"The best (and the best written) book about Austen that has appeared in the last three decades."--Nina Auerbach, Journal of English and Germanic Philology "By looking at the ways in which Austen domesticates the gothic in Northanger Abbey , examines the conventions of male inheritance and its negative impact on attempts to define the family as a site of care and generosity in Sense and Sensibility , makes claims for the desirability of 'personal happiness as a liberating moral category' in Pride and Prejudice , validates the rights of female authority in Emma , and stresses the benefits of female independence in Persuasion , Johnson offers an original and persuasive reassessment of Jane Austen's thought."--Kate Fullbrook, Times Higher Education Supplement