"Full of the energies of discord - sibling rivalry, greed, ambition, illicit sexual passion, and vanity" -- Margaret Drabble "Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire" -- J.K. Rowling "Jane Austen at her most genteelly ascerbic" The Times "Austen looks at her world with a cool, undressing gaze...she is a formidable opponent of hypocrisy and sentimentality" Observer