Icing on the cake

It’s turning into a self-promoting kind of week.

After taking a bow on Monday for my small contribution to the ginormous task of correcting online Jane Austen misquotations, I’m now happy to report that I have an article in the latest edition of Persuasions, the journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

My piece, “Two Cheers for Edward Ferrars,” is a slightly revised version of the breakout talk I gave at last year’s JASNA Annual General Meeting, held in Victoria, British Columbia, and focused on Sense and Sensibility. In the article, I argue that the novel’s readers--many of whom disdain Edward as dull and passive, or worse--often overlook the structural and thematic clues Austen has provided that make clear why Edward is genuinely heroic.

JASNA members receive a hard copy of Persuasions each year and can download an ebook version. Digital versions of some articles are also publicly available, though that doesn’t yet seem to be the case for the current issue. (If you don’t have access to my piece but would like a copy, drop me an email and I’ll send it along.)

Presenting a JASNA breakout talk was a bucket-list item for me, and getting the talk published in Persuasions is icing on the cake. Many thanks to those who made it possible, chief among them Persuasions editor Susan Allen Ford.