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Jane Austen

(1775-1817)

Who Was Jane Austen?

While not widely known in her own time, Jane Austen's comic novels of love among the landed gentry gained popularity after 1869, and her reputation skyrocketed in the 20th century. Her novels, including Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility , are considered literary classics, bridging the gap between romance and realism.

The seventh child and second daughter of Cassandra and George Austen, Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, England. Austen's parents were well-respected community members. Her father served as the Oxford-educated rector for a nearby Anglican parish. The family was close and the children grew up in an environment that stressed learning and creative thinking. When Austen was young, she and her siblings were encouraged to read from their father's extensive library. The children also authored and put on plays and charades.

Over the span of her life, Austen would become especially close to her father and older sister, Cassandra. Indeed, she and Cassandra would one day collaborate on a published work.

To acquire a more formal education, Austen and Cassandra were sent to boarding schools during Austen's pre-adolescence. During this time, Austen and her sister caught typhus, with Austen nearly succumbing to the illness. After a short period of formal education cut short by financial constraints, they returned home and lived with the family from that time forward.

Literary Works

Ever fascinated by the world of stories, Austen began to write in bound notebooks. In the 1790s, during her adolescence, she started to craft her own novels and wrote Love and Freindship [sic], a parody of romantic fiction organized as a series of love letters. Using that framework, she unveiled her wit and dislike of sensibility, or romantic hysteria, a distinct perspective that would eventually characterize much of her later writing. The next year she wrote The History of England... , a 34-page parody of historical writing that included illustrations drawn by Cassandra. These notebooks, encompassing the novels as well as short stories, poems and plays, are now referred to as Austen's Juvenilia .

Austen spent much of her early adulthood helping run the family home, playing piano, attending church, and socializing with neighbors. Her nights and weekends often involved cotillions, and as a result, she became an accomplished dancer. On other evenings, she would choose a novel from the shelf and read it aloud to her family, occasionally one she had written herself. She continued to write, developing her style in more ambitious works such as Lady Susan , another epistolary story about a manipulative woman who uses her sexuality, intelligence and charm to have her way with others. Austen also started to write some of her future major works, the first called Elinor and Marianne , another story told as a series of letters, which would eventually be published as Sense and Sensibility . She began drafts of First Impressions , which would later be published as Pride and Prejudice , and Susan , later published as Northanger Abbey by Jane's brother, Henry, following Austen's death.

In 1801, Austen moved to Bath with her father, mother and Cassandra. Then, in 1805, her father died after a short illness. As a result, the family was thrust into financial straits; the three women moved from place to place, skipping between the homes of various family members to rented flats. It was not until 1809 that they were able to settle into a stable living situation at Austen's brother Edward's cottage in Chawton.

Now in her 30s, Austen started to anonymously publish her works. In the period spanning 1811-16, she pseudonymously published Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice (a work she referred to as her "darling child," which also received critical acclaim), Mansfield Park and Emma .

In 1816, at the age of 41, Austen started to become ill with what some say might have been Addison's disease. She made impressive efforts to continue working at a normal pace, editing older works as well as starting a new novel called The Brothers , which would be published after her death as Sanditon . Another novel, Persuasion , would also be published posthumously. At some point, Austen's condition deteriorated to such a degree that she ceased writing. She died on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

While Austen received some accolades for her works while still alive, with her first three novels garnering critical attention and increasing financial reward, it was not until after her death that her brother Henry revealed to the public that she was an author.

Today, Austen is considered one of the greatest writers in English history, both by academics and the general public. In 2002, as part of a BBC poll, the British public voted her No. 70 on a list of "100 Most Famous Britons of All Time." Austen's transformation from little-known to internationally renowned author began in the 1920s, when scholars began to recognize her works as masterpieces, thus increasing her general popularity. The Janeites, a Jane Austen fan club, eventually began to take on wider significance, similar to the Trekkie phenomenon that characterizes fans of the Star Trek franchise. The popularity of her work is also evident in the many film and TV adaptations of Emma , Mansfield Park , Pride and Prejudice , and Sense and Sensibility , as well as the TV series and film Clueless , which was based on Emma .

Austen was in the worldwide news in 2007, when author David Lassman submitted to several publishing houses a few of her manuscripts with slight revisions under a different name, and they were routinely rejected. He chronicled the experience in an article titled "Rejecting Jane," a fitting tribute to an author who could appreciate humor and wit.

QUICK FACTS

Name: Jane Austen
Birth Year: 1775
Birth date: December 16, 1775
Birth City: Steventon, Hampshire, England
Birth Country: United Kingdom
Gender: Female
Best Known For: Jane Austen was a Georgian era author, best known for her social commentary in novels including 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Emma.'
Fiction and Poetry
Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
Death Year: 1817
Death date: July 18, 1817
Death City: Winchester, Hampshire, England
Death Country: United Kingdom

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CITATION INFORMATION

Article Title: Jane Austen Biography
Author: Biography.com Editors
Website Name: The Biography.com website
Url: https://www.biography.com/writer/jane-austen
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Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
Last Updated: May 6, 2021
Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

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Jane Austen: A brief biography

Jane Austen was born at the Rectory in Steventon , a village in north-east Hampshire, on 16th December 1775.

She was the seventh child and second daughter of the rector, the Revd George Austen, and his wife Cassandra (née Leigh). Of her brothers, two were clergymen, one inherited rich estates in Kent and Hampshire from a distant cousin and the two youngest became Admirals in the Royal Navy; her only sister, like Jane herself, never married.

Steventon Rectory was Jane Austen’s home for the first 25 years of her life. From here she travelled to Kent to stay with her brother Edward in his mansion at Godmersham Park near Canterbury, and she also had some shorter holidays in Bath , where her aunt and uncle lived. During the 1790s she wrote the first drafts of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey; her trips to Kent and Bath gave her the local colour for the settings of these last two books.

In 1801 the Revd George Austen retired, and he and his wife, with their two daughters Jane and Cassandra, left Steventon and settled in Bath.

