Moving beyond the usual sketchy account of Austen's life--and away from the serene and untroubled image of Austen created, in large part, by her family after her death--Halperin reveals a robust, vigorous, and at times difficult woman with a large and diverse circle of family and acquaintances. He documents her troubled relationship with her hypochondriac mother, her frank dislike of a sister-in-law, and shed new light on the shadowy existence of...