I, too have Dr. Shapard's annotated Jane Austen books, and enjoy them tremendously. However, I don't agree with every annotation he makes; they are not carved in stone, like the Bible. (And the result of annotations of the Bible is the many different religions in the world!) Different people will feel differently (and may have learned something different, in their own research) about certain passages of Jane Austen; that's why we enjoy this website -- the discussion.

Now, Dr. Shapard has VERY good credentials, so I trust his annotations for most of what I'm reading, and, as I said, I'm greatly enjoying his work. None of us lived 200 years ago, so the only way to get to the truth of what Jane Austen wrote, is to read Jane Austen (just as with the Bible!). Some of the scholars on this website also disagree with each other about certain passages in Jane Austen's work. We have to learn to take the facts with the speculation, and read critically. To quote a long-ago bad guy: "What is Truth?"