Jan e A ust en

An Introduction
to the person
and the period
Ja ne Aus ten (1 775-1 817)
Born December 16, 1775
Steventon, Hampshire (sw England)
Seventh child of eight of Rev. George
Austen & Cassandra née Leigh
sister: Cassandra
brothers: James, George,
Edward, Frank, Henry*, &
Charles

Steventon Church

Steventon Parsonage
Early Education

-1773: Jane and Cassandra were sent to Oxford for educating by Mrs.
Ann Cawley and later moved with her to Southampton.
-Illness brought them back home where they were educated until they
both left for boarding school in 1785.
-French, spelling, needlework, dancing, music and perhaps drama.
-This ended in 1786 when it became too expensive; the large remainder
of Jane’s education came from books. Jane, like many women of the age
became dependent on her father for her education, and he was obliging.

A Woman’s Education = the acquisition of

accomplishments

The Goal of woman’s education = to attract a

husband
 Ea rl y Adulthood & Work
- Juvenilia: written between 1787 & 1793

-Lived at home with her parents and attended to the usual work of her age and
status; wrote, attended church, socialized, and read novels
-1793-1795: Lady Susan-- short epistolary novel; unlike her other work

-appx 1796: first attempt at a novel: Elinor and Marianne;

became Sense and Sensibility (1811)

- 1797: work begins on a second novel, First

Impressions; became Pride and Prejudice (1814)

- 1800: family moves to Bath; Austen writes little

but revises much
 At Bath & Southampton
-Austen begins a new novel but ultimately abandons it
-Novel is described as “a study in the harsh economic realities of
dependent women’s lives”
-January 1805: Rev. Austen dies, leaving Jane, Cassandra and Mrs.
Austen in a precarious position

Austen home at
Chawton
Wom en an d Mon ey an d I nheritan ce
an d Ma rriage

-divorce is impossible
-What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine or my son’s
-You can’t get married if you don’t have money and you can’t have
money if you don’t get married
-At death do you part from my land
-To the eldest son goes everything

“People that marry can never part, but

must go and keep house together.”
Northanger Abbey
A Published Author
At Chawton, Austen published four novels, which were
well received
October 1811 Sense and Sensibility
January 1813 Pride and Prejudice
May 1814 Mansfield Park
December 1815 Emma

-All were well received at

publication, and these were the only
novels published in her lifetime
-She received little personal
renown because all were published
anonymously
 Posthumous Publication
-Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were
published through the arrangements of Cassandra
and Henry after Austen’s death in 1817
-She died of a debilitating illness described as
either Addison’s Disease or Hodgkin’s lymphoma

-Jane Austen does not “fit” into traditional

categories of literature of the time: she does not
conform to the exact time or expectations of the
Romantic or Victorian periods and therefore sits in
a category of her own.
-Nonetheless, her work was admired at the time
and by numerous contemporaries and writers who
would follow her: Henry James, George Eliot, the
Brontes
-Formal books of criticism did not appear until the
late 19th century