746 Wild Jane Austen (with Devoney Looser) | #9 Greatest Book of All Time

Summary

The History of Literature – Episode 746: Wild Jane Austen (with Devoney Looser) | #9 Greatest Book of All Time

Host: Jacke Wilson
Guest: Devoney Looser, Professor of English, Jane Austen Scholar, Roller Derby Skater "Stone Cold Jane Austen"
Release Date: November 3, 2025

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Overview

In this vibrant and wide-ranging episode, host Jacke Wilson celebrates Jane Austen’s “wild” side with distinguished scholar and roller derby skater Devoney Looser. Looser’s new book, Wild: For a Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane, seeks to retire the image of Austen as merely prim and proper, advocating for a more nuanced, passionate, and unconventional view. Along the way, Wilson also continues his countdown of the 25 Greatest Books of All Time by unveiling #9: Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Greatest Books Countdown: #9 – Don Quixote (03:00–14:00)

• Don Quixote by Cervantes is revealed as #9 on Wilson’s “Greatest Books of All Time” list.
• Discussion of its contemporary reception, citing Dr. Johnson via Mrs. Thrale, who noted that Quixote was one of the rare books readers wished was longer.
  • Notable Quote:
    "Only three books, he said, does one ever want to be longer than they are: Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim’s Progress." (13:00)
• Highlights the book’s universal appeal and profound influence across cultures.
• Explores Cervantes's precarious biography and the book’s complex publication history—including shipwrecked first editions and rampant pirating.
  • “The novel was successful, beloved from the start, still is beloved. Collectors today would love to have a copy that was not only first, but rare even in its time.” (16:00)

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2. Introducing Devoney Looser: Making the Case for a Wild Austen (19:43)

• Looser, known in roller derby as “Stone Cold Jane Austen,” is introduced not only as a top Austen scholar but also as an athlete with an eye for testing boundaries, just like her subject.

The Overlooked Porter Sisters (20:07–24:29)

• Jane and Anna Maria Porter, precursors to Austen, authored 26 books between them but faded from view just as Austen’s reputation ascended.
  • Looser: “They were important innovators in historical fiction… Jane especially really hit the zeitgeist of her time, writing about heroes based on real-life struggles of nations searching for independence in the face of despotism.” (21:07)
• Sir Walter Scott is often wrongly credited as the founder of historical fiction—Jane Porter’s Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) and The Scottish Chiefs (1810) predate Scott’s Waverley.
• Recommendations for modern readers: The Scottish Chiefs (Broadview Press edition) for fans of historical fiction and those interested in the genre’s roots.

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3. Austen in the Family—Discovering Her Comedy and Subversion (24:29–30:55)

• Looser describes how her mother urged her to read Pride and Prejudice, even though her mother had never read it herself (25:45).
  • “She wanted me to have access to a kind of history of strong and interesting women, and so Jane Austen made sense for her.” – Looser (25:52)
• Austen adaptations serve as family bonding experiences, not just for mothers and daughters but for sons as well.
• The humor and irony of Austen’s prose is often a revelation to young readers—once you “get” it, it’s transformative.

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4. Reframing Austen as “Wild”—Feminism and Rebellion (29:48–31:46)

• Early recognition of Austen’s proto-feminism; Looser edited a collection on Jane Austen and feminism as early as 1995.
• Even before using the word “wild,” Looser saw Elizabeth Bennet’s repeated refusals as radical.
  • “Elizabeth Bennet saying no to the older women in her life was wild… she walks up to a kind of precipice, and she doesn’t go over it like her sister Lydia, but she’s really testing boundaries.” (30:40)
• Austen’s perception as mild or “safe” comes partly from her comparison with contemporaries like Mary Shelley and the Brontës—though the period teemed with even bolder, less-remembered women like courtesan Harriet Wilson.

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5. Jane Austen’s Social World—Politeness, Boundaries, and Sympathy (33:49–38:09)

• Austen knew of, and sometimes interacted with, figures on the wilder fringes of polite society (such as Harriet Wilson); she observed without condemning, showing both distance and nuance.
• Her novels reflect a deep sympathy for women who cross society’s boundaries—her “punishments” for them are relatively mild compared to male contemporaries.
  • “She shows them being sent away from the family, and I think she doesn’t shy away from suggesting these are complex relationships… she’s very careful to show seducers as the ones drawing women to the wrong side.” (36:39)

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6. Wild for Austen – The Book and Its Framework (39:18–46:21)

Structure and Meaning (39:18–40:42)

• Looser’s book takes a holistic approach: examining Austen’s writings, her life and social circle, and her posthumous legacy.
• The double meaning of “Wild for Austen”: both what counts as “wild” in Austen’s world and the wildness of modern Austen fandom.

Defining “Wild” in Austen’s Terms (40:42–43:25)

• “Wild” for Austen often meant bold, unconventional, passionate, and imaginatively free; it’s a positive designation.
• She used the OED to discover historical uses of “wild” that matched Austen’s self-characterization and application to her heroines.
  • “She’s describing bold women, their active imaginations, their strong feelings, unconventional choices… this positive female wildness is what I really wanted to try to make sense of, bring out, and just show how it’s functioning.” (41:59)

The Context of Wildness in Austen’s Era (45:01–46:21)

• The “wild” aesthetic in the Romantic era went beyond poetry—Austen’s works also partook in this prevailing sense of passionate rebellion.

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7. Austen’s Writing and Family – The Wild Juvenilia & Cosmopolitan Connections (46:30–54:34)

Wild Writings—Jane’s Juvenilia (46:30–48:18)

• Austen’s early writings (juvenilia) bristle with wildness: drinking, theft, murder, adultery, even “a little light cannibalism.”
  • Looser: “It’s just over the top, making fun of formulas and conventions… you just don’t expect to see a little cannibalism in Jane Austen, but there it is.” (47:25)

Fierce Family Ties (48:30–54:34)

• The myth of Austen’s dull, provincial life is countered with specific stories, such as her meeting with international spy Count d’Entragues and his opera singer wife, both later assassinated.
  • “How is it that we don’t talk more about the fact that Austen was in the room with a man who is now known as an international spy… This is not the life we’ve been led to think she endured.” (49:46)
• Austen’s family viewed her as a successful novelist, especially after her identity became public knowledge.
• Austen referred to herself as a “wild beast” in correspondence, showing an awareness of public scrutiny and perhaps discomfort with some aspects of fame.

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8. Austen’s Narrator—Resisting Simplicity, Inviting Complexity (54:34–56:02)

• Austen is careful not to moralize or dictate how to live—her narrator resists “perfection.”
  • “Pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked.” – Jane Austen, quoted by Looser (55:49)
• Her novels refuse complete resolution, maintaining ambiguity and inviting the reader’s interpretation.

