The Jane Austen Remedy

‘Ruth Wilson . . . emerges from this discreet, wry memoir as quietly defiant as any heroine from the Jane Austen novels she so admires.’

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

At the age of seventy, Ruth Wilson blew up her life. Confronting feelings of regret and unhappiness, she left her husband, bought a sunshine-yellow cottage in the Southern Highlands and resolved to re-read the books that had shaped her formative years: Jane Austen’s six novels.

Over the next ten years, as Ruth read between the lines of both the novels and her own life, she slowly began to reclaim her identity.

Now aged ninety, Ruth shares her beautiful, life-affirming lessons in love, self-acceptance and the curative power of reading, as well as a timely reminder that it’s never too late to seize a second chance.

‘Brilliant . . . a tour de force memoir on the power of reading to light up a life at any age.’
DEVONEY LOOSER

‘Beautiful and deep . . . A unique approach to Austen’s books.’
BRI LEE

Author Biography

Ruth Wilson read her first Jane Austen novel in 1947. In 2021, at the age of eighty-eight, she graduated from The University of Sydney with a PhD that suggests a new approach to reading literary fiction at school. She encourages her four children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren to read widely, wisely and well. She and her husband are LATs, a married couple who live apart together.