LIT 89 —
Jane Austen's Rise: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park
Quarter: Summer
Instructor(s): Rebecca Richardson
Date(s): Jul 9—Aug 27
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Thursdays
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Class Meeting Time: 6:00—7:50 pm (PT)
Tuition: $475
Refund Deadline: Jul 11
Unit(s): 1
Enrollment Limit: 85
Status: Registration opens May 18, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Summer
Day: Thursdays
Duration: 8 weeks
Time: 6:00—7:50 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jul 9—Aug 27
Unit(s): 1
Tuition: $475
Refund Deadline: Jul 11
Instructor(s): Rebecca Richardson
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Enrollment Limit: 85
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Registration opens May 18, 8:30 am (PT)
Jane Austen’s novels remain cultural touchstones, endlessly adapted and debated. But Austen faced many setbacks before seeing her work published. This course revisits Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Mansfield Park (1814) in the order her contemporaries encountered them. Published in quick succession, these novels nonetheless mark distinct stages in Austen’s artistic development. Sense and Sensibility, reworked from an earlier manuscript, dramatizes debates about the relative value of reason and emotion, self-restraint and self-expression. Pride and Prejudice is Austen at her most "light and bright and sparkling." Mansfield Park, the first novel Austen wrote knowing herself to be a published author, marks a shift in emotion and style, as one of Austen’s quietest protagonists probes the ethical implications of the world around her. Read together, these works reveal how Austen established her reputation—and why her insight and narrative craft have endured while shaping literary history. Each session combines lecture, breakout rooms, and full-class discussion.
REBECCA RICHARDSON
Advanced Lecturer, Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford
Rebecca Richardson received a PhD in Victorian literature from Stanford. She has published articles on a range of 19th-century authors, from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens, and her most recent work is Material Ambitions: Self-Help and Victorian Literature. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Jane Austen, Claudia L. Johnson (Ed), Sense and Sensibility, 1st edition (ISBN 978-0393977516)
(Required) Jane Austen, Donald Gray (Ed), Mary A. Favret (Ed), Pride and Prejudice, 4th edition (ISBN 978-0393264883)
(Required) Jane Austen, Claudia L. Johnson (Ed), Mansfield Park, 1st edition (ISBN 978-0393967913)
(Required) Jane Austen, Donald Gray (Ed), Mary A. Favret (Ed), Pride and Prejudice, 4th edition (ISBN 978-0393264883)
(Required) Jane Austen, Claudia L. Johnson (Ed), Mansfield Park, 1st edition (ISBN 978-0393967913)