II.

Life

Austen was born near Basingstoke, in the parish of Steventon, of which her father was rector. Jane was the youngest of seven children. The family was cultivated and prosperous, although not rich. Austen's great uncle was the Master of Balliol College, Oxford University, and her father, himself an accomplished scholar, taught her at home and encouraged her reading and her writing. She and her sister were sent briefly to the Abbey School in Reading. Austen acquired the standard accomplishments of young ladies of her class and time: she learnt French and Italian, could draw and sing well, and embroidered; she is recorded as having been “especially great in satin-stitch”. Less conventionally, she read widely and particularly enjoyed the novels of Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Samuel Richardson, and Fanny Burney, and the poetry of George Crabbe and William Cowper. In the summer, she would take part in private theatricals in a barn near the family home.

Her family was a lively and happy one. Of her five brothers, two became admirals and two clergymen, and another inherited the property and took the name of a second cousin, Mr Knight. Austen's only sister, Cassandra, died unmarried in her 70s in 1845. It was to Cassandra that Austen wrote many of her letters when one of them had made an occasional visit to an uncle at Bath, or to London, to visit one of their brothers. Cassandra drastically edited these letters after Jane's death, taking out all mentions of romantic interests or personal problems. It is known, however, that Austen had several suitors and once accepted a proposal of marriage, only to reconsider and reject it the following morning. It is also thought that she met a gentleman at Lyme with whom she developed a close relationship, and that they might have become engaged, but he died very suddenly. Like her sister, Austen died unmarried.

Austen was described by a contemporary as “a clear brunette with a rich colour, hazel eyes, fine features, and curling brown hair”. Henry Austen, in the Biographical Notice that was published posthumously with Persuasion (1818), remarked: “Of personal attractions she possessed a considerable share. Her stature was that of true elegance”. She was fond of children, and they of her, and some of her most engaging letters were written to her nephews and nieces.

Austen started writing fiction very young; Love and Friendship was written when she was only 14 years old, A History of England (“by a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant historian”) when she was 15, and A Collection of Letters and Lesley Castle around the age of 16. Lady Susan is also an early work. In her early 20s she wrote the sketches Elinor and Marianne, and First Impressions. Her father offered First Impressions to a publisher in 1797 who rejected it by return of post, without reading it. Undeterred, Jane Austen rewrote Elinor and Marianne in 1797-1798, and renamed it Sense and Sensibility. Northanger Abbey was written immediately afterwards, in 1798-1799.

After this flurry of literary activity, there seems to have been a pause. Until she was 25 Jane lived at Steventon, but in 1801 the family moved to Bath. In 1803, Northanger Abbey was sold to the publishers Crosby and Sons for £10 but they did not publish it. Later, the firm was happy to sell the manuscript back to her brothers for £10, unaware that it was the work of the famous Jane Austen. Jane spent some weeks at Lyme in 1804, and it is thought that she began The Watsons the same year, although it was never finished, and she probably abandoned it upon her father's death in 1805. The remaining family members moved to Southampton and then in 1809 they moved again to a cottage in Chawton, in Hampshire, on the property of her brother, Mr Knight. The death of her father and the relocation of the family may account for the lack of literary output during these years. In 1809, Jane revised Sense and Sensibility once again, and at around the same time First Impressions was reworked and renamed Pride and Prejudice. Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811, and Pride and Prejudice in 1813.

In 1811, at Chawton, Austen began a second period of intense productivity. She wrote her novels sitting in the busy family parlour. She embarked first upon Mansfield Park (1814), then Emma (1816); Persuasion, her last finished novel, was published posthumously in 1818, with Northanger Abbey. She started another novel, Sanditon, in 1817, but was never to finish it.

Austen's work was immediately well received, and in 1815, Sir Walter Scott praised it highly in the Quarterly Review; this would have been gratifying to Austen, since she was a great admirer of Scott's Waverley novels. The Prince Regent kept a set of her works in each of his residences, and in 1815, when Austen was in London nursing her brother through an illness, the Prince Regent sent his chaplain, Mr Clarke, to show her Carlton House, and also requested that she dedicate her next novel to him. Despite her strong disapproval of his moral character, she dutifully and “most respectfully” dedicated Emma to the Prince. Her work was also admired by the poets Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Although her novels were published anonymously, their authorship was an open secret to her family and friends. At her death, the four of her novels which had been published had already made more than £700, a reasonably large sum at that time, although she never became rich as a result of her writing.

From 1816 onward, Austen's health had not been good, and in May 1817 she moved from Chawton to Winchester so that she could be closer to Mr Lyford, a well-known doctor. Her health declined badly, and she was nursed by her sister Cassandra, and attended upon by two of her brothers who were clergymen in the area. It has since been suggested that she died of what is now known as Addison's disease, and it is recorded by her family that she suffered the pain and physical decline with great courage and cheerfulness. She died quietly on July 18, 1817 and was buried in Winchester Cathedral.