I don’t know why I read so many graphic novel biographies, because I’m not generally that fond of them, but I guess it’s that I always feel like my knowledge of history is sorely lacking, and I’d way rather read something with cool art than a regular biography? And I’m teaching my Jane Austen and her Contemporaries class this semester, so when I saw this on the new release shelf at the library, I grabbed it. I was a little skeptical, because there’s so much misinformation about Austen swirling around (my friend Stephanie Insley Hershinow recorded a great lecture series for audible on this topic that I learned a lot from!), but even taking it with a grain of salt, there was so much really fascinating information in this book! Especially interesting, to me, was all the information about her extended family and their various adventures. It really gives lie to the idea of Austen as this isolated rural spinster type, making clear just how connected she was to the larger world. In this vein, there’s an especially great interlude where the narrative shifts to considering the various fabrics that get talked about in Austen’s world — Indian muslin and linen and cotton — and briefly tells you about how they are produced.
There has been so much work done to make people aware of how various global processes (the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism especially) show up in people’s day-to-day lives, but somehow this time it really hit me, and made me think differently about the whole story the book was telling, as is obvious, I suppose, from my brief gloss of it!
It was a fun read, with really lovely artwork. I think it would teach well in an Austen course, too.
Kasia Reads 