OUT NOW: Growing Older with Jane Austen

Growing Older With Jane Austen by Maggie Lane

That Jane Austen is enduringly popular with both a general readership and academics can admit of no doubt.  But amid the wealth of approaches to her life and work, no one has made a full-length study of the concept of ageing in her novels. Maggie Lane’s new book sets out to fill that gap.

With chapters on The Loss of Youth and Beauty; Old Wives and Old Maids; Merry Widows and Dowager Despots, the theme allows for a lively exploration of many of Austen’s most memorable characters.  There are chapters too on hypochondria and illness, age and poverty, death and wills. The book draws on the six novels, major literary fragments, Austen’s own letters and the reminiscences of family members and contemporaries.  Real-life examples are used to underline the fidelity of Austen’s fictional representation.

Ageing is very much on our own agenda, and Austen’s wry approach to the perils and consolations of growing older is bound to strike chords with many.

The Author

Maggie Lane has written many popular books about Jane Austen including Understanding Austen, which was also published by Robert Hale.  She has lectured on aspects of Jane Austen’s life and novels to the Jane Austen Societies of the UK, Canada, the US and Australia and has published in their respective journals.  Currently she is editor of the Jane Austen Society (UK) biannual Newsletter and Annual Report as well as consultant editor to the global Regency World magazine.

Buy your copy of Growing Older With Jane Austen here.

 

Ebook Spring Sale Titles

Spring has arrived and with it some great new books for your e-reader, currently on sale for under a pound!

Head to the country with two of our most beloved authors. Three titles from the great E.V. Thomspon are available: God’s Highlander, Blue Dress Girl and The Bonds of Earth. Alternatively, head further north to Yorkshire and try two reads from Nicholas Rhea, the author of the Constable… books: Constable Across and the Moors and Murder at Maddleskirk Abbey.

If crime fiction is more your style, two of Bill Kitson’s Mike Nash crime stories are part of the sale: Depth of Despair and Chosen.

Author Wendy Perriam heads to Broken Places for her story but if you prefer things a little more regal then don’t despair – A Crown of Despair by Jenny Mandeville is also part of the sale.

Sh! A Vow of Silence by Veronica Black is available, or you could enjoy a Star-Crossed Summer with Sarah Stanley.

If the spring has made you want to travel the world, you can head to Berlin with The Boy from Berlin by Michael Parker or see for yourself what living in Venice is really like with Polly Coles’s The Politics of Washing: Real Life in Venice.

If you like your stories dark then try The Pershore Poisoners by Kerry Tombs or wartime fiction The Lambs by Peter James Cottrell.

For those with a Nook, there are also two great Maggie Lane titles available on Jane Austen.

Happy reading and here’s to more great weather and reading outdoors!

Christmas Favourites from Robert Hale Ltd

Wondering what to buy your nearest and dearest this holiday season? Wonder no more. We at Robert Hale Ltd have got something for everyone – from gripping ebooks for the technologically advanced to the ultimate Bat-bible for comic book fans and everything in between.

For fans of classic British literature, check out Maggie Lane’s Understanding Austen. Lane, acclaimed author of many Jane Austen books, turns her attention to the fascinating nuances of Austen’s language and the way it embodies her most profound beliefs about human conduct and character. Jane Austen Award nominee Amanda Grange shines a light on the life of Sense and Sensibility’s Colonel Brandon in Colonel Brandon’s Diary, offering fans of Austen’s work a chance to explore her world a little further.

If you know people more inclined to pick up a comic book than an Austen novel, however, we have the ultimate Bat-bible, Holy Franchise Batman! by Gary Collinson to entertain any bat-fans, even the more knowledgeable ones. The book follows the many manifestations of Bruce Wayne/Batman over the years from TV to cinema and is filled with fascinating Bat-facts.

If your loved ones shy away from books altogether, preferring to pick up their Kindle or Kobo and delve into an ebook, our ebook range includes everything from westerns to crime and romance. We have Robert Goddard’s first ever book Past Caring, the brilliant Inspector Box crime series by Norman Russell or the Helen Forrester series: Three Women of Liverpool, Liverpool Daisy and The Latchkey Kid. Both Aunt Letitia by Dominic Luke and Elizabeth Jackson’s Language of Thieves have zoomed up the Amazon rankings recently or you could try Peter Tickler’s Blood in Oxford series: Blood in Grandpont, Blood on the Cowley Road and Blood on the Marsh.

Don’t forget to check back with us for our Christmas ebook catalogue… coming soon!

If you fancy giving the men in your life something to laugh about this holiday season, check out Wearing Combovers and 49 Other Things That the Modern Man Shouldn’t Do, a book suitable for men both young and old that is packed with witty, laugh-out-loud observations on the human condition. Ranging from ‘Don’t be a Bond fantasist’ to ‘Don’t leave a high-five hanging’, this book is a hilarious addition to any man’s Christmas stocking.

