short biography jane austen

Jane Austen Biography

Life and times of english author jane austen, jane austen's life was relatively short but it nonetheless produced a lasting legacy including six major published works..

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

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
• Access Date:
• 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 Biography

It is said that Jane Austen lived a quiet life. Only a few of her manuscripts remain in existence and the majority of her correspondence was either burned or heavily edited by her sister, Cassandra, shortly before she died. As a result, the details that are known about her are rare and inconsistent. What can be surmised through remaining letters and personal acquaintances is that she was a woman of stature, humor and keen intelligence. Family remembrances of Austen portray her in a kind, almost saintly light, but critics who have studied her books and the remnants of her letters believe she was sharper than her family wished the public to think.

Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire on December 16, 1775 and grew up in a tight-knit family. She was the seventh of eight children, with six brothers and one sister. Her parents, George Austen and Cassandra Leigh, were married in 1764. Her father was an orphan but with the help of a rich uncle he attended school and was ordained by the Church of England. Subsequently, he was elevated enough in social standing to provide Cassandra a worthy match whose family was of a considerably higher social status. In 1765, they moved to Steventon, a village in north Hampshire, about 60 miles southwest of London, where her father was appointed rector.

Like their father, two of Austen’s older brothers, James and Henry, were ordained and spent most of their lives in the Church of England. Of all her brothers, Austen was closest to Henry; he served as her agent, and then after her death, as her biographer. George, the second oldest son, was born mentally deficient and spent the majority of his life in institutions. The third son, Edward, was adopted by their father’s wealthy cousin, Thomas Knight, and eventually inherited the Knight estate in Chawton, where Austen would later complete most of her novels. Cassandra, Austen’s only sister, was born in 1773. Austen and Cassandra were close friends and companions throughout their entire lives. It is through the remaining letters to Cassandra that biographers are able to piece Austen’s life together. The two youngest Austen boys, Francis and Charles, both served in the Navy as highly decorated admirals.

When Austen was 7, she and Cassandra were sent to Oxford to attend school but sometime later the girls came down with typhus and were brought back to Steventon. When Austen was 9 they attended the Abbey School in Reading. Shortly after enrolling however, the girls were withdrawn, because their father could no longer afford tuition. Though this completed their formal schooling, the girls continued their education at home, with the help of their brothers and father.

The Austens often read aloud to one another. This evolved into short theatrical performances that Austen had a hand in composing. The Austen family plays were performed in their barn and were attended by family members and a few close neighbors. By the age of 12, Austen was writing for herself as well as for her family. She wrote poems and several parodies of the dramatic fiction that was popular at the time, such as History of England and Love and Freindship [sic]. She then compiled and titled them: Volume the First , Volume the Second and Volume the Third .

Austen is said to have looked like her brother Henry, with bright hazel eyes and curly hair, over which she always wore a cap. She won the attention of a young Irish gentleman named Tom Lefroy. Unfortunately, Lefroy was in a position that required him to marry into money. He later married an heiress and became a prominent political figure in Ireland.

In 1795, when she was 20, Austen entered a productive phase and created what was later referred to as her “First Trilogy.” Prompted by increasing social engagements and flirtations, she began writing Elinor and Marianne , a novel in letters, which would eventually be reworked and retitled Sense and Sensibility . The following year, she wrote First Impressions , which was rejected by a publisher in 1797. It was the first version of Pride and Prejudice . She began another novel in 1798, titled Susan , which evolved into Northanger Abbey .

The Austens lived happily in Steventon until 1801, when her father suddenly announced he was moving the family to Bath. Austen was unhappy with the news. At the time, Bath was a resort town for the nearly wealthy with many gossips and social climbers. As they traveled that summer, however, she fell in love with a young clergyman who promised to meet them at the end of their journey. Several months later he fell ill and died.

Bath was difficult for Austen. She started but did not finish The Watsons and had a hard time adjusting to social demands. She accepted a marriage proposal from Harris Bigg-Wither, the son of an old family friend, but changed her mind the next day. A few years later, in 1805, her father died, leaving Jane, Cassandra and their mother without enough money to live comfortably. As a result, the Austen women relied on the hospitality of friends and family until they were permanently relocated to a cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, belonging to her brother Edward Austen-Knight. There, Austen began the most productive period of her life, publishing several books and completing her “Second Trilogy.”

Austen finished the final drafts of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice in 1811. They were published shortly after and she immediately set to work on Mansfield Park . In 1814, Mansfield Park was published and Emma was started. By this time, Austen was gaining some recognition for her writing, despite the fact that neither Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice were published under her name.

Austen began showing symptoms of illness while she worked on Persuasion , her last completed novel. It was published with Northanger Abbey after her death. Unknown at the time, Austen most likely suffered from Addison’s disease, whose symptoms include fever, back pain, nausea and irregular skin pigmentation. On her deathbed, when asked by her sister Cassandra if there was anything she required, she requested only “death itself.” She died at the age of 41 on July 18, 1817 with her sister at her side.

Jane Austen’s Enduring Popularity

When asked why Jane Austen’s works are so popular, Richard Jenkyns, author of A Fine Brush on Ivory: An Appreciation of Jane Austen and descendant of Austen’s older brother, said: “I don’t think it’s nostalgia for the past and all those empire-line dresses and britches tight on the thigh, all that sort of thing. I guess that she is popular because she is modern… I think her popularity is in her representing a world, in its most important aspects, that we know.”

Although living in a world that seems remote in time and place, Jane Austen’s characters have experiences and emotions that are familiar to us. They misjudge people based on appearances, they’re embarrassed by their parents, they flirt and they fall in love. Her characters face social restrictions that can be translated into any environment, from a California high school in Clueless to an interracial romance in Bride and Prejudice . The critical and commercial success of the numerous recent film and television adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels, including nine of Pride and Prejudice , testifies to her timeless and universal appeal. Yet they fail to fully capture the genius of her writing. She was a great writer, a sharp wit and a wonderful satirist.

Takeoffs of Austen’s work, such as Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Clueless , have been huge successes. A number of sequels to Pride and Prejudice have been written such as Lady Catherine’s Necklace by Joan Aiken; Mr. Darcy’s Daughters by Elizabeth Aston; and Pemberley: or Pride and Prejudice Continued by Emma Tennant. Other novels such as Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club and Kate Fenton’s Vanity and Vexation: A Novel of Pride and Prejudice have contemporary settings using Austen’s characters or plots.

In The Eye of the Story , Eudora Welty wrote that Austen’s novels withstand time because “they pertain not to the outside world but to the interior, to what goes on perpetually in the mind and heart.” Perhaps, for these reasons, Austen’s work continues to fascinate, entertain and inspire us.

