Reception history of Jane Austen a responsible land-owner taking care of his family's ancient estate and Emma Woodhouse symbolising wealth cut off from any sort of social role. David Kaufmann in his 1992 essay "Propriety and the Law" argued that Austen was a classical liberal in the mold of Adam Smith, who felt that virtue was best exercised in the private sphere of the family life rather than in the public sphere of politics. Kaufmann rejected the claim that Austen was influenced by Edmund Burke, arguing that for Austen, virtue was not something passed down from time immemorial from a landed elite as Burke would
Jane Austen which was originally her PhD thesis, marking the first time that Austen had subjected to a serious academic study in France. The second examination in English was R. W. Chapman's 1923 edition of Austen's collected works. Not only was it the first scholarly edition of Austen's works, it was also the first scholarly edition of any English novelist. The Chapman text has remained the basis for all subsequent published editions of Austen's works. With the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles's "Jane Austen and Her Art", the academic study of Austen took hold. Lascelles's innovative work included an analysis of