Review on: The Jane Austen Handbook: A Sensible Yet Elegant Guide to Her World by Margaret C. Sullivan
Rating: 4/5
It has been over 5 years since I first found this book on a lonely bookshelf at my favorite bookstore. Finally, I found the time to actually pick it up and read it, and it was a most interesting read.
As the title goes, it is a handbook – a guide to what Jane Austen’s world. For many, including me, who are sucked into the alluring and sensuous world of Victorian/Regency era novels, The Jane Austen Handbook is a guide into the reality behind all those novels. Of course concentrating on Jane Austen and the environment around her stories, it is an insider’s look into everything mentioned in the great Jane Austen’s novels. For Janeites who are interested in knowing more on the background of Austen and her novels, this is an interesting book whose author has carefully done her research into life in Austen’s era.
The Jane Austen Handbook is not simply a guide, it is a fascinating and even funny read, into the world that Jane Austen lived with everyday. Beyond the basics such as discussing for example what one would wear in such a time, the handbook also gives us an inside view on other aspects of that time – such as the habits and routines of women and men, what “calling on a friend” actually meant, how to throw a ball, and other enjoyable topics that definitely help to open one’s eyes to the many quirks that are involved but not fully explained in most regency novels.
Should anyone find themselves traveling back in time to Jane Austen’s era – such as Amanda Price of Lost in Austen, this would be a interesting handbook, though not fully helpful as I feel that it covers simply the basics. Telling myself that of course, it would not work in my case as it would be impossible for someone in Asia to fall back in time and get transported halfway across the world, but a fan of regency novels can’t help but dream, can’t she?
This book was definitely a good and interesting read, and something one can read over again.