• Tucker, George Holbert. Jane Austen the Woman . St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
• Laski, Marghanita. Jane Austen and Her World . Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975.
• “Jane Austen.” Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, Volume 3: Writers of the Romantic Period, 1789-1832 . Gale Research, 1992.

Content last updated: October 31, 2005

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• Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

• Literature Notes
• Jane Austen Biography
• Book Summary
• About Pride and Prejudice
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Chapters 1-5
• Chapters 6-9
• Chapters 10-14
• Chapters 15-18
• Chapters 19-23
• Chapters 24-27 (Volume II, 1-4)
• Chapters 28-32 (Volume II, 5-9)
• Chapters 33-36 (Volume II, 10-13)
• Chapters 37-42 (Volume II, 14-19)
• Chapters 43-46 (Volume III, 1-4)
• Chapters 47-50 (Volume III, 5-8)
• Chapters 51-55 (Volume III, 9-13)
• Chapters 56-61 (Volume III, 14-20)
• Character Analysis
• Elizabeth Bennet
• Fitzwilliam Darcy
• Jane Bennet
• Mrs. Bennet
• Lydia Bennet
• George Wickham
• Charlotte Lucas (later Collins)
• Character Map
• Critical Essays
• Women's Roles in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain
• Money in Pride and Prejudice
• Full Glossary for Pride and Prejudice
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Personal Background

Jane Austen's life resembles her novels — at first glance they seem to be composed of a series of quiet, unexceptional events. Such an impression is supported by the comment of her brother, Henry, who wrote after her death that her life was "not by any means a life of event." Similarly, her nephew James added in a biography published fifty years later that "Of events her life was singularly barren: few changes and no great crisis ever broke the smooth current of its course." However, just as readers find that the complexity of Austen's novel lies in its characters and style, those studying Austen herself discover that the events of her life are secondary to her compelling personality, quick wit, and highly-developed powers of observation. The fact that Austen's life lacked the drama that other authors may have experienced in no way detracted from her skill as a writer. In actuality, Austen's lack of "extraordinary" experiences, as well as of a spouse and children, probably made her writing possible by freeing her time to work on her books. Additionally, because her books were published anonymously, Austen never achieved personal recognition for her works outside of her sphere of family and friends. Such anonymity suited her, for, as literary critic Richard Blythe notes, "literature, not the literary life, was always her intention."

Formative Years

Born on December 16, 1775, Jane Austen was the seventh of eight children born to George and Cassandra Austen. The family lived in Steventon, a small Hampshire town in south-central England, where her father was a minister. The Austens were a loving, spirited family that read novels together from the local circulating library and put on home theatricals. It was for the family circle that Austen first wrote high-spirited satires — some of which later became novels after numerous and careful rewritings.

Out of her seven siblings, Austen was closest to her only sister, Cassandra. From 1783 to 1785, the two girls attended schools in Oxford and Southampton and the Abbey School at Reading. When the Austens could no longer afford the tuition, Jane and Cassandra returned home to read extensively and learn from their family how to speak French and Italian and play the piano. Most accounts agree that the Austen daughters were pretty and enjoyed the slightly limited but interesting round of country parties described in Austen's novels.

When Austen was twenty, she met Tom Lefroy, a young Irishman visiting his uncle in Hampshire. Seeing that the two young people were on the verge of an engagement, Lefroy's family sent him home rather than letting him attach himself to someone as poor as a clergyman's daughter. Austen's second brush with marriage occurred at age twenty-seven, when the wealthy Harris Bigg-Wither proposed and Austen accepted. The next morning, however, Austen changed her mind, giving up the wealth and security inherent in such a match because she did not love him. Although Austen never married, the emphasis of courtship and marriage in her novels demonstrates the impact that these experiences had on her and her interest in love and marriage.

Early Novels

From 1796-1798, Austen wrote her first three novels — Northanger Abbey (originally titled Susan ), Sense and Sensibility (originally titled Elinor and Marianne ), and Pride and Prejudice (originally titled First Impressions ) — but none was published until later. Northanger Abbey , which was published posthumously in 1818, satirizes the Gothic novels that were popular at the time by presenting a heroine whose overactive imagination and love of Gothic novels lead her to see mysteries where none exist when she stays at Northanger Abbey. In Sense and Sensibility , published in 1811, Austen examines the contrast between two sisters who represent reason (sense) and emotion (sensibility) as they deal with being forced to live on a meager amount of money after their father dies. The threat of a father's death causing a reduced income also overshadows two sisters in Pride and Prejudice , which was published in 1813. In Pride and Prejudice , however, that threat of genteel poverty is still just a threat rather than a reality, and Austen focuses instead on how pride and first impressions can lead to prejudice.

In her early writing, Austen began to define the limits of her fictional world. From the first, there was a steady emphasis on character as she consciously restricted her subject matter to a sphere made up of a few families of relatives with their friends and acquaintances. She deliberately limited what she wrote about, and her work gains intensity and beauty from its narrow focus. In her books, there is little connection between this upper-middle class world and the strata above or below it, or consciousness of events external to it. It is, in fact, the world in which typical middle-class country people lived in early nineteenth-century Britain. The family is at the core of this setting and thus the maneuverings that lead to marriage are all-important, because matrimony supplies stability, along with social and economic continuity.

Later Works

In 1800, Austen's father decided to retire and move the family to Bath, a sea resort. Moving from the home she loved was difficult for Jane, especially because the family lived in several different places until 1809, when Mr. Austen died. During that period of nine years, Austen did not write. After her father's death, Austen and her mother and sister moved to Chawton, a country town where Austen's brother lent the family a house he owned. There Austen was able to pursue her work again, and she wrote Mansfield Park , Emma , and Persuasion .

Published in 1814, Mansfield Park tells the story of Fanny Price, a girl from a poor family who is raised by her wealthy aunt and uncle at Mansfield Park. The book focuses on morality and the struggle between conscience and societal pressures and is considered by some critics to be the "first modern novel." In Emma , published in 1816, Austen introduces Emma Woodhouse, the "handsome, clever, and rich" heroine who fancies herself a matchmaker. Her efforts at bringing people together, however, result in teaching her humility and her own discovery of love. Critics praise Emma Woodhouse as being Austen' most complex character, while readers find that they either love or hate Emma's story. Austen's final completed novel, Persuasion , was published posthumously in 1818. It deals with the broken engagement of Anne Elliott and Captain Wentworth and their second chance at love eight years later. Critics comment on the book's "autumnal feel" and note that Anne Elliott is not only Austen's oldest heroine, but also the one with the least self-confidence.

Death and Legacy

Austen lived the last eight years of her life in Chawton. Her personal life continued to be limited to family and close friends, and she prized herself on being a warm and loving aunt as much as being a successful novelist. A sudden illness, possibly Addison's disease, made her stop work on the novel Sandition , and she died in 1817.

