What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Essential Questions Answered

"An Austen lover's greatest wish is for more of her novels. This intimate guide to the world of her books in the next best thing." -The Atlantic

Marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, What Matters in Jane Austen? solves the mysteries of Austen's fictional world.

Is there any sex in Jane Austen?
What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage?
Which important characters never actually speak?

Jane Austen's novels have been a staple of the English canon since the nineteenth century. Yet critics of the time did not appreciate the true complexity of her work. Nothing, John Mullan argues, is accidental or coincidental in Austen. As Austen herself said, she wrote for readers who have "a great deal of ingenuity themselves."

What Matters in Jane Austen? gets to the heart of what it is that makes Austen's work so singular. In twenty chapters, answering questions her novels have posed for over two centuries, Mullan uncovers the hidden truth of an extraordinary fictional world and reveals the true brilliance-and underappreciated complexity-of Austen's work.

Jane Austen is the author of classics including Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense and Sensibility. 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Austen's birth, and this beautiful, insightful book is the perfect gift for every Austen fan.

Author: John Mullan
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 09/09/2025
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.86lbs
Size: 7.79h x 5.08w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781526693945

About the Author
John Mullan is Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. He has published widely on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, including The Artful Dickens (Bloomsbury, 2020). He has edited Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Emma for Oxford World's Classics. He is also a broadcaster and journalist, writing on contemporary fiction for The Guardian. He has taught Austen to university students for over three decades and lectured widely to lovers of her fiction in both the UK and the US. He lives in London.