Patricia Meyer Spacks

As malady or inspiration, boredom looms large in our culture. Forever egging the writer on to new feats of interest, new forms of poetry, new, more engrossing ideas and creations, boredom both haunts and motivates the literary imagination. This book offers a witty literary explanation of why this should be. Investigating boredom's imaginative functions during the last two and a half centuries, Patricia Meyer Spacks reveals the shifting cultural purposes...

In 1811, Jane Austen's first published work, Sense and Sensibility," " marked the debut of England's premier novelist of manners. Believing that "3 or 4 families in a country village is the very thing to work on," she created a brilliant tragicomedy of flirtation and folly. Romantic walks through lush Devonshire and genteel dinner parties at a stately manor draw two pretty sisters into the schemes and manipulations of landed gentry determined to marry...