This collection brings together a selection of recent representative critical essays on Austen from a variety of perspectives. All of them take for granted the brilliance of her achievement, but they also make the case that she deserves to be taken seriously as a major writer and a major thinker. After opening with several short introductory essays, the volume moves on to consider Austen’s critical contexts through a series of wide-ranging overviews of her life and works. The section that follows, “Critical Readings,” provides samples of critical close readings from a number of schools of thought. The volume is rounded out by a chronology of the important events in Austen’s life, a list of her works, and a bibliography with suggestions for further reading.