I hadn't heard anything about this book--I just happened across it when Tommy and I were perusing at Half Price Books on our date night the other night. I saw the title and decided that I wanted it right then and there--because everything about Jane Austen is is right up my alley these days. It took me a few days to plow through it, because it wasn't fiction or a super-fast easy read that I couldn't put down, but it was definitely still interesting enough. Harman basically does a readership study of Jane Austen throughout the last two centuries and discusses how scholars have changed their views of her, how the popular culture have changed its view of her, and how the number of readers has varied over time. Her books were practically out of print around the time that she died almost 200 years ago, but through some excellent circumstances on Jane's behalf, she's still one of the most popular authors being read these days. Harman does an excellent job of compiling and translating scholarly works on the "divine Jane" and discussing how her popular persona has changed over the last two centuries, and I definitely found it interesting to see how over different decades people held different views of her. I think this was definitely an interesting read, and I would recommend it to people who've read other biographies of Jane Austen and want a deeper look into her life and writing history.
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