The sketch by Cassandra does not portray Jane Austen as an unattractive woman. She was tall and slender and is said to have had very attractive eyes, being extremely witty, perhaps too much of a handful for many of the men who might have courted her. Her personality was probably a combination of Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse.

There is another pencil and watercolor sketch of a woman believed to be Jane Austen in 1815 by James Stanier Clarke, and if this is Austen she is a stylish woman and a bit of a smasher.

Her failure to marry may have had something to do with the fact that she had no dowry, which in the day was the most important factor in determining eligibility.

NYT in a nutshell: Sure Jane Austen was a genius. But was she hot?

Ironically, Jane Austen's books champion nimble-witted, trustworthy women who maybe aren't the flashiest or prettiest in the room but who prove their worth in other ways. The beautiful people usually turn out to be flakes in the end.

Ah well. Despite my shelf of Victorian novels, I'm clearly not the kind of reader this publisher is going for. So slap some hot chicks on the cover! Call it a day!

This reminds me of what happened a few years ago with the VHS/DVD cover of a film version of Persuasion. Since the two lead actors were older than 20 and rather plain looking by Hollywood standards (although I think Ciaran Hinds is pretty dishy myself), the company marketing the film decided to put two generically attractive young actors – a man and a woman – on the cover of the box/case, in a pose more reminiscent of a romance novel than a film based on an Austen book. In fact, I’m surprised they didn’t have Fabio or Brandon from 90210 stand in for Captain Wentworth. And the kicker was that neither of these two fine looking teenagers were in the movie. They were just stock models. I wonder if that company really managed to capture more viewers with their pathetic subterfuge or if they would have had the same number of rentals and purchases if they had simply trusted their general audience and had a cover that portrayed someone who was actually in the movie. There are so many vapid, unnatural pretty people running around, showing up in every tv show, movie, music video, ad, etc. that pretty soon it will be a relief and a joy to see, prominently displayed, someone genuinely ugly, just for the change of pace. In fact, I'll just say it here - ugly is the new pretty.

No one really knows what she looked like. What we do know is she was smart and popular and she was unmarried by choice. I imagine her reputation as a ‘spinster’ had a lot to do with the sad, gloomy image that’s been cultivated over the years.

But these days she’s considered a woman who put her career before a family at a time when the choice was one or the other. She’s no longer a sad spinster waiting for a Mr. Darcy who will never come. She’s a career woman! It’s past time for her to get that happy, cheerful makeover in my opinion.

I mean – it’s not like she looks like a stripper in the new art work. She just looks happy for a change.

Her novels speak for themselves. It's irrelevant what she looked like.

Thank you, Sandra M. It was worth it.

I see plenty of ugly men on the covers of books and biographies. I'm tired of everyone being prettied up, especially women! No wonder men have such high opinions of their looks, they see a large range of male faces and figures, while women are almost always shown in their best light making everyday non-famous women feel like they are uglier than they really are, which also makes everyday men less satisfied with the women's in their lives looks because we are all surrounded by the photoshopped, airbrushed, heavily made up, taped up, squeezed into dresses women.

Besides, someone who wants to read about Jane Austen isn't going to pick up the book because there is a pretty face on the cover, it will be the name and someone who just picks it up because the face is pretty isn't necessarily going to care about reading about Austen's life.

Accounts that I have read indicate that Ms. Austen had an active social life, and was something of a minor celebrity. When in bath she went to balls and parties, and was often approached by admirers, both male and female. I admit that I'm no Austen scholar, just an avid fan who reads the scholarly notes and intros to every Austen work that I pick up, but my impression is not that she was a spinster shut-in, merely that she was a reasonably content, very talented, vivacious, witty person.

Thank you -- due to an editing error my sentence saying that was omitted in the published version. Will fix. Thanks.

No, not bothered --outraged. Be very f****g outraged.

This may seem like a trivial thing to some, but Jane Austen was one of the greatest women writers who ever lived. It's absolutely deplorable for anyone to try to market her as some 18th century Jackie Collins.

Clare Fontaine beat me to the observation, but Jane Austen WAS engaged. She also received at least one other proposal, which was declined-- I don't remember the details. Although she might not have been pretty, she was generally described by those who knew her in letters as vivacious, smart, and great fun to be with, and I'm sure she could have married if she chose to. It's VERY good luck for us that she didn't, though, as the responsibilities of running an aristocratic household at that time would have left her no time to work on her writing. The world would have been a very different place if Jane Austen had married!

I also know I've read in a few places that Cassandra's drawings of Jane were acknowledged by their contemporaries to not actually be very good. So maybe the problem here is that Cassandra was actually a crappy artist.

This story bothers me so much more than it probably should. But... ARGH.