Her eldest brother James inherited a fortune and large estate from his great-aunt Perrot, with the only condition that he change his name to Leigh-Perrot. George and Cassandra exchanged miniatures in 1763 and probably were engaged around that time.
Two months after Cassandra's father died, they married on 26 April 1764 at St Swithin's Church in Bath, by licence, in a simple ceremony.
Cassandra gave birth to three children while living at Deane: James in 1765, George in 1766, and Edward in 1767.
Cassandra gave birth to three children while living at Deane: James in 1765, George in 1766, and Edward in 1767.
Cassandra gave birth to three children while living at Deane: James in 1765, George in 1766, and Edward in 1767.
Her custom was to keep an infant at home for several months and then place it with Elizabeth Littlewood, a woman living nearby to nurse and raise for twelve to eighteen months. ===Steventon=== In 1768, the family finally took up residence in Steventon.
Cassandra Austen spent the summer of 1770 in London with George's sister, Philadelphia, and her daughter Eliza, accompanied by his other sister, Mrs Walter and her daughter Philly.
Henry was the first child to be born there, in 1771.
In 1773, Cassandra was born, followed by Francis in 1774, and Jane in 1775. According to Honan, the atmosphere of the Austen home was an "open, amused, easy intellectual" one, where the ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered and discussed.
Never were sisters more to each other than Cassandra and Jane; while in a particularly affectionate family, there seems to have been a special link between Cassandra and Edward on the one hand, and between Henry and Jane on the other." From 1773 until 1796, George Austen supplemented his income by farming and by teaching three or four boys at a time, who boarded at his home.
In 1773, Cassandra was born, followed by Francis in 1774, and Jane in 1775. According to Honan, the atmosphere of the Austen home was an "open, amused, easy intellectual" one, where the ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered and discussed.
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century.
Austen scholar Jan Fergus explains that modern biographies tend to include details excised from the letters and family biographical materials, but that the challenge is to avoid the polarising view that Austen experienced periods of deep unhappiness and was "an embittered, disappointed woman trapped in a thoroughly unpleasant family". ==Life== ===Family=== Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on 16 December 1775.
In 1773, Cassandra was born, followed by Francis in 1774, and Jane in 1775. According to Honan, the atmosphere of the Austen home was an "open, amused, easy intellectual" one, where the ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered and discussed.
The winter of 1776 was particularly harsh and it was not until 5 April that she was baptised at the local church with the single name Jane. For much of Jane's life, her father, George Austen (1731–1805), served as the rector of the Anglican parishes at Steventon and at nearby Deane.
Her brother Henry later said that "Jane was fond of dancing, and excelled in it". ===Education=== In 1783, Austen and her sister Cassandra were sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs Ann Cawley who took them with her to Southampton when she moved there later in the year.
Austen was from then home educated, until she attended boarding school in Reading with her sister from early in 1785 at the Reading Abbey Girls' School, ruled by Mrs La Tournelle, who possessed a cork leg and a passion for theatre.
The sisters returned home before December 1786 because the school fees for the two girls were too high for the Austen family.
After 1786, Austen "never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment". The remainder of her education came from reading, guided by her father and brothers James and Henry.
Containing work written between 1787 and 1793, Austen compiled fair copies of twenty-nine early works into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the Juvenilia.
The Juvenilia are often, according to scholar Richard Jenkyns, "boisterous" and "anarchic"; he compares them to the work of 18th-century novelist Laurence Sterne. Among these works are a satirical novel in letters titled Love and Freindship , written at age fourteen in 1790, in which she mocked popular novels of sensibility.
When she was around eighteen years old, Austen began to write longer, more sophisticated works. In August 1792, aged seventeen, Austen started writing Catharine or the Bower, which presaged her mature work, especially Northanger Abbey; it was left unfinished and the story picked up in Lady Susan, which Todd describes as less prefiguring than Catharine.
Containing work written between 1787 and 1793, Austen compiled fair copies of twenty-nine early works into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the Juvenilia.
Eliza's French husband was guillotined in 1794; she married Jane's brother Henry Austen in 1797. ===Tom Lefroy=== When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a neighbour, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796.
Eliza's French husband was guillotined in 1794; she married Jane's brother Henry Austen in 1797. ===Tom Lefroy=== When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a neighbour, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796.
She was able to make some revisions to Susan, and she began and then abandoned a new novel, The Watsons, but there was nothing like the productivity of the years 1795–1799.
Never were sisters more to each other than Cassandra and Jane; while in a particularly affectionate family, there seems to have been a special link between Cassandra and Edward on the one hand, and between Henry and Jane on the other." From 1773 until 1796, George Austen supplemented his income by farming and by teaching three or four boys at a time, who boarded at his home.