The Austens rented No. 4 Sydney Place from 1801-1804, and then stayed for a few months at No. 3 Green Park Buildings East, where Mr. Austen died in 1805. While the Austens were based in Bath, they went on holidays to seaside resorts in the West Country, including Lyme Regis in Dorset – this gave Jane the background for Persuasion.

Jane fell ill in 1816 – possibly with Addison’s Disease – and in the summer of 1817 her family took her to Winchester for medical treatment. However, the doctor could do nothing for her, and she died peacefully on 18th July 1817 at their lodgings in No. 8 College Street. She was buried a few days later in the north aisle of Winchester Cathedral.

Jane’s novels reflect the world of the English country gentry of the period, as she herself had experienced it. Due to the timeless appeal of her amusing plots, and the wit and irony of her style, her works have never been out of print since they were first published, and are frequently adapted for stage, screen and television. Jane Austen is now one of the best-known and best-loved authors in the English-speaking world.

British Literature Wiki

Jane Austen

Jane austen (1775-1817).

The Anti-Romantic?

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 and into a middle-class family in Steventon, Hampshire. She was the seventh of eight children born to Rev. George Austen and his wife Cassandra.

Austen was taught briefly by Mrs. Cawley in 1783, and later, accompanied her sister to the Abbey Boarding School in Reading from 1785-1786 (Pemberley); Aside from one year of formal schooling, she was educated at home. Her father’s library consisted of about 500 books, which she regularly perused, and reputedly, she was particularly fond of works by Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Fanny Burney (Biography, Pemberley) and William Cowper (Literature Post).

Austen started writing at an early age and completed her first novel, Love and Friendship , at age 14 (JASA). The book was succeeded by A History of England by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian (JASA), which was never published. Although her father greatly encouraged and supported her writing, Austen was very self-conscious and, supposedly, hid pages under the desk plotter if anyone came into the room and discovered her writing (JASA).

When Austen wasn’t engaged in reading and writing, she frequently attended parties and balls in Hampshire, and she visited London, Bath and Southampton to see concerts and plays. Although she never married, Jane did have love interests–most noteworthy Thomas Lefroy. A law student, who later became the Chief Justice of Ireland, Lefroy is frequently mentioned in Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra. However strong the attachment was between them, Lefroy couldn’t afford to marry Austen, and the relationship dissolved.

In addition, when Austen and her sister stayed with a friend in Manydown in December 1802, she was proposed to by her friend’s brother, a wealthy landowner named Harris Bigg-Wither. Austen accepted, but a day later, thought better of her decision. She and her sister Cassandra ran away from Manydown and to her brother James, who was residing at the old, family home in Steventon. Austen’s unexpected departure ended the engagement and Austen’s romantic life as viewed by most scholars.

After the death of her father in 1806, Austen, her mother, and Cassandra moved about the country, settling for some time in Bath, Clifton, Southampton, and Portsmouth. Faced with financial difficulties, the women eventually moved in with Austen’s brother Edward at the Chawton Estate in Hampshire. At some point after, she later returned to Steventon and lived with her brother James. While Jane stayed at Chawton and Steventon, she published the following novels:

Sense and Sensibility (1810-1811)
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Mansfield Park (1814)
Emma (1815)
Persuasion (1816)
Northanger Abbey (1817)
Sandition (Unfinished)

Between 1815 and 1817, Jane became increasingly ill and eventually moved to moved to Winchester for medical treatment. Her last novel, Sandition , was left unfinished, the writing interrupted by her death on July 18, 1817 from Addison’s Disease. Her body was buried in the Winchester Cathedral.

Austen’s works were generally well-received by her contemporaries. As Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1846, “‘That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me'” (Jane Austen’s Art, Pemberley). Andrew Trollope was also an admirer of Austen’s work and remarked, “‘Miss Austen was surely a great novelist. What she did, she did perfectly. Her work, as far as it goes, is faultless. She wrote of the times in which she lived, of the class of people with which she associated, and in the language which was usual to her as an educated lady. Of romance, — what we generally mean when we speak of romance — she had no tinge. Heroes and heroines with wonderful adventures there are none in her novels. Of great criminals and hidden crimes she tells us nothing. But she places us in a circle of gentlemen and ladies, and charms us while she tells us with an unconscious accuracy how men should act to women, and women act to men. It is not that her people are all good; — and, certainly, they are not all wise. The faults of some are the anvils on which the virtues of others are hammered till they are bright as steel. In the comedy of folly I know no novelist who has beaten her,'” (Jane Austen’s Art, Pemberley).

However, as odd as it might seem, Charlotte Bronte detested Austen’s works. In a letter to George Lewes in 1848, Bronte described Austen’s Pride & Prejudice as “An accurate daguerrotyped [photographed] portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck [stream]. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses. These observations will probably irritate you. but I shall run the risk . . . Now I can understand admiration of George Sand . . . she has a grasp of mind which, if I cannot fully comprehend, I can very deeply respect: she is sagacious and profound; Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant” (Jane Austen’s Art, Pemberley).

Perhaps Charlotte Bronte disliked Jane Austen because she wrote “daguerrotyped portraits of the commonplace” and not deep, sentimental novels like the ones Bronte wrote herself. Was Jane Austen a Romantic? This is an issue that needs much exploration and will hopefully be answered, in part, by looking at the outcome of two of Jane Austen’s Romantic heroines: Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility and Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey .

Sense and Sensibility

Marianne Dashwood, the Hopeless Romantic

In Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility , Marianne –the “sentimental” Dashwood sister– is ridiculed by the narrator (presumably Austen herself) and her sister Elinor for being over-Romantic. In the introduction, Marianne is described in the following way: “She [is] sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows [and] her joys [can] have no moderation. She [is] generous, amiable [and] interesting: she [is] everything but p rudent” (5). Marianne is intense and passionate in everything she does, and is so exaggeratingly emotional, that by modern-standards she would be the quintessential “drama-queen.” Marianne has taken the ardent, fiery emotion delineated in Romantic poetry and integrated it into her own personality and life. Marianne has become a living work of Romantic art, but through the course of the novel, Marianne learns that she must be sensible and pragmatic to function in the real-world.

