Finding Comfort in Jane Austen

When the world is topsy-turvy and our hearts are heavy, many of us find comfort in books. And there’s something special in particular about the beauty of Austen’s novels, in the richness of the movie adaptations, and even in the thought of the lovely Hampshire countryside, secluded and beautiful, tucked away and secure. The world inside Austen’s novels never changes....

Northanger Abbey’s “Horrid Novels”

In Austen’s youth, sentimental romances and sensational Gothic novels full of dramatized heroines, dark towers and dungeons, and dangerous male villains became popular. These included novels like Charlotte Smith’s Emmeline...