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Everybody's Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination

Juliette Wells

3.80 · Rating details · 30 ratings · 8 reviews

The plethora of Jane-Austen-related fiction and nonfiction--sequels, mysteries, dating guides, invented biographies, and more--that has appeared within the last decade attests to her readers' enthusiasm for re-envisioning her characters as well as herself. Everybody's Jane is the first study to investigate fully these popular appropriations of Austen in England and America ...more

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Paperback, 246 pages

Published March 22nd 2012 by Bloomsbury Academic (first published January 19th 2012)

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· 30 ratings · 8 reviews

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Jan 21, 2018 Kirk rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018, 2018-austenesque-tbr-published, jane-austen

Somewhere between 3.25 and 3.75.

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Oct 11, 2012 Ting rated it really liked it

This book looks at the "amateur" readers of Jane Austen and what their sheer enjoyment of her works can bring to the academic table. Also, looked at Jane Austen in popular culture and how the various spin-offs etc. reflect what we want from Jane as well as what that says about ourselves, and the personal connection each "fan" has with their beloved Jane. Loved it! Makes me feel so good to be a "Janeite". ...more

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Jul 12, 2014 majoringinliterature rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, literature-and-criticism

One of the truly curious things about Austen is just how many different incarnations of her there are. In the space of two hundred years, the ghost of Austen has been conjured in many different forms: saint, saviour, genius - and of course, more recently, in a wider and wider variety of guises: lover, detective, even bloodsucking and immortal vampire.

Biographies of Austen, and accounts of her work, frequently try to chip away at the layers and layers of disguises she has been coated with, in an One of the truly curious things about Austen is just how many different incarnations of her there are. In the space of two hundred years, the ghost of Austen has been conjured in many different forms: saint, saviour, genius - and of course, more recently, in a wider and wider variety of guises: lover, detective, even bloodsucking and immortal vampire.

Biographies of Austen, and accounts of her work, frequently try to chip away at the layers and layers of disguises she has been coated with, in an effort to get a little closer to the 'real' Austen, to what she 'really' thought and 'really' wrote. But for me, as for many, the 'real' Austen (impossible to ever recover now, try as one might) is sometimes less interesting than the various ideas that people have of her. Partly, because it says a lot about the society they're living in, and partly because it says a lot about individual desires and experiences.

Juliette Wells' book, then, seems an absolute wonder. Everybody's Jane: Austen in the Popular Imagination doesn't attempt to tell us anything new about Austen. Instead, it's interested in inviting us into the world of the popular Jane Austen, a world of TV miniseries, bonnet-making classes, and vampire Jane Austen fan fiction. (Incidentally, I've found a trend among many Austen scholars, all of whom seem to want to avoid telling us 'anything new', as if they are aware of the limitations that a country parson's daughter who wrote six novels might place on truly astounding or ground-breaking analysis and insight. Or maybe they're just being modest.)

The study of popular culture has always been marred, in the past, by a contempt amongst scholars (and, indeed, everyday people) for the subject-matter. Which I have always found to be rather a shame, because finding out what the population at large is consuming seems to me a fascinating insight into the ideologies and practices of our own society. Not to mention that getting paid to watch and re-watch Jane Austen adaptations, read graphic novels, and contemplate the complexities of the Star Wars universe strikes me as a particularly enjoyable occupation.

So I fully expected to enjoy Everybody's Jane. From its introduction it is clear that Wells aims to take as distanced and scholarly approach to her study of Austen in popular culture as possible, an attitude which is clearly necessary for any such undertaking. Indeed, the book is not concerned with the quality of Jane Austen continuations and adaptations so much as the quantity and type of those cultural products.

Wells covers an impressive amount of material: images of Austen, literary tourism, fan fiction, and movie adaptations. But while all of these discussions are interesting, they lack, perhaps a certain depth; Wells does an excellent job collecting and describing various popular depictions and understandings of Austen, but in her task of cataloguing them all she perhaps sacrifices a depth, and a consistent comparative approach, which might otherwise have made this a truly fascinating book. In particular, I would have liked a discussion of Jane Austen as a marketing tool, and perhaps an examination of Austen-based memorabilia, gifts, and toys. Of course, I appreciate that this would probably provide a considerable practical challenge to a scholar, given the ever-changing nature of Austen trinkets available online and in stores, but it's still a fascinating topic that I would love, one day, to see in print.

But I should probably stop focusing on what the book doesn't do, and focus on what it does. As an overview of Austen in the popular imagination, it is a good book. A stronger structure and more focused analysis might have made it a truly excellent one; but for anyone interested in Austen's effect on popular culture, it is a good place to start.

Originally posted at Majoring in Literature. ...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Kate rated it really liked it

Shelves: austenmania, 2013-reads, written-a-review

I enjoyed this book. It's an academic (but very accessible) survey of Jane Austen in the non-academic consciousness. Wells had chapters on Jane Austen societies, collectors, movies, literary tourists and fan fiction. The majority of the material was new to me - particularly the chapters on collectors, societies, literary tourists and fan fiction. She also covered different editions of Austen - which ones are written for academics and which ones for people who like to **think** they are academics ...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Bianca rated it really liked it

A collection of analytical essays by Juliette Wells focused on Jane Austen as she has been imagined in modern popular culture. Highlighting the amateur (here she chooses the more positive definition of someone who is eager and ready to enjoy, rather than the more negative ideal of an unskilled/inept person) communities that embrace the idea of enjoying Austen on a personal level, an idea most shocking and frivolous to the academic community. Chapters are devoted to an Austen collector, Austen's ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 Meg rated it it was ok

Shelves: jane-austen, reading-challenge-2019

I have NO idea how this book hit my shelf....but I grabbed it for the reading challenge. I expected a book about Jane Austen for the every day fan (which the author keeps claiming this book is!)--- instead this is a collection of academic "articles" written about Jane Austen....but boring enough that I don't care to recommend it for others. The author does take a very diverse mix of topics-- but nothing that a reader/fan/enthusiast would want to track down in order to better understand Ms. Auste ...more

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Jan 24, 2020 Éowyn rated it liked it

Shelves: austen-related, non-fiction

For a book that was supposed to be for the 'amateur' reader of Jane Austen, this was remarkably dull and dry in places. There was an excessive amount of plot detail of several genre-bending-fanfic works. There was also an in-text reference so a piece of art work the author had seen in Winchester Cathedral that was apparently on the frontispiece of the book.... I couldn't see it.

Perhaps it didn't appeal as it was more geared to an American audience? Anyway, I don't think it is worth a place in my ...more

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