Authors

Jane Austen

British 1775 - 1817

Jane Austen, one of the greatest writers in the history of the novel, was born on 16 December 1775, a month later than expected, and baptised by her father that same day.

George Austen and his wife Cassandra Leigh, relatively old at forty-four and thirty-six respectively, were already parents to six children. Married at St Swithin's Church, Bath in April 1764, they had lived first at the rectory at Deane where their sons James, George and Edward were born, before moving to Steventon, a small village near Basingstoke, Hampshire, the birthplace of Henry, Cassandra, Francis, Jane and finally Charles.

Both George Austin and Cassandra Leigh came from distinguished professional families with backgrounds in the church, medicine and academia. Life at Steventon was busy and comfortable, but the Austen family was not wealthy and to supplement his income as rector, George was schoolmaster to a small number of boys who boarded with the family. Cassandra too worked hard managing the household and looking after their smallholding with its animals and kitchen garden providing food for both the family and pupils. Surplus would be sold for profit. Although proud of her ancestry with its links to the aristocracy, Cassandra was a practical down to earth woman.

When each of her children was born, Cassandra's practice was to feed the baby herself for a few months before handing it over to a woman in the village to be looked after for up to eighteen months until it was old enough to be managed at home. Sadly, one child would not return to the family. Second born George suffered from fits and some form of mental disability. Cassandra's brother Thomas also had been prey to such illness and like him George would be cared for out with the family circle. Although Cassandra and George would visit their babies regularly at their adoptive homes, this practice, fairly common at the time, could create an emotional distance between mother and child and a highly perceptive and sensitive child such as Jane would be particularly vulnerable to its effects. It is thought that her relationship with her mother was affected as a result, and in later life her letters suggest that she developed a hard shell to protect herself from emotional insecurity.

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“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”

- Jane Austen

The depiction of Jane Austen's childhood as close-knit and happy comes from the first published account of her life written by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh. Their scholarly father was responsible for the most part of his daughters education as well as that of his sons, and evenings at home were spent reading aloud to each other, playing games and putting on occasional theatrical performances for the extended family circle. Jane and her sister Cassandra did spend time away at school, first with Mrs Cawley in Oxford and then Southhampton, cut short by typhoid epidemic that swept the sea port infecting both sisters and nearly killing Jane, then later at the Abbey School in Reading, where they were taught English, French, Italian and history as well as the feminine arts of dancing and needlework. Leisurely afternoons were spent at the public library reading novels on the subjects of romance and adventure. But it was in her father's well stocked library that most of Jane's literary development took place.

It was through her father and older brothers that Jane was exposed to the essays of Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and Samuel Johnson, as well as the novels of Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne and Fanny Burney. Burney and later the Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth, a great favourite, would provide Jane with models of successful women novelists. Lighter entertainment came from stories in The Lady's Magazine established in 1770, with their standard plot lines of romance between lovers of unequal social rank and wealth, the trials of their courtship and the happy resolution against all odds. Jane's first three novels would largely conform to this convention in theme at least. This immersion in a mix of great and popular literature would be important to Jane's development as a writer; her own work would match intelligence and subtlety with humour and an immense ability to entertain.

Jane Austen wrote for pleasure from an early age. From 1787 she wrote a large number of short plays and adventure stories, usually dedicated to a member of the household. Despite her nephew's account of her as a shy young woman, they show youthful spirit, confidence and keen sense of humour; her brother remembered her as a natural comic. This juvenilia, full of self-confident and wayward young women, often based on her sister and herself, was collected in three copy-books given to her by her ever supportive father and inscribed by him: "Effusions of Fancy by a very Young Lady Consisting of Tales in a Style Entirely New". Jane was trying out various genres. From an early age she enjoyed parody and it would feature throughout her work, sharpened by her great capacity for irony and wit.

Jane Austen's writing was always related to the people and circumstances that surrounded her. In addition to her siblings and her father's pupils, the household was enlivened for a period by the presence of Jane's older, worldly and sophisticated cousin Eliza. Visiting with her mother, George Austen's sister, she was the recipient of a large legacy that had allowed her to live independently in Paris and London. Marriage into the French aristocracy had brought her into contact with court life in Paris and Versailles, and it is hard to exaggerate the effect her presence had on life at Steventon, opening up the possibility of personal and social transformation through marriage, something that would preoccupy Jane in her life and work. But Eliza's experience would bring darker realities home to the more remote existence of her cousins. Her husband had been imprisoned and was eventually guillotined during the Terror of the French Revolution, (she would later marry Jane's brother Henry). Although world events would not disrupt the harmonious structure of the small social circles of which Jane Austen writes, she was aware of the of the political climate her times.

In 1795, Jane wrote her novel Elinor and Marianne, an early version of Sense and Sensibility (1811). The following year she would begin First Impressions, the novel that would become Pride and Prejudice (1813). At the end of 1795 Jane met a young man called Tom Lefroy with whom she enjoyed dancing and flirting. Her letters to her sister Cassandra suggest that she loved Tom enough to harbour hopes of a lasting union. Jane's writing shows a profound understanding of the emotional life of her heroines, and their capacity for feeling may owe something to Jane's own experience of falling in love. If Jane hoped for a future with Tom, she was sadly disappointed. Without a legacy of her own to bring to the union, Tom was not in a position to marry her. Eventually he left to pursue his legal career and she never saw him again. Only one other man has been identified as a realistic love match for Jane, although he remains anonymous. The family story was that he was a clergyman she met while holidaying on the coast. They swiftly developed a close bond but then then lost touch, Jane discovering some time later that he was dead.

