This book explores what it means to read the six major works of Jane Austen, in

light of the ten major works of fiction by Charlotte Smith. It proposes that Smith

had a deep and lasting impact on Austen, but this is not an influence study. Instead,

it argues for the possibility that two authors who never met could between them

write something into being, both responding to and creating a novelistic zeitgeist.

This, the book argues, can be called co-writing. This book will appeal to students

and scholars of the novel, of women’s writing, and of Smith and Austen specifically.