Heathcote William Garrod (1878–1960)

[From Ten Novels and Their Authors, Heinemann, 1954, pp. 63-4:]

Professor Garrod, a learned and witty critic, has said that Jane Austen was incapable of writing a story, by which, he explains, he means a sequence of happenings, either romantic or uncommon. But that is not what Jane had a talent for, and not what she tried to do. She had too much sense, and too sprightly a humour, to be romantic, and she was interested not in the uncommon, but in the common. She made it uncommon by the keenness of her observation, her irony and her playful wit.… (altro)