily for those characters who play by the rules and badly for those who don't. In Mansfield Park, for example, Austen gives us Fanny Price, a poor young woman who has grown up in her wealthy relatives' household without ever being accepted as an equal. The only one who has truly been kind to Fanny is Edmund Bertram, the younger of the family's two sons.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.

Persuasion by Jane Austen Anne Elliot, heroine of Austen's last novel, did something we can all relate to: Long ago, she let the love of her life get away. In this case, she had allowed herself to be persuaded by a trusted family friend that the young man she loved wasn't an adequate match, social stationwise, and that Anne could do better. The novel opens some seven years after Anne sent her beau packing, and she's still alone. But then the guy she never stopped loving comes back from the sea. As always, Austen's storytelling is so confident, you can't help but allow yourself to be taken on the enjoyable journey.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect Austen heroine: intelligent, generous, sensible, incapable of jealousy or any other major sin. That makes her sound like an insufferable goody-goody, but the truth is she's a completely hip character, who if provoked is not above skewering her antagonist with a piece of her exceptionally sharp -- but always polite -- 18th century wit. The point is, you spend the whole book absolutely fixated on the critical question: will Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy hook up?

Sanditon and Other Stories by Jane Austen For all the people who know already Jane Austen's six published novels, this volume will be another opportunity to admire the genius of the British author. This volume begins with two unfinished novels. Sanditon, begun in the last year of Jane Austen's life, deals with issues unknown in her other novels, like the culture of commerce and hypocondria. The Watsons, begun in 1804, is a work more similar to Jane Austen's most known work. Both writings are delightful. However, perhaps even more delighful are some of the other works on this volume. Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel about a scheming widow, is one of the most ironic and original works by Jane Austen. And last but not least, there is Jane Austen's juvenilia, works created when the author was between fifteen and eighteen years old. These miniatures are a testimony that the humor and mastery of language of Jane Austen was present at an early age. Among the best of the juvenilia are Love and Friendship, the very partial history of England and Jack and Alice. All of this early works (which were occasionally quoted on the film Mansfield Park) present a very sharp humor. There are also at the end poems and three prayers.The excellent edition and introduction by Peter Washington makes this Everyman's Library volume a must for all fans of Jane Austen and English literature.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen Though not the first novel she wrote, Sense and Sensibility was the first Jane Austen published. Though she initially called it Elinor and Marianne, Austen jettisoned both the title and the epistolary mode in which it was originally written, but kept the essential theme: the necessity of finding a workable middle ground between passion and reason. The story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Whereas the former is a sensible, rational creature, her younger sister is wildly romantic--a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion.

The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster (Editors) In The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen leading scholars from around the world present Austen's works in two broad contexts: that of her contemporary world, and that of present-day critical discourse. Beside discussions of Austen's novels there are essays on religion, politics, class-consciousness, publishing practices, and domestic economy, which describe the world in which Austen lived and wrote. More traditional issues for literary analysis are then addressed: style in the novels, Austen's letters as literary productions, and the stylistic significance of her juvenile works. The volume concludes with assessments of the history of Austen criticism and the development of Austen as a literary cult-figure; it provides a chronology, and highlights the most interesting recent studies of Austen in a vast field of contemporary critical diversity.

The Friendly Jane Austen: A Well-Mannered Introduction to a Lady of Sense and Sensibility by Natalie C. Tyler Every generation rediscovers Jane Austen with a renewed passion for her timeless stories of romance, family relations, and foibles of human nature. Today she is more popular than ever. Natalie Tyler captures the essence of this enthusiasm in a book that shuns obscure academic approaches and provides lively discussions about every one of Austen's novels and characters. Readers can experience the highlights of Austen's early writings, learn about the man who almost won her hand, and puzzle over what on earth she meant by the last line of Persuasion. Tyler includes quizzes, eye-catching illustrations, interviews with Austen scholars and lovers of her work-such as Jane Smiley, T. C. Boyle, and Miss Manners-plus a filmography, a bibliography, and browsable quotes and sidebars to create this wildly entertaining Austen.

Jane and Her Gentlemen: Jane Austen and the Men in Her Life and Novels by Audrey Hawkridge Readers curious about the biographical influences on Austen's novels will delight in this thoughtful study of the men who came into contact with Austen as well as those she created. Hawkridge's book begins with a portrait of Austen that might surprise readers: a flirty, wisecracking young lady whom one of her contemporaries referred to as "the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly." Austen's intelligence and wit show through in her letters to her sister, Cassandra, in which she comments upon the society in which she moved. Hawkridge goes on to discuss Austen's large family in great detail; in addition to her sister, Austen had six brothers--two were naval officers, two others clerics, one a landed gentleman, and the last suffered from severe epilepsy. Jane's romantic interludes are detailed here as well, from the men she fancied to those she did not. Interspersed with these chapters are ones that analyze her novels and speculate on the possible influences the real-life men had on the fictional ones.

