In Jane Austen's England (**** stars out of four), husband-and-wife historians Roy and Lesley Adkins depict a nation of political unrest and turmoil, poverty and struggle. (In her lifetime, her works were published only anonymously: "By a Lady.") Yet the England in which Austen lived - she was born in 1775 and died in 1817 at age 41 - was much poorer and filled with strife than the country portrayed in her six novels. The opening line of Emma informs us that the well-bred protagonist is "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition." In Mansfield Park, Austen famously writes that "a large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of." The England of Jane Austen's fiction is one of social maneuverings and romantic yearnings, and it is an insular realm of unfettered privilege. By Carmela Ciuraru, Special for USA TODAY
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