The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is eminently, delightfully, and delectably quotable. This truth goes far beyond the first line of Pride and Prejudice, which has muscled out many other excellent sentences. So many gems of wit and wisdom from her novels deserve to be better known, from Northanger Abbey on its lovable, naive heroine--"if adventures will not befal a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad"--to Persuasion's moving lines of love from its regret-filled hero: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late."

Devoney Looser, a.k.a. Stone Cold Jane Austen, has drawn 378 genuine, Austen-authored passages from across the canon, resulting in an anthology that is compulsively readable and repeatable. Whether you approach the collection on a one-a-day model or in a satisfying binge read, you will emerge wiser about Austen, if not about life. The Daily Jane Austen will amuse and inspire skeptical beginners, Janeite experts, and every reader in between by showcasing some of the greatest sentences ever crafted in the history of fiction.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is regarded by many as one of the greatest writers in the English language. Though her work was not widely known during her lifetime, Austen is today a household name, and her six full-length novels are considered timeless literary classics. Devoney Looser is Foundation Professor of English at Arizona State University, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar. She is the author of many books, including, most recently, The Making of Jane Austen, and the editor of the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Sense and Sensibility. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, New York Times, Salon, Times Literary Supplement, and Entertainment Weekly.