Book Review: The Annotated Northanger Abbey
/Jane Austen's posthumous send-up of Gothic novels (and their breathless readers) gets a lavish annotated edition
Read MoreHumor: Wayward Authors Nabbed!
/The startling revelations in Anonymous turn out to be only the beginning: literary sleuths have uncovered a slew of other authorial misdemeanors.
Read MoreEmma: An Annotated Edition
/Belknap Press produces a big, attractive, and lovingly annotated edition of Jane Austen's peak-of-her-career novel "Emma" - perfect for newcomers and those who know every line by heart.
Read MoreA Man Could Stand Up: On Downton Abbey’s Second Season
/Unlike the soap operas with which it is often dismissively aligned, Downton Abbey is defined by change rather than stasis - by its beautifully produced attention to social evolution.
Read MoreAbandonment, Richness, Surprise
/Impressionistic, idiosyncratic, unsubstantiated: Virginia Woolf's literary essays challenge us to rethink, not just our experience of reading, but our expectations of criticism itself.
Read MoreBook Review: The Deception at Lyme
/In Carrie Bebris' latest Jane Austen homage, the detective duo of Mr. & Mrs. Darcy take a vacation at Lyme, a location the proves scenic, fascinating - and deadly!
Read MoreThe Hero of His Own Life?
/It's easy to love the Dickens we think we know--the man whose warm compassion and boundless imagination gave us Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Pip and Magwitch, Oliver Twist and Nancy. But what about the man behind the novels? Claire Tomalin's magisterial new biography brings us up close and personal.
Read MoreChangeable Camelion
/Courtier and cleric, adventurer and ascetic, man of faith and man of the world — John Donne was many things in his life, and a sprawling new Companion does its best to assess them all.
Read MoreByronic Interludes
/The larger-than-life exploits of Lord Byron drew an erratic and daunting trajectory through the lives of those nearest him. A trilogy of novels attempts to go where so many biographies have gone before.
Read MoreEverything United In Her
/It's a comfortable truism that the novels of Jane Austen are all things to all readers. But ... a life-instruction manual? From the OLM Archives, a review of A Jane Austen Education
Read MoreThe Greatness that was Downton
/Julian Fellowes' "Downton Abbey" was shot in a castle, but it may have a nearer relationship to "Mad Men" than "Brideshead Revisited." Joanna Scutts tracks the evolution of the British costume drama.
Read MoreA Different Sort of Englishness
/John le Carré not only has a new novel -- all his old ones are being inducted into the pantheon of UK Penguin Classics. Has this indefatigable crafter of spy novels transformed into the litterateur in our lifetime?
Read MoreGeorge Eliot for Dummies
/Free thinker, strong-minded woman, scholar, lover, novelist: George Eliot lived a courageous life that should be known and celebrated. But does Brenda Maddox's biography do it justice?
Read More"What Seems Simple"
/"Pride and Prejudice" has been so thoroughly revised, modernized, and sequelized that its subtleties risk being overlooked. A new annotated edition seeks to yield up its many secrets.
Read MoreThe Idea of Her
/Her stature has only grown over time, dominating bookstores, television, movie theaters, and now the Internet. She's Jane Austen, the world's least likely pop star.
Read MoreReader, I Disemboweled Him
/Intrepid reporter Deirdre Crimmins tackles that last literary taboo: Regency zombies.
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