After her death, during the nineteenth-century romantic period, Austen was often looked upon with begrudging admiration, as her elevation of intelligence over feeling contradicted the romantic temperament. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, Austen's reputation rose considerably, and she gradually gained an enthusiastic cult of admirers that were known as the "Janeites." In America, Austen was little known before 1900, but by mid-century she was receiving more critical attention there than in England. In the last decades of the twentieth century, Austen and her works received considerable attention from the general public: Most of her novels were adapted into films, modern novelists wrote sequels to Pride and Prejudice and endings to Sandition , and a mystery series was even developed with Jane Austen herself as the heroine.

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Biography Online

Jane Austen Biography

Early Life of Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire on 16th December 1775. She was the seventh daughter of an eight child family. Her father, George Austen, was a vicar and lived on a reasonable income of £600 a year. However, although they were middle class, they were not rich; her father would have been unable to give much to help her daughters get married. Jane was brought up with her five brothers and her elder sister Cassandra. (another brother, Edward, was adopted by a rich, childless couple and went to live with them). Jane was close to her siblings, especially Cassandra, to whom she was devoted. The two sisters shared a long correspondence throughout her life; much of what we know about Jane comes from these letters, although, unfortunately, Cassandra burnt a number of these on Jane’s death.

Jane was educated at Oxford and later a boarding school in Reading. In the early 1800s, two of Jane’s brother’s joined the navy leaving to fight in the Napoleonic wars; they would go on to become admirals. Her naval connections can be seen in novels like Mansfield Park. After the death of her father in 1805, Jane, with her mother and sister returned to Hampshire. In 1809, her brother Edward, who had been brought up by the Knights, invited the family to the estate he had inherited at Chawton. It was in the country house of Chawton, that Jane was able to produce some of her greatest novels.

Novels of Jane Austen

Jane Austen – sketch by her sister Cassandra

Jane Austen’s novels are a reflection of her outlook on life. She spent most of her life insulated from certain sections of society. Her close friends were mainly her family and those of similar social standing. It is not surprising then that her novels focused on two or three families of the middle or upper classes. Most of her novels were also based on the idyll of rural country houses that Jane was so fond of.

Her novels also focus on the issue of gaining a suitable marriage. In the Nineteenth Century, marriage was a big issue facing women and men; often financial considerations were paramount in deciding marriages. As an author, Jane satirised these financial motivations, for example, in Pride and Prejudice the mother is ridiculed for her ambitions to marry her daughters for maximum financial remuneration. Jane, herself remained single throughout her life. Apart from brief flirtations, Jane remained single and appeared to have little interest in getting married. (unlike the characters of her novels)

The strength of Jane’s novels was her ability to gain penetrating insights into the character and nature of human relationships, from even a fairly limited range of environments and characters. In particular, she helped to redefine the role and aspirations of middle-class women like herself. Through providing a witty satire of social conventions, she helped to liberate contemporary ideas of what women could strive for.

During her lifetime the novels were reasonably popular. One of her strongest supporters was Walter Scott. He said of her novels:

“ That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. “

In the early nineteenth-century, women were not allowed to sign contracts and publishing a book had to be done by a male relative.  Through her brother, her publisher Thomas Egerton agreed to publish Jane’s novels and on release, they sold well. At the time, the novel reading public was quite small, due to the cost of paper. The initial print run of her first novel ‘Sense and Sensibility’ (1811) was just 750. However, as they sold out, the book was reprinted and later books had bigger print runs. Jane earned a modest income from her book royalties but achieved little fame as the books were published anonymously.

In 1815, she learnt that the Prince Regent (the future King George IV) requested one novel to be dedicated to him. Emma is therefore dedicated to the King, even though Jane did not like the reports of his womanising and licentious behaviour.

Death of Jane Austen

Just a few years after achieving modest success as a published author, Jane began feeling unwell and, despite trying to brush it off and continue writing, her condition deteriorated rapidly. Jane died in 1816, aged only 41. She died of Addison’s disease, a disorder of the adrenal glands. She was buried at Winchester Cathedral.

There are two museums dedicated to Jane Austen.

• The Jane Austen Centre in Bath and
• The Jane Austen’s House Museum, located in Chawton Cottage, in Hampshire, where she lived from 1809 –1816

In 2005, Pride and Prejudice was voted best British novel of all time in a BBC poll.

Jane Austen Novels

• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• Mansfield Park (1814)
• Emma (1815)
• Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)
• Persuasion (1818, posthumous)
• Lady Susan (1871, posthumous)

Unfinished fiction

• The Watsons (1804)
• Sanditon (1817)

Jane was also voted as one of the Top 100 greatest Britons.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. “ Biography of Jane Austen ”, Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net , Published 1 Feb 2007. Last updated 13 February 2018.

Jane Austen – four novels

• Jane Austen – four novels at Amazon

Related pages

Jane Austen

• The Jane Austen Collection at Amazon
•  Sense and Sensibility (published 1811)
•  Pride and Prejudice (1813)
•  Mansfield Park (1814)
•  Emma (1816)
•  Persuasion (1818) posthumous
•  Northanger Abbey (1818) posthumous

External Links

• Picture from Wikipedia – Jane Austen
• Jane Austen – Pemberley.com
• Jane Austen at BBC

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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.

Short Biography of Jane Austen

Fresh Reads

Jane Austen was a major English novelist, whose brilliantly witty, elegantly structured satirical fiction marks the transition in English literature from 18th century Neo-classicism to19th century romanticism.

Jane Austen was born on 16 December, 1775, at the rectory in the village of Steventon, near Basingstoke, in Hampshire. The seventh of eight children of the Reverend George Austen and his wife, Cassandra, she was educated mainly at home and never lived apart from her family. She had a happy childhood amongst all her brothers and the other boys who lodged with the family and whom Mr Austen tutored. From her older sister, Cassandra, she was inseparable. To amuse themselves, the children wrote and performed plays and impersonation, and even as a little girl Jane was encouraged to write. The reading that she did of the books in her father’s extensive library provided material for the short satirical sketches she wrote as a girl.

At the age of 14 she wrote her first novel, Love and Freindship and then A History of England by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian , together with other very amusing juvenilia. In her early twenties Jane Austen wrote the novels that were later to be reworked and published as Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey . She also began a novel called The Watsons which was never completed.

As a young woman Jane enjoyed dancing (an activity which features frequently in her novels) and she attended balls in many of the great houses of the neighbourhood. She loved the country, enjoyed long country walks, and had many Hampshire friends. It therefore came as a considerable shock when her parents suddenly announced in 1801 that the family would be moving away to Bath. Mr Austen gave the Steventon living to his son James and retired to Bath with his wife and two daughters. The next four years were difficult ones for Jane Austen. She disliked the confines of a busy town and missed her Steventon life. After her father’s death in 1805, his widow and daughters also suffered financial difficulties and were forced to rely on the charity of the Austen sons. It was also at this time that, while on holiday in the West country,Jane fell in love, and when the young man died, she was deeply upset. Later she accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, a wealthy landowner and brother to some of her closest friends, but she changed her mind the next morning and was greatly upset by the whole episode.

