{"product_id":"jane-austen-a-life-9780679766766","title":"Jane Austen: A Life","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt her death in 1817, Jane Austen left the world six of the most beloved novels written in English--but her shortsighted family destroyed the bulk of her letters; and if she kept any diaries, they did not survive her. Now acclaimed biographer Claire Tomalin, author of \u003ci\u003eA Life of My Own\u003c\/i\u003e, has filled the gaps in the record, creating a remarkably fresh and convincing portrait of the woman and the writer. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhile most Austen biographers have accepted the assertion of Jane's brother Henry that \"My dear Sister's life was not a life of events,\" Tomalin shows that, on the contrary, Austen's brief life was fraught with upheaval. Tomalin provides detailed and absorbing accounts of Austen's ill-fated love for a young Irishman, her frequent travels and extended visits to London, her close friendship with a worldly cousin whose French husband met his death on the guillotine, her brothers' naval service in the Napoleonic wars and in the colonies, and thus shatters the myth of Jane Austen as a sheltered and homebound spinster whose knowledge of the world was limited to the view from a Hampshire village. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClaire Tomalin is the author of eight highly acclaimed biographies, including \u003ci\u003eThomas Hardy\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSamuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the 2002 Whitbread Book of the Year Award. She has previously won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Hawthornden Prize, the NCR Book Award for Non-Fiction, and the Whitbread Biography Award. Educated at Cambridge University, she served as literary editor of the \u003ci\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e. Claire Tomalin lives in London and is married to the playwright Michael Frayn.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50491888697618,"sku":"9780679766766","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_86000e6b-6347-4de2-a56d-b8879d8a14a5.jpg?v=1730560570","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/jane-austen-a-life-9780679766766","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}