From 'Is there Sex Before Marriage in Austen?' to 'Which important Austen characters never speak?' the Guardian Book Club columnist answers 21 apparently trivial questions that reveal deep and hidden truths about Jane Austen's fictional world



What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage? What do the characters call each other, and why? And which important Austen characters never speak? In twenty short chapters, each of which answers a question prompted by Jane Austen's novels, John Mullan illuminates the themes that matter most to the workings of Austen's fiction. Inspired by an enthusiastic reader's curiosity, based on a lifetime's study and written with flair and insight, What Matters in Jane Austen? uncovers the hidden truth about an extraordinary fictional world.