Why does Jane Austen "mania" continue unabated in a postmodern world? How does the brilliant Regency novelist speak so personally to today's women that they view her as their best friend? Jane Austen's Women answers these questions by exploring Austen's affirming yet challenging vision of both who her dynamic female characters are, and who they become. This important new work analyzes the heroines' relationships to body, mind, spirit, environment, and society. It reveals how, despite a restrictive patriarchal culture, these women achieve greatness. In clear, lively prose, Kathleen Anderson shares original theoretical insights from twenty years of studying Austen, and illuminates the novels as guidebooks on how to become an Austenian heroine in one's everyday life. This engaging book will appeal to a broad readership: the serious student, the general lit-lover, and the Austen neophyte alike.

Acknowledgments Abbreviations Preface: "Nobody doubts her right to have precedence": Jane Austen's Heroine as Universal SubjectPart I: Women and the Body: Strength, Sex, and Austenian Wellness1. "I am strong enough now to walk very well": Vigor and Femininity in Mansfield Park2. "I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other": Sexual Orthodoxy and the Quest for the Best MatePart II: Women's Natures: Mood, Mind, Spirit, and Female Giftedness3. "Determined to Be Happy": The Path to Emotional Health in Sense and SensibilityJordan L. Von Cannon, Co-author4. "Ingenious or Stupid?": Women's Intelligences, according to "the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress"5. "Born to Be Connected": Female Monasticism and Vocation in Austen's NovelsPart III. Women and Others: The Female Self in Environmental, Social, and Imaginative Space6. "Mamma says I am never within": Heroines' Eco-affinities as Identityscapes7. "What is the foolish girl about?": Austen's Feminist Fools Speak Out8. "Unpropitious for Heroism": Female Greatness in the Austenian ImaginationNotesWorks CitedIndex