Biography
Beloved and respected around the world, Jane Austen is one of the most well-known and popular authors in modern history.
Responsible for penning favourites such as Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility and Northanger Abbey, her razor sharp wit, astute observations, social commentary and perceptive insights into class and gender mean her novels are as readable and relatable now as they were when they were first published over 250 years ago. Born in December 1775, Jane was the 7th of 8 children born into a modest household. In 1785, Jane was sent to boarding school, but had to return within the year, as the fees were too high for the family to manage.
Despite lacking a formal education, Jane had access to the library of her father and that of a family friend, and her brothers encouraged her to read their school books. Her father also aided Jane’s early forays into writing, providing paper and writing materials. From the age of 11, Jane started writing poems, novels and plays to entertain her family.
Throughout her teenage years, she wrote a series of stories that were full of feminist characters, illicit behaviour and social parodies. Now referred to as the Juvenilia, this collection of 29 stories offer an early glimpse into some of the themes Jane explores in her later novels, such as gender stereotypes, inequality, sexism and social hierarchies. As her style developed, she started to write more mature works, such as the epistolary Lady Susan, a groundbreaking novella with an unconventional, ruthless heroine.
Her next full-length novel was Elinor & Marianne, an early draft of her first published novel, Sense & Sensibility. Her next novel was First Impressions (published as Pride & Prejudice), and in 1798, she began work on her third novel, Susan, which would later become known as Northanger Abbey.
Unable to find a publisher for her novels herself, her brother managed to find a publisher for Sense & Sensibility in 1811; forced to publish anonymously (as women writers were looked down upon), Jane received no public acclaim for her work, and her name never appeared on any of her books during her lifetime.
Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma were published soon after, with three more novels published after Jane’s untimely death in 1817, aged just 41. Her novels have never been out of print since 1833, and continue to inspire countless homages and adaptations. Witty, insightful and deeply profound, Jane Austen’s genius continues to delight through the generations.
