CELEBRATING THE BICENTENNIAL: JANE AUSTEN AND HER RECENT CRITICS

'There is but such a quantity of merit between them," Elizabeth Bennet tells her sister Jane in Pride and Prejudice, speaking of Darcy and Wickham; "just enough to make one good sort of man." Similarly, the present eight volumes, if we consider the "quantity of merit between them," might reasonably dwindle to perhaps two good sorts of books. The three full-length studies are all one way or other weak?misguided, uninformative, boring; and of the five essay collections, which present some fifty-three separate articles, significantly less than half the pieces would appear worthy to grace the two-hundredth anniversary of their subject's birth. Austen studies in brief, at the start of their third century, are not much served by the present offerings. But first to look at the brighter side. Though each of the five collec? tions of essays contains sensible, intriguing, and on some occasions even brilliant work, the most consistently intelligent is Joel Weinsheimer's Jane Austen Today (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1975), about three quarters of which should prove of enduring interest. Unique among the present collections in having a unifying theme, this volume "confronts the fundamental problem of assessing Jane Austen's achievement." The preface informs us that "This focus seemed particularly appropriate because, despite the considerable upsurge of interest in Jane Austen dur? ing the last twenty years, the growth of her reputation has been hindered by charges that she is 'limited.' " And of the book's eight essays the most direct and astute treatment of this subject is Donald Greene's "Myth of Limitation," a far-ranging piece that ought to be required reading for all