Reviewed by:

• Jane Austen in Context
• Nicole Mansfield Wright (bio)

With thanks to Mariah Chao, Min Ling Chua, Ector Diego, Alison Durfee, Eva Kareus, Bruce Kaufman, Noah Mahoney, and Darya Navid

With remote learning on the rise, the coronavirus pandemic may accelerate a longstanding trend of reallocating library funds to digital subscriptions. Such developments bode well for the success of Broadview Press’s recently launched, author-focused “companion websites,” including Jane Austen in Context. The Austen site caters to “students ... who would like help with term paper research.” Given the target audience, this review includes feedback from undergraduates enrolled in an honours seminar on British literary history. A number of students were enthusiastic about the site’s prospects. Indeed, the site has the makings of a valuable course supplement. Yet its current iteration seems to be more of a prototype; substantial development is necessary to unlock its potential.

The site’s home page links to four primary areas: a selection of scholarship on Austen’s fiction (primarily her six completed novels); interactive maps of settings featured in the novels; click-to-expand time-lines of relevant biographical and historical developments; and a searchable collection of contextual materials, including images, pertaining to Regency culture and politics, with topics ranging from “Domestic Life” to “Wills and Primogeniture.” Undergirding the presentation is an anti-New Critical premise: the site implicitly contends that readers must familiarize themselves with Austen’s world in order to understand her work.

In written comments, students lauded the site’s convenience and curation. Several recalled struggling on their own to distinguish worthy research from dubious sources when confronting the massive array of search results in online databases such as Google Scholar and JSTOR. They perceived Broadview’s effort as a potential solution to that problem, for it includes a manageable selection of critical essays (five or six per novel) vetted for quality. At a time when reference librarians may be less accessible because they are working remotely, online resources need to fill the void.

Unlike some Austen websites for advanced aficionados, the site is streamlined. A student remarked: “I was pleasantly surprised [by] how neatly the website was laid out ... I already know a lot more about Jane Austen despite the fact that I am not familiar with this author.” The interactive maps and timelines were the favourite elements. A self-described “Austen fanatic” commented: “The maps were fun to play around with ... it was very entertaining to have a visual representation of where Austen’s characters move to throughout the course of her stories.” [End Page 270]

Yet there is considerable room for improvement. No list of the site’s editors or compilers was included. A student pointed out: “There should be a page that states where ... the information on the site is coming from. This would make the site more credible.” Another student noted that while the essays are grouped according to the novels on which they focus, there is no further structure to their categorization. Each essay is prefaced with a blurb summarizing its argument, but there is no explanation of why it was chosen or the essay’s place in Austen scholarship. Users must click into each PDF and scroll to the end to see publication dates. The site does not render visible the extent to which views of Austen have developed over time. Even brief excerpts from Deidre Shauna Lynch’s edited collection Janeites: Austen’s Disciples and Devotees (2000) and Devoney Looser’s The Making of Jane Austen (2017) would help fill this gap.

While the content illuminates the time and place in which Austen wrote, the site obscures the author and, at points, her readers. There are no images or biography of Austen, nor is there a bibliography of her work; students requested a biography page to complement the timeline. Although such information could be accessed via search engines, these are surprising omissions. “I would like more primary sources that reflect the reception of Austen’s literature at the time that it was published,” one student commented. That student added: “The critical...

审核人：

• 简·奥斯丁的语境
• 妮可·曼斯菲尔德·赖特（Nicole Mansfield Wright）

感谢Mariah Chao，Min Ling Chua，Ector Diego，Alison Durfee，Eva Kareus，Bruce Kaufman，Noah Mahoney和Darya Navid

随着远程学习的兴起，冠状病毒大流行可能会加速将图书馆资金重新分配给数字订阅的长期趋势。这样的发展预示着Broadview Press最近推出的，以作者为中心的“伴侣网站”的成功，其中包括Context中的Jane Austen。奥斯丁网站迎合了“希望在学期论文研究方面提供帮助的学生”。针对目标受众，此评论包括来自参加英国文学史荣誉研讨会的大学生的反馈。许多学生对网站的前景充满热情。确实，该站点具有宝贵的课程补充材料。然而，它当前的迭代似乎更像是一个原型。要发掘其潜力，必须进行实质性发展。

该网站的主页链接到四个主要领域：奥斯丁小说选拔奖学金（主要是她的六本完整的小说）；小说中特色的互动式地图；有关传记和历史发展的点击展开时间表；以及与摄政文化和政治相关的背景材料（包括图像）的可搜索集合，主题从“家庭生活”到“威尔士和长子继承制”。演示的基础是反新批评的前提：该网站暗含着争辩，读者必须熟悉奥斯丁的世界才能理解她的作品。

在书面评论中，学生称赞该网站的便利性和策展性。当面对诸如Google Scholar和JSTOR之类的在线数据库中的大量搜索结果时，一些人回忆起自己在努力将有价值的研究与可疑来源区分开来。他们认为Broadview的努力是解决该问题的潜在解决方案，因为其中包括对质量进行严格审查的关键论文（每本小说五到六篇）的可管理选择。在参考图书馆员可能因为远程工作而难以访问时，在线资源需要填补这一空白。

与一些奥斯丁高级爱好者网站不同，该网站经过了简化。一名学生评论说：“我对网站的布局如此整洁感到非常惊喜……尽管我不熟悉这位作者，但我已经对简·奥斯丁有了更多的了解。” 交互式地图和时间表是最受欢迎的元素。一位自称为“奥斯丁狂热分子”的评论说：“这些地图很有趣……可以直观地看到奥斯丁的角色在整个故事过程中所移动的地方，这非常有趣。” [结束页270]

但是仍有很大的改进空间。不包括该站点的编辑器或编译器的列表。一位学生指出：“应该有一个页面，说明该站点上的信息来自何处。这将使站点更加可信。” 另一位学生指出，虽然根据他们所关注的小说对文章进行了分组，但对其分类没有进一步的结构。每篇文章的开头都有一个摘要，概述了其论点，但没有说明为什么选择它或该文章在奥斯丁奖学金中的位置。用户必须单击每个PDF并滚动到末尾才能看到发布日期。该站点无法显示随着时间的推移，奥斯丁的景观已经发展到什么程度。甚至摘自Deidre Shauna Lynch编辑过的收藏集的简短摘录珍妮特人：奥斯丁的信徒和奉献者（2000）和德沃尼·卢瑟的珍妮·奥斯丁的制作（2017）将有助于填补这一空白。

尽管内容阐明了奥斯丁写作的时间和地点，但该网站遮盖了作者以及读者的某些地方。没有奥斯丁的照片或传记，也没有关于她的作品的书目；学生要求提供传记页面以补充时间表。尽管可以通过搜索引擎访问此类信息，但这些都是令人惊讶的遗漏。一位学生评论说：“我希望有更多的主要来源能反映出奥斯丁出版时所接受的文学作品。” 那位学生补充说：“关键...