Marianne is not content on just being Romantic herself, she passes judgment on other characters and degrades them for not sharing in her intense passion. As she remarks about Edward Ferrars:

“[H]e is not the kind of young man…who could seriously attach my sister [Elinor]. His eyes want all that spirit, that fire, which at once announce virtue and intelligence. And besides all this… he has no real taste. Music seems scarcely to attract him, and though he admires Elinor’s drawings very much, it is not the admiration of a person who can understand their worth…He admires as a lover, not as a connoisseur. To satisfy me, those characters must be united. I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter into all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both. O mamma! how spiritless, how tame was Edward’s manner in reading to us last night… To hear [Cowper’s] beautiful lines, which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!” (9-10).

Edward is a good-hearted, respectable, but albeit shy young man who earnestly loves Elinor, but he only engages in as much emotion as conventionally proper in 18th century society. This does not satisfy Marianne… but then again, nothing does.

However, while Marianne is sentimental, this does not necessarily imply that she is a Romantic. However, Marianne not only has a deep appreciation for Romantic poetry (ie. Cowper and Scott), but what she also creates improvised Romantic poetry in her everyday speech, indicating that she has integrated Romantic ideas into her psyche. An example of this “improvised Romantic poetry” is Marianne’s farewell ode to Norland. “O happy house!” she says, “could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more! and you, ye wellknown trees! but you will continue the same. No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer! No; you will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade! But who will remain to enjoy you?” (14). Like a Romantic poet, Marianne uses Nature to touch on some deeper, transcendental thought– in this case how the trees around Norland continue to exist and time continue to pass after the Dashwoods are gone. In addition, in a conversation with Edward Ferrars and Elinor, Marianne makes an interesting remark which demonstrates that she is a connoisseur of Romantic Poetry and dislikes any amateur attempts at creating it. (See Marianne’s Appreciation of Landscape .) While Edward unknowingly describes the countryside in Romantic terms, Marianne scoffs and says “ admiration of landscape scenery is become a mere jargon. Every body pretends to feel and tries to describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what picturesque beauty was” (46). Edward, who Marianne has already labeled spiritless and dull, is putting landscape in Romantic poetry to shame by his improvised adaptation of it. Marianne knows good Romantic poetry, and Edward’s landscape descriptions have fallen short of it.

Austen’s final opinion on Romanticism is Sense and Sensibility is ultimately determined by Marianne’s downfall and recovery. Willoughby, who Marianne believed to be the love her life, betrays her and marries a wealthier woman. He never intended to court Marianne, and if she had made sure Willoughby was courting her without sucking him into the Romantic love story she had planned for them, he would not have gotten trapped and had to betray her later. After mourning the loss of her “beloved,” inconstant Willoughby to the point of making herself ill, Marianne falls in love with Colonel Brandon, an older, self-sacrificing, sensible man who stood on the sidelines while Marianne willingly gave her heart to his competitor (Willoughby). Marianne’s experience and the influence of Colonel Brandon transform her into a pragmatic, sensible woman who still has an appreciation for the Romantic, but learns where to separate art from reality.

Is it a coincidence that Marianne can only find happiness when she becomes less Romantic and more sensible? I think not. In Sense and Sensibility , Jane Austen uses Marianne to show the dangers of Romantic poetry and what happens when people try to live the “Romantic life.”

Northanger Abbey

A Parody of the Romantic, Gothic Novel

One form of art connected with Romanticism is the Gothic novel. After the publication of Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto in 1765, which was considered the first English Gothic Novel, this genre became increasingly popular. All of these novels are set in dark, deserted places that were once splendid and beautiful, but have since fallen into states of decay. Examples of Gothic settings are castles, abbeys, the moors, old mansions, ruined buildings, and essentially any dark, shadowy places that evoke feelings of horror and suspicion. The decay of the setting is often representative of the moral degeneration of civilization also supported by the plot. Like the Romantic poets (and Rousseau) who observed Nature and desired to go back to the simple, uncorrupt Golden Age before society, the setting of Gothic literature shows how corrupt the world had become.

The plot of the Gothic Novel tends to follow a specific format: The heroine of the novel — a weak, curious, “damsel-in-distress” type character prone to fainting — becomes isolated in one of the aforementioned dark, mysterious places. She gets seduced by the villain and is either murdered, tortured, or raped. Generally the villain destroys the virtue of the heroine, but she soon gets rescued by the hero of the work– usually a character previously introduced earlier in the novel, but only as a supporting character. The heroine is freed from danger and lives happily ever after with her rescuer.

If Northanger Abbey were a Gothic Novel, here are how two potential Gothic plots would work out:


	Catherine Morland	Catherine Morland
	John Thorpe	General Tilney
	Blaize Castle	Mrs. Tilney’s Bedroom in Northanger Abbey
	John Thorpe and Catherine ride alone in his gig to Blaize Castle. At some point during the ride or at the Castle, the two get separated from James and Isabella. Thorpe isolates Catherine and either rapes or kills her.	Catherine sneaks into Mrs. Tilney’s bedroom only to find either Mrs. Tilney still alive and held captive by General Tilney or Mrs. Tilney’s corpse and evidence that General Tilney killed her. General Tilney discovers Catherine in the forbidden room and threatens to kill her.
	James or Henry Tilney rescues Catherine.	Henry Tilney rescues Catherine.

However, Northanger Abbey is only a parody of a Gothic novel, and all of these potential plots fall through.

From the start, Catherine Morland is set up as the anti-heroine. As Austen writes, “No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother her own person and disposition, were all equally against her” (3). Catherine’s family was neither rich nor poor, she lived happily with nine other siblings, and nothing about her family’s circumstances would nurture the characteristics of a heroine. Austen also writes:

“She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features; -so much for her person;- and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind . . . [she] greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a doormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush . . . [and] for with all [the] symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper; was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with a few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house” (3-4).

