"Returning author Devoney Looser has written a study of Jane Austen’s legacy in high and popular culture, looking at stage and film adaptations of her work, how Austen has been taught in
classrooms, Austen’s depiction in visual culture, and Austen’s rolein the women’s suffragist movement. Looser draws on popular print and unpublished archival sources, amassing evidence from
high, middlebrow, and popular culture, in order to craft a more capacious history of posthumous reception. The book is a detailed and revealing account of what Looser calls the "public
dimension" of Jane Austen, who is a "manufactured creation." Looser has dug deep and come up with brand-new material on Austen, something that is very hard to do. This is the kind of material
that Janeites and Austen scholars live for"--