SOURCE: Jarvis, Simon. “Sponge Cakes or Don Juan.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4928 (12 September 1997): 3-4.

In the following excerpt, Jarvis lauds Jane Austen: A Life, comparing it favorably with David Nokes's simultaneously published biography on Austen.

“To be burned.” These were the words which Cassandra Austen wrote on a bundle of her sister Jane's letters in 1843. But why did the letters have to be burned? Perhaps because Jane Austen had expressed improper resentment at having to move to Bath. Or perhaps because she had expressed improper excitement. Or perhaps these letters concealed something far worse, that is, better: facts so unexpected, so pleasurably shocking that only a new full-length biography—or two—could really do justice to them. Who knows? Because this is a life with a deliberately created series of holes in it, we are unlikely ever to find out quite why Cassandra burnt her sister's letters. David...