Bitches in Bonnets: Life Lessons From Jane Austen's Mean Girls

Have you ever recognized Mrs. Elton in an office colleague? Or caught a glimpse of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the neighbourhood crank? Have you spotted a young Emma Woodhouse in your teenage daughter's clique? Over two hundred years after their creation, Jane Austen's mean girls are still alive and kicking. Bitches in Bonnets explores parallels between Austen's world and our own, showing how modern social and behavioural scientists are just beginning to document and quantify what the author knew instinctively. It brilliantly demonstrates how Austen's writing - and our reading of it - offers solace to millions of fans worldwide.

Interweaving modern research and sociological experiments, author and Austen scholar Sarah Makowski looks beyond Austen's texts for the sources of female aggression both during the Regency and today. Despite incredible advances in gender equality, women still face discrimination and bullying from creche to career. The cruellest assaults are those that are least expected - from other women.

• Measures 15 x 23 cm.
• Paperback, 200 pages.