In the later years of her life, Jane Austen created a quilt. Acclaimed graphic novelist Kate Evans takes the fabrics of this patchwork coverlet and uses them to illustrate a beautiful, brilliantly immersive and compelling comic-book retelling of Jane Austen’s life. Evans patchworks together the narrative from Austen’s own words, seamlessly interweaving snippets from her letters and her stories, and tells her life story from the cradle to the grave, including riotously joyous comic excerpts of her novels.
Kate Evans’s art style – which takes inspiration from James Gillray, Raymond Briggs, Quentin Blake and Beatrix Potter – and her incredible eye for historical detail, costume, architecture, even the fonts on the page, add up to a quintessentially English vision of Austen’s world. There is even an embroidered chapter, where the artwork is created in thread paintings. The whole combines to create a unique and original work of biographical scholarship which gives fresh insights into the impact of the events of Austen’s life on her work.