Jane Austen: Her Life, Her Times, Her NovelsJanet Todd2013

Over the past 200 years — although never more than in recent decades — Jane Austen's sharp and witty novels have delighted a diverse and devoted international readership. With scant information about her life available, fans have a bottomless hunger for details about the woman behind the work. Jane Austen feeds that appetite with background on her relationships with family and friends ; on the contemporary attitudes that shaped Austen and her writing; and on the settings that inspired her and feature in her stories.

Austenites will particularly treasure the 15 pieces of removable memorabilia, which include facsimiles of early manuscripts, a handwritten note outlining the profits from her novels, and a letter from Austen's father to the publisher Thomas Cadell that was returned with the words “Rejected by return of post” written on it.