ABSTRACT
Reading aloud features in Jane Austen's novels too, as a part of the long evenings spent in the domestic circle. The two most notable episodes of reading aloud both describe a young man, the suitor of one of the female characters, reading aloud and impressing the women with his ability to perform the text effectively. Austen herself was keenly aware of the difference between good and bad reading aloud of her own work. References to her own novels in her letters tend to be brief and have little to say about detailed questions of writing and technique. Reading aloud was a significant kind of performance in the family circle, so readers-aloud would be likely to practise it, and they were trained in it and advised about it by a large number of books produced in the later eighteenth century. Readers-aloud, like people playing music, would usually be performing pieces which they had previously read over and become familiar with.
