It has been my goal to increase my intake of non-fiction into my reading diet so I snapped up the opportunity to read two bios in one book. Selecting Jane and Dorothy was not a real challenge, more of a dipping my pinky toe in because... full disclosure? I will read pretty much anything about Jane Austen and the author is also Anna Dean, a historical mystery writer so this was a totally 'have her cake and eat it, too' pick.

But, that said, it was actually seeing Austen sharing pages with great English poet, William Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy that really grabbed my attention. I am sadly lacking in poet love and know next to nothing about either Wordsworth so this was an opportunity to really expand my knowledge.

The author formatted the book in a familiar biographical fashion. She started with the family history for both women who were born four years apart in different parts of England, but into the same class. From there she compares and contrasts their earlier years right along to their deaths. Behind the narration-style main body are appendixes with poems mentioned, a book list for those consulted our used in research, and finally, a helpful index.

The author leans heavily on her subtitle theme of Sense and Sensibility all the way through. Jane is 'Sense' and Dorothy is 'Sensibility'. As a reader, I learned to not get carried away with this dichotomy because many times Jane acted with sensibility and Dorothy with sense. And, there are many times that the source data just does not give one enough to know more than they said or did something, but not the motivation or emotion behind it. I thought the author was fair when she posed her own surmises.

I felt the book delved into the ladies' lives equitably and presented them as fully fleshed out people instead of goddesses on pedestals. I've not read all that is out there on Jane Austen, but when I do, an author/scholar likes to take a specific approach and line up sources to back this up. I found it refreshing to see an author hang more neutral and show that there is quite a bit of scope to the imagination, shall we say. Austen is open and warm among her family and close friends, but generally manages to show a colder, even haughtier side, to others. She loves family, but she isn't afraid to make her displeasure known. As to Dorothy Wordsworth, this was my first encounter about her life, but I sensed the same cautious approach not to treat her as only this or only that. She's an emotional lady who is more open among her family and friends, but is barely noted by outsiders as more than a nice lady.

And, that leads me to the fact, that I found this book engaging because tucked in among the familiar were neat little nuances (again, this is in respect to Austen with whom I'm familiar though its likely true of Wordsworth's side, too). The author makes a point about Austen taking pot shots at people, but following it up with humor and wit so it soothes the sting. I had to chuckle of an example brought out of how Austen presented her newly engaged brother with her recent finished story about three sisters all going for rich marriages (Edward, her brother is a prize as the Knight heir and his wife, Elizabeth is one of three sisters out seeking a brilliant match). The author also spotlights and speculates about Austen's seeming cool relationship with her own mother like they are chalk and cheese. In Dorothy's life, the author takes a stab at exploring a dark possibility that Dorothy and her beloved brother had an incestuous relationship. For and against are presented through the testament of people at the time. There is a discussion of what sort of health issue took up the end of Dorothy's life- was it severe depression or dementia?

A strong theme of women's history was not ignored. A modern reader will shudder at some of the Georgian ideas about women at the time and have a whole new appreciation for what the pair of these women and others were up against when they defied convention in their lives and their literary work. Dorothy acted out a more outwardly outrageous rebellion than Jane when she left the protection of her uncle's to join a scandalous brother, but Jane rejected perfectly eligible marriage proposals that would have instantly changed her status and financial situation likely for her stance about marrying for love and a strong inclination to write.

As to writing, Jane is a novelist and Dorothy is a poet and journalist. Austen was published during her own lifetime while Dorothy only saw a couple poems published in with her brother's and the bulk of her work was published decades later. There are nice discussions about their work and how their lives and environments played a role in their written work.

All in all, I wouldn't say I was riveted or always agreed with the author's direction, but I thought it was a fabulous job of pulling together source information, good decisions on what to include, and gave me a well-rounded picture of both women as people and as writers. I would recommend it to those who want a good piece of women's history, historical bio, better knowledge of one or both ladies, or even for those who generally prefer historical fiction, but want a non-fic now and then.

I rec'd this book from Net Galley to read in exchange for an honest review.

This is a well_researched book, but I just couldn't immerse myself into reading it. I quit after 6 chapters.

Jane and Dorothy is a serious biography of the early lives of writers Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth, who were close in age though living in differing circumstances in Georgian era England. While much has been written about Jane Austen, far less has been published on Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of poet William Wordsworth, and that was part of the lure of this title for me. The central tenet suggested by the title, that one represented Sense and the other Sensibility (as in the Austen novel) is a rather flawed one, as Veevers herself points out. This is, nevertheless, an interesting exploration of these two women's early lives. Both lived with family, Austen happily so, though Wordsworth less happily so in her early life. Following the death of her mother, Dorothy endured a stultifying existence until she was able to leave her grandparents to live with her adult brother, William. Though both Jane and Dorothy wrote, one obviously became quite famous while the other seemed content to have her writing live in the shadow of her brother, one of the most famous poets of the Romantic Period in English literature.

This tandem biography provides insight into the lives of women during this period in English history. To put it mildly, expectations of ladies during the Georgian era were rather narrowly structured. The claustrophobia of Jane and Dorothy's rather constrained lives produced very different women. Jane Austen turned her sharp eye on society and its demands of women. She learned caution and forbearance and just as did many of her wise heroines, and also learned that less intimacy and familiarity in friendships sometimes produced better results. Her sister Cassandra was her true confidant. In contrast, Dorothy for a time almost reveled in her role of suffering while living with her austere grandparents, and once living with William, placed a high value on emotional expression rather than circumspection. While Jane went on to deepen her understanding of the social condition that women, and especially unmarried or late-marrying women, found themselves in, Dorothy languished romantically. The biography manages to tackle the sticky question of whether or not Dorothy and William had an incestuous relationship, and also discusses Dorothy's seeming infatuation with a married man, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who she was later shocked to find was a drug addict and who managed to hurt just about everyone who knew him in one way or another.

An interesting aspect of this biography is their writing and differing expectations of writing for public consumption. While Jane Austen wrote from an early age and achieved great success as a writer, Dorothy Wordsworth seems to have eschewed public attention for her writing. And yet her writing, particularly in her Grasmere Journal, is quite luminous and as more recent scholars have noted, was borrowed from extensively by her brother William. In many instances, Dorothy's writing seems to have strongly informed William's. (One of the revelations of this biography, that William Wordsworth had lost his sense of smell and relied on Dorothy for scent and taste descriptions, is quite fascinating.) The reader can see some newer information about the Grasmere Journal in a Sian Cain's recent article in The Guardian.

Neither Jane nor Dorothy ever married and Veevers probes into their reasons, especially whether Jane's unmarried state, when viewed through the lens of a modern acceptance of a woman having a career, was in fact, a choice that allowed her to keep writing. Veevers questions the stories of a late potential love lost in Austen's life as perhaps contrived by the Austen family to explain Jane's spinsterhood as somehow not her choice. The idea of choosing to remain unmarried for career reasons would be inconceivable in Georgian England. Dorothy's reason for remaining unmarried seems to have been far more easily accepted as a choice to help her brother's career (and indeed, she did!) and family.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read. Veevers provides a wealth of references for the reader.

I enjoyed reading this book although I do find it sad how these women (and all others of course) had to live within such severely circumscribed circumstances. Each of these two found her own outlet as best they could. This is an insightful, well-written work. Recommended.

My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review.