These are not the characteristics of a weak, Gothic heroine. As Catherine grew older, she became more like a heroine –beautiful, feminine, and fine– but despite the transitory moments of brainlessness and curious nature, but she doesn’t quite fit into the mold of the classic, gothic heroine.

Unlike Marianne Dashwood, Catherine is more interested in the Augustan writers than the Romantic ones. Among her favorites Augustans are Alexander Pope, Thomas Gray, and James Thompson (5). It was only after becoming acquainted with Isabella Thorpe that Catherine becomes interested in Gothic novelists like Anne Radcliffe. This new interest leads to a series of conversations about gothic novels and novels in general, which may be Jane Austen voicing her opinions through her characters and the narrator. The narrator writes that while the public considers novels inferior art forms and guilty pleasures, they are really works of genius that say a great deal about the human condition. In addition, they aren’t just for women, and the more “horrid” the novel, the better. To look at specific passages on Gothic novels, please see the Northanger Abbey and the Discussion of Novels page .

When General Tilney asks Catherine to stay with his family at Northanger Abbey, Catherine is enraptured and thinks that circumstances have thrown her into a Gothic plot. The Abbey’s “long, damp passages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be within her daily reach, and she could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun” (115). Henry Tilney, knowing Catherine’s interest in the Gothic, raises her expectations and frightens her with a mock-Gothic story about what her stay will be like. (See Tilney’s Description of Northanger Abbey ).

However, upon visiting Northanger Abbey, Catherine’s hopes to find a Gothic setting are let down. “[S]o low did the building stand, that [Catherine] found herself passing through the great gates of the lodge into the very grounds of Northanger, without having discerned even an antique chimney” (133). The lodges were “of a modern appearance,” the road a “smooth, level road of fine gravel,” and “the breeze had not seemed to waft the sighs of the murdered to her; it had wafted nothing worse than a thick mizzling rain… The furniture was in all the profusion and elegance of modern taste. The fire-place, where she had expected the ample width and ponderous carving of former times, was contracted to a Rumford, with slabs of plain though handsome marble, and ornaments over it of the prettiest English china. The windows, to which she looked with peculiar dependence . . . were yet less what her fancy had portrayed. To be sure, the pointed arch was preserved–the form of them was Gothic–they might be even casements–but every pane was so large, so clear, so light! To an imagination which had hoped for the smallest divisions, and the heaviest stone-work, for painted glass, dirt and cobwebs, the difference was distressing” (133-134). Northanger Abbey lacked all the haunted corridors and secret passages that Catherine expected; instead, it was an average, modern dwelling. In this, Austen is making the statement that ordinary, unheroic people like Catherine Morland shouldn’t fear Gothic-novels or long to be in them. Realistically, finding onself in a Gothic-setting is highly unlikely.

However, some of Catherine’s Gothic expectations do come true. For instance, she becomes alarmed by a mysterious chest near to the fireplace similar to the one Henry described (136). After struggling to open it, even being caught in the act by a maid-servant, Catherine finally opens the chest only to find a far-from-ghastly, white, cotton counterpane. A few nights later during a thunderstorm, Catherine discovers an old-fashioned black cabinet that also met Henry Tilney’s description. Frightened out of her wits and with her heart pounding, Catherine manages to open the cabinet to find “a roll of paper pushed back into the furthest part of the cavity, apparently for concealment” (140). This manuscript which caused Catherine so much alarm was merely a washing-bill (142). Once again, Jane Austen parodies the gothic novel and allows the potential gothic-plots to fall through to Catherine’s embarrassment.

The climax of this novel and Austen’s final statement about the unreality of Gothic-plot surrounds Catherine’s investigation of Mrs. Tilney’s room. After receiving a tour of the house from Eleanor and the General, Eleanor leads Catherine to “a narrower passage, more numerous openings, and symptoms of a winding staircase” (154). The General prevents Eleanor from showing Catherine the room, and this, to Catherine, suggests there is some deep-secret associated with the room that General Tilney wants to hide. It turns out that the room in question is the late Mrs. Tilney’s room. Catherine has suspicions about the circumstances of Mrs. Tilney’s death, for Eleanor was away from home at the time, and the General seems very adamant about preventing Catherine’s examination of it. This leads Catherine, who’s mind is already prone to Gothic-ideas, to believe that Mrs. Tilney may still be alive and held captive in her room. “Could it be possible?,” she wonders to herself, “Could Henry’s father?—And yet how many were the examples to justify even the blackest suspicions!–And then when she saw him in the evening, while she worked with her friend, slowly pacing the drawing-room for an hour together in silent thoughtfulness, with downcast eyes and contracted brow, she felt secure from all possibility of wronging him. It was the air and attitude of a Montoni!” (155). Montoni is villain in Anne Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho , and it is no coincidence that that Catherine makes the comparison between the two characters. The gothic novel, like Romanticism for Marianne, has shaped Catherine’s perception. While it is absurd and very unlikely, Catherine really believes General Tilney capable of imprisoning his wife!

A few nights later when the General retires to bed early to look at pamphlets, Catherine’s becomes even more suspicious. “To be kept up for hours, after the family were in bed, by stupid pamphlets, was not very likely,” she notes. “There must be some deeper cause; something was to be done which could be done only when the household slept; and the probability which could be done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food, was the conclusion which necessarily followed” (156). Assured that Mrs. Tilney is locked in her bedroom, Catherine decides to explore the room the next day when General Tilney is on his walk.