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9. Austen’s “Wild” Legacy—Shambolic Afterlives & Modern Interpretations (56:02–61:08)

• Wild engagements with Austen’s legacy go back to the 1820s—Jane as ghost, legal evidence, cultural icon.
• Austen-inspired erotica dates to at least 1980.
  • Looser: “I did the work so you don’t have to. I read it, and, you know, you can see whether you want to look at it or not.” (57:33)
• Austen’s reputation for safety is a legacy more of Victorian/Edwardian retconning than reality.
• Looser encourages readers to interrogate sanitized versions of Austen and to recognize the risk, instability, and complexity in her novels.

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10. Audience Q&A and Final Thoughts (61:08–63:17)

• Wilson poses a hypothetical: Would Austen punish a modern, “wild” character (like roller derby-playing Looser) in her fiction?
  • Looser: She relates more now to the subversive Mary Crawford than the timid Fanny Price and would take such a characterization as a “badge of honor.” (62:10–62:21)
• Looser reflects on how reading Austen made possible “an amazing life…on the track and in the classroom and on the page.” (62:52)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Austen’s Feminism and Strength:

  “She was giving her heroines, in particular, a kind of strength and independence that I was comfortable calling feminist or proto-feminist.” – Looser (29:48)

• On Austen’s Early Humor:

  “The language was a challenge… I just sort of got the comedy. And it became obviously a transformative book in my life.” – Looser (24:44)

• On Wildness as a Positive:

  “She’s describing bold women. She’s describing their active imaginations, their strong feelings, their unconventional choices.” – Looser (41:59)

• On Austen’s Unconventional Life:

  “She met an international spy and his opera diva wife… This is not the life we’ve been led to think she endured.” – Looser (49:46)

• On Austen’s Ongoing Relevance:

  “Her books are the opposite of [didactic]. They raise a lot of questions… her narrator is not someone who’s looking for us to strive for perfection.” – Looser (55:00)

• On Legacy and Erotica:

  “The late 20th century certainly had Austen and inspired erotica. Some of it is not fun… I did the work so you don’t have to.” – Looser (57:33)

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• 03:00: Don Quixote announced as Greatest Book #9, reception and impact
• 13:00: Mrs. Thrale’s anecdote on Don Quixote and Dr. Johnson
• 19:43: Devoney Looser introduction; Austen’s reputation
• 20:07–24:29: Porter sisters, origins of historical fiction
• 24:29–30:55: Austen in the family, discovery of humor and feminism
• 33:49–38:09: Wildness, reputation, and Austen’s nuanced social insight
• 39:18–46:21: What counts as “Wild” for Austen—meanings in works and life
• 46:30–48:18: Austen’s Juvenilia, early wit and rebelliousness
• 48:30–54:34: Austen’s family dynamics and life beyond the myth
• 54:34–56:02: Austen’s narrative style, skepticism of perfection
• 56:02–61:08: Austen’s “wild” afterlife in culture and fandom
• 62:10–62:21: Would Austen punish a roller derby heroine?
• 63:17: Closing thoughts

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Tone and Language

The episode is lively, engaging, and often humorous—much like Austen herself. Jacke Wilson’s warmth and curiosity draw out Looser’s equally energetic and insightful responses. There's an underlying respect for Austen’s complexity and a pushback against simplistic, sanitized readings.

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Conclusion

This episode is essential listening for fans of Jane Austen eager to re-examine her legacy, or for anyone interested in the interplay between literary myth and reality. Devoney Looser brings both scholarship and personal passion, revealing a Jane Austen who is “rebellious, subversive, and untamed”—and who resonates all the more for it.

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For more:

• Devoney Looser, Wild: For a Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane
• The Making of Jane Austen
• Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters
• Jacke Wilson’s complete "25 Greatest Books" series on The History of Literature podcast

Transcript

[A]

The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio. Hello everyone, it's Jack Wilson telling you that the History of Literature podcast tour through Literary England is still accepting deposits and we'd love to have you join us. We will be visiting some of the greatest literary sites in history, including walks, tours, pub visits and leisure time activities, and with visits from scholars and other special guests as we experience the amazing cities of London, Oxford and Bath in a small group accompanied by yours truly. If you love literature and if you love life, you are not going to want to miss this. It's next year in May of 2026, but we need you to put down a deposit now so we can finalize the itinerary. 2026 is around the corner, people. Give yourself something to look forward to next spring. You can find out more at John Shores Travel John S H O R S Or you can find the links to the itinerary and sign up [e-mail] hope to see you soon. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan, real United Airlines customers.

[B]

We were returning home and one of.

[A]

The flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kath and Andrew.

[B]

I got to sit in the driver's seat.

[A]

I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future.

[B]

It felt like I was the captain.

[A]

Allowing my son to see the flight.

[B]

Deck will stick with us forever.

[A]

