A TOP BOOK FOR 2024 IN: THE OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, SUNDAY TIMES AND BOOKSELLER 'He understands only the women he invents – the others not at all'
Paula Byrne Book order
Paula Byrne is a British author and biographer. She is married to writer Jonathan Bate, the Shakespeare scholar.






- 2024
- 2021
'Hollywood, we're reminded, is after all a through-the-looking glass world, and Byrne writes authoritatively about its illusions and obscene, glittering excess ... Compelling' Daily Mail 'Both eye-poppingly fun and thought- provoking' The Times Madou is the most beautiful woman in the world.
- 2021
'Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously' JILLY COOPER Picked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the Observer A Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021
- 2020
'Hollywood, we're reminded, is after all a through-the-looking glass world, and Byrne writes authoritatively about its illusions and obscene, glittering excess ... Compelling' Daily Mail 'Both eye-poppingly fun and thought- provoking' The Times Madou is the most beautiful woman in the world.
- 2018
Lisa Blaize - teacher, and would-be fashion writer, mother and second wife - feels out of place when her high-flying husband becomes the headmaster of a school in a country town. Isolated and far from her metropolitan upbringing, she turns to the one place where she learns she can be uninhibited. But 'Twitter may be my undoing', Lisa discovers as her one-time private life becomes all too public. Soon she is dealing with an online stalker and her husband's reputation is put at risk, but will she be able to give up her addiction?--Provided by publisher.
- 2017
The Genius of Jane Austen
Her Love of Theatre and Why She Works in Hollywood
- 352 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Focusing on the enduring appeal of Jane Austen, this updated edition of Paula Byrne's debut delves into the history of stage adaptations and the successful screen portrayals of her works. It examines the reasons behind Austen's lasting popularity and what these adaptations reveal about her as an author. Enhanced with new material, the book provides fresh insights for both longtime fans and newcomers to Austen's literature.
- 2017
Kick: The True Story Of Kick Kennedy, Jfk's Forgotten Sister And The Heir To Chatsworth
- 352 pages
- 13 hours of reading
The remarkable life of the vivacious, clever - and forgotten - Kennedy sister, who charmed the English aristocracy and was almost erased from her family history. The favourite child of Joe Kennedy and favourite sister of Jack, Kick Kennedy was spirited, vivacious and legendary for her charm. When the Kenndys sailed to Britain in 1938 she was presented as a debutante amid the pre-war social whirl of the British aristocracy. Here she met a shy, tall, handsome man called Billy, and, rebelling against family, faith, and country, soon married him. He was William Cavendish, heir to Chatsworth and the Duke of Devonshire, the most eligible bachelor in England. But their days of married bliss proved short, as war would bring tragedy and loss. Uncovering her spectacular life in full for the first time, Paula Byrne depicts a remarkable woman who bewitched the Churchills, Astors and Mitfords, and yet was almost erased from Kennedy family history.
- 2017
A radical look at Jane Austen As you've never seen her - as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain's favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies, time after time. Jane Austen loved the theatre. She learned much of her art from a long tradition of English comic drama and took joyous participation in amateur theatricals. Her juvenilia, then Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma were shaped by the arts of theatrical comedy. Her admiration for drama's dialogue, characterisation, plotting, exits and entrances is why she has been dramatised so successfully on screen in the last twenty years - and these versions are at the centre of her continuing fame, culminating in her celebration on GBP10 note. Austen expert and author of The Real Jane Austen, Paula Byrne looks at stage adaptations of Austen's novels (including one called Miss Elizabeth Bennet by A. A. Milne) to modern classics, including the BBC Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility, and the phenomenally brilliant and successful Clueless, The Genius of Jane Austen presents an Austen not of prim manners and genteel calm, but filled with wild comedy and outrageous behaviour.
- 2017
A radical look at Jane Austen As you've never seen her - as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain's favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies, time after time.
- 2016
The remarkable life of the vivacious, clever - and forgotten - Kennedy sister, who charmed the English aristocracy and was almost erased from her family history.