Catherine explores Mrs. Tilney’s room (See Climax and Dissolution of Gothic Plot ) only to find great disappointment, and even greater embarrassment. There is nothing out of the ordinary about the room, and contrary to what she thought, the room is not hidden –Henry Tilney enters it while walking from his stables to his room. Even worse, Henry dissolves Catherine’s suspicions about Mrs. Tilney being alive. Although Eleanor was away from home at the time, Henry was present when Mrs. Tilney died. Offended that Catherine could think that his father could harm his mother, Henry puts Catherine straight and tells her that the atrocities found in Gothic novels do not happen in England. Catherine has let herself be too swayed with what she has read, and as a result, has lost her sense of reality and passed judgment on an (at that point) blameless person. Catherine is ashamed at herself, and at this point, the final, potential, Gothic-plot is dissolved. The narrator concludes:

“Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and charming even as were the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human nature, at least in the midland counties of England, was to be looked for . . . in the central part of England, there was surely some security for the existence even of a wife not beloved, in the laws of the land, and the manners of the age. Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist” (166).

This is Austen’s final statement on Gothic novels, and the end to which all of Catherine’s misadventures have led. While they may be entertaining, Gothic novels are an allegorical, not a realistic, reflection on life. To a person who cannot see the line between fact and fiction, Gothic novels can even be dangerous once innocent people get blamed for monstrous crimes they did not commit.

In Conclusion:

Both Marianne and Catherine must learn to be sensible, rational women in order to achieve happiness. Both must give up their Romantic fantasies and settle into an unspectacular, banal existence. This may lead one initially to believe (myself included) that Austen was opposed to Romanticism and more interested in realistic “daguerrotyped portraits of the commonplace.” However, I think Austen may have had other thoughts in mind– She admires Romanticism and the Gothic novel so long as they remain in their medium, but once their motifs leap off the page and into the minds of sensitive readers and alter their perceptions of reality, they become dangerous. Austen’s is neither Romantic nor Un-romantic; she is a Mock-Romantic. Austen creates Romantic plots only to satirize them, making her more like an Augustan Age writer than a Romantic one.

Works Cited: Images: Portrait of Jane Austen . 1873. Duyckinick, Evert A. Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women in Europe and America, New York. 4 May 2008 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen Hugh Thomson, “He cut off a long lock of hair.” Project Gutenberg. 31 May 2008 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/8/3/21839/21839-h/21839-h.htm

Biographical Information: About Jane Austen- Her Life and Her Novels.” Jane Austen Society of Australia . 4 May 2008 http://www.jasa.net.au/jabiog.htm “Biography: Life (1775-1817) and Family). The Republic of Pemberley . 4 May 2008 http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janelife.html “Jane Austen’s Art and her Literary Reputation.” The Republic of Pemperley . 28 May 2008 http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janeart.html “Jane Austen Biography.” Literature Post . 4 May 2008 http://www.literaturepost.com/authors/Austen.html

Jane Austen and Romanticism: Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey . New York: Modern Library: 2002. Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. In The Works of Jane Austen . Ann Arbor, MI: Borders Classics, 2000.

Information on the Gothic Novel: Melani, Lilia. “The Gothic Experience.” Brooklyn College Website . 24 Oct. 2002. 30 May 2008 http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/gothic/gothic.html De Vore, David, Anne Domenic, Alexandra Kwan, and Nicole Reidy. “The Gothic Novel.” University of California Davis . 30 May 2008 http://cai.ucdavis.edu/waters-sites/gothicnovel/155breport.html

A Brief Biography of Jane Austen

David cody , associate professor of english, hartwick college.

Victorian Web Home —> Some Pre-Victorian Authors —> British Romanticism —> Jane Austen ]

Jane Austen was born December 16, 1775, to Rev. George Austen and the former Cassandra Leigh in Steventon, Hampshire, the seventh of eight children. Like the central characters in most of her novels, the Austens were a large family of respectable lineage but no fortune; her father supplemented his "living" — his clergyman's income — by farming. This lively and cheerful family frequently passed their evenings in novel-reading, charades and amateur theatrics. Among her siblings, her sister Cassandra, three years older, was her lifelong friend and confidant.

Her large family supplied material for the kind of novels popular when she wrote, but she chose not to draw upon any of it: her mother, for example, was related to a Duke who was master of Balliol College, Oxford; one aunt married an admiral; another, Mrs. Leigh Perrot, was falsely imprisoned for petty theft in 1799; a cousin, the Comtesse de Feuillide, fled the Reign of Terror after the execution of her husband, came to live with the Austens at Steventon, later fell in love with and married Jane's handsome and cheerful brother Henry (a particular favorite of Jane's), who later went bankrupt and then went into the ( Anglican ) priesthood; her eldest brother James married a duke's granddaughter; her brothers Frank (a friend of Nelson) and Charles (who married the daughter of the Attorney-General of Bermuda) became naval officers, saw action in the Napoleonic wars, and eventually wound up admirals; and her charming and amiable brother Edward was adopted by the first family of Steventon, the Thomas Knights, a wealthy and childless couple. They educated him, sent him on the grand tour, married him to the daughter of a baronet, and made him their heir. Why do you suppose she chose not to use such potentially sensational subject matter or draw upon her family's relatively close connection to important contemporary events?

Scenes from Bath: Left two: Robert Adam's Pultney Bridge and the shops lining it. Right: The Royal Crescent by John Wod the Younger. 1767. [Click on thumbnails for larger images]

In 1801, Rev. Austen retired and the family moved to Bath (much to Jane's dismay), probably so that the still-unmarried Jane and Cassandra might have a better chance of meeting marriageable men. Although she never married, Jane had several romantic liasons, the most serious with a Rev. Blackall who died suddenly, just before they were to become formally engaged. How does this history change your estimate of Elizabeth Bennet? Of Jane Bennet? After her father's death in 1805 the family moved to Southampton, and in 1809 her wealthy brother Edward was able to install Jane, Cassandra, and their mother in a "pretty cottage" back in Hampshire.

More scenes from Bath: The Assembly Rooms and a costumed re-enactor taking the waters in the Pump Room. Right: Prior Park with its Fielding associations . [Click on thumbnails for larger images]

During the eight years she lived away from Hampshire, Austen did not write very much (apparently — biographical information is sketchy), doing little more than revising Northanger Abbey . From what you know of her work, can you suggest a reason for this? What does the setting of her novels have to do with their content?

