Was Jane Austen Edited? Does It Matter? from NPR Podcast Fresh Airfrom NPR Podcast Fresh Air

"A storm in a teacup" is the British version of the idiom, and it's hard to imagine a more apt example than the squall that blew up recently over the claim by Oxford professor Kathryn Sutherland that Jane Austen was actually a sloppy writer. Sutherland was publicizing a new website that has put 1000 pages of Austen's manuscripts online. According to her, the manuscripts are full of faulty spelling, break every rule of English grammar, and give no sign of the polished punctuation we see in the novels. She concluded that Austen's prose must have been heavily edited for publication, quite possibly by the querulous critic William Gifford.

Check the full NPR Fresh Air feature out here. Download the podcast here. See also: The Complete Novels of Jane Austen (Special Editions), Jane Austen Collection (Sense & Sensibility / Emma / Persuasion / Mansfield Park / Pride & Prejudice / Northanger Abbey), Northanger Abbey

Philly book publisher the BRAAAINS! behind phenom from The Seattle Times: Home

The undead have created a whole new life for Quirk Books, the brains - or rather the BRAAAINS! - behind the monster best-seller "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." Quirk, an independent publisher that started with a series of tongue-in-cheek guides for surviving highly unlikely misfortunes, has established the hybrid "mashup" genre bending of out-of-copyright classics and horror-fied kitsch. "It has in a way become kind of a modern, or a postmodern, classic," said Quirk president and founder David Borgenicht, whose 15-person staff works in an inconspicuous building on a cobblestone-paved side street in Philadelphia's Old City neighborhood. "That wasn't at all our intent. It was simply too crazy not to publish." Ever look at something and ask yourself why you didn't think of it first? That's one way Quirk comes up with its titles.

Check the ST article out here.

What's the best way to test a novel before you read it? from Books news, reviews and author interviews | guardian.co.uk by Robert McCrum

First line, last line, or Ford Madox Ford's p99 challenge? Actually, a good book should pass all of these. Ford Madox Ford is such an evergreen English writer. The Good Soldier is one of the most remarkable and influential novels of the 20th century. Currently FMF is back in the news for his dictum that you can judge any book by any one of its pages. What he actually said was: "Open the book to page 99 and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you." This lit crit nugget was first picked up in the USA by the punk rock band, Pg. 99, but it is now enjoying a vogue as an ideal way to cut through the blizzard of overproduction in books of all sorts. The p99 test does many things, but it also ruthlessly speeds up the selection process in a crowded marketplace. Some will say it's unfair, random and capricious, but I disagree. As readers we pay a lot of attention to (and love to quote) those striking first lines, for example: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Read the full Guardian article here.