Eliza's French husband was guillotined in 1794; she married Jane's brother Henry Austen in 1797. ===Tom Lefroy=== When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a neighbour, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796.
Her sister remembered that it was read to the family "before 1796" and was told through a series of letters.
Without surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the original draft survived in the novel published anonymously in 1811 as Sense and Sensibility. Austen began a second novel, First Impressions (later published as Pride and Prejudice), in 1796.
Eliza's French husband was guillotined in 1794; she married Jane's brother Henry Austen in 1797. ===Tom Lefroy=== When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a neighbour, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796.
She completed the initial draft in August 1797, aged 21; as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as she was working on it and it became an "established favourite".
In November 1797, George Austen wrote to Thomas Cadell, an established publisher in London, to ask if he would consider publishing First Impressions.
Following the completion of First Impressions, Austen returned to Elinor and Marianne and from November 1797 until mid-1798, revised it heavily; she eliminated the epistolary format in favour of third-person narration and produced something close to Sense and Sensibility.
In 1797, Austen met her cousin (and future sister-in-law), Eliza de Feuillide, a French aristocrat whose first husband the Comte de Feuillide had been guillotined, causing her to flee to Britain, where she married Henry Austen.
In November 1798, Lefroy was still on Austen's mind as she wrote to her sister she had tea with one of his relatives, wanted desperately to ask about him, but could not bring herself to raise the subject. ===Early manuscripts (1796–1798)=== After finishing Lady Susan, Austen began her first full-length novel Elinor and Marianne.
The description of the execution of the Comte de Feuillide related by his widow left Austen with an intense horror of the French Revolution that lasted for the rest of her life. During the middle of 1798, after finishing revisions of Elinor and Marianne, Austen began writing a third novel with the working title Susan—later Northanger Abbey—a satire on the popular Gothic novel.
A year later, she began, but abandoned a short play, later titled Sir Charles Grandison or the happy Man, a comedy in 6 acts, which she returned to and completed around 1800.
The manuscript remained in Crosby's hands, unpublished, until Austen repurchased the copyright from him in 1816. ===Bath and Southampton=== In December 1800 George Austen unexpectedly announced his decision to retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to 4, Sydney Place in Bath.
Life was quieter in Chawton than it had been since the family's move to Bath in 1800.
The Crosby & Company advertised Susan, but never published it. The years from 1801 to 1804 are something of a blank space for Austen scholars as Cassandra destroyed all of her letters from her sister in this period for unknown reasons.
In December 1802 Austen received her only known proposal of marriage.
In early 1803, Henry Austen offered Susan to Benjamin Crosby, a London publisher, who paid £10 for the copyright.
The Crosby & Company advertised Susan, but never published it. The years from 1801 to 1804 are something of a blank space for Austen scholars as Cassandra destroyed all of her letters from her sister in this period for unknown reasons.
A possible autobiographical element in Sense and Sensibility occurs when Elinor Dashwood contemplates that "the worse and most irremediable of all evils, a connection for life" with an unsuitable man. In 1804, while living in Bath, Austen started, but did not complete, her novel The Watsons.
Honan suggests, and Tomalin agrees, that Austen chose to stop work on the novel after her father died on 21 January 1805 and her personal circumstances resembled those of her characters too closely for her comfort. Her father's relatively sudden death left Jane, Cassandra, and their mother in a precarious financial situation.
They spent part of the time in rented quarters in Bath before leaving the city in June 1805 for a family visit to Steventon and Godmersham.
In 1806 the family moved to Southampton, where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife.
A large part of this time they spent visiting various branches of the family. On 5 April 1809, about three months before the family's move to Chawton, Austen wrote an angry letter to Richard Crosby, offering him a new manuscript of Susan if needed to secure the immediate publication of the novel, and requesting the return of the original so she could find another publisher.
She did not have the resources to buy the copyright back at that time, but was able to purchase it in 1816. ===Chawton=== Around early 1809 Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life—the use of a large cottage in Chawton village that was part of Edward's nearby estate, Chawton House.
Jane, Cassandra and their mother moved into Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809.
Without surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the original draft survived in the novel published anonymously in 1811 as Sense and Sensibility. Austen began a second novel, First Impressions (later published as Pride and Prejudice), in 1796.
Sense and Sensibility appeared in October 1811, and was described as being written "By a Lady".
Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1812–1870.
Egerton then published Pride and Prejudice, a revision of First Impressions, in January 1813.
By October 1813 Egerton was able to begin selling a second edition.
Irvine described Bigg-Wither as a somebody who "...seems to have been a man very hard to like, let alone love". In 1814, Austen wrote a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, who had asked for advice about a serious relationship, telling her that "having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around & entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him.