As the timeline shows, she was a writer from her teens until her death, although hardly anyone outside her immediate family knew it, since all her novels were published anonymously. Indeed, when she was living with relatives after her father's death and writing in the family parlor, she asked that a squeaky hinge on the room's swinging door not be oiled so that she would have time to hide her manuscripts when her nephews and nieces ran into the room. Gilbert and Gubar point out in The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (1979) that "authorship for Austen is an escape from the very restraints she imposes on her female characters. And in this respect she seems typical, for women may have contributed so siginificantly to narrative fiction precisely because it effectively objectifies, even as it sustains and hides, the subjectivity of the author" (168). Test this assertion by your experience of the novel. Incidentally, Austen's identity finally became known in 1814, after Pride and Prejudice .

From 1809 on Austen lived happily with her mother and sister, her time employed in writing. Her fatal illness, then thought to be consumption, now known to be Addison's disease, first appeared in 1816. She died the following year.

Incorporated in the Victorian Web July 2000; last modified 17 August 2008

Jane Austen

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Jane Austen: About

Who was Jane Austen?

Jane Austen was a Georgian era author, best known for her social commentary in novels including 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Emma.' While not widely known in her own time, Jane Austen's comic novels of love among the landed gentry gained popularity after 1869, and her reputation skyrocketed in the 20th century. Her novels, including Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility , are considered literary classics, bridging the gap between romance and realism. [...]

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Jane Austen Society of North America ( JASNA )

Jane Austen ( Britannica )

Jane Austen Biography (Chicago Public Library)

Austen, Jane ( Oxford Dictionary of National Biography )

Jane Austen ( BBC )

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World Biography

Jane Austen Biography

Born: December 16, 1775 Steventon, England Died: July 18, 1817 Winchester, England English author, novelist, and writer

The English writer Jane Austen was one of the most important novelists of the nineteenth century. In her intense concentration on the thoughts and feelings of a limited number of characters, Jane Austen created as profound an understanding and as precise a vision of the potential of the human spirit as the art of fiction has ever achieved. Although her novels received favorable reviews, she was not celebrated as an author during her lifetime.

Family, education, and a love for writing

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, at Steventon, in the south of England, where her father served as a rector (preacher) for the rural community. She was the seventh of eight children in an affectionate and high-spirited family. As one of only two girls, Jane was very attached to her sister throughout her life. Because of the ignorance of the day, Jane's education was inadequate by today's standards. This coupled with Mr. Austen's meager salary kept Jane's formal training to a minimum. To supplement his income as a rector, Mr. Austen tutored young men. It is believed that Jane may have picked up Latin from staying close to home and listening in on these lessons. At the age of six she was writing verses. A two-year stay at a small boarding school trained Jane in needlework, dancing, French, drawing, and spelling, all training geared to produce marriageable young women. It was this social atmosphere and feminine identity that Jane so skillfully satirized (mocked) in her many works of fiction. She never married herself, but did receive at least one proposal and led an active and happy life, unmarked by dramatic incident and surrounded by her family.

Austen began writing as a young girl and by the age of fourteen had completed Love and Friendship. This early work, an amusing parody (imitation) of the overdramatic novels popular at that time, shows clear signs of her talent for humorous and satirical writing. Three volumes of her collected young writings were published more than a hundred years after her death.

Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen's first major novel was Sense and Sensibility, whose main characters are two sisters. The first draft was written in 1795 and was titled Elinor and Marianne. In 1797 Austen rewrote the novel and titled it Sense and Sensibility. After years of polishing, it was finally published in 1811.

As the original and final titles indicate, the novel contrasts the temperaments of the two sisters. Elinor governs her life by sense or reasonableness, while Marianne is ruled by sensibility or feeling. Although the plot favors the value of reason over that of emotion, the greatest emphasis is placed on the moral principles of human affairs and on the need for enlarged thought and feeling in response to it.

Pride and Prejudice

In 1796, when Austen was twenty-one years old, she wrote the novel First Impressions. The work was rewritten and published under the title Pride and Prejudice in 1813. It is her most popular and perhaps her greatest novel. It achieves this distinction by virtue of its perfection of form, which exactly balances and expresses its human content. As in Sense and Sensibility, the descriptive terms in the title are closely associated with the two main characters.

The form of the novel is dialectical—the opposition of ethical (conforming or not conforming to standards of conduct and moral reason) principles is expressed in the relations of believable characters. The resolution of the main plot with the marriage of the two opposites represents a reconciliation of conflicting moral extremes. The value of pride is affirmed when humanized by the wife's warm personality, and the value of prejudice is affirmed when associated with the husband's standards of traditional honor.

During 1797–1798 Austen wrote Northanger Abbey, which was published posthumously (after death). It is a fine satirical novel, making sport of the popular Gothic novel of terror, but it does not rank among her major works. In the following years she wrote The Watsons (1803 or later), which is a fragment of a novel similar in mood to her later Mansfield Park, and Lady Susan (1804 or later), a short novel in letters.

Mansfield Park

In 1811 Jane Austen began Mansfield Park, which was published in 1814. It is her most severe exercise in moral analysis and presents a conservative view of ethics, politics, and religion.

The novel traces the career of a Cinderella-like heroine, who is brought from a poor home to Mansfield Park, the country estate of her relative. She is raised with some of the comforts of her cousins, but her social rank is maintained at a lower level. Despite their strict upbringing, the cousins become involved in marital and extramarital tangles, which bring disasters and near-disasters on the family. But the heroine's upright character guides her through her own relationships with dignity—although sometimes with a chilling disdainfulness (open disapproval)—and leads to her triumph at the close of the novel. While some readers may not like the rather priggish (following rules of proper behavior to an extreme degree) heroine, the reader nonetheless develops a sympathetic understanding of her thoughts and emotions. The reader also learns to value her at least as highly as the more attractive, but less honest, members of Mansfield Park's wealthy family and social circle.