That's how good leads the way. Hello. Today on the podcast we talk to Deveney Loeser, a professor of English and a scholar with an expertise in in Regency period novels. What's that you say? Her name's not ringing a bell? Well, maybe you know her better under the pseudonym that she uses when indulging in her secret hobby. Yes, that's right. When mild mannered Deveney Loeser is not working as a professor at Arizona State University, she's a fierce fixture on the roller derby circuit, rolling under the name Stone Cold Jane Austen. Who better than Deveney Stone Cold to make the case that seemingly mild mannered Jane Austen is more rebellious, subversive, untamed and flat out wilder than her reputation suggests. That plus we announce the number nine book on our list of the greatest books of all time. We're doing 25 books for the year 2025. We we're rolling ahead ourselves. Just Call me Stone Cold Literature Podcaster, I suppose name still being workshopped. All coming up today on the history of literature. Okay, here we go. Thank you for the theme song, Gabriel. And thank you, dear listener, for joining me on the history of literature podcast. Today we have a fun one for you. I'm sad to be leaving October. I guess it's gone by the time you're hearing this. Those days just fall from my calendar like leaves from my favorite tree. Necessary, inevitable, expected, but it fills me with melancholy nevertheless. It's my favorite month, October. Luckily, I have friends and family to help me make it through. And I'm including you in that, dear listeners. And if family is too close for you, I'll just call you a friend and leave it at that. Okay, we are almost ready. Here we go. That's right. Are you ready? It is time to announce number nine on our list of the greatest books of all time. And we travel to the early, early 1600s. 1605 to be exact. And I hear you guessing now, Shakespeare must be Shakespeare. Macbeth, perhaps Lear. And I say, oh, sorry, I meant 1615. And you're thinking later, now, could it be the Tempest, perhaps? And I say, no, sorry, anglophone listener, your English language bias is showing because the book is not by Shakespeare at all. It's Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, and it was published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. And it's just one of the crazy coincidences in the history of literature that the leading lights of both English language literature and Spanish language literature were walking this planet at the same time. No evidence they ever met, but some evidence that Shakespeare read Cervantes in translation, which came out. The first part of Don Quixote came out in English in 1612. One regrets that Shakespeare didn't decide to try writing a novel himself. He certainly would have had the chops. His plays often feel novel like in the richness of plot and character. His empathy skills would have served Shakespeare the novelist quite well. I mentioned that as we climb the ladder toward number one, we're going to be adding the number of things to say. We'll be adding to the number of things to say. Last time with number 10, Anna Karenina, we focused on one thing, Tolstoy's search for meaning in a meaningless universe. This time we have two things for you. One is a look at the contemporary reaction to Cervantes, the reaction of the people in his era. And another is a look at Cervantes 150 or so years later. We don't need to cover the response now, or that, I mean today's response to Cervantes, or talk about Cervantes very interesting life, because we covered all that in an episode that we devoted solely to Cervantes, which is still available in our archives. Instead, let's take a look today at what his book meant to those who were reading it in the early 1600s, and then what it meant in the mid 18th century, 150 years later. And we'll start with the latter. For that, we turn to Dr. Johnson and his friend, the wonderful Mrs. Thrale, one of the great characters in Boswell's life of Johnson. Mrs. Thrale was born, Hester lynch, into a powerful family of Welsh landowners, and she married a wealthy brewer named Thrale, who was 17 years older than her. He was a member of Parliament and viewed by others as a bit of a social striver. He wasn't much of a husband. And Mrs. Thrale took things upon herself, took it upon herself to liven up her world with friendships, including with a group of writers like Johnson and Boswell, Oliver Goldsmith and Fanny Burney. She and Johnson were especially close. They traveled to Wales together, and Johnson would sometimes stay in the upper quarters of the Thrale home. He was friends with Thrale, Mr. Thrale, the brewer as well. It was widely believed, though, that after Mr. Thrale died, that Johnson and Mrs. Thrale might become married. Johnson's own wife, Teddy, his beloved wife Teddy, who was 20 years older than him, had died some years earlier. But no, no, no. Mrs. Thrale at that point fell in love with a music teacher named Piozzi, and she married him, which led to a rift with Johnson that they only patched up toward the very end of Johnson's life. All that is background to what we are about to hear. Mrs. Thrale wrote a book of anecdotes about Samuel Johnson, and in it she talked about his opinion of Don Quixote. It was one of the three books that he declared he wanted to be longer. Only three books, he said, does one ever want to be longer than they are? And it was one of them. And then she gives her own opinion of the Cervantes book, and she kind of describes its general acceptance across Europe in the middle of the 18th century. So this is about 150 years after Don Quixote was first published in Spain. She's talking here about Dr. Johnson. Alas, madam, continued he, how few books are there of which one ever can possibly arrive at? The last page was There ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers. Excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe and the Pilgrim's Progress. After Homer's Iliad, Mr. Johnson confessed that the work of Cervantes was the greatest in the world. Speaking of it, I mean as a book of entertainment. And when we consider that every other author's admirers. Are confined to his countrymen. And perhaps to the literary classes among them. While Don Quixote is a sort of common property, a universal classic. Equally tasted by the court and the cottage, equally applauded in France and England as in Spain. Quoted by every servant, the amusement of every age from infancy to decrepitude. The first book you see on every shelf in every shop. Where books are sold through all the states of Italy. Who can refuse his consent to an avowal of the superiority of Cervantes to all other modern writers? Shakespeare himself has till lately been worshipped only at home. Those plays are now the favorite amusements of Vienna. And when I was at Padua some months ago, Romeo and Juliet was acted there. Under the name of Tragedia Veronese. While engravers and translators live by the hero of La Mancha in every nation. And the sides of miserable inns all over England and France. And I have heard Germany, too. Are adorned with the exploits of Don Quixote. May his celebrity procure my pardon for a digression in praise of a writer who, through four volumes of the most exquisite pleasantry and genuine humor. Has never been seduced to overstep the limits of propriety. Has never called in the wretched auxiliaries of obscenity or profaneness. Who trust to nature and sentiment alone. And never misses of that applause which Voltaire and Sterne labor to produce. While honest merriment bestows her unfading crown upon Cervantes. End quote. Don Quixote. Story of a member of the lower nobility who reads so many chivalric romances. He loses his grip on reality and heads off to live as a knight with his trusty squire. Who in reality is a farmhand named Sancho Panza. Who, by the way, Sancho Panza sees clearly what the great Don Quixote does not. Still delighting readers across Europe after a century and a half. And in court and in Cottage, as Mrs. Thrale puts it. The first modern novel, says modern critic Harold Bloom. Freud learned Spanish just to read it in the original language. But what about those earliest readers, the ones in the early 1600s? Did they get to Don Quixote or Was it ahead of its time? I haven't read any critical reviews from those first years. But we can measure the book's effect on readers by the number of editions that came out. Unfortunately for Cervantes, many of these editions were pirated. Copyright law was not yet there to protect successful authors like him. Apparently the first 400 copies that were printed by his publisher, by the authentic publisher, were actually shipped to the Americas. Because Cervantes publisher thought that he'd get a better price for them there. Which is fascinating. Wonder why that is. I need to learn more about that. But then there was a shipwreck near Cuba which wiped out those copies. But somehow 70 of them made it to Peru. What a strange origin story for those first 70 copies. But I'm sure that those 70 are worth quite a bit today. Because the novel was successful, beloved from the start, still is beloved. Collectors today would love to have a copy that was not only first, but rare even in its time. With such a great survival story. To call it a survival story is a bit misleading, I guess. Because although those physical copies were in peril. Wonder how they survived the shipwreck? Were they wearing little life preservers or something? Did they float in a crate or a big bottle turn up in Peru somehow? Anyway, the novel itself was not really in danger of disappearing from the planet. Because it was being printed all over the place in Spain and Portugal. It sold out in both countries within the first year. New editions were generated. Translations began soon afterwards. Italian, English, French, in German. The book was so popular that publishers competed with one another in the same country, even in the same city. There were two Madrid editions, both going at once, for example. And both of them sold out again and again. By now the novel is estimated to have sold more than 500 million copies. It's a touchstone of Western civilization. And it deserves its spot in the top 10 of this list. The lowly, unassuming Cervantes, who never even signed his name Cervantes. But Cerbantes with a B, that was his pen name. His real name was and is even less famous. But this lowly man who made ends meet by working as a soldier and a tax collector. And has some really deep, shadowy parts in his biography. We go into all of that in our Cervantes episode. He was. He was not only poor and obscure, he was kidnapped by pirates at one point and ransomed. He was forced to leave Spain and live in Rome. And he dreamed up and started writing Don Quixote in prison. This guy has become one of the central figures in Western literature and culture. Number nine on our list, Don Quixote. We turn now to another central figure in Western literature and culture, the Jane Austen, prim and proper, wearing a bonnet, dropping a handkerchief, blushing, eyes averted. How unwild can you be? But is all that a misconception? Our guest today, Deveney Loeser, makes the case for a Jane Austen that's wilder than we typically think. We'll talk to her in a moment. But first, folks, I want to remind you that the History of Literature Podcast is taking this show on the road and you can be part of it. We've teamed up with a wonderful independent travel agency called John Shores Travel, which specializes in travel itineraries especially for authors and other literary types, and they've put together an itinerary of great places to visit throughout literary England. I will be on the tour too, joining in the fun as we eat and drink and read and experience our way through London, Oxford and Bath, visiting the homes and haunts of great writers like Dickens and Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf and Tolkien, and of course, dear Jane Austen herself. This will be in May of 2026, but don't delay. Secure your support your secure your support. Secure your spot now so you don't miss out on what just might be the highlight of your year. Make 2026 a better year than 2025. Treat yourself to an enriching literary experience. Learn more about the details at John Shores Travel S H O R s [e-mail] okay, Devin Loesser after this. Foreign hey folks, the countdown is on. Holiday shopping season is officially here. Uncommon Goods takes the stress out of gifting with thousands of unique, high quality finds you won't see anywhere else. When you shop at Uncommon Goods, you're supporting artists and small independent businesses, but that means they can sell out. So shop now. I bought my dad a very cool throwback radio with Bluetooth so he can listen to his old time radio shows in style. The Uncommon Gifts website has something for everyone from moms and dads to kids and teens. Die hard football fans, history buffs, foodies, avid gardeners, mixologists, and of course, book lovers. So don't wait. Cross those names off your list before the rush. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com literature that's uncommongoods.com literature for 15% off. Uncommon Goods were all out of the ordinary. Hey everyone, the days are getting shorter, the holidays are around the corner. It's time for an energy boost. Here's something I've been using AG1, a whole body health program. In one easy scoop after my morning workout, I combine AG1 with water, shake it up, and enjoy a brisk little drink that's packed with antioxidants, prebiotics, probiotics, enzymes and micronutrients. That little scoop also has multivitamins, greens, immune support, cognitive support, functional mushrooms, and stress adaptogens all in one scoop. And it tastes good too, which was a nice surprise. It's an easy part of my daily routine and I feel great. Head to drinkag1.com literature to get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 when you first subscribe. That's drinkag1.com literature okay. Joining me now is Devoni Loser, an English professor and Jane Austen scholar expert at Arizona State University, whose previous books include the Making of Jane Austen and Sister Novelists, the trailblazing Porter sisters who paved the way for Austen and the Brontes. She's also a roller derby player rolling under the name Stone Cold Jane Austen. She's here today to discuss her new book, Wild for a Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed. Jane Deveney Loesser, welcome to the History of Literature.

