Jane Austen (1775-1817)

image copiryght: ©http://www.openwold.co.uk/austen

BIOGRAPY

AUSTEN, JANE (December 16, 1775-July 18, 1817), novelist, was born at Steventon, Hampshire,

It was a lively, cheerful family, given to novel-reading and charades. Mr. Austen's children took part in the
theatrical entertainments which were given before his pupils went home on vacation. In the eighteenth century
a parson's family was not limited in its enjoyment of whatever worldly diversions were available, but roads were
bad and social gatherings few enough so that on the whole country life was quiet at best. Jane had plenty
of time to wield her pen for her own amusement. Copy-books from her fourteenth year, containing sketches
and stories which precociously shadow forth the splendid vein of irony she was later to develop, are most
remarkable in the sure critical sense which they display. The youthful essays of genius are commonly slavish
imitations of current favorites. Jane Austen recognized and pilloried the faults of the popular novel before she
was fifteen. Love and Friendship is the most brilliant of the juvenilia.

    Between 1795 and 1798 she had completed three novels. A London publisher, Cadell by name, has achieved
a certain immortality by his refusal of First Impressions. It was ultimately called Pride and Prejudice. Too much
stress has perhaps been laid upon the placidity of Jane Austen's life and the fact that she could not have
worked in any other genre than the one she created. It cannot be said, however, that the stirring events of her
period did not touch her. Two of her brothers were naval officers who saw active service, and living with the
family from Jane's tenth year was her cousin, the Comtesse de Feuillade, whose husband was guillotined
in 1794. But it is true that Miss Austen never trifled with situations outside her own experience. She advises
her niece, who is writing a novel, "Let the Portmans go to Ireland, but, as you know nothing of the manners
there, you had better not go with them." There was one element in Miss Austen's life which might have been
grist to another writer. This was her second brother George, "mental invalid," who lived over sixty years. He is
usually not mentioned in biographies of the novelist, but his existence may have contributed to her impatience
with the vogue for treating insanity as an ingredient of romance, and it certainly added to the financial burdens
of the family.

    Jane Austen was never a bluestocking. In her youth at Steventon she is described as having been something
of a flirt. She was tall, slender, and graceful, "a clear brunette with a rich color, hazel eyes, fine features and
curling brown hair" whom no one outside her immediate family suspected of having literary ambitions. The only
authentic portrait of her, from the pencil of Cassandra, while of rather indifferent composition shows a primly
elfin face with a small, determined mouth that is quite appealing. She dearly loved a ball and was as impatient
of poor dancing as she was of poor sense. She did exquisite needlework and had other practical domestic
virtues. "I always take care to provide such things as please my own appetite, which I consider as the chief
merit in housekeeping."

    The years after 1798 seem to have been particularly quiet and contented ones. Mr. Austen gave up his school
and the parsonage expanded enough to allow the devoted sisters a sitting-room of their own. Here were Jane's
piano and writing materials and Cassandra's drawing implements. This felicity, however, did not long endure.
In 1801 Mr. Austen made the Steventon living over to his eldest son James, and prepared to settle with his
wife and daughters at Bath. It may have been because these daughters were unmarried that the elderly retired
clergyman elected to spend his declining years in this populous and expensive watering-place. Jane was
twenty-six at the time, Cassandra, twenty-nine, and both doomed to spinsterhood unless something immediate
was accomplished. Jane had had several romantic attachments while at Steventon, but nothing serious had
ever developed. Cassandra had been engaged to marry a former pupil of her father's, Thomas Craven Fowle.
He went out to the West Indies as chaplain to his cousin Lord Craven's regiment and died there of yellow fever.
During the summer of 1801 the Austens toured South Devon and Jane is reported to have met and fallen in
love with a clergyman named Blackall. The attraction was mutual, but before it reached a formal engagement
the gentleman died. This tragedy not only prevented Jane's acceptance of another unnamed eligible who
offered himself the following year but caused a break in her literary productivity. Told many years after Jane's
death by Cassandra, this touching story suffices well enough for those of the author's admirers who insist upon
a serious love affair for their darling, but it bears a strange resemblance to the account of Cassandra's own
broken heart.

