In this book a distinguished historian explores the novels of Jane Austen, showing how they illuminate English history in the quarter century before 1792 and 1817 and how, in turn, an appreciation of this period in history enriches our reading of the novels. Oliver MacDonagh paints a picture of Jane Austen's life and personality and of the social and political worlds she inhabited during and immediately after the Napoleonic Wars. Analyzing her letters as well as her novels, he shows how Austen's experiences and her reactions to events were woven into her fiction. Each chapter combines an examination of Jane Austen's ideas and conduct in a particular field with a consideration of her treatment of the same subject in one or more of her works. MacDonagh compares the place of the Anglican Church in her life to the role of the Church of England in Mansfield Park, juxtaposes her own family relations to those of the Elliots, Musgroves, and Crofts in Persuasion, and shows how her economic vicissitudes are reflected in the use of money as the moving force in Sense and Sensibility. In the same way, other chapters tackle the themes of girlhood and education, marriage and the contemporary female economy, and local society. In every case Austen's real and imagined worlds richly illuminate on another, providing new insights for all readers of her work.

Oliver MacDonagh described the first edition of "Ireland: The Union and its Aftermath", published in 1968, as "a very small book with very large themes". The book rapidly reached the status of a classic and remains a thought-provoking survey of the history of Ireland from the Act of Union of 1800 until modern times. It has been unavailable for a long time. MacDonagh regarded the Act of Union as the most important single factor in shaping Ireland as a nation in the modern world. Although subordination to Britain had influenced Irish development before 1800, it took a rapidly different form under the Act of Union: "The experience of being assimilated by, and resisting assimilation into, a powerful and alien empire - perhaps the master-culture of the 19th century - was truly traumatic." For the second edition, published in 1977, which is reprinted here with a new introduction by W. J. Mc Cormack, MacDonagh included a chapter on the period 1968-73, taking account of the early years of the troubles in Northern Ireland.