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin The author of Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and other comedies of manners gets a biography similar in tone to her own books: intelligent but not intellectual, witty without being nasty. Claire Tomalin, author of four previous biographies of notable British women, treats Jane Austen (1775-1817) with the respect her genius deserves. Tomalin eschews gossip and speculation in favor of a sober account of the writer's life that nonetheless sparkles with sly humor. Perceptive analyses of each of Austen's novels, with autobiographical links suggested but never insisted upon, add to the value of Jane Austen: A Life.

Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel by Claudia L. Johnson By looking at the ways in which Austen domesticates the gothic in Northanger Abbey, examines the conventions of male inheritance and its negative impact on attempts to define the family as a site of care and generosity in Sense and Sensibility, makes claims for the desirability of 'personal happiness as a liberating moral category' in Pride and Prejudice, validates the rights of female authority in Emma, and stresses the benefits of female independence in Persuasion, Johnson offers an original and persuasive reassessment of Jane Austen's thought.--Kate Fullbrook, Times Higher Education Supplement

Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels by Deirdre Le Faye To peruse this lovely volume is to step back in time and experience the world of Georgian and Regency Britain-the world of Jane Austen's enduringly popular fiction. From grand country houses to humble villagers' cottages, from formal dinners to intimate family suppers, from the streets of Bath to the Cobb at Lyme Regis, the author revisits the places familiar to Austen and her characters as she explores in depth the social and physical environment that formed the backdrop for such classics as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. This meticulously detailed account is an essential source of background information for all students and enthusiasts of Jane Austen's books.

Jane Austen's World: The Life and Times of England's Most Popular Author by Maggie Lane Jane Austen's World  is an excellent book for any Jane Austen fan--whether you're just starting to learn about Austen or you're already a seasoned fan. While giving some good biographical information on Austen, it more importantly familiarizes the reader with English society at the time that Jane Austen lived.  We learn to understand how the novel was a recent literary form at this time, and this adds appreciation to the genius of Austen's works. Jane Austen's World is an excellent guide to recent Austen film adaptations.

The Making of Pride and Prejudice by Sue Birtwistle and Susie Conklin The Making of Pride and Prejudice reveals in compelling detail how Jane Austen's classic novel is transformed into a stunning television drama.  Filmed on location in Wiltshire and Derbyshire, Pride and Prejudice, with its lavish sets and distinguished cast, was scripted by award-winning dramatist Andrew Davis, who also adapted Middlemarch for BBC TV. Chronicling eighteen months of work - from the original concept to the first broadcast - The Making of Pride and Prejudice brings vividly to life the challenges and triumphs involved in every stage of the sumptuous television series.

The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay & Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film by Emma Thompson, Clive Coote (Photographer), Lindsay Doran (Introduction), and Jane Austen This first book by Academy Award-winning actress Emma Thompson contains both the screenplay of the Jane Austen novel and the diary she kept during the long months of filming. Thompson labored over the screenplay for five years, and the resulting treatment of what many consider Austen's weakest novel is strong, well written, and enjoyable to read. Fans of the movie as well as of Austen will enjoy perusing the screenplay, and the accompanying photographs of the cast and set are striking. The last section of the book is dedicated to Thompson's diary, which is fairly brief, written in sharp, witty style, and alternately hilarious and morose. Thompson's musings and witticisms are often very funny and ultimately provide a clear, definitely unglamorous documentary of life on a movie set. An interesting introductory piece by producer Lindsay Doran details the 15-year odyssey that finally saw the film to fruition.

The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen by Dominique Engright The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen is an absorbing collection of Jane Austen's sharpest, most profound and amusing observations - on human nature, money, marriage, life and society - taken from her novels and also from her extremely entertaining letters. Easy to dip in to and highly quotable, this beautifully decorated volume will delight all Austen devotees, as well as readers less familiar with her life and work.

The Bar Sinister by Linda Berdoll This book is a furthering of the story of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice through the Napoleonic Wars. It is written in Jane Austen style, historically accurate, but sexy and somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy by Mary Street A historical romance in which the Pride and Prejudice hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy, tells of his relationship with his sister Georgiana, his cousin Fitzwilliam, and the dastardly Wickham.

