Austen’s fame benefited from critics being unable to inspect her private life

Evidence

Time has sanctified Austen, though there are still those who don’t see what the fuss is about. It helps that she was a good girl, with the tact to die young; with nothing to say about her private life and her heart guarded from examination, critics had to look at her text. Modern women have less tidy careers. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1048

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how a writer’s life shapes reception of her craft.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1048