Catching a glimpse of Austen's wild side

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne

**Harper Press, €18.90**

**Reviewed by Joanne Hayden**

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Who was Jane Austen? The question has intrigued readers, critics and biographers for the best part of two centuries. In the decades following Austen's death, her family was responsible for creating a public image of her as modest and retiring, a maiden aunt, a parson's daughter who had lived a wholly sheltered life. ...