[B]

Great to be here. Thank you, Jack.

[A]

So before we hear about Jane Austen's wild side, I was wondering if you could kind of give us an overview of Jane and Anna Maria Porter. Who were they and what did they do?

[B]

So this biography that I wrote of the two sisters and I called the younger sister Anna Maria because I think that's how she would have pronounced the name then. So Jane and Mariah, she went by Porter. They were precursors of Jane Austen's who were incredibly well known in their lifetimes but who dropped out of literary history just as the time that, you know, Austen was rising. So they kind of had opposite trajectories, but, you know, they were very well known in their lifetimes. They were important innovators in historical fiction. And it was an honor and a privilege to be able to publish the first full length biography of the two sisters. And the book you mentioned, sister novelists, which came out in 2022, I had.

[A]

Never heard of them. They published together between the Two of them, 26 books.

[B]

That's correct. And some of them were bestsellers. Jane especially, really hit the zeitgeist of her time, writing about mostly heroes who are based on real life heroes or certainly real life political struggles of nations that were searching for independence in the faces of despotism. So very topical.

[A]

Yeah. Now I read a. I don't know if it's a rumor or you can help us determine, I guess, what the evidence is for this, but the allegation is that their childhood friend Sir Walter Scott kind of stole some credit from them.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think it's just an allegation. I think there's some evidence of this. And stealing is maybe a bit of an overstatement. I may have even used that word myself. But he definitely stole their thunder, even if he didn't steal their method. Historical fiction had been around for a long time, but we often, when we talk about its origins, will say that it was invented by Sir Walter Scott. You'll still see this. It's not the case. He isn't even the person who published the first best selling novel in the historical fiction subgenre. When his Waverly came out in 1814, it was 11 years after Jane Porter's Thaddeus of Warsaw, which had taken the country by storm and taken the world by storm and continued to be very well known throughout the 19th century. And yes, they were childhood friends or at least acquaintances. The Porters claimed Scott is a friend. He maybe didn't feel quite so close or fondly about them.

[A]

Now they have a very compelling life story. Is that what you. I mean, obviously I hope people are going to run out and look for your book about them because I think their biography is very interesting. Are there also works that you recommend to people or have they not aged so well?

[B]

Well, I think for people who like historical fiction, maybe like Outlander, fans of Outlander might be into this. There are a lot of very manly men, but also really interesting female characters. Some of them are cross dressing, they're in battle. I mean, there are just lots of wild things going on that maybe have more resonance now than you might think. But their male heroes are very sensitive men. They cry a lot. You know, there, there are parts of the way that the male hero is portrayed that maybe don't travel across time, but should. Right. Why can't men cry, go to battle and then come back and cry about it? It makes total sense to me. But in addition to Thaddeus of Warsaw, that 1803 one that I mentioned, the Scottish Chiefs is probably her most famous novel, Jane's from 1810, and it has the either claim to fame or claim to shame of being the likely fictional precursor for Mel Gibson's film Braveheart.

[A]

Did you say Scottish Chiefs?

[B]

The Scottish Chiefs from 1810. It's, it's five volumes in 1810. So most of Jane Austen's novels were three volumes, so this is long. But there's a wonderful modern edition by Broadview Press with the footnotes and the critical apparatus that, you know, I think if people dig historical fiction, maybe you're a fan of Hilary Mantel and you want to know where. Where did this genre get its start? Early 19th century. Jane Porter and the Scottish Chiefs. You couldn't find a better place to go to check that out.

[A]

Okay, let's turn to Jane Austen. I read that your mother helped you get started with Jane Austen. Do you remember the first time you read Jane Austen and did her novels click for you right away or did it take some time?

[B]

That's absolutely correct. It was my mother. And I think there are many of us who have these mother daughter stories with Jane Austen's novel. Certainly many of my students come to me telling stories like this, but mine has a little bit of a strange twist. First of all, when my mother was, you know, pushing this book at me, it took me a couple times to embrace it. And that's my own fault. I kind of didn't understand that it was funny. Like, the language was a challenge. And I think it was around the third time, maybe around age 13, I was reading it again at her suggestion. And I love to read, so, you know, she was often telling me books to read, and I just sort of got the comedy. And it became obviously a transformative book in my life. But it was after I finished a PhD in English, I was talking about Jane Austen with my mother, and she admitted, which she had never admitted to me before, which she'd never read Pride and Prejudice herself. And it was shock.