Desire and Duty : A Sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Ted Bader and Marilyn Bader Set in the year 1805-1815, Desire and Duty tells the romantic adventures of Mr. Darcy's beautiful, shy, devout younger sister, Georgiana. It is a fast paced book for which the movie rights have been sold to Big Star Motion Pictures.  It is accompanied by historical notes and relates the information that Jane Austen herself wished in a sequel.  The follow-up story, Virtue and Vanity is now available.

The Diary of Henry Fitzwilliam Darcy by Marjorie Fasman Darcy! The character who has fascinated and mystified so many of us since our first reading of Pride and Prejudice.  What to make of his strangeness? His coldness? His silences? Now Darcy has been given a voice.  And, using it, he tells us - sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly - how he got that way, and how love came to his rescue to save him from the bitter inheritance of his own beginnings.

Excessively Diverted by Juliette Shapiro Newlyweds Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy begin their married life at Pemberley quite blissfully but it is not long before the tranquillity they relish is cut short by a series of traumas. The formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh makes little attempt to hide her distain for her nephew’s wife. She is joined by Caroline Bingley, as sharp tongued and resentful as ever, in the shared amusement of criticising Elizabeth. But the new mistress of Pemberley soon has more pressing matters on her mind...

Jane Austen in Boca: A Novel by Paula Cohen A clever update of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, this first novel is set in a Jewish retirement community in Boca Raton, FL. Carol Newman is obsessively seeking a mate for her widowed mother-in-law, May. When Carol decides that the recently bereaved and very wealthy Norman Grafstein is the ideal candidate, the resulting comedy of manners is worthy of Austen herself.

Letters from Pemberley, the First Year: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Jane Dawkins A delightful continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In writing a series of letters to her beloved sister, Jane, Elizabeth Darcy describes her first year as mistress of Pemberley with all its anxieties and joys, but never losing her sense of humor and sparkling wit.

Lions and Liquorice by Kate Fenton An entire cast and crew of a new television production of Pride and Prejudice descends on a sleepy valley in Yorkshire. The real life relations between crew and locals gradually begin to echo fiction in a curious way.

The New Illustrated Darcy's Story: From Pride and Prejudice by Janet Aylmer A look at Pride and Prejudice from Darcy's point of view, now in its 12th printing. The sales of this delightful novel are rising each year, for the enjoyment of readers all over the world.

Pemberley Place by Anne Hampson In this sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the author takes her readers into the lives of Mrs. Bennett and her family. Will she lose her home? Will Lizzy improve Darcy's manners? Will Charlotte continue her life of boredom and domination?

Presumption: An Entertainment: A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice by Julia Barrett A witty, amusing sequel to Pride and Prejudice from the pseudonymous Barrett (in real life, Julia Braun Kessler and Gabrielle Donnelly, Holy Mother, 1987). The title seems to anticipate purists' reactions. But if you can get beyond the hubris of anyone's presuming to pick up where Jane Austen left off, you'll be rewarded by an engaging Regency romance and the pleasure of following old friends (Elizabeth, Georgiana, Jane, Darcy) and nemeses (Lady Catherine, Mr. Collins, Wickham) into their new lives.

Pride and Promiscuity : The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen by Arielle Eckstut and Dennis Ashton In 1999, two amateur Jane Austen scholars staying at an English estate stumbled upon a hidden cache of manuscript pages and made the literary discovery of the century -- the lost sex scenes from Jane Austen's novels. Published here for the first time, the lost pages display Emma taking self-satisfaction to a whole new level, and reveal Henry Crawford's thorough exploration of "brotherly love" at Mansfield Park. If you've ever wondered what really happened in the drawing rooms of Austen's beloved characters, Pride and Promiscuity will satisfy your curiosity...and a whole lot more.

Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field by Melissa Nathan A plucky hybrid of Bridget Jones and Elizabeth Bennett, heroine Jasmin Field will attract devotees of Fielding and Austen to this flimsy but likable update of Pride and Prejudice. Londoner Jasmin, or Jazz to her friends, writes a confessional column for Hoorah, a "trashy women's magazine" that runs features like "I married my poodle." She gets wind of a charity adaptation of Pride and Prejudice being directed by mega-star Harry Nobel, and auditions for it along with her actress sister, George, and her best friend, Mo. Unexpectedly cast as Lizzy, Jazz strikes up a flirtation with dishy actor William Whitby (playing Wickham) and develops a serious antipathy to Harry Nobel (a Hollywood-style Darcy), whose insufferable arrogance she can't wait to skewer in her column.

