By Sarah Fanny Malden | On March 28, 2022 | Updated April 4, 2022 | Comments (0)
Jane Austen’s love life has long been the subject of conjecture. Her purported romance with Thomas Lefroy, a young Irishman, for example, was the subject of the 2003 book Becoming Jane Austen, which was adapted to the middling 2007 film, Becoming Jane.
Sincere attempts have been made to sort fact from fiction when it comes to Jane Austen’s romances, and this excerpt from Jane Austen by Sarah Fanny Malden (1889) is an excellent endeavor.
This book is focused more on Austen’s work than on her life, with the exception of a handful of chapters, this being one of them. The publication was part of an Eminent Women series published by W.H. Allen & Co., London. Read More→
By Janet Saidi | On March 10, 2022 | Updated August 23, 2022 | Comments (1)
If you’re like me, you’ve many times had to explain what Jane Austen is really about — you might find yourself explaining to friends who just don’t get it, that Austen is not all about finding a man who’s wealthier and more powerful than you are, to marry.
This musing, pondering the question of what Jane Austen’s women want, is excerpted from The Austen Connection, reprinted by permission.
Sure, these novels follow the traditional Marriage Plot. These novels may have invented the plot as we know it today. Read More→
By Marcie McCauley | On March 9, 2022 | Updated February 7, 2026 | Comments (0)
Literary Ladies contributor Marcie McCauley delves into children’s book author Beverly Cleary’s beloved character, Ramona Quimby, with this appreciation.
“The sight of that smooth, faintly patterned cloth fills me with longing,” writes Beverly Cleary, recalling an early childhood memory of Thanksgiving.
At first, a moment of calm for the young girl: anticipating relatives seated around the dining room table. Then, activity: she finds a bottle of blue ink, pours some out, presses her hands into it, then “all around the table I go, inking handprints on that smooth white cloth.” Read More→
By Melanie P. Kumar | On March 8, 2022 | Updated March 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
“Some books are so familiar, reading them is like being home again,” says Jo March, to her best friend, Laurie, as she picks up a volume of Shakespeare. That is exactly the kind of feeling that Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women evokes in me — a book that was a steadfast friend in my growing up years — one that I read and reread through my schoolgirl days in India.
Memories come back of lying on my stomach on a cold stone floor, on a hot summer day, with Little Women in one hand and homemade ice cream, tasting mainly of frozen Bournvita (an iconic nutritional beverage in India), in the other.
Once the last cold bit of ice cream slid down the throat, it was time to find a cushion to rest one’s head on and be transported into the magical tale of the March sisters and Marmee, Laurie, the senior Mr. Lawrence, Papa March, Mr. Brooks, Professor Bhaer, Hannah, and the formidable Aunt March. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 3, 2022 | Updated October 8, 2025 | Comments (2)
After reading a memoir of high-risk pregnancy by a friend (more about that ahead), I got to thinking about the prevalence of pregnancy in classic novels by women authors as a central theme.
Of course, there are many instances of female characters in novels (both by male and female authors) bearing a child or miscarrying, but pregnancy itself is rarely more than quickly touched upon.
Birth control methods were unreliable until relatively recently in human development; yet novels centering on pregnancy, other than the seduction and abandonment trope, aren’t all that common. Her First Time: Seduction and Loss of Innocence in 1920s Women’s Novels presents several classic titles in which the heroine becomes pregnant (usually outside of marriage), with various outcomes. Read More→
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