After the death of Mr Austen, the Austen ladies moved to Southampton to share the home of Jane’s naval brother Frank and his wife Mary. There were occasional visits to London, where Jane stayed with her favourite brother Henry, at that time a prosperous banker, and where she enjoyed visits to the theatre and art exhibitions. However, she wrote little in Bath and nothing at all in Southampton.

Then, in July, 1809, on her brother Edward offering his mother and sisters a permanent home on his Chawton estate, the Austen ladies moved back to their beloved Hampshire countryside. It was a small but comfortable house, with a pretty garden, and most importantly it provided the settled home which Jane Austen needed in order to write. In the seven and a half years that she lived in this house, she revised Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and published them ( in 1811 and 1813) and then embarked on a period of intense productivity. Mansfield Park came out in 1814, followed by Emma in 1816 and she completed Persuasion (which was published together with Northanger Abbey in 1818, the year after her death). None of the books published in her life-time had her name on them — they were described as being written “By a Lady”. In the winter of 1816 she started Sanditon , but illness prevented its completion.

Jane Austen had contracted Addisons Disease, a tubercular disease of the kidneys. No longer able to walk far, she used to drive out in a little donkey carriage which can still be seen at the Jane Austen Museum at Chawton. By May 1817 she was so ill that she and Cassandra, to be near Jane’s physician, rented rooms in Winchester. Tragically, there was then no cure and Jane Austen died in her sister’s arms in the early hours of 18 July, 1817. She was 41 years old. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

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A Brief Biography of Jane Austen

By Tim Lambert

Her Early Life

Jane Austen was a great woman novelist of the early 19th century. Jane was born on 16 December 1775 in Steventon Rectory. She was the second daughter of The Reverend George Austen and his wife Cassandra. Apart from her older sister, also called Cassandra. Jane also had 6 brothers.

In 1783 Jane and her sister were sent to boarding school. While at school they both caught a fever (possibly typhus) and Jane nearly died. Jane Austen left school in 1786.

The Great Writer

Even as a child Jane Austen loved writing and she wrote a lot of short stories called the Juvenilia. About 1795 she wrote a novel called Elinor and Marianne. In the years 1796-97, Jane Austen wrote another novel called First Impressions. It was later published as Pride and Prejudice. Then in 1798-99, Jane wrote a novel named Susan. It was published posthumously as Northanger Abbey in 1817.

In 1801 Jane Austen moved with her sister and parents to Bath. Jane Austen was a tall, slim woman. In 1802 she received a proposal of marriage from a man named Harris Bigg-Wither. At first, Jane accepted but she quickly changed her mind. Jane Austen never married. Her father George Austen died in 1805.

In 1807 Jane Austen moved to Southampton. She lived there until 1809. At that time Southampton was a flourishing port and town with a population of over 8,000. However, in 1809 Jane Austen moved to the little village of Chawton in north Hampshire.

Then in 1811 Sense and Sensibility was published. Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813. Mansfield Park was published in 1814. Another book called Emma followed in 1816. Meanwhile, Jane Austen wrote Persuasion but she died before it could be published. It was published posthumously in 1817.

Jane Austen died on 18 July 1817. Jane was only 41 years old. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral. 

Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, Hampshire is now a museum.

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Jane Austen: A Biography

Jane austen 1775 – 1817.

The Jane Austen Centre’s website states: ‘Jane Austen is perhaps the best known and best loved of Bath’s many famous residents and visitors.’

One wonders at the restraint in that, considering that Jane Austen is indisputably one of the greatest English writers – some say the greatest after Shakespeare – and certainly the greatest English novelist and one of the most famous English women who ever lived. The insights found in Jane Austen’s quotes from her many works is very impressive.

A mark of her genius is that she was there near the beginning of the novel’s emergence as a literary form, and all of her novels, including the earliest of them, written when she was very young, are perfectly formed. No English novelist has since bettered them and the novel hasn’t developed much since her definitive examples of the form. That is amazing when one thinks about how the other art forms –painting, music, architecture – fall out of fashion with each generation, and give way to new forms. And also when one thinks about how many novels have been written since hers.

Jane Austen – a portrait by her sister Cassandra

One has to ask why it is that her novels have lasted and are still widely read. One thing is certain: when one settles down with a Jane Austen novel one can be sure that there are going to be hours of pleasure and a lot of chuckling.

Jane Austen prods away at the social conventions of her time and how they fashion and condition the English landed gentry, the people she socialised with and whom she observed closely. She reveals the little preoccupations and concerns of the ladies and the gentlemen and the young women in those circles, and she leads us to laugh at them. Sometimes the goading is gentle and sometimes it’s savage. And every novel tells a gripping story, full of tension, with mysteries where we are kept waiting for their final resolution, when everything falls into place – very much like the best detective novels of our time.

As with Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dickens, the other main English humourists,  her characters are highly memorable. We all know Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy, Emma Woodhouse and Mr Knightly, and poor little Catherine Morland. And on another level, the immortal comic characters led by Mrs Bennett and including Sir Walter Elliot, Mr Collins, Mrs Elton and Mr Woodhouse, among many others.

It is difficult to pin down what it is that Jane Austen does with language to create that combination of humour and penetrating insight. It has something to do with the way she constructs sentences – all perfectly balanced and often with a sting in the tail, and a style of narration in which the variety of points of view of the different characters tell the story. It is perhaps that latter characteristic that makes her such a modern writer – indeed, a postmodern writer – as her stories are usually told with her pretending to be the narrator, but she is not, and we fall into the trap of taking her narrator seriously. With that narrative style she is able to reveal and ridicule the manners of her society.

Her novels always have a young woman at their centre – a young woman with romantic dreams and hopes about meeting and marrying her perfect man. The heroine always does, although only after a  series of ups and downs, near misses and multiple misunderstandings.

On the surface, the novels resemble modern romantic boy-meets-girl fiction or ‘chicklit.’ Jane Austen uses that plot but her exploration of people, their class and their community while doing so goes very far beyond the novels that are read for their romantic story alone.

We have an image of Jane Austen as a spinster who lived quietly with her mother and sister and wrote her novels in semi-secrecy, hiding her pages away if she heard anyone approaching while she was writing. Most of what we know about her was written by family members after her death and so we know only the sweet, quiet, ‘Aunt Jane.’ Someone with her intelligence and sharpness must have been much more than that.

She was the daughter of George Austen, the vicar of the Anglican parish of Steventon in Hampshire. She had six brothers and one sister, Cassandra, to whom she was very close. The family did not have enough money to send her to school so she was educated at home, where she read a great deal, directed by her father and brothers Henry and James. She also experimented with writing little stories from early childhood and one can still read her juvenilia, which has been collected by various editors.