Virtue and Vanity by Ted Bader and Marilyn Bader Virtue and Vanity is the follow-up story to Desire and Duty: a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Sarah Bingley is Governess for the children of Sir Thomas and Lady Staley (Georgiana Darcy) in Paris and then in Derbyshire, England. The story follows Miss Bingley's relationship with the heir of Pemberley Hall, Andrew Darcy.

An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England by Venetia Murray by Venetia Murray Regency England was, according to Venetia Murray, a "glorious paradox": High society placed a premium on civilized living, yet vulgarity, gluttony, and moral vicissitude were considered fashionable--and socially acceptable--vices. In An Elegant Madness, Murray examines this polarity, providing readers with an accurate, entertaining, easy-to-read portrayal that conveys the mood of the period, focusing primarily on the oft-paradoxical social practices and attitudes of the English aristocracy.

English Society in the Eighteenth Century (Penguin Social History of Britain) by Roy Porter by Roy Porter The author manages to balance dry statistics with extremely interesting facts, all written in a reader-friendly manner. Chapter headings such as "Power, Politics and the Law" and "Having and Enjoying" give you an idea of the wide scope of the book.

Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Women in Culture and Society series) by Leonore Davidoff, Catherine Hall (Contributor) by Leonore Davidoff, Catherine Hall (Contributor) Family Fortunes focuses on the rise and influence of the middle class in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century England. The book is divided into three distinct parts. The first section centers on "Religion and Ideology"; here, authors look at fractions among Protestant sects during their time period, and the mutually reinforcing ideas of domesticity and religion. The second section is called "Economic Structure and Opportunity." It begins with a discussion of middle class attitudes towards property, especially as it effects providing income for a family. The other discussion in this section looks at men and women's respective roles in the economy, focusing on men's action and women as the "hidden investment." The final section, "Everyday Life: Gender in Action," looks at marriage, the respective roles of motherhood and fatherhood, definition and importance of the home, how gender was registered and finally, middle class influence in the reform-minded public sphere. Family Fortunes is a big, thick, informative book which is well worth reading for people interested in the rise of the middle class, and social or religious history. Though clearly scholarly in focus it is relatively accessible, and the use many different textual sources helps to illustrate some of the more dense parts of Davidoff and Hall's arguments.

From the Ballroom to Hell: Grace and Folly in Nineteenth Century Dance by Elizabeth Aldrich and Mina Mulvey (Designer) In this entertaining glimpse into the manners and mores of a bygone era, Aldrich collects some 100 little-known excerpts from dance, etiquette, beauty, and fashion manuals from roughly 1800-1890. Included are step-by-step instructions for performing the various quadrilles, minuets, and waltzes, as well as musical scores, costume patterns, and the proper way to hold one's posture, fork, gloves, and fan. An excellent introduction provides the context. With black and white illustrations. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery Winner of the Longman History Today Prize in 1998, Amanda Vickery's The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England is an outstanding study of a crucial period in modern women's history. Roy Porter described this book as "the most important thing in English feminist history in the last ten years." Readers familiar with the feminist analysis of women's lives in the late 18th to mid-19th century will find some of the commonplaces of that viewpoint called into question: the rise of "separate spheres" of male and female experience, for example, or the social construction of motherhood in the 18th century. At once scholarly and readable, The Gentleman's Daughter takes its readers on a vivid and well-illustrated tour of "genteel" Georgian society, bringing that world to life through what Vickery identifies as the "terms set out in their own letters by genteel women." Those terms structure the seven sections of the book: "Gentility", "Love and Duty', "Fortitude and Resignation" (which includes a notable discussion of the experience of pregnancy), "Prudent Economy", "Elegance", "Civility and Vulgarity", and "Propriety". "Our battles were not necessarily theirs," Vickery reminds us, striking her convincing balance between a feminist interest in the restriction and rebellion of women's lives and their own ways of finding meaning and pleasure in the gender distinctions of Georgian culture.

