A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter

Before Jane Austen, William Deresiewicz was a very different young man. A sullen and arrogant graduate student, he never thought Austen would have anything to offer him. Then he read Emma--and everything changed.

In this unique and lyrical book, Deresiewicz weaves the misadventures of Austen's characters with his own youthful follies, demonstrating the power of the great novelist's teachings--and how, for Austen, growing up and making mistakes are one and the same. Honest, erudite, and deeply moving, A Jane Austen Education is the story of one man's discovery of the world outside himself.