Jane Austen and Modernization presents something of a conundrum. How can Austen be yoked to a vast series of historical changes that postdate her writing life by at least half a century? The canonization of Austen and the development of a popular readership was 50 years in the making though and during these years, readers and critics of all stripes responded to Austen's work as representative of a social and historical formation that they themselves felt they were losing. This same half century