This Month's Essay: Jane Austen Short Biography
Jane Austen was an author born on December 16, 1775 in Georgian era England, known for social conflict romance novels including Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. She was the seventh child and second daughter of Cassandra and George Austen, who were well-respected and active in the community. Her father was an Oxford-educated rector for an Anglican parish. She had a close family whose children grew up in a creativity and learning encouraging environment, well-versed in reading from their father's library, writing, and putting on plays. Jane was closest to her father and older sister, Cassandra, who even collaborated with her on a published work.
Jane and Cassandra were sent to boarding schools for education, but caught typhus and home because of financial problems and lived at home from then on. Jane wrote her first stories in bound notebooks during the 1790s, as a series of fictional love letters called Love and Friendship and a parody called The History of England illustrated by Cassandra. These were written amongst many poems, plays, and short stories now called “Jane's Juvenilia.” As a young adult, Jane helped run her household, played piano, attended church, attended many social events, and became an accomplished dancer. She continued to develop her ambitious writing style in “Elinor and Marianne,” another story told as a series of letters, later published as Sense and Sensibility, “First Impressions,” later published as Pride and Prejudice, and “Susan” later published as Northanger Abbey.
In 1805, her father died of illness while Jane was living with her parents and Cassandra in Bath. This dragged the family into poverty and the three women moved between the homes of family members settled at Jane's brother Edward's cottage in 1809. From 1811 to 1816, Jane began publishing her works under various pseudonyms; including Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice (her highest achievement, which she called her "darling child") until she became ill with Addison's disease at age 41.
She tried desperately to continue writing “The Brothers,” later published as Sanditon and editing older works, but her condition became so poor she could no longer write and she died on July 18, 1817 in Winchester. Many of her novels were published by her brother, Henry, after her death. He also revealed her works that were under pseudonyms, which had sold well and had a lot of attention. Her reputation transformed from little-known to internationally renowned in the 1920s, when scholars recognized the quality of her masterpieces. Jane Austen’s work is considered classic English literature and many films are based on her novels.