Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.
Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century realism. Her plots, though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security. Her work brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but the publication in 1869 of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced her to a wider public, and by the 1940s she had become widely accepted in academia as a great English writer. The second half of the 20th century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship and the emergence of a Janeite fan culture.
Jane Austen was born in 1775 in Hampshire, England. She lived in a time period when women were expected to be wives and mothers, and nothing else. So, it is understandable that she wanted to publish her works anonymously!
Austen was a bright child, and she began writing when she was just 12 years old. She later called this period of her work her “Juvenilia.” He earliest works were very humorous, and she even wrote a collection of textbook parodies when she was 16. She called it “The History of England…by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian.” She also wrote many parodies of romance novels. I love this side of her!
In 1793, Austen and her sister Cassandra were sent to live with their aunt, Ann Cooper Cawley, to be educated by her. From there, the sisters went on to study at Abbey School, which was a boarding school for girls.
Austen came from a large family with 8 children. Jane was the only girl along with her older sister Cassandra. The first biography ever written on Austen gives the implication that she only had 5 brothers: James, Edward, Henry, Frank and Charles. But, upon further investigation into her family life, it was discovered that she had a 6th brother named George.
I love this fact about Jane Austen! Typical to her time, almost everyone in England drank beer regularly. Along with the rest of her family, Austen knew how to brew beer from scratch. Apparently her specialty was “spruce beer.” It’s made with molasses, giving the beer a sweeter taste. Cheers to that!
Austen had produced 3 of her novels by 1801, which shows how fervently she was writing at the time. Then, in the few years before her father’s death in 1805, it seems that Austen had stopped writing completely.
Austen once wrote in a letter that she didn’t approve of the way that the Prince Regent treated his estranged wife Caroline. Strangely enough, she dedicated her novel Emma to him. Why?! In 1815 Austen was nursing her very sick brother Henry back to health. The family called in a physician who so happened to be the Prince Regent’s doctor as well. When the doctor learned that Austen was the anonymous author of Pride and Prejudice, he told her that the Prince Regent was a big fan of her work.
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