Barchas looks at the works of Jane Austen in light of their historical context and posits that Austen used the names of many prominent families to make statements or parodies in her own fiction. According to Barchas, Austen also made used of her geographic knowledge to poke fun at her characters or make additional commentary. Barchas goes on to argue that because Austen's books became popular many years after her death, most critics did not pick up at these nuances previously.

In many ways this book reminded of Jane Austen, Secret Radical, in which another literary critic tries to make sweeping changes to the way Austen's novels are currently read by glomming on to small facts and trying to make them bigger than they are. (I did review that book elsewhere on LibraryThing if you are looking for more details.) As with that book, I appreciated the author here doing so much work in revealing details about Austen's milieu. I also think some of her theories have some validity. However, I feel like she runs with a train of thought and keeps going well beyond the track.

For instance, a big part of Barchas's argument is that Austen used the names of celebrity families of her day in her fiction to make social commentary. While Barchas does list some of those names and points out to where Austen uses them, I don't think she quite succeeds in arguing that Austen is making a grander point in their usage. Barchas herself even says "All these tantalizing coincidences and near overlaps may be nothing more than inevitable historical coincidence." Barchas quickly tries to dismiss this, but I think it rings more true than her 'proof' that Austen consciously chose both first and last names to signify a specific family or scandal. (The fact that Austen uses a name like "Mary" for three wildly different characters in three distinct novels would alone be suggestive that she did not think her audience was making specific connections to real-world personages. That Austen may have had her own personal laugh at some of her name selections I do whole-heartedly believe.)

As it was written by an academic, this book does read often like a term paper, with phrases to the effect of 'in this chapter, I will show how....' filled in with a thesis. Nevertheless, I found it read fairly quickly once you got into the swing of it. The historical aspects really were riveting; for example, I thought the chapter on the Hell-fire Club was so good that I read bits about the infamous club aloud to others. It certainly was interesting to see Austen's novels in relation to her time's scandals and stories, but again I emphasis that I think Barchas overextended her hand to make more out these snippets than was there.

Super fans of Austen, literary criticism, and/or history will get at least something out of this book. ( )