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AUSTEN, JANE (1775-1817)

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 937 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AUSTEN, JANE (1775-1817) , See also:English novelist, was See also:born on the 16th of See also:December 1775 at the parsonage of Steventon, in See also:Hampshire, a See also:village of which her See also:father, the Rev. See also:George Austen, was See also:rector. She was the youngest of seven See also:children. Her See also:mother was See also:Cassandra See also:Leigh, niece of See also:Theophilus Leigh, a dry humorist, and for fifty years See also:master of Balliol, See also:Oxford. The See also:life of no woman of See also:genius could have been more uneventful than See also:Miss Austen's. She did not marry, and she never See also:left See also:home except on See also:short visits, chiefly to See also:Bath. Her first sixteen years were spent in the rectory at Steventon, where she began See also:early to trifle with her See also:pen, always jestingly, for See also:family entertainment. In 18o1 the Austens moved to Bath, where Mr Austen died in -8os, leaving only Mrs Austen, Jane and her See also:sister Cassandra, to whom she was always deeply attached, to keep up the home his sons were out in the See also:world, the two in the See also:navy, See also:Francis See also:William and See also:Charles, subsequently rising to See also:admiral's See also:rank. In 18o5 the Austen ladies moved to See also:Southampton, and in 1809 to Chawton, near See also:Alton, in Hampshire, and there Jane Austen remained till 1817, the See also:year of her See also:death, which occurred at See also:Winchester, on See also:July 18th, as a memorial window in the See also:cathedral testifies. During her placid life Miss Austen never allowed her literarywork to interfere with her domestic duties : sewing much and admirably, keeping See also:house, See also:writing many letters and See also:reading aloud. Though, however, her days were quiet and her See also:area circumscribed, she saw enough of See also:middle-class provincial society to find a basis on which her dramatic and humorous faculties might build, and such was her See also:power of searching observation and her sympathetic See also:imagination that there are-not in English fiction more faithful representations of the life she knew than we possess in her novels. She had no predecessors in this genre.

Miss Austen's " little See also:

bit (two inches wide) of See also:ivory " on which she worked " with so See also:fine a See also:brush "—her own phrases—was her own invention. Her best-known, if not her best See also:work, See also:Pride and See also:Prejudice, was also her first. It was written between See also:October 1796 and See also:August 1797, although, such was the See also:blindness of publishers, not issued until 1813, two years after Sense and Sensibility, which was written, on an old scenario called " Eleanor and Marianne," in 1797 and 1798. Miss Austen's inability to find a publisher for these stories, and for Northanger See also:Abbey, written in 1798 (although it is true that she sold that MS. in 1803 for fro to a Bath bookseller, only, however, to see it locked away in a safe for some years, to be gladly resold to her later), seems to have damped her ardour ; for there is no See also:evidence that between 1798 and 18og she wrote anything but the fragment called " The Watsons," after which year she began to revise her early work for the See also:press. Her other three books belong to a later date—Mansfield See also:Park, Emma and Persuasion being written between 1811 and 1816. The years of publication were Sense and Sensibility, 1811 ; Pride and Prejudice, 1813 ; Mans-See also:field Park, 1814 ; and Emma, 1816—all in their author's lifetime. Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818. All were See also:anonymous, agreeably to their author's retiring disposition. Although Pride and Prejudice is the novel which in the mind of the public is most intimately associated with Miss Austen's name, both See also:Mansfield Park and Emma are finer achievements—at once riper and richer and more elaborate. But the fact that Pride and Prejudice is more single-minded, that the love See also:story of See also:Elizabeth Bennet and D'Arcy is not only of the See also:book but is the book (whereas the love story of Emma and Mr Knightley and Fanny See also:Price and See also:Edmund See also:Bertram have parallel streams), has given Pride and Prejudice its popularity above the others among readers who are more interested by the course of See also:romance than by the exposition of See also:character. Entirely satisfactory as is Pride and Prejudice so far as it goes, it is, however, thin beside the niceness of See also:analysis of motives in Emma and the wonderful management of two housefuls of See also:young lovers that is exhibited in Mansfield Park. It has been generally agreed by the best critics that Miss Austen has never been approached in her own domain.

No one indeed has attempted any See also:

close rivalry. No other novelist has so concerned herself or himself with the trivial daily See also:comedy of small provincial family life, disdaining equally the assistance offered by See also:passion, See also:crime and See also:religion. Whatever Miss Austen may have thought privately of these favourite ingredients of fiction, she disregarded all alike when she took her pen in See also:hand. Her See also:interest was in life's little perplexities of emotion and See also:con-duct; her gaze was steadily ironical. The most untoward event in any of her books is Louisa's fall from the See also:Cobb at Lyme Regis, in Persuasion ; the most abandoned, Maria's elopement with See also:Crawford, in Mansfield Park. In pure ironical See also:humour Miss Austen's only peer among novelists is George See also:Meredith, and indeed Emma may be said to be her Egoist, or the Egoist his Emma. But See also:irony and fidelity to the fact alone would not have carried her down the ages. To these gifts she allied a perfect sense of dramatic progression and an admirably lucid and flowing See also:prose See also:style which makes her stories the easiest reading. Recognition came to Miss Austen slowly. It was not until quite See also:recent times that to read her became a See also:necessity of culture. But she is now firmly established as an English classic, See also:standing far above Miss See also:Burney (Madame d'Arblay) and Miss See also:Edgeworth, who in her See also:day were the popular See also:women novelists of real life, while Mrs See also:Radcliffe and " See also:Monk " See also:Lewis, whose supernatural fancies` Northanger Abbey was written in See also:part to ridicule, are no longer anything but names. Although, however, she has become only lately a See also:household word, Miss Austen had always her panegyrists among the best intellects—such as See also:Coleridge, See also:Tennyson, See also:Macaulay, See also:Scott, See also:Sydney See also:Smith, Disraeli and See also:Archbishop See also:Whately, the last of whom may be said to have been her discoverer.

Macaulay, whose See also:

adoration of Miss Austen's genius was almost idolatrous, considered Mansfield Park her greatest feat; but many critics give the See also:palm to Emma. Disraeli read Pride and Prejudice seventeen times. Scott's testimony is often quoted: " That young See also:lady had a See also:talent for describing the involvements, feelings and characters of See also:ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with. The big See also:bow-wow I can do myself like any one going; but the exquisite See also:touch which renders See also:commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me." Many monographs on Miss Austen have been written, in addition to the authorized Life by her See also:nephew J. E. Austen Leigh in 187o, and the collection of her Letters edited by See also:Lord Brabourne in 1884. The See also:chief books on her and around her are Jane Austen, by S. F. See also:Malden (1889) ; Jane Austen, by Goldwin Smith (189o) ; Jane Austen: Her Contemporaries and Herself, by W. H. See also:Pollock; Jane Austen: Her Homes and Her See also:Friends, by See also:Constance See also:Hill (19oz) ; Jane Austen and Her Times, by G. E.

Mitton (19o5); Jane Austen's Sailor See also:

Brothers, by J. H. and E. C. Hubback (1906) ; and the See also:essay on her in Lady See also:Richmond (See also:Thackeray) See also:Ritchie's Book of Sibyls (1883). (E. V.

End of Article: AUSTEN, JANE (1775-1817)

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