250TH BIRTHDAY EDITION‘Almost as good as finding an unpublished novel’ The Lady'Any new book on Austen raises the urgent question, Would I get more pleasure from reading this than from re-reading my favourite Austen novel? You'll know after a few pages here that you've made the right choice' Sunday TimesIs there any sex in Jane Austen? Why do her plots rely on blunders? Which important characters never actually speak?Jane Austen’s novels have been a staple of the British canon since the nineteenth century. Yet critics of the time did not appreciate the true complexity of her work. Neither Austen’s literary innovations nor the cunning intracacy of her novels were understood – much less the fascinating patterns and puzzles thrown up by some of the most famous works of English literature.

Nothing, John Mullan argues, is accidental or coincidental in Austen. As she herself said, she wrote for readers who have ‘a great deal of ingenuity themselves’. What Matters in Jane Austen? gets to the heart of what it is that makes Austen’s work so singular.

In twenty chapters, answering questions her novels have posed for over two centuries, Mullan uncovers the hidden truth of an extraordinary fictional world and reveals the true brilliance – and underappreciated complexity – of Austen’s oeuvre.