Jane Austen died on 18 th July 1817 at the age of 41. We do not have an accurate diagnosis of the cause of her death but medical researchers think it may have been the rare disease, Addison’s disease of the suprarenal glands.

Read more about England’s top writers >> Read biographies of the 30 greatest writers ever >>

Interested in Jane Austen? If so you can get some additional free information by visiting our friends over at PoemAnalysis to read their analysis of Jane Austen’s poetic works .

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i m inspired by the words written about her,each line stays alive in my heart,really speaking i have not yet read her novels but in future i will

I really wonder about her intelligence. I also want to read her novels.

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Introduction

Getting started: guides and encyclopedias, ready reference sources, bibliography, literary criticism, indexes & abstracts, internet resources.

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born on the 16th of December in 1775, in Stevenson, Hampshire, England. She was an intelligent daughter of George Austen, a famous cleric at one of the Anglican parishes. Her mother, Cassandra Leigh, was a wealthy lady. Jane’s grandfather was an Oxford-educated cleric. The children grew up in an environment that provided them with room for creative thinking and learning. Young Jane, being close to her father, learned many things from him. Moreover, George’s extensive library helped her polish her reading and analytical skills. Unfortunately, her father died in 1805, and her mother passed away in 1827.

Jane Austen, a great literary figure, belonged to a well-educated and influential family. She began to read and write at a very young age. Sharing a close relationship with her father, she learned the basic skills at home. To get a formal education, Jane, along with her sister, was sent to Oxford in 1783 to be educated by Miss Ann Cowley, where they stayed for a short time. Facing an acute illness, both siblings returned home and stayed with the family. Later, in 1875, Jane and her sister were sent to Reading Abbey Girls School , where they were exposed to needlework, dancing, French, music, and drama . Unfortunately, due to the financial strains, the sisters returned home in 1876. After her return, her father and brothers guided her in the educational field. The private theatre had always been an essential part for Austen as her friends and family staged a series of plays, including The Rivals by Richard Sheridan . Inspired with the literary efforts of her family and friends, she started writing herself at the age of eleven.

Jane led a successful life, and at the age of forty-one, her health began to decline. Despite facing illness, she made efforts to continue to write and edited older works as well as started a new piece called The Brothers, which published after her death under the title of Senditon. The world lost this precious gem on the 18 th of July in 1877 in Winchester, England.

Some Important Facts of Her Life

• Her transformation from little-known to internationally acclaimed writers started in the 1920s when critics reevaluated her literary pieces.
• She enjoyed unprecedented fame in her life, but she never got married.
• The popularity of her works speaks in many TV adaptations and films of Mansfield Park, Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Pride, and Prejudice

Writing Career

Jane Austen, a towering figure of the seventeenth century, started writing literary pieces at a very young. With the compositions of plays and short stories , she laid the foundation of her long literary career. At first, she wrote pieces for her own and her family’s amusements with the subjects of anarchic fantasies of female power or feminism and illicit behavior. Later, in 1970, she started writing novels and came up with Love and Friendship followed by The History of England, presenting the historical and romantic fiction . Using the framework of letter writing in these fictions, she unveiled her wit and disliked for romantic hysteria and sensibility, which remained evident in her other writings, too. Later, she produced an epistolary story , Lady Susan , presenting the life of a female who manipulates others using her sexuality and intelligence. Marked with the techniques of letter writing, her other major work, Elinor and Marianne, which was later drafted as Sense and Sensibility, appeared in 1811. She produced many masterpieces throughout her life including, Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park, and Emma.

Jane Austen stands among the most influential figures of world literature. With the help of her unique style , she beautifully portrayed her ideas in her literary pieces. Her distinctive literary style relies mainly on a blend of parody , free indirect speech, irony , and presentation of literary realism . Jane used burlesque and parody in her writings to critique the portrayal of women in the 18 th century. Her pieces are far from the world of imagination as she focused on presenting the ordinary people realistically. Moreover, her ironic style presents a keen insight into the English culture. Concerning characterization , she focused on the conversation allow the characters to develop themselves. The recurring themes in most of her literary pieces are cultural, identity, love, marriage, and pride.

Jane Austen’s Influence on Future Literature

Jane Austen, with her unique abilities, left a profound impact on global literature, and even after 200 hundred years of her demise, she continues to win love for her biting approach on diverse tangles of this passion.  Her witty ideas, along with distinct literary qualities, won applause from the audience , critics, and other fellow writers. Her impact resonates strongly inside as well as outside England. Her masterpieces provided the principles for the writers of succeeding generations. She successfully documented her ideas about marriage, power, and love in her writings that even today, writers try to imitate her unique style, considering her a beacon for writing prose .

Some Important Works of Jane Austen

• Best Novels: She was an outstanding writer, some of her best novels, which include Emma, Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park, Persuasion , and Northanger Abbey.
• Other Works: Besides novels, she also tried her hands on shorter and non-fiction too. Some of them include Plan of Novel , Juvenilia- Volume the First, Juvenilia- V0lume the Second, Juvenilia- Volume the Third, Letters, and Poems .

Famous Quotes

• “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.” ( Pride and Prejudice )
• “There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison.” ( Persuasion )
• A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.” ( Northanger Abbey)
• Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.” ( Mansfield Park)

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The Short Story Project

Jane austen.

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire (England) in the family of a rural parish priest. Jane began to write at the age of 14.  

Her work is traditionally divided into two periods, separated by more than ten years. The early period (the second half of the 1790s), the novel “Northanger Abbey”, parodying the fashionable in those days “Gothic” novels, as well as the first versions of the two most famous works of Austen: “Sense and Sensibility” and “Pride and Prejudice. ” Later both were subjected to repeated and deep processing. And the late period, in which the last three completed Austen’s novels were written: “Mansfield Park”, “Emma” and “Persuasion”. “Pride and Prejudice”, published during the author’s life anonymously, in three editions, brought her some success, but a significant transition in her posthumous reputation occurred in 1833, when her novels were republished in Richard Bentley’s Standard Novels series, illustrated by Ferdinand Pickering, and sold as a set. 

The work of Austin turned out to be very cinematic, as evidenced by the numerous screen versions of her novels. Among them was Ang Lee’s Oscar winning film “Sense and Sensibility” (1995) and the Franco-British version of “Pride and Prejudice” (2005) with Keira Knightley in the lead role.

The History of England

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Jane Austen

A brief b iography.

Jane Austen (1775-1817), one of England’s foremost novelists, was never publicly acknowledged as a writer during her lifetime.

Austen was born on December 16, 1775, at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire, the seventh child of a country clergyman and his wife, George and Cassandra Austen. Her closest friend was her only sister, Cassandra, almost three years her senior.

