Explores the importance of Jane Austen and her writings to amateur readers today.

The first book to investigate Jane Austen's popular significance today, Everybody's Jane considers why Austen matters to amateur readers, how they make use of her novels, what they gain from visiting places associated with her, and why they create works of fiction and nonfiction inspired by her novels and life.The voices of everyday readers emerge from both published and unpublished sources, including interviews conducted with literary tourists and archival research into the founding of the Jane Austen Society of North America and the exceptional Austen collection of Alberta Hirshheimer Burke of Baltimore.Additional topics include new Austen portraits; portrayals of Austen, and of Austen fans, in film and fiction; and hybrid works that infuse Austen's writings with horror, erotica, or explicit Christianity.Everybody's Jane will appeal to all those who care about Austen and will change how we think about the importance of literature and reading today.

Jane knew she was a war baby because Mummy Grace said all war babies had to drink the treacly black malt from The Clinic every morning. Then Mummy Grace told Jane she wasn't her mummy. Her mummy was a lady who lived in Le Tookay. Or was it Cassablanka? An exceptional memoir, written by one of our most outstanding actresses, Everybody's Daughter, Nobody's Child is a vivid and moving chronicle of childhood.

Banished to her room for hitting her brother, Patty Jane plots the rest of her life—which might just involve never leaving her room again. ‘The deadpan humor of the authors is perfectly suited to Roz Chast’s wonderfully waggish illustrations. Not only do her pictures faithfully mirror the antics of the story, they also expand on the jokes, adding hilarious details and prankish asides.’ —NYT. ‘[A] standout.…Chast gets the tone just right: childlike but heartfelt.’—SLJ. Children's Choices for 1994 (IRA/CBC)