Mansfield Park was published by Egerton in May 1814.
"Criticism, 1814–1870".
In November 1815, the Prince Regent's librarian James Stanier Clarke invited Austen to visit the Prince's London residence and hinted Austen should dedicate the forthcoming Emma to the Prince.
Austen was greatly annoyed by Clarke's often pompous literary advice, and the Plan of A Novel parodying Clarke was intended as her revenge for all of the unwanted letters she had received from the royal librarian. In mid-1815 Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher, who published Emma in December 1815 and a second edition of Mansfield Park in February 1816.
The manuscript remained in Crosby's hands, unpublished, until Austen repurchased the copyright from him in 1816. ===Bath and Southampton=== In December 1800 George Austen unexpectedly announced his decision to retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to 4, Sydney Place in Bath.
She did not have the resources to buy the copyright back at that time, but was able to purchase it in 1816. ===Chawton=== Around early 1809 Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life—the use of a large cottage in Chawton village that was part of Edward's nearby estate, Chawton House.
Austen was greatly annoyed by Clarke's often pompous literary advice, and the Plan of A Novel parodying Clarke was intended as her revenge for all of the unwanted letters she had received from the royal librarian. In mid-1815 Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher, who published Emma in December 1815 and a second edition of Mansfield Park in February 1816.
She completed her first draft in July 1816.
Henry Austen's bank failed in March 1816, depriving him of all of his assets, leaving him deeply in debt and costing Edward, James, and Frank Austen large sums.
Henry and Frank could no longer afford the contributions they had made to support their mother and sisters. ===Illness and death=== Austen was feeling unwell by early 1816, but ignored the warning signs.
Dissatisfied with the ending of The Elliots, she rewrote the final two chapters, which she finished on 6 August 1816.
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century.
In January 1817, Austen began The Brothers (titled Sanditon when published in 1925), and completed twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably due to illness.
She put down her pen on 18 March 1817, making a note of it. Austen made light of her condition, describing it as "bile" and rheumatism.
Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817 at the age of 41.
The epitaph composed by her brother James praises Austen's personal qualities, expresses hope for her salvation and mentions the "extraordinary endowments of her mind", but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer. ==Posthumous publication== In the months after Austen's death in July 1817, Cassandra, Henry Austen and Murray arranged for the publication of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey as a set.
Henry Austen contributed a Biographical Note dated December 1817, which for the first time identified his sister as the author of the novels.
London: John Murray, 1817. Austen-Leigh, James Edward.
She wrote two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began another, eventually titled Sanditon, but died before its completion.
The heirs of Jane's brother, Admiral Francis Austen, destroyed more letters; details were excised from the "Biographical Notice" her brother wrote in 1818; and family details continued to be omitted or embellished in her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen, published in 1869, and in William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh's biography Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters, published in 1913.
Sales were good for a year—only 321 copies remained unsold at the end of 1818. Although Austen's six novels were out of print in England in the 1820s, they were still being read through copies housed in private libraries and circulating libraries.
Sales were good for a year—only 321 copies remained unsold at the end of 1818. Although Austen's six novels were out of print in England in the 1820s, they were still being read through copies housed in private libraries and circulating libraries.
The first of the Austen novels to be published that credited her as the author was in France, when Persuasion was published in 1821 as La Famille Elliot ou L'Ancienne Inclination. Austen learned that the Prince Regent admired her novels and kept a set at each of his residences.
The other important early review was attributed to Richard Whately in 1821.
The first piece of what we might now call fan fiction (or real person fiction) using her as a character appeared in 1823 in a letter to the editor in The Lady's Magazine.
Her novels were republished in Britain from the 1830s and sold steadily, but they were not best-sellers. The first French critic who paid notice to Austen was Philarète Chasles in an 1842 essay, dismissing her in two sentences as a boring, imitative writer with no substance.
"Critical Responess, 1830–1970", Jane Austen in Context.
It refers to Austen's genius and suggests that aspiring authors were envious of her powers. In 1832 Richard Bentley purchased the remaining copyrights to all of her novels, and over the following winter published five illustrated volumes as part of his Standard Novels series.
Her six full-length novels have rarely been out of print, although they were published anonymously and brought her moderate success and little fame during her lifetime. 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.
In October 1833, Bentley released the first collected edition of her works.
Philosopher and literary critic George Henry Lewes published a series of enthusiastic articles in the 1840s and 1850s.
Her novels were republished in Britain from the 1830s and sold steadily, but they were not best-sellers. The first French critic who paid notice to Austen was Philarète Chasles in an 1842 essay, dismissing her in two sentences as a boring, imitative writer with no substance.