Education and Influences | Show Details ↓ Hide Details ↑

St. Nicholas Church, Steventon, where Jane Austen was baptized. (Photo copyright Allan Soedring)

Jane Austen was primarily educated at home, benefiting from her father’s extensive library and the schoolroom atmosphere created by Mr. Austen’s live-in pupils.

Though she lived a quiet life, she had unusual access to the greater world, primarily through her brothers. Francis (Frank) and Charles, officers in the Royal Navy, served on ships around the world and saw action in the Napoleonic Wars. Henry, who eventually became a clergyman like his father and his brother James, was an officer in the militia and later a banker. Austen visited Henry in London, where she attended the theater, art exhibitions, and social events and also corrected proofs of her novels. Her brother Edward was adopted by wealthy cousins, the Knights, becoming their heir and later taking their name. On extended visits to Godmersham, Edward’s estate in Kent, Austen and her sister took part in the privileged life of the landed gentry, which is reflected in all her fiction.

Early Works: 1787-1798 | Show Details ↓ Hide Details ↑

Manuscript of "The History of England," written by Jane Austen and illustrated by her sister Cassandra. (British Library)

As a child Austen began writing comic stories, now referred to as the Juvenilia. Her first mature work, composed when she was about 19, was a novella, Lady Susan , written in epistolary form (as a series of letters). This early fiction was preserved by her family but was not published until long after her death.

In her early twenties Austen wrote the novels that later became Sense and Sensibility (first called “Elinor and Marianne”) and Pride and Prejudice (originally “First Impressions”). Her father sent a letter offering the manuscript of “First Impressions” to a publisher soon after it was finished in 1797, but his offer was rejected by return post. 

Austen continued writing, revising “Elinor and Marianne” and completing a novel called “Susan” (later to become Northanger Abbey ). In 1803 Austen sold “Susan” for £10 to a publisher, who promised early publication, but the manuscript languished in his archives until it was repurchased a year before Austen’s death for the price the publisher had paid her.

View facsimiles of Austen's Juvenilia notebooks, including the History of England , on the Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts Digital Edition website.

Bath and Southampton Years: 1801-1809 | Show Details ↓ Hide Details ↑

No. 4 Sydney Place, Bath (Photo copyright Allan Soedring)

When Austen was 25 years old, her father retired, and she and Cassandra moved with their parents to Bath, residing first at 4 Sydney Place. During the five years she lived in Bath (1801-1806), Austen began one novel, The Watsons , which she never completed. After Mr. Austen’s death, Austen’s brothers contributed funds to assist their sisters and widowed mother. Mrs. Austen and her daughters set up housekeeping with their close friend Martha Lloyd. Together they moved to Southampton in 1806 and economized by sharing a house with Frank and his family.

Mature Novels and Publishing Success: 1809-1817 | Show Details ↓ Hide Details ↑

In 1809 Edward provided the women a comfortable cottage in the village of Chawton, near his Hampshire manor house. This was the beginning of Austen’s most productive period. In 1811, at the age of 35, Austen published Sense and Sensibility , which identified the author as “a Lady.” Pride and Prejudice followed in 1813, Mansfield Park in 1814, and Emma in 1815. The title page of each book referred to one or two of Austen’s earlier novels—capitalizing on her growing reputation—but did not provide her name.

Austen began writing the novel that would be called Persuasion in 1815 and finished it the following year, by which time, however, her health was beginning to fail. The probable cause of her illness was Addison’s Disease. In 1816 Henry Austen repurchased the rights to “Susan,” which Austen revised and renamed “Catherine.”

Final Months: 1817 | Show Details ↓ Hide Details ↑

No. 8 College Street, Winchester, where Jane Austen died. (Photo copyright Allan Soedring)

During a brief period of strength early in 1817, Austen began the fragment later called Sanditon , but by March she was too ill to work. On April 27, 1817, she wrote her will , naming Cassandra as her heir. In May she and Cassandra moved to 8 College Street in Winchester to be near her doctor. Austen died in the early hours of July 18, 1817, and a few days later was buried in Winchester Cathedral. She was 41 years old. Interestingly, her gravestone, which is visited by hundreds of admirers each year, does not even mention that she was an author.

Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published together in December 1817 with a “Biographical Notice” written by Henry, in which Jane Austen was, for the first time in one of her novels, identified as the author of Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park , and Emma .

Further Reading | Show Details ↓ Hide Details ↑

Essays in jasna publications.

Additional information about Jane Austen’s life can be found in essays published in Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line , in JASNA News , and on this site.

Selected Biographies

• J. E. Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections , edited by Kathryn Sutherland (Oxford University Press, 2002) (also contains biographical memoirs by Austen’s brother Henry and her nieces Anna Lefroy and Caroline Austen).
• Jan Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life (Macmillan Press, 1991).
• Park Honan, Jane Austen: Her Life (St. Martin’s Press, 1987).
• Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
• Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life (Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).

More on Jane Austen's Life ›

Learn about Austen's life and family, her portraits, and the Austen Family Churches.

Jane Austen's Works ›

Find a chronology of Jane Austen's writing and overviews of her novels.

Austen on Screen ›

Have you seen these film, television, and video adaptations of Austen's novels?

Austen Chat Podcast ›

Austen Chat Podcast Welcome to Austen Chat, JASNA's new podcast dedicated to exploring the life and ...

Austen's World Up Close ›

Austen's World Up CloseJASNA members share their expertise in a variety of areas in these short vide...

Resources and Links ›

Explore more Austen-related websites and special online resources.

“. . . from politics, it was an easy step to silence.”

Northanger Abbey

About JASNA

The Jane Austen Society of North America is dedicated to the enjoyment and appreciation of Jane Austen and her writing. JASNA is a nonprofit organization, staffed by volunteers, whose mission is to foster among the widest number of readers the study, appreciation, and understanding of Jane Austen’s works, her life, and her genius.  We have over 5,000 members of all ages and from diverse walks of life. Although most live in the United States or Canada, we also have members in more than a dozen other countries.

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The Legacy of Jane Austen and the Industry of “Jane Austen”

June 20, 2017 | yalepress | Business , European History , Literature

Fiona Stafford–

When Jane Austen spoke of being “in love with” Clarkson, in a private letter of 1813, she was referring to the indefatigable antislavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson and his splendid History , which charted the progress of the abolitionist movement. Two hundred years later, the name of Clarkson would be linked very publicly to her own in a rather different kind of campaign. Once the news broke in 2012 that the American singer Kelly Clarkson was about to return to the United States with a ring belonging to Jane Austen, there was a national outcry in Britain. Clarkson had bought the ring entirely legitimately at an auction sale for £152,450, but so powerful was the wave of public feeling that the Culture Secretary felt obliged to impose a temporary export embargo, giving indignant supporters the chance to raise sufficient funds to save the ring for the nation. For many of her readers, the very idea of Jane Austen sporting a pretty gold and turquoise ring came as something of a surprise. Her novels are hardly gem-bespangled and, when an item of jewelry does appear, it is often a focus of attention – and tension. Edward Ferrars’s arrival at Barton Cottage wearing a ring containing a lock of fair hair causes almost as much consternation as the gold necklaces given to Fanny Price in Mansfield Park . It was oddly appropriate, then, that the author’s own ring should have generated such powerful feeling. Within a year, the money had been raised, Kelly Clarkson graciously withdrew her right of possession, and the ring went on display at the Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, where it remains. Ardent admirers can even buy a replica for £450.

