] .... signed her letter "Mrs Ashton Dennis", which some writer shave assumed meant that she was "mad" about the whole affair.

I remember reading an article about this in an academic anthology of some sort. Jane acutally signed subsequent letters to the publisher with the initials: M.A.D. so it's logical to assume that she chose the name so that she could use those particular initials, so expressive of her anger.

By the way, there's an assumption in the UK that 'mad', meaning 'enraged' or 'angry' is an American-only usage. I can't tell you how many times I've had people here in England correct me over the years when I've used it with that meaning, while they explained that 'mad' can only means 'insane' here.

Not so.

Not in JA's time, anyway. I looked it up in my trusty period dictionary once, and found 'mad' defined as follows: deprived of reason; furious

I'll see if I can find the article. It's around here somewhere.