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Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction set among the gentry have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature. Amongst scholars and critics, Austen's realism and biting social commentary have cemented her historical importance as a writer. Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to Austen's development as a professional writer. Austen's artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about thirty-five years old. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried and then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it. Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the eighteenth century and are part of the transition to nineteenth-century realism. Austen's plots, though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security. Like those of Samuel Johnson, one of the strongest influences on her writing, her works are concerned with moral issues. During Austen's lifetime her works brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews. Through the mid-nineteenth century, her novels were admired mainly by members of the literary elite. However, the publication of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 introduced her to a far wider public as an appealing personality and kindled popular interest in her works. By the 1940s, Austen had become widely accepted in academia as a "great English writer". The second half of the twentieth century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship, which explored many aspects of her novels: artistic, ideological, and historical. In popular culture, a Janeite fan culture has developed, centred on Austen's life, her works, and the various film and television adaptations of them. Biographical information concerning Jane Austen is "famously scarce", according to one biographer. Only some personal and family letters remain (by one estimate only 160 out of Austen's 3,000 letters are extant), and her sister Cassandra (to
whom most of the letters were originally addressed) burned "the greater
part" of the ones she kept and censored those she did not destroy. Other letters were destroyed by the heirs of Admiral Francis Austen, Jane's brother. Most
of the biographical material produced for fifty years after Austen's
death was written by her relatives and reflects the family's biases in
favour of "good quiet Aunt Jane". Scholars have unearthed little
information since. Austen's parents, George Austen (1731 – 1805), and his wife, Cassandra (1739 – 1827), were members of substantial gentry families. George
was descended from a family of woollen manufacturers which had risen
through the professions to the lower ranks of the landed gentry. Cassandra was a member of the prominent Leigh family; they married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath. From 1765 until 1801, that is, for much of Jane's life, George Austen served as the rector of the Anglican parishes at Steventon, Hampshire, and
a nearby village. From 1773 until 1796, he supplemented this income by
farming and by teaching three or four boys at a time who boarded at his
home. Austen's
immediate family was large: six brothers — James, George, Edward, Henry Thomas, Francis William (Frank), Charles John — and one sister, Cassandra Elizabeth, who, like Jane, died unmarried. Cassandra Elizabeth was Austen's closest friend and confidante throughout her life. Of
her brothers, Austen felt closest to Henry, who became a banker and,
after his bank failed, an Anglican clergyman. Henry was also his
sister's literary agent.
His large circle of friends and acquaintances in London included
bankers, merchants, publishers, painters, and actors: he provided
Austen with a view of social worlds not normally visible from a small
parish in rural Hampshire. George
was sent to live with a local family at a young age because, as Austen
biographer Le Faye describes it, he was "mentally abnormal and subject
to fits". He may also have been deaf and mute. Charles
and Frank served in the navy, both rising to the rank of admiral.
Edward was adopted by his fourth cousin, Thomas Knight, inheriting
Knight's estate and taking his name in 1812. Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon rectory and publicly christened on 5 April 1776. After a few months at home, her mother placed Austen with Elizabeth Littlewood, a woman living nearby, who nursed and raised Austen for a year or eighteen months. In 1783, according to family tradition, Jane and Cassandra were sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs. Ann Cawley and they moved with her to Southampton later in the year. Both girls caught typhus and Jane nearly died. Austen was subsequently educated at home, until leaving for boarding school with
her sister Cassandra early in 1785. The school curriculum probably
included some French, spelling, needlework, dancing and music and,
perhaps, drama. By December 1786, Jane and Cassandra had returned home
because the Austens could not afford to send both of their daughters to
school. Austen acquired the remainder of her education by reading books, guided by her father and her brothers James and Henry. George
Austen apparently gave his daughters unfettered access to his large and
varied library, was tolerant of Austen's sometimes risqué experiments in writing, and provided both sisters with expensive paper and other materials for their writing and drawing. According
to Park Honan, a biographer of Austen, life in the Austen home was
lived in "an open, amused, easy intellectual atmosphere" where the
ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or
socially were considered and discussed. After returning from school in 1786, Austen "never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment". Private
theatricals were also a part of Austen's education. From when she was
seven until she was thirteen, the family and close friends staged a
series of plays, including Richard Sheridan's The Rivals (1775) and David Garrick's Bon Ton.
