Jane Austen

Jane Austen lived from 16 December 1775 to 18 July 1817. She was an English writer, most famous for six novels that quietly examine, criticise, and reflect on the English landed gentry near the end of the 1700s.

Her stories often look at how women depended on marriage to gain a good social position and financial safety. Her books also serve as subtle critiques of the sentimental novels popular in the later 1700s, and they helped pave the way for the realistic style of 19th-century literature. Critics and scholars praise her for her social observations, realism, wit, and irony.

Published author

Austen wrote her major novels before she turned 22, but she did not get them published until she was 35. Four novels came out anonymously: Sense and Sensibility in 1811, Pride and Prejudice in 1813, Mansfield Park in 1814, and Emma in 1815. These did reasonably well but did not make her famous while she was alive.

Two more novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published after her death in 1817. She also started another, later called Sanditon, but left it unfinished when she died. Besides these, she left behind three volumes of childhood writings in manuscript, a short novel told through letters called Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel titled The Watsons.

Since her death, Austen’s novels have almost never been out of print. A big shift in her reputation came in 1833, when Richard Bentley reprinted them in his Standard Novels series, with illustrations by Ferdinand Pickering, sold as a set.

Over time, they gained wide praise and a large readership. In 1869, her nephew published A Memoir of Jane Austen. Her work has inspired many critical essays and appears in many literary collections.

Her novels have often been turned into films and TV shows. Notable film versions include Pride and Prejudice (1940), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Emma (1996), Mansfield Park (1999), Bride and Prejudice (2004), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Love & Friendship (2016), and Emma (2020). Notable TV adaptations include Persuasion (1995), Pride and Prejudice (1995), Northanger Abbey (2007), Persuasion (2007), Lost in Austen (2008), Sense and Sensibility (2008), Emma (2009), and Sanditon (2019–2023).

Biographical sources

What we know about Austen’s life comes from the letters that survived and from sketches written by her family and people who knew her. Only about 160 of the roughly 3,000 letters she may have written have survived and been published. It is believed that her sister Cassandra destroyed most of the letters she received from Jane, either by burning them or in some other way.

One theory is that Cassandra wanted to protect younger nieces from Jane’s sometimes sharp or blunt comments about neighbours or family members. To shield reputations from Jane’s habit of being honest and direct, Cassandra may have left out details about illnesses, unhappiness, or anything she thought unpleasant. Important facts about Austen’s life and her family’s actions were deliberately left out, such as any mention of her brother George, whose undiagnosed developmental challenges led the family to have him raised away from home, as was common then, or of wealthy Aunt Jane Leigh-Perrot, who was arrested, tried, and found not guilty of grand larceny.

The first biography of Austen was written by her brother Henry Thomas Austen in 1818, called “Biographical Notice.” It appeared in a posthumous edition of Northanger Abbey and included parts of two letters, apparently published against the wishes of other family members. Details of Austen’s life continued to be left out or exaggerated in her nephew’s A Memoir of Jane Austen (1869) and in William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh’s biography Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters (1913), both of which included more letters.

Austen’s family and relatives built a legend of “good quiet Aunt Jane,” showing her as a woman in a happy home life, with family as the centre of her world. Critics have long disagreed with this picture of a “mild” Austen. Modern biographers include details that were cut from the letters and family biographies, but biographer Jan Fergus says the challenge is to keep a balanced view, not to present her as languishing in deep unhappiness, like “an embittered, disappointed woman trapped in a thoroughly unpleasant family.”

Family

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire. Her father, George Austen (1731–1805), wrote about her arrival in a letter, saying her mother Cassandra “certainly expected to have been brought to bed a month ago.” He added that the newborn was “a present plaything for Cassy and a future companion.” The winter of 1775–1776 was especially harsh, and she was not baptised and named Jane until 5 April at the local church. George was the rector of the Anglican parishes of Steventon and Deane. He came from an old, wealthy family of wool merchants.

Because each generation’s eldest son inherited the estate, George’s branch of the family became poor. He and his two sisters were orphaned as children and taken in by relatives. In 1745, when George was fifteen, his sister Philadelphia was apprenticed to a milliner in Covent Garden.

At sixteen, George entered St John’s College, Oxford, where he likely met Cassandra Leigh (1739–1827). She came from the prominent Leigh family. Her father was rector at All Souls College, Oxford, and she grew up among the gentry. Her eldest brother James inherited a fortune and a large estate.