We celebrate Jane Austen as the mother of the English realist novel, but have you ever wondered why she insists on giving her mature heroines the 'perfect happiness' that can only be realized in the romance? Romancing Jane Austen asks the reader to consider Austen's happy endings as a 'prophetic' rather than merely 'illusory' answer to the contradiction that feminine subjectivity represents for history. A happy ending for the feminine subject? But that would be against all the empirical odds...

Autorentext
ASHLEY TAUCHERT is Senior Lecturer in the School of English, Exeter University, UK. Her previous works include Mary Wollstonecraft and the Accent of the Feminine and Gender, Teaching and Research in Higher Education.

Inhalt
Introduction: The Persistence of Jane Austen's Romance Hastening Together to Perfect Felicity Her Opinions are all Romantic Lydia's Tremendous Gape She Does Not Like To Act The Operation of the Same System in Another Way Loving Longest, When Existence or When Hope is Gone Conclusion: The Possibility of a Happy Ending Notes Bibliography