While the details are unknown, Austen would certainly have joined in
these activities, as a spectator at first and as a participant when she
was older. Most of the plays were comedies, which suggests one way in which Austen's comedic and satirical gifts were cultivated. Perhaps as early as 1787, Austen began to write poems, stories, and plays for her own and her family's amusement. Austen later compiled "fair copies" of 29 of these early works into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the Juvenilia, containing pieces originally written between 1787 and 1793. There
is manuscript evidence that Austen continued to work on these pieces as
late as the period 1809–11, and that her niece and nephew, Anna and
James Edward Austen, made further additions as late as 1814. Among these works are a satirical novel in letters titled Love and Freindship, in which she mocked popular novels of sensibility, and The History of England, a manuscript of 34 pages accompanied by 13 watercolour miniatures by her sister Cassandra. Austen's History parodied popular historical writing, particularly Oliver Goldsmith's History of England (1764). Austen
wrote, for example: "Henry the 4th ascended the throne of England much
to his own satisfaction in the year 1399, after having prevailed on his
cousin & predecessor Richard the 2nd, to resign it to him, & to
retire for the rest of his Life to Pomfret Castle, where he happened to
be murdered." Austen's Juvenilia are
often, according to scholar Richard Jenkyns, "boisterous" and
"anarchic"; he compares them to the work of eighteenth century novelist Laurence Sterne and the twentieth-century comedy group Monty Python. As
Austen grew into adulthood, she continued to live at her parents' home,
carrying out those activities normal for women of her age and social
standing: she practiced the pianoforte,
assisted her sister and mother with supervising servants, and attended
female relatives during childbirth and older relatives on their
deathbeds. She sent short pieces of writing to her newborn nieces Fanny Catherine and Jane Anna Elizabeth. Austen was particularly proud of her accomplishments as a seamstress. She also attended church regularly, socialized frequently with friends and neighbours, and
read novels — often of her own composition — aloud with her family in the
evenings. Socializing with the neighbours often meant dancing, either
impromptu in someone's home after supper or at the balls held regularly
at the assembly rooms in the town hall. Her brother Henry later said that "Jane was fond of dancing, and excelled in it". In 1793, Austen began and then abandoned a short play, later entitled Sir Charles Grandison or the happy Man, a comedy in 6 acts,
which she returned to and completed around 1800. This was a short
parody of various school textbook abridgments of Austen's favourite contemporary novel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753), by Samuel Richardson. Honan speculates that at some point not long after writing Love and Freindship
in 1789, Austen decided to "write for profit, to make stories her
central effort", that is, to become a professional writer. Whenever she made that decision, beginning in about 1793, Austen began to write longer, more sophisticated works. Between 1793 and 1795, Austen wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, usually described as her most ambitious and sophisticated early work. It is unlike any of Austen's other works. Austen biographer Claire Tomalin describes the heroine of the novella as
a sexual predator who uses her intelligence and charm to manipulate,
betray, and abuse her victims, whether lovers, friends or family.
Tomalin writes: "Told in letters, it is as neatly plotted as a play,
and as cynical in tone as any of the most outrageous of the Restoration dramatists who
may have provided some of her inspiration....It stands alone in
Austen's work as a study of an adult woman whose intelligence and force
of character are greater than those of anyone she encounters." After finishing Lady Susan, Austen attempted her first full-length novel — Elinor and Marianne.
Her sister Cassandra later remembered that it was read to the family
"before 1796" and was told through a series of letters. Without
surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the
original draft survived in the novel published in 1811 as Sense and Sensibility. When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy,
a nephew of neighbours, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January
1796. He had just finished a university degree and was moving to London
to train as a barrister.
Lefroy and Austen would have been introduced at a ball or other
neighbourhood social gathering, and it is clear from Austen's letters
to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together: "I am almost
afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to
yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing
and sitting down together." The
Lefroy family intervened and sent him away at the end of January.
Marriage was impractical, as both Lefroy and Austen must have known.