If, however, your man is much more of an exercise/fitness fan and likes to keep in shape, our comprehensive guide Marathon Training by Nikalas Cook is sure to get them to the finishing line safely. In 28 weeks, you can go from complete non-runner, through your first 5k, 10k, half-marathon and finally to success in the full 26.2 miles of the marathon.

For those friends and relatives who love nothing more than to curl up this winter with a great piece of fiction, we have plenty to choose from. Delve into any of the compelling historical fiction tales by the late E.V. Thompson, including his final book, The Bonds of Earth. Alternatively, enjoy Wendy Perriam’s amusing writing edge either in Broken Places as librarian Eric struggles to move forward in his life or with I’m on the Train!, Perriam’s book of entertaining short stories.

Whatever you end up buying or reading this holiday season, enjoy yourself! Happy Christmas and season’s greetings from all at Robert Hale Ltd.

OUT TODAY: Understanding Austen by Maggie Lane

Maggie Lane is the author of Jane Austen’s Family, Jane Austen’s England and Literary Daughters among other books. She has also published articles in The Annual Report of the Jane Austen Society and Persuasions, the journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America. She has lectured on Jane Austen in the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. Having served for many years on the committee of the Jane Austen Society UK, she is now Chair of its South West branch; she lives in Exeter.

UNDERSTANDING AUSTEN BY MAGGIE LANE – OFFICIAL BLURB

No other author uses abstract nouns as extensively as Jane Austen. Three of her six novels even draw on such words for their titles: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. Terms like ‘elegance’, ‘gentility’ and ‘propriety’seem to define her well-ordered, judgemental world.

In making the fine moral, psychological and social discriminations on which her plots depend, Jane Austen draws on the vocabulary of her age, which is both more abstract and more fixed than that of today. But as this study shows, she was capable of subtlety and even ambiguity in her deployment of such key concepts.

Here, Maggie Lane, acclaimed author of many Jane Austen books, turns her attention to the fascinating nuances of Austen’s language and the way it embodies her most profound beliefs about human conduct and character.

For more information, check out Maggie Lane’s author post on why she loves Jane Austen here.

Understanding Austen by Maggie Lane is available to buy now with a limited time only discount of 30%

‘Understanding Austen’ Author Maggie Lane on the Words of Jane Austen

Maggie Lane is the author of Jane Austen’s Family, Jane Austen’s England and Literary Daughters, among other books. She has also published articles in The Annual Report of the Jane Austen Society and Persuasions and the journal of The Jane Austen Society of North America. She has lectured on Jane Austen in the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. Having served for many years on the committee of The Jane Austen Society UK, she is now Chair of its South West branch; she lives in Exeter.

Maggie Lane is an enormous Jane Austen fan, citing Persuasion as her favourite of Austen’s novels. Here she tells us just what makes Austen such an incredible author and why ‘it all starts with words’.

Once discovered, the novels of Jane Austen tend to be a ‘fix’ for life. Like many people, I’ve certainly enjoyed a lifelong love affair with everything Austen: her life, times, family, letters – and above all, of course, her novels. I don’t know how many times I’ve re-read them, always finding something new in their pages to admire or to laugh at. Austen’s humour, her dry way of looking at the world, and her piercing intelligence about people are what draw me and many like me to her novels time and again.

But however much we delight in her characters, both the comic ones and those she invests with all her own capacity for rational thought and tender feeling, in the end our delight comes back to words on the page. Much of the charm of reading Jane Austen must derive from her beautifully measured sentences and her ironic turn of phrase. Unlike most eighteenth and nineteenth century novelists, she never wastes a word. Never wearies us with long description, drawn-out dialogue, or padding of any kind. Her prose seems as sparkling and fresh on an umpteenth rereading as it does on a first but with the added joy of familiarity – the same kind of joy that we get from much-loved poetry.

In my latest book, Understanding Jane Austen, I wanted to analyse the magic of these words on the page – and specifically her heavy reliance on a clutch of abstract nouns – such as propriety, gentility, exertion and fortitude – words that can hold a plethora of meaning. Austen uses them repeatedly in each one of her novels, nuancing them differently according to context. These are words that may seem bland – but which carry an immense moral weight. They are at once precise and elusive.

Some words have subtly shifted in meaning since Austen set them down, and perhaps need elucidating for the modern reader; others, like ‘air’ and ‘address’ are easy to skim over but are worth thinking more deeply about as we, just like the heroines, encounter new characters. Investigating these key concepts has confirmed my belief that the novels of Jane Austen are inexhaustible in their layers of interest, but that it all starts with words.

– Maggie Lane

Understanding Jane Austen is available to pre-order now