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Searching for Jane Austen demolishes with wit and vivacity the often-held view of "Jane," a decorous maiden aunt writing her small drawing-room stories of teas and balls. Emily Auerbach presents a different Jane Austen�a brilliant writer who, despite the obstacles facing women of her time, worked seriously on improving her craft and became one of the world�s greatest novelists, a master of wit, irony, and character development. In this beautifully illustrated and lively work, Auerbach surveys two centuries of editing, censoring, and distorting Austen�s life and writings. Auerbach samples Austen�s flamboyant, risqu� adolescent works featuring heroines who get drunk, lie, steal, raise armies, and throw rivals out of windows. She demonstrates that Austen constantly tested and improved her skills by setting herself a new challenge in each of her six novels. In addition, Auerbach considers Austen�s final irreverent writings, discusses her tragic death at the age of forty-one, and ferrets out ridiculous modern adaptations and illustrations, including ads, cartoons, book jackets, newspaper articles, plays, and films from our own time. An appendix reprints a ground-breaking article that introduced Mark Twain�s "Jane Austen," an unfinished and unforgettable essay in which Twain and Austen enter into mortal combat.