What’s So Great About Jane?

In the pantheon of great authors through history a few names instantly spring to mind. William Shakespeare, obviously. Charles Dickens seems inarguable. Perhaps you’re in the Mark Twain, George Orwell or Franz Kafka camps? But one of the few women whose place is cemented in such lists is Jane Austen. An author in the Georgian era, she is a colossus of her time who stands well above even some of the authors already mentioned in terms of popularity and cultural significance, not to mention the purely economic measure of alone has sold in excess of 20 million copies worldwide, which places it alongside and in terms of reach. But where has Austen’s longevity come from and to what extent is her writing reflective of the times she lived in? These were the questions we hoped to find answers to, but first some background on who she really was.