1. How does Austen go against the grain of traditional romance stories of the period?

Many critics in the nineteenth century approved of Austen’s work, as she was vastly different from other novelists, injecting little of the “screams along the corridor” variety of novels that is suitable only for “maids and chamberwomen”. This is characterised largely by the story of Elizabeth and Darcy, which is an inversion of romantic book expectations. Victorian society became fascinated first by her exemplary, quiet life, then by her novels. This marked the transition from obscurity to being one of this century and last’s most influential literary figures. In many ways, her books are more in tune with our times and tastes than her own. In the first review she ever received, she was taken to task for a ‘want of newness’, but her books now seem markedly more original than anything else of the period.