This lucid and insightful work investigates the role that dissident comedy plays in Austen's writings. Using sexuality as a lens upon circa-1800 literary culture, this book emphasizes the physical life of Austen's heroines, and contributes to recent analyses of popular culture, thing theory, and material history. Through her focus on objects, Heydt-Stevenson argues that Austen's novels explore the physical, erotic, humorous, and sometimes tragically funny connotations of popular literature and commonplace books, clothing, jewelry, crafts, travel, and tourism. Through an examination of Austen's humor and linguistic patterns, this book interrogates the stereotypes of women authors as culturally inhibited, and shows how Austen addressed as sophisticated and worldly an audience as Byron's. Through her careful reading of all the Austen texts in light of the language of eroticism, both traditional and contemporary, Heydt-Stevenson reevaluates Austen's audience, the novels, and her role as a writer.