Jane Austen and the Clergy by Irene Collins Jane Austen was the daughter of a clergyman, the sister of two others and the cousin of four more. Her principal acquaintances were clergymen and their families, whose social, intellectual and religious attitudes she shared. Yet while clergymen feature in all her novels, often in major roles, there has been little recognition of their significance. To many readers their status and profession is a mystery, as they appear simply to be a sub-species of gentlemen and never seem to perform any duties. Mr Collins in Pride and prejudice is often regarded as little more than a figure of fun.Astonishingly, Jane Austen and the Clergy is the first book to demonstrate the importance of Jane Austen's clerical background and to explain the clergy in her novels, whether Mr Tilney in Northanger Abbey, Mr Elton in Emma, or a less prominent character such as Dr Grant in Mansfield Park. In this exceptionally well-written and enjoyable book, Irene Collins draws on a wide knowledge of the literature and history of the period to describe who the clergy were, both in the novels and in life: how they were educated and appointed the houses they lived in and the gardens they designed and cultivated; the women they married; their professional and social context; their income, their duties, their moral outlook and their beliefs. Jane Austen and the Clergy uses the facts of Jane Austen's life and the evidence contained in her letters and novels to give a vivid and convincing portrait of the contemporary clergy.

Jane Austen and the Theatre by Paula Byrne Jane Austen enjoyed and was greatly interested in the theatre. Many of her novels, with their memorable individual characters, dramatic confrontations and surprising denouements, owe part of their effect to theatrical inspiration. The dramatic impact of her novels is demonstrated by the ease with which they have been adapted for television and film. In Jane Austen and the Theatre Paula Byrne makes clear the important part the theatre played in both Jane Austen's life and work. There is no doubt about Jane Austen's own passion for the stage. She went to the theatre in London and Bath whenever she could, acted in private theatricals, and wrote a number of her early works in play form. Living in a great age of English stage comedy, she drew inspiration from Sheridan as well as Shakespeare. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Mansfield Park are, as Paula Byrne shows, all shaped by the comic drama of the period and by Jane Austen's own understanding of men and women as actors playing parts.

Regency Etiquette: The Mirror of Graces, 1811 by A Lady of Distinction R.L. Shep, the publisher who had the foresight to reprint this wonderful book first published in 1811 deserve all the compliments in this world (and the next) for recognsing this book as a classic. It is at once hilarious to our modern eyes, and a startling insight into life of the well bred miss in Regency Times. The book is packed full of classical references and piously rendered good advice which jostle in happy company in each breathless sentence. Don't think that the archaic language will put you off- it is too funny to put down.

The Regency Underworld by Donald A. Low Alongside the world of Pride and Prejudice and the Nature poets, of Constable and Nash, there also existed a pulsating underworld where crime and vice of every kind flourished. Venture into this forgotten world, and discover a vivid picture of pleasure-seekers, criminals and body-snatchers at work. This revised edition has a new introduction by the author, who has extensively re-illustrated the book with a variety of contemporary prints, portraits and cartoons to bring the period and the characters during 1800-1830 to life. All those with an interest in early nineteenth-century social history will find this lively and informative book a pleasure to read.

Phoenix: The History of the Countryside: The Classic History of Britain's Landscape, Flora and Fauna by Oliver Rackham Fields, highways, hedgerows, fens, marshes, rivers, heaths, coasts, woods, and wood pastures: this tribute to the endlessly changing character of Britain's countryside illustrates how it developed over the centuries. Going right up to the present day, and including both natural and man-made features, it demonstrates the sometimes subtle, sometimes radical ways in which people, flora, fauna, climate, soils, and other physical conditions have played a role in shaping the landscape.

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist - The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth Century England by Daniel Pool For every frustrated reader of the great nineteenth-century English novels of Austen, Trollope, Dickens, or the Brontës who has ever wondered whether a duke outranked an earl, when to yell "Tally Ho!" at a fox hunt, or how one landed in "debtor's prison," here is a "delightful reader's companion that lights up the literary dark" (The New York Times).

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England: From 1811-1901 (Writer's Guide to Everyday Life) by Kristine Hughes Respected author and historian Kristine Hughes illuminates every aspect of life, love and society that characterized this fascinating era. Writers will save hours of valuable research time and achieve historical accuracy as they reference slice-of-life facts, anecdotes, first-hand accounts and timelines. Twenty illustrations.

The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers by Elizabeth Benedict by Elizabeth Benedict The word "thoughtful" might seem a tricky adjective to have in the bedroom. But consider: wouldn't some thoughtful sex be nice? So it is with novelist Elizabeth Benedict's tome on how--in chapters discussing portrayals of everything from masturbation to safe sex, the marriage bed, first times, and more--to find that place where thought and spirit, and yes, heat, all come together (if not for your characters, at least for your readers). "There is no safety in writing well," Dorothy Allison points out here. Only in writing truthfully. Benedict's book helps us do just that.

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