SOURCE: Bauer, Helen Pike. “The Short and Graceful Life.” Cross Currents 48, no. 3 (fall 1998): 404-06.

In the following review, Bauer praises the accomplishment of Tomalin's research in Jane Austen: A Life.

In writing her new biography of Jane Austen, [Jane Austen: A Life,] Claire Tomalin faced a formidable task. We have very little of Austen's writing apart from the novels. If she kept a diary, we have no record of it. Her sister, Cassandra, burned almost all of the letters in her possession; most that survived were later destroyed by a niece. Moreover, the reminiscences written by Austen's brothers are spare and discreet; they commend Jane's virtue and note the uneventfulness of her life. That her life was uneventful has become the standard view; many see her as a quiet and perceptive spinster, living close to home in a small village, who was yet capable of producing astute, witty...