Jane Austen died on this day, 202 years ago, in rented rooms in Winchester, attended by her loving sister Cassandra and under the care of a well-respected local physician.
Her death was lamented by her friends and family at the time, and we still mourn today for the premature loss of an extraordinary individual and a transcendentally gifted artist.
We Janeites tend to be very proprietorial about "our Jane," responding with indignation to her critics, and in the case of her death, wishing that there was something more that could have been done. But Dr. Helena Kelly takes this proprietorial attitude to new heights. As I have previously noted, she tends to discount and dismiss any other interpretation of Austen's life and work but her own. And by "dismiss," I mean that she calls Austen's own relatives liars and fibbers who didn't understand Austen nearly so well as she does...
Her death was lamented by her friends and family at the time, and we still mourn today for the premature loss of an extraordinary individual and a transcendentally gifted artist.
We Janeites tend to be very proprietorial about "our Jane," responding with indignation to her critics, and in the case of her death, wishing that there was something more that could have been done. But Dr. Helena Kelly takes this proprietorial attitude to new heights. As I have previously noted, she tends to discount and dismiss any other interpretation of Austen's life and work but her own. And by "dismiss," I mean that she calls Austen's own relatives liars and fibbers who didn't understand Austen nearly so well as she does...
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