Jane Austen (December 16, 1775 - July 28, 1817) is a prominent British novelist, whose work is considered part of the Western canon. She stands as a model of the writer whose apparently sheltered life did nothing to reduce the stature and drama of her fiction.
She was born at the rectory in Steventon, Hampshire, her father being a clergyman, and lived for most of her life in the area. She had six brothers, and an elder sister, Cassandra, to whom she was very close. The only known portrait of Jane Austen is a coloured sketch done by Cassandra which now resides in the National Gallery in London. Her brothers, Frank and Charles went to sea, eventually becoming admirals. After the death of her father, Jane, her sister and her mother moved to Chawton, where her brother had an estate with a cottage on it that he turned over to his mother and sisters' use. (Their house today is open to the public.) Jane never married; she was once engaged to a much younger man, Harris Bigg-Wither, but changed her mind. Having established herself as a novelist, she continued to live in relative seclusion, and began to suffer ill-health. It is now thought she may have suffered from Addison's Disease, the cause of which was then unknown. She travelled to Winchester to seek a cure, but died there and is buried in the cathedral.
While her first novel, the posthumously published Northanger Abbey, pokes fun at the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe, Austen is most famous for her later works, which took the form of socially conscious comedies of errors. These, especially Emma, are often cited for their perfection of form, while modern critics continue to unearth new perspectives on Austen's keen commentary on the predicament of young, unmarried, upper-class English women in the early 1800s.
The order in which she began and completed her novels is different from that of publication. Her novels were fairly well received when they were published, with Sir Walter Scott, in particular, praising her work. Her reputation has only increased since, and she is now considered one of the greatest English novelists. Austen's chief gift was to be a close observer of human society and social interaction. It should be noted, however, that almost every scene in her novels features women, purportedly because she did not know how men spoke without the presence of women. Some contemporary readers may find the world she describes, whose chief concern is for socially prominent marriages, to be unliberated and disquieting; however one should bear in mind that a "good marriage" was the only available form of social security other than the Poorhouse.
Her novels:
- Sense and Sensibility (1811)
- Pride and Prejudice (1813)
- Mansfield Park (1814)
- Emma (1816)
- Persuasion (1817) posthumous
- Northanger Abbey (1817) posthumous
- Lady Susan
- The Watsons (incomplete)
- Sanditon (incomplete novel)
