VIGNETTES: Literary Lives in the Age of Austen

by Sue Wilkes

Jane Austen lived in a ground-breaking era for English Literature. This was the age of William Wordsworth, Percy and Mary Shelley, John Keats, and others. Austen herself drew inspiration from the writers who came before her, like Doctor Johnson, Thomson, Cowper and Fanny Burney. She faced stiff competition from the rival novelists of her day like Ann Radcliffe, Mary Brunton, and Walter Scott.
Away from the novelists’ world, writers like Mary Wollstonecraft argued passionately for women’s rights, and Parson Malthus, Robert Owen and Thomas Bernard discussed how best to deal with the poor.
Based on the author’s previously published articles in Jane Austen's Regency World magazine, this lively exploration of Austen’s times also looks at popular literature. How did our tradition of Christmas ‘annuals’ begin? Were female novel-readers really the ‘slaves of vice’? Find out more in 'Vignettes'.

178 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 12, 2019

About the author

Sue Wilkes has lived in Cheshire with her family since 1981. She grew up in Salford, just as many of the great relics of the Industrial Revolution were being demolished. Her grandfather and great-grandfather were Lancashire miners. Her great-grandmother was a mill-worker, and her grandmother was a weaver at a mill.
Sue is a regular contributor to print and online magazines in the UK and USA. She is a fact-checker for a UK history magazine. Sue is married, with two children, and is a member of the Society of Authors.