Jane Austen is England’s brightest literary jewel. The slightly upper-crust characters in her novels spend most of their time in the most English of pursuits: drinking tea, visiting country houses, and gossiping about their neighbors. Austen herself never left English soil, and all her books are set on the “sceptered isle.”
You might find it surprising, then, that the Florida commissioner of education, Manny Diaz, Jr., recently included Austen’s Pride and Prejudice on a list meant to celebrate “the unyielding spirit and heroic patriotism of the many Americans throughout history who fought in the pursuit of liberty and freedom.” Over at LitHub, the writer James Folta excoriated the commissioner for the selection. “Is there anything American in Austen’s book?” he asked rhetorically.
But Folta’s dismissal of the supposedly provincial Floridian is altogether too snobbish. Austen’s novels are…