If Jane Austen endured her painful last days by amusing herself with thoughts of St. Swithin’s reaction to his canonization, she might (or might not) have been comforted by the knowledge that her own supporters would eventually come to regard her with similar reverence. Anything touched by Jane Austen is now treated almost as a religious relic: revered, coveted, contested, and finally displayed at a shrine for pilgrims to wonder at. Chawton Cottage now attracts some 40,000 visitors a year, all wanting to see the bedroom in which she slept in, the donkey cart in which she travelled in, the little round table at which she sat and wrote. The gardener at Chawton even has to contend with devotees determined to scatter the ashes of loved ones on the earth where Jane Austen once walked. Her significance in English literary history has been abundantly evident since the beginning of the twentieth century, but her peculiar place in broader cultural life only became fully apparent towards its close. In the decade since the original version of this short biography was completed, Jane Austen’s stature has assumed extraordinary proportions – and shows no sign of shrinking.

Famous authors inspire many different kinds of devotion, ranging from the serious scholarship of those whose lives are spent studying the work to the creative responses of artists and writers in every medium. Then there is the design and production of remarkably varied merchandise aimed at the largest band of followers: enthusiastic readers, viewers, and visitors. “Jane Austen” has long since ceased to refer solely to a woman novelist who lived between 1775 and 1817; it has expanded to encompass an icon and an industry.

As the twenty-first century rolled into its second decade, the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s first published novel generated fresh interest in a novelist whose reputation was in need of no help. Celebrations of Sense and Sensibility set the scene for 2011, but it was a new portrait of Jane Austen that really stole the media attention, forming the centerpiece of the BBC’s Austenfest on Boxing Day that year. Paula Byrne’s identification of Jane Austen as the sitter in a Regency portrait she owned was a very significant development – not least because, until then, the only portrait known to have been taken from life was the little watercolor sketch by Cassandra Austen. This slender, upright woman sitting in front of a window in Westminster was very different from the subject of the intimate sketch by Jane Austen’s sister, but Paula Byrne was struck by the facial resemblance to portraits of the Austen brothers, an insight prompted by the name on the back of the picture: “Jane Austin.” Her energetic and persuasive case for the authenticity of this newly discovered Austen portrait did not carry universal conviction, and probably will not unless the crucial question of provenance, essential for all firm attributions in the art world, is resolved. The picture nevertheless went on display at the Jane Austen’s House Museum and was reproduced in Byrne’s biography, The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things .

An even more significant event for Austen scholars that year was the Bodleian Library’s acquisition of the manuscript of “The Watsons.” (The purchase also attracted considerable media attention, largely on account of the sum involved: £993,250.) Very little of Jane Austen’s fiction survives in its original form, so this was a unique opportunity to secure an early, unfinished draft in Jane Austen’s own handwriting. This precious remnant, like the unpublished Sanditon , similarly scored with crossings-out and second thoughts, offers rare insight into Austen’s creative process, otherwise lost in the transition from manuscript to print. Hints in the letters and family anecdotes about the writer who firmly lopped and cropped her stories are fully corroborated by these brief but invaluable manuscript fragments.

There has never been any doubt about the importance of Austen’s manuscripts, but it is only in the past decade that they have become accessible to a wide audience. Excitement over “The Watsons” was fanned by an extraordinary website. Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts is an online resource launched in October 2010 that enables people all over the world to see what survives of the handwritten narratives, simply by visiting janeausten.ac.uk . Here are the three volumes of her juvenilia; here is the original ending of Persuasion ; here is Sanditon , with no end in sight. Anyone can now take a look at the flourishes of her teenage quill that adorn the dedications and finales of early gifts to family members.

The digitization of the fiction manuscripts, carried out by Kathryn Sutherland and her expert team, has made the potential of utilizing electronic technology to enlarge understanding of the novels abundantly evident. The visual possibilities of computer graphics have also begun to open up other areas of Jane Austen’s world. In May 1813, Jane Austen, flushed with excitement over the publication of Pride and Prejudice , was staying with her brother Henry and taking the opportunity to visit the London art galleries. At an exhibition put on by the Society of Painters in Oil and Watercolours, she was very pleased to spot a portrait resembling Jane Bennet: “Mrs. Bingley’s is exactly herself, size, shaped face, features & sweetness; there never was a greater likeness. She is dressed in a white gown, with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I had always supposed, that green was a favorite color with her.” Jane Austen also supposed that “Mrs. D. will be in yellow,” but the gallery failed to offer a suitable candidate. A few days later, at the Reynolds retrospective in Pall Mall, she was again disappointed to find no image matching her idea of Elizabeth Bennet (“I can only imagine that Mr. D. prizes any Picture of her too much to like it should be exposed to the public eye”). Her unsatisfactory search has now borne unexpected fruit in the form of a virtual reconstruction of the Reynolds exhibition of 1813. The What Jane Saw project, led by the Austen scholar Janine Barchas, allows present-day viewers to enter the gallery, admire the paintings and even move from room to room. They will not spot an image of Elizabeth Bennet, but they can at least find out what she did not look like, in the eyes of the ultimate authority.

The author often regarded as quintessentially English is now an international phenomenon, as immediate to those in the Antipodes as in Andover. The Jane Austen Society of the United Kingdom was founded in 1940, chiefly to help with the preservation of the Chawton home. It has since grown into a flourishing organization with numerous members and meetings. Branches have spread across the British Isles; new societies continue to sprout all over the world. The Jane Austen Society of Pakistan meets annually in December for a birthday tea party, while the Jane Austen Society of Australia celebrates with a pre-Christmas lunch in Sydney. Spain is one of the more recent countries to launch a Jane Austen Society, now offering competitions, conversations, and reading clubs, while the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), founded in 1979, currently boasts some 5,000 members and seventy regional branches, as well as a reputation for exuberant annual meetings and an excellent online journal, Persuasions .

