THE NOVEL LIFE OF JANE AUSTEN

A graphic biography spotlights three key episodes in the quiet existence that fueled seven wicked comedies of manners.

Greenberg’s sprightly illustrations generally favor a muted blue-gray-yellow color scheme that bursts into vivid reds and purples when Austen imagines scenes in her novels. Part 1, in the late 1790s, chronicles several visits to Bath with her beloved sister Cassandra. Tart correspondence and conversational asides about their garrulous mother and other relatives (of whom she was fond while gently mocking their quirks) display the sly humor Austen developed in her fiction. It was unappreciated by publishers in that period, when she was disheartened by the rejection of Pride and Prejudice. In Part 2 the family moves to Bath after Reverend Austen retires, and their already modest circumstances become straitened after his death in January 1805. Jenny and Cassy, as the sisters call each other, are now past 30 and know they are unlikely to marry; they are forced to move with their mother into brother Frank’s home in Southampton. Tours of ruins and everyday domestic scenes show Austen’s sharp eye at work and nicely capture the modest details from which she crafted her brilliant novels. The appealing combination of drawings and text encourages an affection for her that will lead readers to sigh with relief when the Austen women are able to relocate to more comfortable quarters on the Hampshire estate of their wealthy brother Edward in Part 3. With more privacy and time to write, Austen finally becomes a published author with Sense and Sensibility in 1811. There’s nothing terribly new in this low-key portrait, but the focus on selected episodes gives a nice sense of the texture of Austen’s daily life.

A treat for the international army of Janeites.