Jane Austen (1775-1817)An English writer (novelist), who first gave the novel its distinctly modern character through her treatment of ordinary people in everyday life. During her time with many of her novels being published anonymously she was not recognized as the author she is today. On her death her authorship was announced to the world at large by her brother Henry (a banker), who supervised the publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. It was much later in the 19th Century that she was being talked about and being recognized for the talent she had. |
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LifeJane Austen was born in the Hampshire village of Steventon, where she spent the first 25 years of her life. In 1802 it seems likely that Jane agreed to marry Harris Bigg-Wither, the 21-year-old heir of a Hampshire family; but the next morning she changed her mind. She remained unmarried. There is very little known about her private (love) life/relationships as her sister Cassandra was a jealous guardian of her sister's private life, and after Jane's death she censored surviving letters, destroying many and cutting up others which she felt may be embarrassing. Between May 1801 and September 1804 there is a gap in her correspondence. Because of this lack of information it has led biographers to interpret her novels to try and fill it out. Her lively and affectionate family circle provided a stimulating context for her writing. Moreover, her experience was carried far beyond Steventon rectory by an extensive network of relationships by blood and friendship. It was this world of the minor landed gentry and the country clergy, in the village, the neighbourhood, and the country town, with occasional visits to Bath and to London that she was to use in the settings, characters, and subject matter of her novels. The great family amusement was acting. The Rectory barn was turned into a theatre and along with their relatives and neighbours produced many plays for their own amusement. Along with her sister, Cassandra she had little more than 5 years formal schooling. Around 1782 they were sent to be tutored by a woman in Oxford but that was not successful, and after a year they attended the Abbey School in Reading, England until 1787. When her father retired in 1801 they moved to Bath, and from 1801-1804 they rented No. 4 Sydney Place, and then stayed for a few months at No. 3 Green Park Buildings East, where her father died in 1805. For eight years she had a succession of temporary lodgings or visits to relatives, in Bath, London, Clifton, Warwickshire, and, finally, Southampton, where she lived from 1805 to 1809 with her mother and sister. In1809, Jane's brother Edward was able to provide his mother and sisters with a large cottage in the village of Chawton, within his Hampshire estate, not far from Steventon. The prospect of settling at Chawton had already given Jane Austen a renewed sense of purpose, and she began to prepare Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice for publication. |
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years after 1811 seem to have been the most rewarding of her life. She had
the satisfaction of seeing her work in print and well reviewed and of
knowing that the novels were widely read. They were so much enjoyed by the
Prince Regent (later George IV) that he had a set in each of his
residences; and Emma, at a discreet royal command, was "respectfully
dedicated" to him. The reviewers praised the novels for their
morality and entertainment, admired the character drawing, and welcomed
the homely realism as a refreshing change from the romantic melodrama then
in vogue.
Early in 1816, saw the onset of her fatal illness. She supposed that she was suffering from bile, but the symptoms make a possible modern clinical assessment that she was suffering from Addison's disease. Her condition fluctuated, but in April she made her will, and in May she was taken to Winchester to be under the care of an expert surgeon. However, the doctor could do nothing for her, and she died peacefully on 18th July 1817 at their lodgings in No. 8 College Street, and six days later she was buried in Winchester Cathedral. For the last 18 months of her life, she was busy writing. Until August 1816 she was occupied with Persuasion, and she looked again at the manuscript of "Susan" (Northanger Abbey). During her lifetime there had been a solitary response to the nature of her achievement: Sir Walter Scott's review of Emma in the Quarterly Review for March 1816, where he hailed this "nameless author" as a masterful exponent of "the modern novel" in the new realist tradition. After her death, there was only one significant essay, the review of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in the Quarterly for January 1821 by the theologian Richard Whately. |
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Her Works and NovelsHer earliest-known writings date from about 1787, and between then and 1793 she wrote a lot of material. Including some of her best loved works today. She had a second spurt of writing between 1811 and her death, when she wrote Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. She created the comedy of manners of middle-class life in the England of her time in her novels. |
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| Sense
and Sensibility
(1811)
Pride and Prejudice (1813) Mansfield Park )1814) Emma (1815) Northanger Abbey (1817 posthumously) Persuasion (1817 posthumously) Lady Susan (1871) |
Plan
of a Novel, According to Hints from Various Quarters.
(1871)
The Watsons (Unpublished) Sanditon, (Unpublished) Three manuscript notebooks: (1787-1793).Volume the First, Volume the Second, and Volume the Third, contains 21 items of plays, verses, short novels, and other prose. (Unpublished). |
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