<div>"The best (and the best written) book about Austen that has appeared in the last three decades."--Nina Auerbach, <i>Journal of English and Germanic Philology</i><br><br>"By looking at the ways in which Austen domesticates the gothic in <i>Northanger Abbey</i>, examines the conventions of male inheritance and its negative impact on attempts to define the family as a site of care and generosity in <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, makes claims for the desirability of 'personal happiness as a liberating moral category' in <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, validates the rights of female authority in <i>Emma</i>, and stresses the benefits of female independence in <i>Persuasion</i>, Johnson offers an original and persuasive reassessment of Jane Austen's thought."--Kate Fullbrook, <i>Times Higher Education Supplement</i><br><br></div>