Reviewed by Mark Massaro
What Matters in Jane Austen?
by John Mullan
Twenty Essential Questions Answered
250th Birthday Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing
Sep 2025, Hardback, 352 pages, ISBN: 9781526693945
Jane Austen’s novels have long entertained readers with their wit, social satire, and precise prose, but they also present a challenge for critics: how to honor their complexity without weighing down their charm with heavy-handed analysis. John Mullan’s What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Essential Questions Answered—reissued by Bloomsbury Publishing to mark Austen’s 250th birthday—rises to that challenge with both intellect and humor, offering a guide that’s as enjoyable to read as it is insightful. Described by The Atlantic as “an intimate guide to the world of her books,” Mullan’s collection takes on twenty questions, from whether Austen’s world hints at sex to why proposals carry so much weight, showing how the smallest details—characters’ mannerisms, the books they read, the size of their incomes, the nuances of their social lives—carry layers of meaning in her fiction. In answering his twenty deceptively simple questions, Mullan not only provides enlightening context, but also shows readers how to see Austen with fresh eyes, as a novelist of sentiment, and more importantly, remarkable artistic precision.
Mullan highlights how easily Austen’s subtle brilliance slipped past her earliest reviewers, and often still does today. Her first critics, though polite in their praise, didn’t quite grasp the full complexity of what they were reading. Mullan illustrates this with examples like a contemporary review of Emma describing the novel as “amusing, inoffensive and well principled”—a faint compliment that completely misses its irony, daring, and psychological depth (1). To call Austen merely well-mannered, Mullan argues, is to miss how much her fiction demands of us—close attention to detail, an ear for irony, and an appreciation for how her restraint signals precision, not gentility. By spotlighting what’s often overlooked, Mullan pushes readers to see Austen not as a genteel storyteller of romantic courtship but as a writer with razor-sharp control of tone, perspective, and moral complexity—a novelist who feels strikingly modern, even subversive, in the way she guides our sympathies and expectations.
Another of Mullan’s fascinating insights comes in his discussion of age—specifically, how a character’s age shapes their desirability, judgment, and social standing. In the chapter “How Much Does Age Matter?”, Mullan points to the comedic yet poignant example in Sense and Sensibility, where Marianne dismisses Colonel Brandon’s thirty-five years as practically ancient, a view that reveals far more about her immaturity than his suitability. “She is youthfully absurd in her sense of the importance of age,” Mullan writes, stressing her belief that a woman of twenty-seven could only marry a thirty-five-year-old man to act as a nurse in return for financial security (13). Austen, he argues, expects readers to recall this youthful misjudgment later, when Marianne ultimately marries Colonel Brandon. It’s a clever narrative choice, one that underscores not only her suffering but her emotional growth: “We are supposed to remember this judgement…so that we know just how far Marianne has been aged, metaphorically speaking, by her errors and her sufferings” (13). This focus on emotional growth leads naturally to Mullan’s discussion of silence as one of Austen’s most telling narrative tools.
In the chapter “Which Important Characters Never Speak?”, Mullan explores how characters who barely say a word can still speak volumes. Captain Benwick, for instance, “never actually speak[s] to us” despite being full of feeling, which leaves us questioning the depth—or even sincerity—of his poetic melancholy (135). Mullan writes that Austen “animates our doubts about all his feelings” by keeping his voice off the page, a choice that makes his quick engagement to Louisa Musgrove both comedic and narratively revealing (135). Silence also plays a social role. Mr. Musgrove in Persuasion is humorously drowned out by his “loquacious” wife (135), while Miss de Bourgh and Georgiana Darcy in Pride and Prejudice embody silence as a form of social constraint. Georgiana, described as “exceedingly shy,” can barely say “a monosyllable,” with a paid companion effectively speaking on her behalf (136). These moments, Mullan argues, are never accidental. In Austen’s hands, who speaks—and who doesn’t—always carries meaning, often functioning as a quiet commentary on social roles and gendered expectations.
This attention to the subtle and the disregarded carries into Mullan’s discussion of games—particularly card games—as another lens for understanding character and social dynamics. In the chapter “What Games Do Characters Play?”, he discusses how Austen turns games into miniature social dramas that reveal much about the people who play, or refuse to play, them. One of the best examples comes from Pride and Prejudice, when Elizabeth Bennet opts for a book over a card game, prompting Miss Bingley’s snide remark: “‘Miss Eliza Bennet,’ said Miss Bingley, ‘despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else’” (149). But, as Mullan points out, Elizabeth plays cards elsewhere; it’s not the game she objects to, but the social pressures tied to it: financial, reputational, and conversational. Her ability to wander the room, while others remain pinned to the table, signals her independence and open mind. “Elizabeth’s freedom to drift around the room…enables her to express her mischievous freedom in dialogue,” Mullan observes (149). In his hands, even these passing moments reveal Austen’s talent for turning the ordinary into something narratively charged.
In “Is There Any Sex in Jane Austen?”, Mullan goes even further, showing how Austen handles desire with subtlety and suggestion rather than explicitness. Elopements, flirtations, and sudden engagements, like Lydia Bennet’s scandalous flight with Wickham, hint at sexual behavior without directly acknowledging it. Likewise, Isabella Thorpe’s connection with Frederick Tilney carries obvious implications for those willing to read between the lines. Austen’s novels may not detail sex on the page, but, as Mullan argues, they explore it through context, consequences, and the social structures, like marriage, that make it acceptable. It’s one more example of how Austen trusted her readers to understand the unsaid.
Reading What Matters in Jane Austen? feels like both a return to the joys of Austen’s fiction and a reminder of how much remains to be discovered. Mullan proves that elements as ordinary as weather, money, or a card game can unlock fresh perspectives of her work. Over the course of twenty chapters, he poses questions that are playful, provocative, and surprisingly deep, all while showcasing Austen’s innovative use of rhetoric and her quiet brilliance with character and plot.
For me, the book resonates on a deeply personal level. Having studied Austen in graduate school, I’ve long been fascinated by the quiet radicalism beneath her polished surface. While she never staged open rebellion against Regency norms, her fiction hums with a subtle critique of its social constraints—expressed through irony, narrative silence, and the moral gravity of her heroines’ choices. Mullan illuminates this with expert precision, showing how Austen’s critical eye is woven into every level of her storytelling. Ultimately, his essays remind us that the best readers are driven by curiosity and an appreciation for the nuances that make Austen’s work timeless.
About the reviewer: Mark Massaro earned a master’s degree in English Language & Literature from Florida Gulf Coast University, and he is currently a Professor of English at a state college in Florida. His writing has been published in The Georgia Review, The Hill, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Master’s Review, Newsweek, The Colorado Review, and many others.