This book addresses a paradox in the lives of women in Jane Austen's time who had no legal access to money yet were held responsible for domestic expenditure. Money is thus a major issue in women's fiction. From the perspective of what the British pound could buy, the economic lives of women in the novels emerge as part of a general picture of women's economic disability. The author examines the professional lives of women authors and links the fantasy worlds of women's fiction with the social and economic realities of readers and writers.