Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius

'I relished every page … This is the best book on Jane Austen I have ever read' Spectator'Compelling … a delightful and engrossing book … Byrne's passion is nothing if not persuasive' Sunday TimesWas Jane Austen a woman of prim manners and genteel calm? Or someone who behaved outrageously, filled with sharp wit and wild comedy?

Looking afresh at adaptations of Austen's work - from the BBC's Pride and Prejudice to Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility and the wildly successful Clueless - bestselling biographer Paula Byrne presents a bold new portrait of Austen as you've never seen her before.‘A definitive and pioneering study of a wholly neglected aspect of Austen's art' Michael Caines, TLS‘Entertaining and engaging' Literary Review..[Previously published as The Genius of Jane Austen]

About the author

Paula Byrne was born in Birkenhead and has a PhD from the University of Liverpool, where she is a Research Fellow in English Literature. Her first book, Jane Austen and the Theatre, was shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize. Her second book, Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson , the tale of the scandalous star of the 18th-century stage, literature and high-society, was a Richard and Judy bookclub pick. Her most recent book is Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead. The story of Evelyn Waugh's friendship with the extraordinary aristocratic family who inspired Brideshead Revisited, it was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. A regular contributor to the 'Times Literary Supplement', she lives in Warwickshire with her two young children and her husband, the critic and biographer Jonathan Bate.