Neither had any money, and he was dependent on a great-uncle in Ireland
to finance his education and establish his legal career. If Tom Lefroy
later visited Hampshire, he was carefully kept away from the Austens,
and Jane Austen never saw him again. Austen began work on a second novel, First Impressions, in 1796 and completed the initial draft in August 1797 when she was only 21 (it later became Pride and Prejudice);
as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as
she was working on it and it became an "established favourite". At this time, her father made the first attempt to publish one of her novels. In November 1797, George Austen wrote to Thomas Cadell,
an established publisher in London, to ask if he would consider
publishing "a Manuscript Novel, comprised in three Vols. about the
length of Miss Burney's Evelina" (First Impressions) at the
author's financial risk. Cadell quickly returned Mr. Austen's letter,
marked "Declined by Return of Post". Austen may not have known of her
father's efforts. Following the completion of First Impressions, Austen returned to Elinor and Marianne and from November 1797 until mid-1798, revised it heavily; she eliminated the epistolary format in favour of third-person narration and produced something close to Sense and Sensibility. During the middle of 1798, after finishing revisions of Elinor and Marianne, Austen began writing a third novel with the working title Susan — later Northanger Abbey — a satire on the popular Gothic novel. Austen completed her work about a year later. In early 1803, Henry Austen offered Susan to
Benjamin Crosby, a London publisher, who paid £10 for the
copyright. Crosby promised early publication and went so far as to
advertise the book publicly as being "in the press", but did nothing
more. The manuscript remained in Crosby's hands, unpublished, until
Austen repurchased the copyright from him in 1816. In
December 1800, Rev. Austen unexpectedly announced his decision to
retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to Bath.
While retirement and travel were good for the elder Austens, Jane
Austen was shocked to be told she was moving from the only home she had
ever known. An
indication of Austen's state of mind is her lack of productivity as a
writer during the time she lived at Bath. She was able to make some
revisions to Susan, and she began and then abandoned a new novel, The Watsons, but there was nothing like the productivity of the years 1795–99. Tomalin
suggests this reflects a deep depression disabling her as a writer, but
Honan disagrees, arguing Austen wrote or revised her manuscripts
throughout her creative life, except for a few months after her father
died. In
December 1802, Austen received her only proposal of marriage. She and
her sister visited Alethea and Catherine Bigg, old friends who lived
near Basingstoke. Their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither, had recently finished his education at Oxford and
was also at home. Bigg-Wither proposed and Austen accepted. As
described by Caroline Austen, Jane's niece, and Reginald Bigg-Wither, a
descendant, Harris was not attractive — he was a large, plain-looking man
who spoke little, stuttered when he did speak, was aggressive in
conversation, and almost completely tactless. However, Austen had known
him since both were young and the marriage offered many practical
advantages to Austen and her family. He was the heir to extensive
family estates located in the area where the sisters had grown up. With
these resources, Austen could provide her parents a comfortable old
age, give Cassandra a permanent home and, perhaps, assist her brothers
in their careers. By the next morning, Austen realised she had made a
mistake and withdrew her acceptance. No contemporary letters or diaries describe how Austen felt about this proposal. In
1814, Austen wrote a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, who had asked
for advice about a serious relationship, telling her that "having
written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around
& entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of
accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be
preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection". In 1804, while living in Bath, Austen started but did not complete a new novel, The Watsons.
The story centres on an invalid clergyman with little money and his
four unmarried daughters. Sutherland describes the novel as "a study in
the harsh economic realities of dependent women's lives". Honan
suggests, and Tomalin agrees, that Austen chose to stop work on the
novel after her father died on 21 January 1805 and her personal
circumstances resembled those of her characters too closely for her
comfort. Rev.
Austen's final illness had struck suddenly, leaving him, as Austen
reported to her brother Francis, "quite insensible of his own state", and he died quickly. Jane,
Cassandra, and their mother were left in a precarious financial
situation. Edward, James, Henry, and Francis Austen pledged to make
annual contributions to support their mother and sisters. For
the next four years, the family's living arrangements reflected their
financial insecurity. They lived part of the time in rented quarters in
Bath and then, beginning in 1806, in Southampton, where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. A large
part of this time they spent visiting various branches of the family. On
5 April 1809, about three months before the family's move to Chawton,
Austen wrote an angry letter to Richard Crosby, offering him a new
manuscript of Susan if
that was needed to secure immediate publication of the novel, and
otherwise requesting the return of the original so she could find
another publisher. Crosby replied he had not agreed to publish the book
by any particular time, or at all, and that Austen could repurchase the
manuscript for the £10 he had paid her and find another
publisher. However, Austen did not have the resources to repurchase the
book.