[A]

Yes, I kind of love that story because what was it that compelled her to recommend it, do you think?

[B]

So this is where, to my mind, it even becomes a better story. My mother did not have a college education. I mean, she wanted an education for me, her only daughter. And she wanted me to have access to a kind of history of strong and interesting women. And so Jane Austen made some sense for her to understand with somebody who could have that role in a girl's life. She was, you know, Jane Austen was an author that educated girls should read. And my mother wanted me to be an educated girl. So the idea that Jane Austen, her reputation was handed down in that way, even for women who didn't have the opportunity to study her, means that much more to me.

[A]

It says a lot about your mom.

[B]

She was. She is an amazing person who, you know, was much more of a reader. She isn't reading so Much. Now it's actually my father who reread Jane Austen's novels in the 70s and 80s alongside me, just because he wanted to know more about what I was doing. And that's a meaningful story, too. So these family stories about how authors circulate really resonate with me because they're personal for me, too.

[A]

Yeah. You know, the other thing that I found is Jane Austen. I mean, I've got two. Well, I guess they're not. One is not a teenager anymore, but I've got two boys who are college age. And one of the things we found, starting when they were in about middle school, is we could watch Jane Austen. I mean, we could watch Pride and Prejudice, and they would kind of, you know, moan and groan at the outset, but then they would get into it, and it's a very fun kind of family pleasure to sit down and watch one of the really good movies or miniseries.

[B]

That's been exactly my experience, too, with two sons who are now young adults. Although I can't say they love Jane Austen, it's fair that they don't. You shouldn't have to embrace the thing that, in their case, both of their parents do with the same level of gusto. So I get it that they have not cottoned onto the Austen lifestyle.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But we have had happy experiences of watching the adaptations, too.

[A]

Okay. So when you started reading Jane Austen and you discovered the humor, which I agree is I could see where, for a young reader, it might kind of go over their head a little bit. And it might be because it's so unexpected, you don't expect the kind of irreverence and sarcasm and irony that she kind of, you know, the start of Pride and Prejudice is, which I think is for most people, kind of the gateway drug. And the way that Lizzie and the father have this kind of winking relationship, especially with regard to the mother, you know, it's kind of subtle, but once you're on board with it, it's very funny and very. It's just very smart and very witty.

[B]

So totally agreed. And it is my own story, I think, humorous. And often the students who come to me and say, my mom made me take this class. Humorous. When you think of Mrs. Bennet, and especially in that first chapter, and the way she is absolutely skewered, you know, the idea that this is a book that mothers and daughters might bond over, it's sort of ludicrous, but also perfect.

[A]

Well, it's because we always identify with Lizzie and Darcy, Right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

We don't acknowledge we're at the age where we would be the old people in the story. So when did you see Jane Austen's wild side? Is that something that came later in your career, or were you onto that from the beginning?

[B]

So I published a collection of essays in 1995 on Jane Austen and feminism. So it was pretty early in my career that I was really looking at the ways that she was giving her heroines, in particular, a kind of strength and independence that I was comfortable calling feminist or proto feminist. So that's, you know, that was when I was in my 20s, but before that, I don't know. You know, I can't come up with an origin of finding things about Austen that I might have called wild. I think that surely there must have been moments when I realized that Elizabeth Bennet saying no to the older women in her life was wild. The number of times she refuses to do what her elders tell her. You know, her father bracketed off there. Right. But she is often quite rebellious. She walks up to a kind of precipice, and she doesn't go over it like her sister Lydia, but she's really testing boundaries. And I'm not sure I would have called that wild when I was first reading her, but I should have.

[A]

Right. Okay. So it's almost like, because I was going to ask you where we get our conception of Jane Austen as being safe and mild. And maybe this is sort of two sides of the same coin here, where it's. It's because there are these rules and these norms, and when you're reading Jane Austen, you really fall into this. Things that I wouldn't consider to be very transgressive in today's world, but I get that it's transgressive in her world. I see when people are bending the rules and when they're breaking them. And maybe because Jane Austen sets up the rules so well is also what allows us to see her wild side, because she has, you know, strong characters who are testing the boundaries of those rules.

[B]

I think that's very well put. And, you know, I think Austen's safe, mild reputation, much more could be said about it. But some of it comes about by comparing her to the other important novelists and especially the female novelists for her day. So Mary Shelley, you know, Austen didn't run up to Europe with a married man and write in a castle, you know, Frankenstein or Bronte, who's later, but who's writing about, you know, gnashing of teeth and violence and supernatural. So I think, you know, there is a way in which Austen gets short shrift when she's compared to those two other major figures. But in fact, there were women publishing in this time who were far wilder than any of the three of them. And I talk in the introduction to Wild for Austin about one of them, Harriet Wilson, who was a famous courtesan who was, you know, a sex worker, having affairs with very wealthy and well placed prominent men. And after her, after she aged out of that profession, she went back and said to all of them, all right, now I am blackmailing you. Either you will pay me or I am going to publish a tell all and you will be a chapter in my tell all memoirs about my sex work. And, you know, incredible, right? I mean, that's wilder than anything. But what's really funny is that in fact, Jane Austen seems to have had a closer personal connection to Harriet Wilson than either Shelley or the Brontes. Obviously the timing doesn't quite line up for the Brontes, but Austin had a close connection to Harriet Wilson and may well have either heard about or laid eyes on Harriet Wilson when she was first. And in one of her first posts as Lord Craven's mistress, there's a reference in Austen's letters that's probably to Harry Wilson. So Austin was definitely observing wildness and hearing about wildness and even some of the very wild women authors of her time.

[A]

Yeah. And did she embrace that or did she. Is Jane in her personal life, do you think, a lot racier than the author we see on the page or do you think she would kind of appreciate the stories and I guess how prudish was Jane? Maybe that's the way to put it.

[B]

I think that is a difficult question to answer in our time versus her time because of course polite and impolite were just so much for strictly defined. And a fallen woman, so called was. Was just not ever supposed to mix with a polite woman. That was the. Yeah, that was the stated rule. It wasn't even unstated. It was stated. So there is a moment in Jane Austen's letters where she talks about being at a public gathering. I think it's a ball. And she says, you know, I had a special eye for picking out the adulteress. I spoke, spotted her even before she was pointed out to me. So, you know, I think she's turning it into a kind of snarky joke, but also saying like, I'm not so innocent that I, I couldn't spot her.

[A]

Right. She's not naive.

[B]

Yes. Yes. So I, I do think you're right that she was on the polite side of that very strict divide.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it's not as if she was, you know, cut off from the realities of what happened to women who were no longer on the polite side. We see that in her novels. If we look for it, it's definitely there. Yeah. And I think she doesn't punish these women nearly as severely as her contemporaries did. And that's meaningful, too.

