I do not know Professor Looser personally, but my MA thesis advisor does through Jane Austen scholarship, and my former department chair at Marquette gets a shout-out in her acknowledgments! It's fun playing the Six Degrees of Academic Kevin Bacon. Name recognition made me pick up this book, but the content is a game-changer for Austen scholarship.

Looser focuses on less-known aspects of scholarship or culture surrounding Jane Austen. In so doing, she opens up avenues for future researchers to explore. The part on dramatizing Austen is perhaps the most fascinating, because it shows the origin of the "sexy Darcy" which has been popularly attributed to Colin Firth, who took his performance from Laurence Olivier, who has HIS roots in a theater adaptation in the 1930s and an ever-evolving screenplay. It's fascinating, and a great accompaniment to The Cinematic Jane Austen.

Looser proficiently bridges the gap between scholarly and general writing, and this book is all the more worth reading, because of it. If you like reading about Jane Austen culture, this book is for you. If you are interested in cultural literary movements and authors' afterlives, this book is also for you. ( )

As an author, Jane Austen has reached a near mythic status, and this book, focusing not on the author's life but her afterlife, tells part of the story of how that came to be. Looking at how Austen's stories were illustrated in the 19th century, how stage actors adapted her novels, how politicians from different ends of the political spectrum made use of her words, and how students were introduced to Austen through curriculums, this book pieces together the story of an author's legacy. Different eras and generations have examined Austen and found something slightly different that speaks to the moment. If you're a Jane Austen fan, this book is definitely recommended. ( )

Nearly everyone loves Jane Austen. People have favorites and can get quite heated over whether “Emma” or “Mansfield Park” or “Pride and Prejudice” are the best or who wrote the best completion of Sanditon or how anyone would dare, but outright dislike for Jane Austen? I sure, like the yeti, it may exist, but only in theory. Most everyone likes Jane Austen, but which one? There’s so many to choose from, the prim and proper defender of class and privilege, the saucy, dry wit skewering class and privilege, the proto-feminist whose success mocks the idea that great literature is written by men? In The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser looks at how these many ideas of who Jane Austen was and how our understanding of her books was formed as much by people who publicized her work as by Jane Austen herself.

Clearly organized into sections that dive deeply into the illustrated, the dramatized, and the politicized Austen as well as Austen pedagogy, from the first dissertation to the McGuffey Reader, The Making of Jane Austen provides a review of how Austen’s image was shaped and shifted over time by those who marketed her work in books, films, and texts. Looser also looks at how both anti-suffrage men and suffragettes used Austen to prop up their viewpoint as people continue to look to Austen for conservative and liberal ideas. It seems Austen in almost biblical in her ability to be all things to all people.

What makes The Making of Jane Austen compelling, though, is the stories of people who are simply fascinating as the man who first illustrated Austen, Pickering. He was the ultimate perpetual student at the Royal Academy and his understanding of Austen reflected the melodrama of his real life perhaps more than the actual storylines. Then there is Pellow, who wrote the first Austen dissertation. He died under mysterious circumstances which no one seems to agree upon. I am curious why that mystery was not cleared up when the most famous medium of the time began channeling him.

When writing this review, I looked at the author’s web site and discovered she has posted many additional pictures of the illustrations, handbills, and other items she talks about in the book. I wish we had been directed there in the book, because she often wrote about illustrations in addtion to those in the book.

I love Jane Austen, in fact, I love Austen a bit too much to watch the films, TV series, and adaptations, let alone the zombies. I didn’t even watch “Clueless” because…”Leave my “Emma” alone!” However, I was interested in seeing how the perception of Austen may have changed over time or why there is such fervor at the moment. Perhaps it is because her novels can be read at two levels, as the conservative stories of love, marriage, and class sensibilities or the satiric sendup of those same things. Perhaps what we really find in Austen is ourselves.

In any event, Looser has persuaded me that Austen can stand up to good and bad adaptations, to silly vampires and serious Colin Firth, so I will no longer fear Austen being ruined by bad acting. Maybe I will even watch “Clueless.”

I received The Making of Jane Austen as a thank you gift from Johns Hopkins University Press with no obligation to review.

The Making of Jane Austen at Johns Hopkins University Press
Devoney Looser author site, Faculty Page at Arizona State University
Book Extras – more illustrations and photos for the book

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/07/15/the-making-of-jane-austen... ( )

Interesting academic study of the different ways Jane Austen has been portrayed and marketed and thought of, through illustration, theater, and eventually movies. Parts of it were a little dull for me but this isn't a book really aimed at general readers and scholarly types would find more to enjoy. I had hoped it would be a different kind of book, more about the film adaptations, the popular culture manifestations and about the WHY of it, why we return again and again to Jane and how her books continue to hold such an appeal- and bridge the divide between high brow and beach bag. But that's not really what this book is about. ( )