Newswise — "Becoming Jane" arrives in theaters this summer, starring Anne Hathaway as the 21-year-old Jane Austen engaged in a romance with a young Irishman. The studio bills the love story as "her greatest inspiration," but when the end credits roll, moviegoers probably won't know too much more about the real Austen than they did when they were buying popcorn in the lobby.
Emily Auerbach, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of "Searching for Jane Austen," says the movie's sketchy premise - based on brief mentions of a family friend in Austen's letters - is another example of how Austen's life has repeatedly been censored and distorted to minimize her accomplishments as a novelist. Biographers have made unsupported assumptions about Austen's single life - reinforcing the notion that she became a writer because she couldn't find Mr. Right. Auerbach says that's nonsense - biographies of great male authors don't ever suggest they became writers because they couldn't find the perfect woman.
"Searching for Jane Austen" shows the real Austen: an ambitious master of wit, irony and character development who overcame obstacles facing women in her time to write six stunning novels. Margaret Drabble, editor of the "Oxford Companion to English Literature," calls Auerbach's approach to Austen "lively, engaging and thoroughly modern."
Auerbach is co-host of Wisconsin Public Radio's "University of the Air" and director of the award-winning "Courage to Write" series of radio documentaries on brave female writers, including Austen. She also holds a lifetime membership in the Jane Austen Society of North America.
Auerbach is available for interviews to discuss Austen, including the way her image has been feminized and her work marginalized by the emphasis on her personal life rather than her talents as a writer.
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