[A]

Right? Okay. That's what I was going to ask is sort of does it. Do you get the feeling. Because the way her plots work, it often is a plot point and things hinge on, you know, kind of a rash decision or the woman who, you know, runs off with someone and then needs to be redeemed by someone else. And I guess the question is Jane ever. She's using it for her fiction. And there's part of her that's kind of like, well, if you don't follow the rules, then bad things happen and other people sometimes have to pay the consequences for your decision and so on. But is she kind of saying, well, that's a problem with our society. This is. This is horrible what we do to these people who are, after all, you know, being punished for making a single mistake. Or does she not go that far and just kind of saying, like, well, you know, you know, the way of the world. This is what the world does to women once they get cast out of society and, you know, through their actions, they need to be more careful.

[B]

I see more sympathy. I think that question could be answered with evidence in multiple ways. But the reason I see more sympathy is because it would be much easier in her day and was much more often done to either kill those characters off or send them off to a lot worse fates than just being shunned. She shows them being sent away often from the family, and I think she doesn't shy away from suggesting that these are complex relationships that go astray from politeness. But she's also very careful to show, you know, I think seducers, we would probably call them sexual predators now as really the ones who are drawing women to the wrong side of that and impolite line. So to me, that shows. That shows some more sympathy for how an. An unprotected or a naive or a too wild girl. Right. In Lydia Bennett's case, could end up making a wrong turn. So maybe that's speaking out of both sides of my mouth there, Jack, but I do think there's both sympathy and a sense that this is a social wrong, even if that doesn't mean Austen is writing novels from the perspective of sex workers, as some of her contemporaries did. So there are ways that she could have gone further, but I think given the material she was working with, I do see sympathy there.

[A]

Right. Okay, let's take a quick break, and then we'll come back with more from Deveney. Loser. And we'll ask Deveney about her book Wild for Austin. Okay, we're back. So, Devani, your book, the quote I have here is, seeks to retire forever. The image of Jane Austen as a prim, sheltered, and innocent savant. End quote. In what areas would you say we can see a wilder side of Austen? Are you looking for this in her works or in her life or in letters and so on about her or in popular culture treatments of her or a little bit of all of the above?

[B]

All of the above. All of the above. So the book has three sections, and I'm looking at her writings, her life and her family and social circle and her legacy. And I think the title is supposed to be a kind of double meaning. Wild for Austen is what counts as wild for Austen or in Austin in her life and writings. But also Wild for Austin is who's gone wild over Austen.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so I want the book, in this 250th anniversary year, to look at all of the ways that we've perhaps not dug deeply enough into the ways that she is the opposite of mild. I think the sense of her as being safe and prim and proper and boring has had its day. Critics have been trying to talk readers out of it for a long time. And, you know, I hope that the story's here based on real evidence, and I think. I hope persuasive interpretations will continue to move that dial. Austin deserves to be more on the wilder side and less on the milder side.

[A]

Okay, so what are we talking about when we say wild? Do we have a definition that Austin herself used, or are you applying it to mean something that. That might surprise people with kind of the raciness of it? Or what. What exactly do we consider to be wild in. In the context of your book?

[B]

Thank you. That's a great question. And anyone who's a word geek knows that the Oxford English Dictionary OED is a place you turn and you're like, what did this word mean 200 years ago? So I went to the OED because I noticed that there were these really, I thought, kind of linchpin moments in Austen's writings where wildness was used to refer often to her heroines, and it was often used in A positive way. And I wanted to understand that there were definitely uses of wild in her time that were insults or ways to belittle others. Definitely those were there. But that's often not how she's using the word in her writings. She's using it frequently, positively. So she's describing bold women. She's describing their active imaginations, their strong feelings, their unconventional choices. I think this positive female wildness is what I really wanted to try to make sense of, bring out, just show how it's functioning. So, you know, women who. Who are passionate, who are excited, who desire to do something, women who are active. This is the way that I was looking at how wild was used. And in fact, Austen's writings are several times used as an example in the OED for this kind of wildness.

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say passion seems like the key term here, because when we were talking earlier about the, you know, especially the younger women who maybe make a hasty decision and run away with the rogue, as you say, the seducer, who's also probably deceived that person, you know, in defense of the person, you know, based on a 2025 view, I think of it as like, well, what do you want these people to do? You're giving them a window of about two or three years where they have to find someone, and then this guy comes along and he fills her up with lies. And there's no Internet to double check. You can't go check his profile and see if he's telling the truth. And then you're encouraging passion and romance and falling in love. And seems like the time pressure is a big part of it, too. You don't get many bites at the apple. And so passion is something that's kind of valued. And so being wild seems like it's kind of just a. A very close cousin of that, I think.

[B]

Yes, absolutely. But I think where she's going with the word is the positive side of it. So I think what you've just described there is some of the negative or dangerous sides of the word wild.

[A]

You get carried away.

[B]

Right. And there were ways that wild was used, used positively and negative politically. You know, you could be someone who was wild to resist against a governmental force, but you could also be somebody who was wild in terms of being used as an insult for somebody who is not being politically conventional. So, you know, I think there were so many valences to this word that the ones that I like is for trying to make sense of how Austen's using them. And the ones that I'M focusing on the OED says wild could also mean on this. I'm going to quote a little bit, if you'll allow me to check. Artless, free, unconventional, fanciful, or romantic in style, and having a somewhat barbaric character, but in a good sense as a pleasing quality. Barbaric. Not a word that we would use as pleasing. But I think this idea that you could have a wild, personal style comes about. It's not just in Austin's writings, it's in her time. And I talk about this book, the Wild Irish girl from 1806, and sort of what it. What it meant to be a wild girl, and how Austen might have been using this sense of a positive wild girl. So I do think this. This word can mean many things. And I've had people ask me, is it about natural wildness, your book, or, you know, about wildflowers or about. Or about the environment? And I think those are also excellent ways to look at Austin's use of wildness. But that is not what this book is doing. It is more about wild people.

[A]

Yeah, well, this is an era where, I mean, Byron is about to sweep the nation and the world with his personality and the stories about him. And it just seems like there was something in the air that was encouraging people to embrace a kind of, you know, love for storms and storminess and poetry and politics and revolution. And, you know, it just. It feels like kind of a fervent time.

[B]

I think so. And we call it in literary studies, the Romantic era, Capital R. Romantic, yeah. But Austin has sometimes been talked about as if she doesn't belong there.

[A]

Right.

[B]

As if she was, you know, an earlier time and, you know, what used to be called Augustine, that she was more into order. I think if we read more fiction from this period, we'll see that there are more things about her and her writings that absolutely do belong to capital R. Romantic. I'm not saying anything new. Scholars have been saying this for a long time, but, yeah, the connection to Byron is one that's really become, I think, hot in the past decade or so. And it's really interesting and some great work coming out trying to connect Austin and Byron in fiction and in literary history.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, so getting back to your book, you've got the first section, Wild Writings. What will we find in that section?