Around early 1809, Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life — the use of a large cottage in Chawton village that was part of Edward's nearby estate, Chawton House. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved into Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809. In
Chawton, life was quieter than it had been since the family's move to
Bath in 1800. The Austens did not socialise with the neighbouring
gentry and entertained only when family visited. Austen's niece Anna
described the Austen family's life in Chawton: "It was a very quiet
life, according to our ideas, but they were great readers, and besides
the housekeeping our aunts occupied themselves in working with the poor
and in teaching some girl or boy to read or write." Austen
wrote almost daily, but privately, and seems to have been relieved of
some household responsibilities to give her more opportunity to write. In this setting, she was able to be productive as a writer once more. During
her time at Chawton, Jane Austen successfully published four novels,
which were generally well-received. Through her brother Henry, the
publisher Thomas Egerton agreed to publish Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in October 1811. Reviews were favourable and the novel became fashionable among opinion-makers; the edition sold out by mid-1813. Austen's earnings from Sense and Sensibility provided her with some financial and psychological independence. Egerton then published Pride and Prejudice, a revision of First Impressions,
in January 1813. He advertised the book widely and it was an immediate
success, garnering three favourable reviews and selling well. By
October 1813, Egerton was able to begin selling a second edition. Mansfield Park was published by Egerton in May 1814. While Mansfield Park was
ignored by reviewers, it was a great success with the public. All
copies were sold within six months, and Austen's earnings on this novel
were larger than for any of her other novels. Austen learned that the Prince Regent admired her novels and kept a set at each of his residences. In
November 1815, the Prince Regent's librarian invited Austen to visit
the Prince's London residence and hinted Austen should dedicate the
forthcoming Emma to the Prince. Though Austen disliked the Prince, she could scarcely refuse the request. She later wrote Plan of a Novel, according to hints from various quarters, a satiric outline of the "perfect novel" based on the librarian's many suggestions for a future Austen novel. In mid-1815, Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher, who published Emma in December 1815 and a second edition of Mansfield Park in February 1816. Emma sold well but the new edition of Mansfield Park did not, and this failure offset most of the profits Austen earned on Emma. These were the last of Austen's novels to be published during her lifetime. While Murray prepared Emma for publication, Austen began to write a new novel she titled The Elliots, later published as Persuasion. She completed her first draft in July 1816. In addition, shortly after the publication of Emma, Henry Austen repurchased the copyright for Susan from
Crosby. Austen was forced to postpone publishing either of these
completed novels by family financial troubles. Henry Austen's bank
failed in March 1816, depriving him of all of his assets, leaving him
deeply in debt and losing Edward, James, and Frank Austen large sums.
Henry and Frank could no longer afford the contributions they had made
to support their mother and sisters. Early
in 1816, Jane Austen began to feel unwell. She ignored her illness at
first and continued to work and to participate in the usual round of
family activities. By the middle of that year, her decline was
unmistakable to Austen and to her family, and Austen's physical
condition began a long, slow, and irregular deterioration culminating
in her death the following year. The majority of Austen biographers rely on Dr. Vincent Cope's tentative 1964 retrospective diagnosis and list her cause of death as Addison's disease. However, her final illness has also been described as Hodgkin's lymphoma. Recent work by Katherine White of Britain's Addison’s Disease Self Help Group suggests that Austen likely died of bovine tuberculosis, a disease (now) commonly associated with drinking unpasteurized milk. Austen continued to work in spite of her illness. She became dissatisfied with the ending of The Elliots and rewrote the final two chapters, finishing them on 6 August 1816. In January 1817, Austen began work on a new novel she called The Brothers, later titled Sanditon upon
its first publication in 1925, and completed twelve chapters before
stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably because her illness prevented
her from continuing. Austen
made light of her condition to others, describing it as "Bile" and
rheumatism, but as her disease progressed she experienced increasing
difficulty walking or finding the energy for other activities. By
mid-April, Austen was confined to her bed. In May, their brother Henry
escorted Jane and Cassandra to Winchester for
medical treatment. Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817, at the
age of 41. Through his clerical connections, Henry arranged for his
sister to be buried in the north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral.
The epitaph composed by her brother James praises Austen's personal
qualities, expresses hope for her salvation, mentions the
"extraordinary endowments of her mind", but does not explicitly mention
her achievements as a writer. |