What's so great about Austen? Isn't she just bonnets and balls?

Some film and tv adaptations of Jane Austen's novels might give the impression that the stories are little more than Mills and Boon-type romances in empire-line frocks. This talk will introduce fictions whose representations of the path to marriage is anything but starry-eyed and rosy-coloured, and an author who is anything but 'dear sweet Aunt Jane'. Dr Sandie Byrne is a University Lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing.