Unbecoming Jane: Austen, Proust & Darwin (& Casanova & Stendhal)

There is a "becoming" Jane Austen who delights Victorians, spinsters, and weenies - and who disgusted Mark Twain. There also exists a nastier Jane Austen who challenges traditional notions of fitness and propriety. Much of this Jane vanished when her sister Cassandra burned many of her letters. However, a caustic Jane Austen remains to be appreciated in her novels, juvenilia, and surviving correspondence. With a variety of insights afforded by psychoanalysis, Regency history, and evolutionary theory, (as well as Proust and Casanova and Stendhal), the author recovers a Jane Austen who is unbecoming, adult, entertaining-and truly classic. This irreverent yet insightful work of literary criticism is a co-publication of Unlimited Publishing LLC and Harvardwood Books.