Jane Austen Pt 1: An author before her time

       Jane Austen, the woman who would later become one of the most famous female English authors in the world, was born in Hampshire, England, on December 16, 1775, to George and Cassandra Austen. She was their seventh child and second girl. 

     When the winter passed and spring arrived in Steventon, Jane was sent, while still just a baby, to live with a foster family. This sounds peculiar today, but it was a common practice then. After all, raising seven children was hard, and having extra help was welcomed. Because it was so difficult, Jane’s father ran a school, pastored a church and ran a small farm in order to support his large family. (Hampshire was known as one of the most fertile counties in England in the 1800s.) 

     Jane returned home around the age of two, and when she was old enough to read, she started spending time in her father’s library–a place that would no doubt foster her deep love of books. Her family also read aloud to each other, wrote skits and acted them. 

     Though it was unusual to send girls away from the home and off to school, the Austens sent Cassandra to school when she was just ten years old. Jane, who had become good friends with her sister, begged to be allowed to  join Cassandra at boarding school. Despite asking to go, Jane didn’t enjoy herself. Matters were made worse when the two girls caught typhoid fever. It was such a serious disease that Mrs. Austen dropped everything and left to tend to them until they were well enough to return home. Because tuition was hard to pay, at eleven years old, Jane ended her formal education. It was probably for the best, however, for when she returned home, she took up writing. She began writing skits and short stories which she eventually collected into three manuscript books. She entitled them Volumes the First, Second and Third, but today they are called Juvenilia. 

     When she was thirteen, she visited London for the first time and came away full of ideas. The story that came out of that visit was entitled Love and Freindship (sic). In the book, Jane made fun of the silly, sentimental girls who were main characters in the popular novels of the time. 

     As time passed, she grew up and became a smart, pretty young woman. Her loves never changed, however. Even with the parties and dances that she was now attending, she saved time for writing. In fact, the parties and dances helped her improve her talent. She wrote about the people she met, even making fun of them. It seems she wasn’t the only one to criticize, however, for one woman saw her dancing and called her “the silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembered” (Le Faye).  This doesn’t seem to fit the popular description of Jane (and she certainly wasn’t husband-hunting; her books mock girls who did that!) Even so, she was eager to get married and find a place in society–only, she did not want to marry for money. Love was very important to Jane Austen, and when Cassandra got engaged, Jane began dreaming up names for her future husband–including one “Edmund Arthur William Mortimer of Liverpool” (Fabiny). (She later decided against long and pompous names.)

      Despite certain difficulties in her family, Jane was soon able to begin her first novel. She also found time to start courting a young man named Thomas Lefroy. She and Thomas liked to talk about their favorite books and go on walks together. However, when his parents found out about his relationship with Jane, they sent Thomas off to London to study law. Sadly, around that time, Cassandra’s fiance died in the West Indies. The two girls grew closer together through their struggles, and Jane had time to finish her very first manuscript. Because her father was so impressed with her book, First Impressions, he sent it to a publisher. He didn’t share the author’s name, but Jane’s manuscript was rejected anyway. She was determined, though, to have her work published. 

     Her life was even more shaken when her parents decided to move to Bath. Jane fainted when she heard the news. Although she had been to the city once before, she hadn’t enjoyed it all. She was an unmarried girl, though, and had no choice but to move with her parents.

When they finally arrived in the city, she found it did not help her writing at all. She missed the quiet countryside. But now that Reverend Austen was retired, the family did get to travel a lot. It was on one of these trips that a young man by the name of Harris Bigg-Wither proposed to Jane. He was a rich prospect and would provide Jane with a comfortable life. She said yes, only to stay up that night, talking with Cassandra about it. By the next morning, she had decided that she couldn’t marry for money. Jane wanted to marry for love, an unpopular idea in her day. After telling Harris that she had changed her mind, she and Cassandra went back to Bath.

     Here, Jane was forced to put her love of writing aside when her father (who had been ill for quite some time) finally died. The three women, Mrs. Austen, Jane, and Cassandra were left alone with no money and had to leave Bath–a relief for Jane, no doubt. For the next year, they moved from place to place, living with friends and family. 

     However, when Edward Austen Knight, Jane’s brother, lost his wife in childbirth and was left alone with eleven children, he anticipated that he would need his mother and sister’s help. He offered them the Chawton house in exchange for Jane and Cassandra’s assistance.  Mrs. Austen and her daughters settled into the house and began making it a home. The countryside proved an ideal place for Jane to begin writing again, and during 1809 and 1810, she revised Sense and Sensibility. The publisher she sent it to liked it. However, he asked her to pay for the printing, because he feared he would lose money by publishing an unknown, single woman’s book. Edward knew how much this would mean to her and agreed to pay for it. When the book finally came out, it received good reviews and Jane earned $15,000 through sales.

     Because of the popularity of her first book, Jane decided to try to sell First Impressions. However, a book had already been published under that name, so she decided to call it Pride and Prejudice. It was a smashing success and a second printing was scheduled for later that same year. After arranging to print Mansfield Park as well, Jane set about writing her fourth book, Emma. She was then about 37 years old. She was finally being taken seriously for what she had loved all along. 

     When Henry, her older brother, fell ill, one of the doctors who came to visit him was the personal physician to the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of England. The doctor shared with Jane how much the prince enjoyed her books! The prince often read them and had a set in each of his residences. Jane was invited to the prince’s royal library in London where the librarian suggested that she should dedicate her next book to the prince. Jane was shocked. The prince was known for selfish and scandalous behavior. However, because of her family’s strong opinion that she should dedicate it to him, she agreed. It would help her book, after all. The resulting work, Emma, critics agree, was her best yet.

     As time passed and Jane continued to work on new books, she grew ill. It became clear to her that she was dying. She wrote her will secretly in April of 1817. At last, her family learned that her illness wasn’t something to be taken lightly, and even her doctors knew there was nothing they could do. Even so she “retained her…memory, her fancy, her temper, and her affections, warm, clear, and unimpaired to the last,” wrote her brother Henry (Le Faye). On July 18, 1817, Jane Austen died. A week later she was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Soon after her death, her family arranged for her two new books, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, to be published. The girl who had grown up writing accomplished her dream; and today, she lives on, a permanent part of English Literature. 

Works Cited:

Fabiny, Sarah. Who Was Jane Austen? New York: Penguin Random House, 2017. Print.

Le Faye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: The World of her Novels. London: Francis Lincoln Limited,   

     2002. Print.