Shortly before Mansfield Park was published, Jane Austen began a new novel, Emma, and published it in 1816. Again the heroine does engage the reader's sympathy and understanding. Emma is a girl of high intelligence and vivid imagination who is also marked by egotism and a desire to dominate the lives of others. She exercises her powers of manipulation on a number of neighbors who are not able to resist her prying. Most of Emma's attempts to control her friends, however, do not have happy effects for her or for them. But influenced by an old boyfriend who is her superior in intelligence and maturity, she realizes how misguided many of her actions are. The novel ends with the decision of a warmer and less headstrong Emma to marry him. There is much evidence to support the argument of some critics that Emma is Austen's most brilliant novel.

Persuasion, begun in 1815 and published posthumously in 1818, is Jane Austen's last complete novel and is perhaps most directly expressive of her feelings about her own life. The heroine is a woman growing older with a sense that life has passed her by. Several years earlier she had fallen in love with a suitor but was parted from him because her class-conscious family insisted she make a more appropriate match. But she still loves him, and when he again enters her life, their love deepens and ends in marriage.

Austen's satirical treatment of social pretensions and worldly motives is perhaps at its keenest in this novel, especially in her presentation of Anne's family. The predominant tone of Persuasion, however, is not satirical but romantic. It is, in the end, the most uncomplicated love story that Jane Austen ever wrote and, to some tastes, the most beautiful.

The novel Sanditon was unfinished at her death on July 8, 1817. She died in Winchester, England, where she had gone to seek medical attention, and was buried there.

For More Information

Myer, Valerie Grosvenor. Jane Austen, Obstinate Heart: A Biography. New York: Arcade Pub., 1997.

Nokes, David. Jane Austen: A Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997.

Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: A Life. New York: Knopf, 1997.

Tyler, Natalie. The Friendly Jane Austen: A Well-Mannered Introduction to a Lady of Sense and Sensibility. New York: Viking, 1999.

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70 facts you might not know about iconic British novelist Jane Austen

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Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817. Celebrated for her sharp wit, descriptions of domestic life and subtle criticism of England's economic and class structure, Austen's works continue to be dissected and analyzed in classrooms and beyond.

To commemorate the anniversary of her death, CBC Books has compiled a list of 70 facts you might not know about the celebrated English novelist.

1. Jane Austen was born on Dec. 16, 1775 in Steventon, U.K.

2. She was a Georgian-era author who depicted English country life throughout her work.

3. Her parents were George and Cassandra Austen . Her father was a rector and her mother belonged to the gentry as part of the aristocratic Leigh family.

4. The Austen family loved the arts and enjoyed reading aloud to one another .

6. Austen was the seventh of eight children. She had six brothers , James, George, Charles, Francis, Henry and Edward, and one older sister , Cassandra.

7. The make-up of Austen's family was markedly different from those of her characters. Only two of her protagonists have elder brothers.¹

8. Austen's sister Cassandra was her biggest confidant . They were extremely close throughout their lives.

9. Austen's mother breastfed the children for three to four months and then they were abruptly weaned and sent into the village. There, children were looked after by "the good women," whose identities are not known. They learned to walk, speak and use the bathroom while in the care of these women. They were raised there until they reached 18 months to two years, at which point they were returned to the family home — except for George. He was fostered by another family and is believed to have had an intellectual disability.

11. Austen grew up in a family that valued education . Although it was not compulsory for Jane to attend school, her parents sent both her and her sister to a girls' boarding school.

12. During their first stint at boarding school in Reading, Jane and her sister nearly died of typhoid fever.²

13. Austen completed formal schooling at age 12. She then found comfort in the family library, where she began to read.²

14. Austen was a voracious reader. She was a fan of Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson's moral essays. She read French romances and Gothic novels.²

16. Her first four novels were published anonymously, but by Mansfield Park her name was known. Her brother Henry, in particular, was partial to spilling the beans.¹

17. Sense and Sensibility was originally titled Elinor and Marianne and was signed " By a Lady ." Her follow-up, Pride and Prejudice , was originally titled First Impressions and was signed "By the author of Sense and Sensibility ."

18. The title change to Pride and Prejudice was inspired by the novel Cecilia by Fanny Burney. The phrase is mentioned three times in the final paragraph of Burney's book in capital letters.

19. Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published together in December 1817. They included a "Biographical Notice" written by Austen's brother Henry, identifying Austen for the first time as the author of Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park and Emma .¹

21. A name that frequently comes up when considering Austen's love life is Tom Lefroy. The Irishman had relatives from a village close to where Austen lived. She described him to Cassandra as "a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man." Scholars debate whether their relationship was a mild flirtation or a deep love.¹

22. Andrew Norman, biographer and author of Jane Austen: An Unrequited Love , theorizes that the Austen may have also found love with a clergyman named Samuel Blackall , whom she met on vacation in Devon. Norman says Austen mentions this man in various letters. The biographer also suggests that this relationship formed a temporary rift between Austen and her sister, as both were vying for his love.

23. In 1802, in her late 20s, Austen briefly accepted a proposal from Harris Bigg-Wither , the younger brother of two of her close friends. She rescinded it the next morning. Neither Austen nor her sister would ever marry .

24. Austen believed that a woman shouldn't get married if she wasn't in love. She once advised her niece Fanny Knight that, "Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection."¹

26. Britain was frequently at war during Austen's lifetime and some of her brothers served abroad. Austen rarely referenced war directly, but incorporated it in her writing by describing the vibrant redcoats of military men and the excitement generated when dashing officers arrived in town.

27. The Austen family was well-connected but not very wealthy. Austen's father was always in debt , worked as a farmer and ran a boys' school in addition to being a rector.

28. Austen's work is available in approximately 40 languages .

29. Among her famous critics was Charlotte Brontë, who said, "I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant and confined houses."

31. In November 1797, Austen's father sent a charming letter to Thomas Cadell of the London publisher Cadell & Davies, offering an early version of Pride and Prejudice . Cadell turned it down, sight unseen .

32. Sixteen years later, in 1813, publisher Thomas Egerton had a much different reaction. Having already published Sense and Sensibility , Egerton predicted that Pride and Prejudice would be a bestseller .