The bicentenary of Pride and Prejudice in 2013 was a global phenomenon, marked by a celebrity readathon in Bath; exhibitions in Canterbury, Chawton, Edinburgh, Gretna Green, London, Lyme Park, Oxford, and Winchester; study days in Brighton, Chawton, London, Oxford, and York; and international conferences in Adelaide, Brisbane, Cambridge, Chicago, New York, Singapore, and Tokyo. Regency balls and dinners abounded, Austen weekends became de rigueur , Cunard launched Austen-related transatlantic cruises. The Royal Mail entered into the mood of the moment by issuing a set of stamps to honor the occasion and designing a special postmark for letters sent from Chawton or Steventon in the publication anniversary week. Even the Bank of England did its bit to bolster Jane’s fame. In the year of Pride and Prejudice , Governor Mark Carney announced that Jane Austen would be the face of the new £10 note , replacing Charles Darwin (who, as a great admirer of her novels, would probably have had no objection).

Jane Austen herself might well have been amused by Cassandra’s little portrait being transformed into currency, as well as by the choice of accompanying quotation: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” She composed these words for Miss Bingley, whose preference, in fact, is more for banknotes than books. The portrayal of Jane Austen on a £10 note is in keeping with a view long held by certain critics that money was a major preoccupation for her. W. H. Auden’s comment is the pithiest: in his “Letter to Lord Byron,” he confessed to being shocked to see “An English spinster of the middle class… Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety / The economic basis of society.” What would Auden have had to say about the handful of “Jane Austen fivers” that began to circulate late in 2016, on which a tiny portrait of Austen engraved by Graham Short increased the notes’ value to £50,000? Or about the auction in March 2017 at which a first edition of Pride and Prejudice sold for £38,000?

“Jane Austen” is big business. Pride and Prejudice has been précised and presented via kittens, knitted figures, and guinea pigs dressed in bonnets and lace. There are peg doll kits and cut-out cards of Mr. Darcy. Quotations from the novels have found their way onto bags, bookmarks and bracelets, mugs and mousemats, cushion covers and caps. Marketing opportunities are a sign of modern success, but the merchandise tells much about the enduring appeal of Jane Austen. Whatever earlier literary critics may have had to say about the transcendent truths embodied in her words, the memorabilia tells another story. The Jane Austen action figure, striding confidently ahead with pen in hand, is a different Jane from the late-Victorian image of the spinster aunt at her tiny table. What Lady Catherine de Bourgh offered as a crushing insult to Elizabeth Bennet is now sported proudly on t-shirts : “Obstinate Headstrong Girl.”

Publishers have done their best to fuel Austen-mania, bringing out books aimed at stimulating more participation in the Regency world. Anyone wishing to throw their own version of the Netherfield ball can seek advice from books such as Dinner with Mr. Darcy , A Dance with Jane Austen , or Regency Women’s Dress . There has also been a series of more traditional, academic studies of Jane Austen’s texts, but twenty-first-century scholars are more willing than their predecessors to take into account the popular responses to those. The avalanche of Austen-related events, books, blogs, and bric-à-brac has created a playful aura around an author at one time admired primarily for her moral vision. John Mullan’s book of conundrums – What Matters in Jane Austen? – catches the tone in its title. Like John Sutherland’s Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet? , Mullan’s collection of questions prompted by the novels combines critical expertise with a sense of fun, even adding a slightly more gossipy tone (“Is There Any Sex in Jane Austen?”). Unsurprisingly, the work that attracts most attention from Mullan is the one in which puzzles and charades are most prominent – Emma .

Fascination with Jane Austen’s novels has led to the pursuit of puzzles of a very different kind. “Who killed Fanny Price?” is the question posed by Lynn Shepherd in Murder at Mansfield Park , in which she takes a widely held readerly aversion to Austen’s heroine to extremes by transforming Mansfield Park into crime fiction. Suddenly, Jane Austen is inadvertently revealed as the mother of the whodunnit, as well as everything else – the familiar genre of the country house murder, usually traced to Agatha Christie, is here found to derive from Mansfield Park . Or should that be Pride and Prejudice ? P. D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley takes its cue from Pride and Prejudice , and has now become a bestselling crime novel and subsequent television adaptation . If these murder mysteries play fast and loose with Jane Austen, they are positively strait-laced in comparison to Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Ben Winters’s Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters . Austen herself was not averse to coining new words, as seen in Emma’s idea of herself as “an imaginist,” so it is apt enough that she should have inspired a new genre of literary “mash-up” (since the amalgamation of Pemberley and a zombie apocalypse had no obvious literary precedent, reviewers turned to the contemporary music scene to find an adequate term). Pride and Prejudice and Zombies , of course, was also destined for the big screen .

Though not to the taste of every Janeite, the mash-ups demonstrate, more than any other recent phenomenon, the extent to which Austen’s stories have now achieved the status of modern myth, so widely known that they are open to being adapted, inverted, or subverted. Even the distant offspring of her novels have assumed lives of their own. Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones first appeared in a newspaper column; her story, mirroring Pride and Prejudice , borrowed first the name of Austen’s hero and then, for the cinematic version, the actor Colin Firth, who played Darcy in the BBC adaptation. Bridget Jones’s Diary was followed by Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and, more recently, a film that fast-forwards a few years to Bridget Jones’s Baby .

Since 2011, the bewildering succession of Jane Austen bicentenaries has brought home the concentration of her original output, each year giving rise to celebrations of another novel. Six great novels in the space of six years was – and still is – a remarkable achievement. The twenty-first-century obsession with anniversaries has also meant that the tributes to Jane Austen have coincided with commemorations of the First World War. Historical accident brought Mansfield Park , Emma , and Persuasion into contact with the convulsions of the early twentieth century, and, in doing so, highlighted the conflict of Jane Austen’s own day. The Napoleonic Wars may seem far removed from Mansfield or Highbury, but the appeal of these settings’ tranquility is greatly intensified by the thought of what so many contemporary brothers, husbands, and sons were enduring and how their bereft sisters, wives, and mothers were suffering. With images of the First World War so much in mind, the commemorative plaque commissioned by Jane Austen’s supporters in 1917 for the centenary of her death takes on poignant additional dimensions. The black tablet, set into the brick wall of her home in Chawton, bears a striking resemblance to the memorials that were being erected in villages all over Britain in the wake of the vast battles of northern France. Lewes’s prediction, uttered in more peaceful times, deepened into a statement of faith when it was engraved in brass and mounted on oak in 1917. It continues to provide a suitably enduring monument to Jane Austen: “Such art as hers can never grow old.”

From Jane Austen: A Brief Life   by Fiona Stafford , published by Yale University Press in 2017. Reproduced by permission.

Fiona Stafford  is professor of English language and literature, University of Oxford. She is author of  The   Sunday Times  Nature Book of the Year,  The Long, Long Life of Trees  and presenter of two highly acclaimed series for BBC Radio 3 titled  The Meaning of Trees . She lives in Bucks, UK.

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Featured Image : “West Sussex County Sign” licensed for reuse  on the public domain by © Shazz .

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