Many of the letters were written to Austen's older sister Cassandra, who in 1843 burned the greater part of them and cut pieces out of those she kept.
Philosopher and literary critic George Henry Lewes published a series of enthusiastic articles in the 1840s and 1850s.
In 1869, fifty-two years after her death, her nephew's publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced a compelling version of her writing career and supposedly uneventful life to an eager audience. Austen has inspired many critical essays and literary anthologies.
The heirs of Jane's brother, Admiral Francis Austen, destroyed more letters; details were excised from the "Biographical Notice" her brother wrote in 1818; and family details continued to be omitted or embellished in her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen, published in 1869, and in William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh's biography Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters, published in 1913.
Later in the century, novelist Henry James referred to Austen several times with approval, and on one occasion ranked her with Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Henry Fielding as among "the fine painters of life". The publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 introduced Austen to a wider public as "dear aunt Jane", the respectable maiden aunt.
"Criticism, 1870–1940".
Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1870–1940.
Austen was almost completely ignored in France until 1878, when the French critic Léon Boucher published the essay Le Roman Classique en Angleterre, in which he called Austen a "genius", the first French author to do so.
Author and critic Leslie Stephen described the popular mania that started to develop for Austen in the 1880s as "Austenolatry".
Publication of the Memoir spurred the reissue of Austen's novels—the first popular editions were released in 1883 and fancy illustrated editions and collectors' sets quickly followed.
The first dissertation on Austen was published in 1883, by George Pellew, a student at Harvard University.
The first dramatic adaptation of Austen was published in 1895, Rosina Filippi's Duologues and Scenes from the Novels of Jane Austen: Arranged and Adapted for Drawing-Room Performance, and Filippi was also responsible for the first professional stage adaptation, The Bennets (1901).
The first accurate translation of Austen into French occurred in 1899 when Félix Fénéon translated Northanger Abbey as Catherine Moreland. In Britain, Austen gradually grew in the estimation of the literati.
Another early academic analysis came from a 1911 essay by Oxford Shakespearean scholar A.
The heirs of Jane's brother, Admiral Francis Austen, destroyed more letters; details were excised from the "Biographical Notice" her brother wrote in 1818; and family details continued to be omitted or embellished in her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen, published in 1869, and in William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh's biography Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters, published in 1913.
London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1913. Bayley, John.
In January 1817, Austen began The Brothers (titled Sanditon when published in 1925), and completed twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably due to illness.
The Chapman text has remained the basis for all subsequent published editions of Austen's works. With the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles' Jane Austen and Her Art, the academic study of Austen took hold.
Her novels have inspired many films, from 1940's Pride and Prejudice to more recent productions like Sense and Sensibility (1995), Emma (1996), Mansfield Park (1999), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Love & Friendship (2016), and Emma (2020). ==Biographical sources== There is little biographical information about Jane Austen's life except the few letters that survived and the biographical notes her family members wrote.
The first film adaptation was the 1940 MGM production of Pride and Prejudice starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson.
In 1994, literary critic Harold Bloom placed Austen among the greatest Western writers of all time. In the People's Republic of China after 1949, the authorities only allowed Western translations representing the West in a negative light, and Austen was regarded as too frivolous.
London: Chatto & Windus, 1960. Le Faye, Deirdre, ed.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963. Honan, Park.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963. Watt, Ian, ed.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963. Wiltshire, John.
The majority of biographers rely on Zachary Cope's 1964 retrospective diagnosis and list her cause of death as Addison's disease, although her final illness has also been described as resulting from Hodgkin's lymphoma.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. Litz, A.
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966–69, Austen was banned as a "British bourgeois imperialist".
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966 [1939]. Leavis, F.R.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967. Austen-Leigh, William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968.
In the late 1970s, when Austen was finally published in China, her popularity with readers confounded the authorities who had trouble understanding that people generally read books for enjoyment, not political edification. In a typical modern debate, the conservative American professor Gene Koppel, to the indignation of his liberal literature students, mentioned that Austen and her family were "Tories of the deepest dye", i.e.
BBC television dramatisations since the 1970s have attempted to adhere meticulously to Austen's plots, characterisations and settings.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1972.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984 [1979].
New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986.
New York: Macmillan, 1986.
Martin's Press, 1987.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
In 1994, literary critic Harold Bloom placed Austen among the greatest Western writers of all time. In the People's Republic of China after 1949, the authorities only allowed Western translations representing the West in a negative light, and Austen was regarded as too frivolous.
London: The Hambledon Press, 1994.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
From the 19th century, her family members published conclusions to her incomplete novels, and by 2000 there were over 100 printed adaptations.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001 .
London and New York: Continuum, 2002.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
London: Routledge, 2005.
Icon Books, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.
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