Jane Austen

Who was Jane Austen?

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism, biting irony and social commentary have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics.

Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer. Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years into her thirties. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma, she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.

Famous Quotes:

• Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
• It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
• Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation.
• What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
• Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
• Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
• Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.
• A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
• We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.
• In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.