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It is a truth universally established that Jane Austen knew neither Latin nor Greek. As a literary detective, Mary Margolies DeForest disputes this. In Austen's day, classically educated women were loathed. Austen wanted readers to know that she and her best characters had a classical education--just not in her lifetime! Unlike writers who paraded their educational credentials, Austen did not send modern readers diving into footnotes to translate a chunk of Greek or Latin. Instead, she revealed a classical education subtly but profoundly. As DeForest argues, a classical education shapes Austen's characters, their language, and their stories.

In an epic poem narrated by a self-declared opponent of epic poetry, the hero and his 50 Argonauts are thrust aside by the first heroine of third-person narrative and a forerunner of the powerful women in fiction.

Deed of sale by Mary Mygatt, Danbury, Conn., to Uriah DeForest, Ridgefield, Conn., of over 18 acres of land in Ridgefield, bounded by land of Nehemiah Keeles, heirs of Theophilus Benedict, Caleb Rockwell and Henry Whitney; witnessed by Daniel N. Carrington and Miles B. Mygatt; free will attested to by Daniel N. Carrington.