As attractive and clever young women of good family, marriage must have seemed a realistic prospect for both sisters. Cassandra did accept a proposal of marriage from Tom Fowle, her father's favorite pupil. In order to make enough money to be able to support a family, Tom travelled to the West Indies in search of his fortune but after failing to secure this, died of yellow fever on his return journey. Cassandra showed little interest in finding a husband after Tom's death. In 1802, Jane too came close to marriage with an engagement that lasted all of one night. While visiting friends at their grand house Manydown Park, she accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, a socially awkward young man six years her junior who stood to inherit the house and estate. It is testament to Jane's character that for all her financial and social instability, she was wise enough to realise that such a union would be unsatisfactory for her. She broke the engagement the following morning and to save embarrassment, returned to Bath that same day.

For all her capacity for love and affection, Jane's letters to her sister suggest a growing ambivalence and sometimes aversion towards the prospect of marriage and its attendant responsibilities of running a household and rearing children. She loved being an aunt, inventing stories and games for her nieces and nephews, and she was reluctant to be parted from her sister, the deepest attachment of her life. As their mother observed, they were "wedded to each other". Perhaps most importantly, as time wore on, she was harbouring an ambition to become a published writer with a wider readership than just her immediate family and social circle, and this could only be achieved through single minded determination.

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One of the most difficult events of Jane Austen's life was her father's decision to retire as rector and leave Steventon, passing on the position to his son James who would install his family in the rectory. James and his wife proceeded to sell its contents including a large portion of the library in which Jane had spend so many pleasurable and informative hours. She felt this loss deeply. To make matters worse, George Austen determined to move his family to lodgings in Bath, a town Jane disliked intensely. Their arrival there in May 1801 marked the beginning an unhappy and unsettled time for Jane, and it would be an unproductive one for her writing. Jane did manage sell her early novel Susan to a publisher for £10, although this satirical take on the popular gothic novel didn't appear in print until it was published posthumously as Northanger Abbey in 1818. In early 1805, George Austen died, a major blow to the family, and one that would have huge emotional and material implications for Jane, Cassandra and their mother.

Jane's brothers now supported the ladies financially by supplementing their small income. In 1806 they left Bath and with no permanent home, travelled between relatives, living for a time with Frank in Southampton. These difficult years came to an end when her wealthy brother Edward found a solution to this unsatisfactory situation in the form of an attractive house in the Hampshire village of Chawton, close to his own large house and estate. With their close friend Martha Lloyd, they settled into their new home in the summer of 1809, marking the beginning of more contented times, and the advent of Jane's career as a published writer.

By all accounts Jane was happy at Chawton, and this secure contentment allowed her to focus her energy on her writing. She established a working routine while her mother, sister and Martha took on most of the domestic responsibilities. James Edward Austen-Leigh describes her habit of writing in the parlour of the house, quickly concealing her papers when interrupted by visitors. Finally, she found success as a published author. Through the influence of her brother Henry, Sense and Sensibility was accepted by Thomas Egerton and published anonymously as 'by a Lady' in 1811. This was followed in 1813 by Pride and Prejudice, the novel that her father had tried and failed to get published many years before.

It was at Chawton that she wrote Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816) and Persuasion, published posthumously in 1818. Jane took an avid interest in her own business affairs, travelling on occasion to London to negotiate with her publisher directly. Although the success of her novels was relatively modest in her lifetime, her reputation was sufficiently high to lead the Prince Regent to invite her to dedicate a novel to him, which she did with Emma. She also won high praise from the most influential novelist of the age. Walter Scott, reviewing Emma for the Quarterly Review, wrote of her "exquisite touch which renders ordinary common-place things and characters interesting".

Not long after completing Persuasion, a novel notable for its moving portrayal of a steady, more mature love after the lost illusion of passionate youth, Jane's health began to fail. She was plagued by symptoms including back pain, nausea, muscle weakness and fatigue. Increased pigmentation in her skin gave it an uneven, blotchy appearance. Little was offered by way of remedy and for a time Jane could neither read nor write. Her health did rally enough for her to begin another novel. Sanditon, which remained unfinished, included a hypochondriac character's quest for health, but sadly Jane's own illness was very real. Her symptoms suggest she was suffering what is now know as Addison's Disease. In another blow to the family's fortunes at this time, Jane's brother Henry was declared bankrupt and faced the prospect of losing his home. Realising that she may not have much longer to live, Jane made a will, leaving Henry a small some of money, and nearly everything else to 'dearest Sister Cassandra' whom she named as her literary executer. Cassandra, ever protective of her sister's legacy, destroyed a great number of Jane's most personal letters after her death, thus leaving our understanding of her emotional life incomplete.

In May 1817, Jane's health was so bad that the family desperately sought the best specialist care possible, and she was sent to the county hospital at Winchester. Tragically, there was no cure for her condition. Although nearing the end of her life, her spirits could still rise, and she was able to write a comic poem celebrating St Swithin's day, On the evening of the 17 July, Cassandra asked Jane if there was anything she wanted. Quoting John Bunyan, she replied "nothing but death". She died early the following morning with Cassandra by her side and is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

The publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen (1869) initiated a cult of the author. Enthusiasm gathered pace throughout the twentieth-century with Virginia Woolf calling her "one of the most consistent satirists in the whole of literature". and influential critic F.R Leavis giving her a prominent place in his Great Tradition of 1948.

Although small in scope, Jane Austen's novels are rich in detail. She famously compared them to a "little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces so little effect after so much labour". This modesty belies the fact that she transformed the domestic comedy of middle class manners into an art form. In the restrictive climate of Regency England, each of her heroines forges her own path and finds fulfillment on her own terms. There is a depth of human understanding that encourages an intimate connection between reader and writer and which gives the novels a timeless appeal. In this, the 250th anniversary year of her birth, interest in Jane Austen's life and work is as keen as ever.

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