    It was in 1802 that Jane had the felicity of selling her first manuscript. Susan, posthumously published as
Northanger Abbey, was sold to Crosbie of London for L 10. The Gothic novel which it parodied was still too
popular for Miss Austen's treatment of it to be appreciated and Crosbie failed to publish. The Watsons was
begun about this time, dropped, and never finished.

    Mr. Austen's death in 1805 left his wife and daughters with an income of only L 210 a year between them.
This was raised by the brothers to L 450, a sum barely adequate in a day when living costs were high, and
considering that Mrs. Austen's brother and one of her sons were extremely wealthy. Jane had no need to draw
upon imagination for her portrayals of rich relatives and their attitude toward less fortunate kinsfolk. Further to
economize it was decided that the ladies should go to live in the recently established household of Francis
Austen at Southampton. It cannot have been a comfortable situation for any one concerned. Francis Austen,
himself barely a year older than Jane, was called to sea, leaving his young wife to anticipate an infant in
company with newly acquired female relatives whose ages ranged from thirty to seventy.

    Happily for Jane the arrangement did not last many years. In 1808 the wealthy brother Edward lost his wife and
by reason of this bereavement had his attention turned toward his own family. He offered them then the use of a
house on his estate at Chawton near Alton. Here after eight unsettled years Jane could compose her mind to
write. Revising Elinor and Marianne, she sold it as Sense and Sensibility. Published in 1811, it was an
immediate success. Encouraged by this and the further popularity of Pride and Prejudice, she wrote, almost
as if she knew her time was short, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion in rapid succession. Domestic
pursuits and the entertainment of her multitude of nephews and nieces occupied her. She used the common
sitting-room as her work place, making as her sole stipulation that the squeak should not be taken out of the
swinging door because it gave her warning in time to conceal her manuscript.

    In 1815, while Jane was in London correcting proof on Emma, Henry Austen whom she was visiting there fell
dangerously ill. This was Jane's fourth and her favorite brother. His wife, the aforementioned Eliza de Feuillade,
was dead and it was Jane who nursed him back to health.

    In 1816 Henry Austen bought back Northanger Abbey for L 10, the amount originally paid Jane in 1802. She
had written Crosbie in 1809, urging him to publish the book, and his only reply had been a threat to sue if the
manuscript was offered elsewhere. It must have been with considerable satisfaction that Henry concluded
the interview by informing the publisher that the manuscript he had just relinquished was by the author of Pride
and Prejudice!

    Now at the fullness of her powers Jane's health began to decline. Cassandra took her to Winchester to be
under the care of a doctor friend of the family, but her ailment was never properly diagnosed. Some sprightly
verses, written a day or two before her death, show that her sense of humor never failed. She died in her
sister's arms and was buried in Winchester Cathedral.

    Generations of readers have marveled at the modernity of her work. Excepting an occasional quaintness
of phraseology, the savor of Jane Austen's novels is as vivid today as it was when they were new. Regiments
of critics have idolized her. Macaulay places her "among the writers who have approached nearest to the
manner of the great Master" {Shakespeare}. Her creations have come alive for others than Macaulay.

    Tennyson, on a visit to Lyme Regis, scorned its historical associations, saying "Don't talk to me of the Duke
of Monmouth. Show me the exact spot where Louisa Musgrove fell!" Professor Saintsbury said that "not even
Scott's or Thackeray's characters dwell in the mind more securely." Her portraiture, "distinctly satirical . . . has
even been accused of a touch of cruelty; but this only gives flavor and keeping quality. . . . She is the mother of
the English nineteenth century novel as Scott is the father of it."
(P. B. S.)