Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures

“Claudia L. Johnson’s long-anticipated book on the history of Austen fandom turns out, not surprisingly, to have been amply worth the wait. With characteristic intelligence, judiciousness, and lucidity, Johnson teases out the ideas that have informed our evolving construction of this most popular and yet most elusive of literary figures. Johnson sinks her roots very deeply into the source material, showing how Austen became an icon for all seasons, giving us back the image we have required of her in war and peace, modernity and postmodernity, the British Empire and the Empire of Hollywood. Following in the tradition of studies of Shakespearean canonization, this is the real ‘Becoming Jane.’”

“What a pleasure to read this book! Richly informative and altogether delightful, Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures tells about Austen in the trenches, read by soldiers on the front lines in two world wars, for sharply different reasons; about the complicated afterlife of Austen as a physical being; about the charms and disappointments of Austen’s house in its current form; about ways of reading. There’s more, too, all of it compelling, all revealing how powerfully Jane Austen survives in cultural consciousness. This is both a wonderful read and a source of great illumination.”