A Dance with Jane Austen: How a Novelist and Her Characters Went to the Ball

A Dance with Jane Austen: How a Novelist and Her Characters Went to the Ball by Fullerton, Susannah. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780711232457.

“The period illustrations and dance diagrams are charming, but Fullertons discussion of dance in Austens novels is both incisive and entertaining. From the Netherfield ball in Pride and Prejudice to Anne Elliot playing the piano as her friends dance in Persuasion, Fullerton explains how dancing moves the action forward in each book and what it reveals about various characters. (She even draws heavily on the unfinished The Watsons.) By the end, readers will long to revisit the dance scenes in Austens world and follow her heroines practice of talking over the ball afterward with friends over a cup of tea. A beautifully illustrated exploration of dance in the life and novels of Jane Austen. “ -Shelf Awareness Drawing on contemporary accounts and illustrations, and a close reading of the novels as well as Austens correspondence, Susannah Fullerton takes the reader through all the stages of a Regency Ball as Jane Austen and her characters would have known it.