Jane Austen (1775–1817) is the English novelist of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. Writing about courtship, money and marriage among the country gentry, she turned the domestic novel into sharp, ironic comedy. Her six completed novels, published anonymously during her lifetime, have never been out of print and are adapted again and again for film and television.
Works
Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion
A rectory in Hampshire
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon rectory in Hampshire, the seventh of eight children of the Reverend George Austen and his wife Cassandra. Two of her brothers became admirals in the Royal Navy, and another, Henry, a banker, later acted as her agent with publishers. Her father took in pupils and owned a large library, which his daughters were free to read.
From the age of about twelve Jane wrote comic sketches, parodies and short novels to amuse her family, later copied into three notebooks known as the Juvenilia. The family performed plays in the rectory barn. Her closest companion all her life was her elder sister Cassandra; most of what we know of Jane's daily life comes from the letters she wrote to her, though Cassandra burned many of them after her death.
Bath, Southampton and Chawton
In 1801 her father retired and moved the family to Bath, a fashionable spa town. After his death in 1805, Jane, her mother and her sister lived on a small income, staying with relatives and then in Southampton. In 1802 she accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, a wealthy young man, and withdrew her acceptance the next morning. She never married.
In 1809 her brother Edward, who had been adopted by rich relatives, offered the three women a cottage in the village of Chawton, in Hampshire. There, writing at a small table in the sitting room, Jane revised her early novels and wrote three new ones. It was the most productive period of her life.
Six novels 'By a Lady'
Sense and Sensibility appeared in 1811, its title page saying only that it was written 'By a Lady'; it was followed by Pride and Prejudice in 1813, Mansfield Park in 1814 and Emma in 1815. Each was presented as the work of the author of the earlier ones. The books sold well, and Austen earned a few hundred pounds from them in her lifetime.
Her novels follow young women of modest fortune who must marry well in a world where daughters rarely inherit. She was a master of free indirect speech, letting the narrator slip into a character's thoughts, and of irony. Northanger Abbey, a parody of gothic novels written in the 1790s, and Persuasion, her most autumnal book, were published together after her death.
Fame after death
In 1816 Austen fell ill, possibly with Addison's disease or a lymphoma, though the cause is still debated. She moved to Winchester to be near her doctor and died there on 18 July 1817, aged forty-one. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral; her gravestone praises her character but does not mention her writing.
Her name became public only when her brother Henry wrote a biographical notice for the posthumous novels. Her reputation grew slowly through the nineteenth century, helped by a memoir published by her nephew in 1869. Today she is one of the most widely read English novelists, and since 2017 her portrait has appeared on the Bank of England's ten-pound note.
Anecdotes
A dedication to the Prince Regent
The Prince Regent, the future George IV, was an admirer of her novels and kept a set in each of his residences. In 1815 his librarian let Austen know that she might dedicate her next book to him. She disliked the prince, but such a suggestion could not be refused, and Emma appeared with a dedication to His Royal Highness. The librarian also suggested she write a historical romance about the House of Coburg; she politely declined.
The creaking door
According to her nephew's memoir, Austen wrote at Chawton on small sheets of paper that could easily be hidden. A door between the sitting room and the hall creaked when it opened, and she asked that it never be fixed, because it warned her when someone was coming. Visitors and servants were not to know that she was writing.
First Impressions
Pride and Prejudice was first written in 1796–97 under the title First Impressions. Her father offered it to a London publisher, who declined to read it. More than fifteen years later, revised and renamed, it was sold for £110 to Thomas Egerton, who published it in January 1813.
Frequently asked questions
What are Jane Austen's novels?
She completed six: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published together in December 1817 after her death. She also left the epistolary novella Lady Susan and two unfinished novels, The Watsons and Sanditon.
Did Jane Austen ever marry?
No. She accepted a proposal from Harris Bigg-Wither in 1802 but changed her mind the next day. She lived with her mother and her sister Cassandra for the rest of her life.
Why did Jane Austen publish anonymously?
It was common at the time, especially for women, for whom writing for money could seem unladylike. Her books were signed 'By a Lady' or 'By the author of' her earlier novels; her name was made public only after her death.
Where can I read Jane Austen's novels?
All of them are in the public domain and can be read in full, in their first editions, on Wikisource.