The chapter on money is revealing, since wealth and inheritance were inextricably tied to social standing and the all-engrossing business of getting married.
She also passes subtle judgments on the common practice of gambling. Modern-day readers may not intuit the set-up of card tables, but they are a useful trick for Austen to push characters together and manoeuvre others away (all in the name of courtship). Contemporary readers, though, would be familiar with servants being present, and would sympathise, for example, with Elizabeth Bennet’s frustration at her mother gossiping in front of them in “Pride and Prejudice”. Readers might not see them, but by observing the dialogue and other characters’ manners it is clear that they are there. Thus, Austen never features or gives voice to the lower classes and servants. The best chapters are those in which Mr Mullan relates a theme in the novels to social history-moments that modern readers might otherwise miss. He takes pleasure in “becoming as clever and discerning as the author herself”.
This book provides entertaining trivia for Austen fans, who will be entranced by Mr Mullan’s encyclopedic knowledge of the texts and the times in which she lived.
In “What Matters in Jane Austen?” he solves 20 crucial puzzles by asking such questions as “Is there any sex in Jane Austen?” and “Why is it risky to go to the seaside?”, scouring her oeuvre for clues and providing answers within the social context of Georgian England. Mr Mullan, an English professor at University College London, manages to make literary criticism fun.
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