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Jane Austen Online Book Club
Jane Austen was born in December 1775—a year before the Declaration of Independence—into a vibrant, contentious world in transition to modernity. Her beloved novels look fresh when we consider them in the context of her life and society. We’ll read four novels alongside Claire Tomalin’s brilliant, delightful Jane Austen: A Life.
Sessions will be run largely as discussions, so we expect that participants will have read the works in question recently enough to remember some particulars and will come to the discussions with questions and ideas. You should also have a copy of the book with you as we meet. We may also fold a film or two into our discussions. If you are interested in pursuing further reading, the Norton Critical Editions supply ample contextual information. Professor Moffat will also arrange for an optional supplemental webpage for the class with resources you may find interesting.
This online course includes four classes from noon to 1:30 p.m. (Eastern time):
Wednesday, Feb. 11: Northanger Abbey
We’ll begin with Austen’s lesser-known, earliest novel, a Gothic romance and social satire that teases the boundaries between life and fiction.
Wednesday, Mar. 11: Sense and Sensibility
Cautious, pragmatic Eleanor Dashwood and her impetuous, romantic sister Marianne are thrust into the marriage market when their father dies and their younger half-brother inherits all. (This happens in the first pages—we are not giving the plot away.) With England awash in conspicuous consumption and old mores breaking down, whom can they trust?
Wednesday, Apr. 8: Pride and Prejudice
Austen structures her narrative voice to view the world through Elizabeth Bennet’s witty psychological perspective—and spawns a new genre of sparky romance. It’s tempting to read this novel as a feminist statement. Should we?
Wednesday, May 13: Persuasion
The best novel about middle-aged love, full stop. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, Persuasion revisits questions of marriage and inheritance law, social class, merit and morals in a rapidly changing England.
Instructor: Professor Emeritus Wendy Moffat
Wendy Moffat taught British 19th- and 20th-century literature at Dickinson for 40 years. Awarded the Ganoe Prize for inspirational teaching, she taught the course Jane Austen in her Time a dozen times to beginners and advanced English majors alike. Her biography A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E.M. Forster was reviewed glowingly on the front page of The New York Times Book Review and garnered prizes on both sides of the Atlantic. She established Dickinson's Oxford program in 2012. Her book Wounded Minds, an untold story of two Americans in World War I, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Wendy earned her B.A. and Ph.D. at Yale. She lives in Carlisle and Philadelphia with her husband, Donald, and two dogs.
Cost:
$200 for the course
$150 for Classes 2021-2025
Please register by Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026.