33. Austen sold her copyright for Pride and Prejudice to her publisher for £110. It was priced at 18 shillings and was an immediate hit .

34. Austen referred to Pride and Prejudice as her own "darling child," in a letter to her sister Cassandra after receiving the first print of the novel.

36. When Austen's father died in 1805, the family encountered some financial woes. The women spent the next few years moving around, staying at the homes of various family members and other rented homes. In 1809, they found permanent housing inside Austen's brother Edward's cottage in Chawton.

37. Chawton Cottage is where Austen wrote all of her six novels, though she may have written early drafts in other homes. In 1947, it was opened to the public as Jane Austen's House Museum .

38. As a child, Austen would pastiche 18th century romance novels . It's a genre she satirized in her own book Northanger Abbey , published in December 1817.

39. Austen wrote a short play called Sir Charles Grandison . She worked on it just before finishing Lady Susan , an epistolary novel she finished writing in about 1794. Sir Charles Grandison was not published until in 1875, well after death.

41. The novel was made available to the public several years after her death in 1925 . Austen had written 11 chapters and started a 12th.

42. As Austen's health declined, she created a will and listed her sister Cassandra as her heir. She also mentioned her brother Henry and his late wife's secretary Madame Bigeon. Austen and Cassandra also moved to Winchester College to be closer to her doctor.

43. Austen died at the age of 41 from a disease that was never diagnosed. Theories about her cause of death have been swirling for years. While the most popular has been Addison's Disease , scholars have also suggested that it was tuberculosis or a form of cancer. Most recently, the British Library published a blog post indicating that Austen had died from cataracts caused by arsenic poisoning .

44. Austen's final composition was a poem, dictated to her sister Cassandra three days before her death. The poem was a humorous ditty on England's rainy weather.¹

46. Austen's total assets were reportedly valued under £800 when she died.

47. Austen's novels have been turned into several films, including Sense and Sensibility written by and starring Emma Thompson, the BBC's beloved Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth and the Joe Wright-directed Pride and Prejudice , starring Keira Knightley.

48. Austen's works have also inspired modern storylines , like the novel and film series Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding, who took inspiration from Pride and Prejudice , and the Alicia Silverstone-led film Clueless , based on Emma .

49. American singer Kelly Clarkson caused an uproar in 2012 when, at an auction, she purchased a gold and turquoise ring owned by Austen for £152,450. Britain's culture minister put an immediate export ban on the ring, preventing Clarkson from taking it home to the U.S. Two years later, Clarkson withdrew her ownership.

51. Austen earned nothing until she turned 36 . She mostly depended on pocket money provided by her parents. She began to earn when Sense and Sensibility was published.

52. Austen had to cover the publishing costs of Sense and Sensibility . Her brother Henry Austen and his wife Eliza de Feuillide helped foot the bill.

53. Sense and Sensibility received positive reviews from critics for its "naturally drawn characters" and its plot: "the incidents are probable, and highly pleasing and interesting."

54. Austen didn't become a household name in her lifetime . Just after her death, her publisher destroyed the copies of her two final books , Northanger Abbey and Persuasion . It was in the Victorian era that she began to receive acclaim for her work and was recognized as a great novelist.

56. Although A Memoir of Jane Austen revived the buzz around Austen, it has been described as a sanitized retelling of her life . Austen-Leigh depicted her as a quiet, domestic and happy woman. He also cited the Austen family as coming from a higher social background. As a result, she became inaccurately associated with the upper middle class.

57. According to historian and Jane Austen expert Claire Tomalin , if you take her six major books, which would be equivalent to about 15 years of work, the money she earned before her death was between £600 and £700, averaging out to £40 a year. Austen never lived above the poverty line, which was set at £55 a year.

58. The British Library currently houses several of Austen's manuscripts, including copies of her writing as a teenager, drafts of experimental or discarded novels and the novel she was working on the year she died.

59. While Austen is known for her storytelling and polished writing, Kathryn Sutherland , a professor at Oxford University who has studied Austen's original handwritten works, suggests the pages of her original drafts were riddled with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and poor punctuation.

61. For 12 years following Austen's death, her work was out of circulation .

62. Austen fervently admired Thomas Clarkson, a prominent campaigner against slavery. The author's views on slavery are hinted at in Mansfield Park when Fanny Price inquires about the slave trade in Antigua and is met with silence.¹

63. Many of Jane Austen's original manuscripts of her published novels are lost . They are said to have been thrown away after being printed.

64. In 2011, the fragmented manuscript for her unfinished novel The Watsons was auctioned off for £1 million , purchased by Bodleian library at Oxford University.

66. A part of the original manuscript for Persuasion has survived. Austen was unhappy with the original ending of the novel and so she wrote two new chapters to replace what is now considered the "cancelled chapter." The original ending of Persuasion is said to have been retrieved by her and preserved in the way she kept other pieces of writing. Other remaining manuscripts were intentionally preserved by Austen and passed down the family , including writing from her youth, poems and unfinished manuscripts.

67. Since the 20th century, the term Janeite has been used to describe devotees of Austen. The name was coined by English writer and literary critic George Saintsbury.

68. Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story in 1926 entitled The Janeites , in which soldiers from the First World War come together and form a Masonic Lodge based on their shared love for Austen's novels.

69. Austen was critical of her own work. Upon finishing Pride and Prejudice she was worried that the novel was too frivolous. She described it as "rather too light and bright and sparkling."

¹Stafford, Fiona. Jane Austen: A Brief Life. 2008. Published by Yale University Press.

²Scheinman, Ted. Camp Austen. 2018. Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

What did Jane Austen accomplish?

English novelist Jane Austen (1775–1817) wrote about unremarkable people in unremarkable situations of everyday life, and yet she shaped such material into remarkable works of art. The economy, precision, and wit of her prose style; the shrewd, amused sympathy expressed toward her characters; and the skillfulness of her characterization and storytelling continue to enchant readers.