Jane Austen and Crime

An essential reference book for all who want to know more about Jane Austen and her world and writing.

In Jane Austen and Crime, Susannah Fullerton uncovers the darker side of Jane Austen. Read what people think of this enlightening book.

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 A new approach to Jane Austen seemed impossible, but Susannah Fullerton, President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, has brilliantly hit on the theme of crime and punishment in Austen. Wickedness fascinated her in her early writing, and she never lost her interest in it. Fullerton shows how the Regency world, so calm and elegant in TV adaptations, was really a dangerous place with a fast rising crime rate and a legal system that handed out ferocious sentences. Her book will be essential reading for every Janeite. Claire Tomalin, award-winning biographer, author of Jane Austen: A Life

 A very good idea to pick out this subject and extremely interesting in the result.  Deirdre le Faye, author of Jane Austen: A Family Record and editor of Jane Austen’s Letters

 I have derived so much knowledge and enjoyment from Jane Austen and Crime. I do hope the book is widely available, it certainly deserves to be. As well as being totally fascinated, I was strangely comforted by the picture of a more lawless society than one usually thinks of in Jane Austen’s time – more like our own, in fact. Maggie Lane, author of Jane Austen and Food, Jane Austen’s World, Jane Austen’s England and others

 Susannah Fullerton has much to tell us about Jane Austen’s work and time, and she does it with great verve and spirit. Jane Austen and Crime is a pleasure to read. Dr Jon Spence, author of Becoming Jane Austen and A Century of Wills from Jane Austen’s Family

 I enjoyed and admire Jane Austen and Crime – written with such brio, and full of fresh, fascinating matter from which I learnt a great deal. I kept annotating all the way through, but particularly liked the way Susannah Fullerton worked from factual details about poaching or imprisonment (say) to interpretations of the novels. Genuinely original, and extremely helpful to the reader. I read it on a brief holiday and was completely absorbed by it. Fullerton’s wide knowledge of other authors is a real bonus too. Professor Jocelyn Harris, University of Otago, New Zealand, author of Jane Austen’s Art of Memory

 I used to think there must be very little new to contribute to Jane Austen scholarship but I was blown away by Susannah Fullerton’s Jane Austen and Crime, not just the theme which few people had thought about before, but the interesting debate, the tremendous research and the wonderful style. I started reading it at a very busy time but could not put it down. Celine Kear, ex-Regional Co-ordinator JASNA Manitoba

 Jane Austen and Crime treats aspects of crime in Jane Austen’s day with a special waft of freshness from Australia. Even the most jaded, the most sated, experienced old cur of an Austen hand will be surprised by how much new light this book shines on Austen’s work and times. It’s an intelligent light too: author Susannah Fullerton, long time President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia and author of several other Austen-related books, is as acute a literary and cultural observer as exists anywhere in the ever-expanding Austen geopolitical world; and her writing is among the most incisive, insightful and illuminating to be found among Austen academic scholars. Diana Birchall (Newsletter, JASNA California)