SOURCE: Jenkyns, Richard. “Janeism.” New Republic 218, no. 18 (4 May 1998): 33-8.

In the following excerpt, Jenkyns compliments Jane Austen: A Life, noting that Tomalin “is ready to risk some psychological speculation, but this is done with tact and restraint.”

Charles Dickens was born in Hampshire, but when you cross into the county from Sussex the sign reads: “Hampshire—Jane Austen's county.” Only one other English county identifies itself by a literary son or daughter in this way; but then Warwickshire does have Shakespeare to boast about. Jane Austen's star seems to rise on and on. The recent spate of film adaptations may be over, but they were anyway the consequence, not the cause, of her popularity. Her influence extends even into lowbrow fiction: the heroes of most cheap romances are either Darcy, Heathcliff, or Rochester. (It is curious, or maybe not, that all three heroes should be the inventions of...