[B]

So I go through everything, all of Austin's published and unpublished writings, and obviously you can't do justice to them in a handful of chapters. But I do have one chapter on each of the major novels and on some Groups of what we might think of as the more minor works. And I think my favorite of those chapters is the Juvenalia and talking about her childhood writings, which are often seen as her most surprising writings. And if people, if your listeners haven't read those yet, I really hope that your listeners will read selections from Austen's Juvenalia. My students are often, you know, respond that they've had their minds blown because it's not at all what they expected. Not at all.

[A]

Right. Well, what do they expect and what do they get?

[B]

I think they come in having seen maybe the film adaptations, maybe they've read Pride and Prejudice. They're going to get, they think, a love story and happy endings or, you.

[A]

Know, whatever parties.

[B]

Snarky stuff parading around rooms. But the juvenile is like that on steroids. It has plenty of really off color kinds of moments. It's full of what we would call now a burlesque. It's just over the top, making fun of formulas and conventions. So you'll get things in there like people getting drunk, men and women. There's a lot of theft, there's murder, there's adultery, there's a little light cannibalism. You know, you just don't expect to see a little cannibalism in Jane Austen, but there it is, you know, so it's very, very hilarious, I think, to see the ways that she's playing with conventions of the novel. She's taking things that people would expect and turning them on their heads and making them absolutely outrageous and ridiculous. And to me, it's a pleasure to read.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, so let's go to the next section, Fierce Family Ties. What should we know about Austin's family that gives us this sense of the wild?

[B]

So one of the things I'm most proud of, having come up with and been able to speak spin forward in that section is Austen's connections beyond the small town life we imagined for her. Her brother, in his first biography of her, said she lived a life of no event or little event, that nothing happened to her. This is what we've heard. Well, she just stayed in a small town. She never married. Everyone always wants to mention that first, as if that says things must have been boring. She lived among women. She didn't have a lot of money, but in fact, she did do some traveling to her brothers often and to her brother in London, who is probably her most cosmopolitan brother. And on one of those trips, she met an international spy and his opera diva wife. And this has been in the biographies usually a Couple of sentences. But I dug more deeply into the story. Who were they? How did she meet? How is it that we don't talk more about the fact that Austin was in the room with a man who is now known as an international spy, this opera diva wife. And a year after she met them, both of them were actually assassinated in a very gory murder. So she would have been reading about these. These were people she knew. These weren't just headlines in the newspaper. These were people she had sat in the same room with. So, again, this idea that she saw nothing, she knew nothing. She had this simple life. She just. Just happened to be a genius, you know, or however we want to talk about her. In fact, she knew very colorful and, you know, wild, outrageous, kind of incredible people. And I think that story of Count d' Entraigue and his wife, Madame de Saint Huberty, lets that really stand for us. This is not the life we've been led to think she, you know, led or endured.

[A]

Did she write about them in letters or anything?

[B]

There are just a couple of references. And, you know, I mentioned that she once in a letter said, I have a pretty good eye for an adulteress. I spotted her across the room. She did not have a pretty good eye for an international spy. She does talk about meeting the Count, and she says, you know, I had a good conversation with him, and I sort of. I hope I get to talk, you know, with him some more. He seems. He seems interesting, but in no way does she suggest that she had a sense that he was living any kind of dangerous or especially spectacular life that would have led to the end that he had. You know, I think it was likely an assassination. It was definitely a murder. But we don't know how often she saw the Dantraegs after this meeting. We have so few letters from her, but we don't know how many more times she saw them in the year after she met them and before they were killed.

[A]

Right. I mean, how much of her identity within her family would you say was connected with her being this person who wrote these novels?

[B]

I think especially after she starts publishing, which is in 1811, when sense and Sensibility is first published, and then definitely after Pride and Prejudice and her continued success. You know, I think it's very clear that her family thought of her as a novelist once they came to this information. It was, you know, I think in the early years, maybe a more tightly held piece of information. But by the time the Prince Regent is inviting her to come visit him at Carlton House, you know, in 1815, I think it's pretty clear that the jig is up, that it's not a secret anymore. The Prince Regent was a famous gossip. You know, it's likely that he found out her identity through her brother Henry, who, as I said, was the most cosmopolitan of her brothers.

[A]

Yeah. And he used to brag about her. He was very proud of his sister.

[B]

Right, exactly. So I think in her 30s, there was. And I do write about this a bit, too. In one chapter, I think in her 30s, she refers to herself as a wild beast. And she says, if I am a wild beast, I cannot help. Is not my own fault. And that line has really given critics trouble. How are we supposed to read that? Is that her making a joke? Is she feeling sorry for herself? Like, what. What is she. Is she being blamed? What is happening? I think this is her recognition that she has gained celebrity. And she's both making fun of herself, but also maybe suggesting that she doesn't love all the parts of the attention of fame that she's getting. But she's making fun of herself. She's talking about herself as a kind of zoo animal.

[A]

Yeah, well, maybe she felt that way. And maybe, I mean, the zoo. That's an interesting metaphor because you're sort of, you know, in a cage and seen. Part of me worries, and I don't know why we do this with Jane Austen, seemingly more than any other writer. We kind of. We care for her and we want to protect her. And when she has a, you know, a romance we wanted to work out, even though. Even though, you know, we just. I think the books invite us to view Jane as almost like a character that. That we're rooting for, as if she's a protagonist in one of her own novels. But there's part of me that worries on her behalf that her family came to see. See her as sort of like Aunt Jane and the advice giver, and. And she didn't. I mean, if. If Persuasion is anything to go by, she didn't always love having that role because of the responsibility that it might give you for helping someone else determine, you know, who they should marry or what they. What course of action they should take and so on. But it also is kind of like you're not the protagonist if you're the advisor. You know, you're not the main character in that story.

[B]

Yes. And I wish we knew more about her life, and especially her life in the 18 teens, to make sense of how she kept writing as her fame grew. And Persuasion is obviously one book that she wrote at the height of her fame. So I think that makes it especially interesting to look at for what you're describing as a difference between the heroine and the narrator. Yeah, there is definitely a divide as we read those. The heroines are not the narrators. They are sometimes or inside their heads, but they're outside their heads through the narrator. But what I love about Austen's narrator is that she, and I'll call her, she doesn't tell us what we have to believe. And so many novels from this period were just so incredibly didactic, moralizing and didactic. It was all about how to live. And they were going to tell you exactly how to live. You know, like the most bald self help book. Right. This is what you have to do. No options. Her books are the opposite of that. They raise a lot of questions. And I love that in her letter she says, you know, pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked. And I often think of that in relation to her narrator because you can tell that her narrator is not someone who's looking for us to strive for perfection. This is not what these books are doing in our brains as we're being guided into these stories by the narrator.

