I had an epiphany today after reading one of Caroline Jane Knight’s delightful newsletters on her family’s oral history regarding the inspiration for Emma and geographical location of the fictional village of Highbury. In it she described Mr. Knightly as the “moral compass” of the novel, and it struck me that is exactly what makes the novel so unique. I realized that in most of the other novels women play that role, which led me to contemplate, who are the moral compasses in each book? ...

Jane Austen described her astute observations on social dynamics in rural England during the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century as “pictures of domestic life in country villages”, but was there a hidden agenda in her writings? On the surface she focused on independent heroines dealing with the trials and tribulations of courtship, but she also indirectly commented on the inequities of the society in which she lived. While many view her novels as delightful stories of...

In Jane Austen’s social sphere, manners dominated the rules of behavior, and everyone was judged by them. Polite society required adherence to the conventions; it was imperative to know your place in the pecking order and follow the rules assigned to preserve the social order. This required a general agreement to be pleasing, polite, and deferential based on the status of those in your immediate orb. However, one character’s perception of agreeable behavior may not always be pleasing in the...