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Jane Austen and the Navy. By Brian Southam. New York: Hambledon and London, 2001. Distributed by New York University Press. ISBN 1-85285-2917. Illustrations. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xiv, 384. $29.95.
In Jane Austen and the Navy, Brian Southam addresses an issue central to the historical profession: as sources, but of a different type than documentary ones, how accurate and reliable are novels? Southam, the President of the Jane Austen Society, concentrates mainly on two of Austen's novels which have a Royal Navy background and partial naval theme: Mansfield Park (1814) and Persuasion (1818). Thus, the focus of the work is on the naval aspects of Austen's writing and how accurately they reflect the "real" Royal Navy of her era. Where accuracy can be shown,...