[A]

That's a bit of a wild statement itself to say sick and wicked. I love it. Okay, so the third section, shambolic afterlives. How wild has the treatment of Austin become in the years since her death? And I know that in the last, let's say, 20 years we've got Pride and Prejudice and zombies and all of that, but what were things like kind of before that did? Were things already wild from the get go or is it just something we're seeing recently?

[B]

So I think from the get go, I do have a section where I describe a really interesting short piece of writing from 1823 that first imagines Jane Austen as a ghost, as a kind of spirit. And this is a piece of writing that's only recently come back into our acknowledgement recognition. So it's amazing that there are ghost stories of Jane Austen in the 1820s, even if they're fictional. Right. Nobody in that piece is saying they really saw Jane Austen's ghost the first time she's used in a court of law as evidence. 1825. I mean, we just don't think of her having this kind of pop culture resonance within a decade of her death, but it absolutely was there. So I'm excited about the chapters that do that. Of course, in the 20th century, we see the emergence of a lot of very specifically Austin inspired erotica. And I Went there. I have a chapter on the erotica, and I don't know if your listeners will be surprised to hear that it goes back to 1980. We might think that this is something in our own time, like, you blink and there wasn't erotica before, but the late 20th century certainly had Austin and inspired erotica. Some of it is not fun. Some of it, I think, does not stand up and should not stand up to the test of time. But I did the work you don't have to do. I read it, and, you know, you can see whether you want to look at it or not. But, yeah, all of these things are the opposite of the prim, proper, quiet. Nothing happened to her. She didn't have any fame. Sometimes we hear she didn't have any fame until 1870. Not true. Or we'll hear, you know, she was boring, and all these things that have been written about her are boring. And, you know, I think fewer and fewer people think that's true.

[A]

Right now I'm imagining that there are at least some listeners who might be saying, well, this is all great, but I don't want Jane Austen to be wild. I read these books because I want a simpler, safer world where. Where genteel people wearing nice clothing are expected to follow polite rules of society and so on. Have you encountered that response? Or what would you say to those listeners?

[B]

Yeah, this is a tough question, because I don't want to ruin anyone's pleasure. Right. You know, anybody who opens a book these days already has my, you know, my admiration. Right, right. Readers. I want readers to keep reading. Keep reading books and to find the books that resonate. But the first thing I might say is, you know, is it possible that you're mistaking the feelings you have when you read these novels for the novelist herself? So that's one question I might want to ask, but I also want to engage them in deeper conversation about what's actually in the novels and about what's actually going on in the early 19th century in. In Britain and throughout the world.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But I think one of the ways to most open up that kind of a response is to ask people where they got the idea of Austin herself as having led a simple, safer, genteel life. And usually they got it from this legacy that was handed down, sometimes by her family, sometimes by critics who had a lot invested in painting her into a little corner and letting her have only that corner. She's a great novelist, but only of small things.

[A]

Domestic.

[B]

Exactly. She writes about details in domestic life. You know, the Men who are writing these great, sweeping sagas. They're terrific, too. We like those. But, you know, Austin, we'll give her a little credit for having done this small interestingness thing. So I want to engage them in deeper conversation about this idea of a simple, safe world. It definitely. Maybe the novels can be experienced that way, but I think you're actually maybe not reading them as deeply as you could if what you see there in those pages is something simple and safe. I don't think many of those characters are economically safe. I don't think that they are. Even in terms of family conflict, even the ones with the most economic privileges are terribly safe. I don't see these as safe novels. They definitely have beautiful, happy endings. Although even there, Austin loves to give us some questions at the end.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Here's some choices for you about how to read this happiness and who was happy and how they got there.

[A]

Right. Okay, so here's my last question. Let's say Jane Austen arrived in 2025, and she knocks on my door, and she says, I could use your help. I'm looking for. I'm writing again, and I'm looking for some characters for my next novel. And I say, well, guess what? There's a woman I know in Arizona, and she plays roller derby. And she says, oh, good, I explained what roller derby is. And then she says, oh, good, that's perfect. I can use that. That'll be a good character for me. Now, here's my question. Are you. Aside from being thrilled, is there any part of you worried that the fate she would devise for your character would be a negative one? Would she pair up a roller derby player with someone and send them off into a cloud of scandal and punish a hobby or a pastime like that? Or does that not give her enough credit for zagging where others might expect her to zig?

[B]

No. I could easily see myself being written as the Mary Crawford character in Mansfield Park. But listen, that is. To me, that would also be like the height.

[A]

You could wear it as a badge of honor.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. But what's funny is that growing up, I was probably much more like Fanny Price. So in that sense, you know, there's the real life and then the Persona. Right. But, you know, Mary Crawford with her heart playing and letting the men see her lithe body and her arms that she performed publicly. There is something definitely roller derby like about that.

[A]

And that was. You were growing up in Minnesota, right?

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. So that's how things worked there.

[B]

I've had pretty Good luck getting to do this Austin business on the track and in the classroom and on the page. It's been a pretty amazing life that reading Jane Austen has allowed me to have.

[A]

Well, the book is called Wild for a Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed. Jane Deveney Loeser, thank you so much for joining me on the History of Literature.

[B]

Thank you, Jack.

[A]

Okay, there we go. That's going to do it for this episode of the History of Literature. We'll have an episode on Iran coming up soon. And why King Lear is arguably the most Chinese play that Shakespeare ever wrote. We go to Russia for a horrible poet, kind of a lovable one, but definitely a horrible one. And we go to Italy with Ernest Hemingway for a look at Farewell to Arms, his World War I era love story. Fascinating stuff there. We're turning the corner from October to Thanksgiving, which means Mike and Laurie will be here soon for a fun episode that's a tradition. And we'll have some newly discovered Virginia Woolf stories, a look at Ebenezer Scrooge coming up for the holidays, and a black woman's foray into the romantic archives. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time. Sam.

[C]

Hi, it's Julie Klausner, and I'd like to talk to you about a podcast called How Was yous Week With Julie Klausner? It's hosted by me, Julie Klausner, New York City comedy legend, much. And it's on the Forever Dog Network. Now, you might remember How Is yous Week? From its humble inception back in 2011. Now I'm back, and I've got monologues and pop culture takes and interviews with experts, comedians, writers, documentary filmmakers and authors about all kinds of fascinating stuff. So tune in to How Was yous Week? Every Tuesday and Thursday for new episodes available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[D]

Hey, this is Dan Harris, host of the 10% Happier podcast. There's so much bad news in the world, but one amazing piece of news is that happiness is actually a skill you can train. So every week I talk with top scientists, meditation experts, even the occasional celebrity about anxiety, depression, productivity, focus, dealing with difficult people, how to get enlightened, psychedelics, etc. Ancient wisdom and modern science to help you do your life just a little bit better. The 10% happier podcast. Listen now, wherever you get your podcast.