``The best (and the best written) book about Austen that has appeared in the last three decades.``-Nina Auerbach, Journal of English and Germanic Philology ``By looking at the ways in which Austen domesticates the gothic in Northanger Abbey , examines the conventions of male inheritance and its negative impact on attempts to define the family as a site of care and generosity in Sense and Sensibility , makes claims for the desirability of \'personal happiness as a liberatin. ``The best (and the best written) book about Austen that has appeared in the last three decades.``-Nina Auerbach, Journal of English and Germanic Philology ``By looking at the ways in which Austen domesticates the gothic in Northanger Abbey , examines the conventions of male inheritance and its negative impact on attempts to define the family as a site of care and generosity in Sense and Sensibility , makes claims for the desirability of \'personal happiness as a liberatin