ABSTRACT
Readers of Jane Austen’s novels might wonder how an entire book could be written about her landscapes. They might question how many of her landscapes are as fully described as those of later novelists such as Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy, who were capable of painting quite particularized scenes. Novelists many times use landscape extensively, not only to establish a sense of place but also to allow readers actually to picture a location in detail. Austen’s landscapes are not detailed. No travelogue visions of the south of France or Italy ever appear in her novels. Her landscape descriptions are few and spare, requiring some imagination on the reader’s part to picture the scenes-“dull elves” will be disappointed as they search for local color. Certainly many of her contemporary readers would have been more familiar than we are with the places where the novels were set and so would not need to know more than Austen writes about the scenes, but still her novels appeal to readers who have never visited England two-hundred years later. As she seldom completely describes her heroines, so she leaves much of the landscape for the readers to fill in for themselves. This gap between what is written and what might be imagined provides us as readers with expanded enjoyment every time we read an Austen novel, as we discover more facets both to the characters and to the landscape.1 As well, Austen’s lack of elaboration in her landscapes places an obligation on the reader to discover the importance of the scenes she does describe.
