Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Jane Austen
-
Standard Name: Austen, Jane
Birth Name: Jane Austen
Pseudonym: A Lady
Styled: Mrs Ashton Dennis
JA
's unequalled reputation has led academic canon-makers to set her on a pedestal and scholars of early women's writing to use her as an epoch. For generations she was the first—or the only—woman to be adjudged major. Recent attention has shifted: her balance, good sense, and humour are more taken for granted, and critics have been scanning her six mature novels for traces of the boldness and irreverence which mark her juvenilia. Her two unfinished novels, her letters (which some consider an important literary text in themselves), and her poems and prayers have also received some attention.
little book of criticism titled Jane Austen
, 1775-1817 for the British Book News series Writers and Their Work.
Staley, Thomas F., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 34. Gale Research, 1985.
34: 278
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1989.
244-5
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Mary Augusta Ward
Perhaps the most interesting is her review (March 1884) of Harry Buxton Forman
's recent edition of Keats
. Ward argues that the letters to Fanny Brawne
ought not to have been made public. (She...
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
The novel was a massive success, in the words of Henry Jamesa momentous public event.
qtd. in
Ward, Mary Augusta. “Introduction”. Robert Elsmere, edited by Rosemary Ashton, Oxford University Press, 1987, p. vii - xviii.
vii
Critic John Sutherland deems it the best-selling work of quality fiction in the nineteenth century. By the summer...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Augusta Ward
The heroine is described as deriving from a long line of English gentry, Whig supporters of the Empire: a tedious race perhaps and pig-headed, tyrannical too here and there, but on the whole honourable English...
Textual Production
Michelene Wandor
MW
has specialized in adapting and abridging novels for radio. Between 1980 and 2004 she adapted a wide array of fiction by women writers, including works by Jane Austen
, Charlotte Brontë
, George Eliot
Textual Production
Eglinton Wallace
It appeared in two different editions put out this year through the different publishers T. Hookham
, and Debrett
. The Debrett edition lists the price, one shilling and sixpence, on the title-page.
“Eighteenth Century Collections Online”. Gale Databases.
Goethe's novel...
Intertextuality and Influence
Lucy Walford
In Recollections of a Scottish Novelist, LW
records her early love of literature. The books she read as a child, especially at the age of seven—including Charlotte Yonge
's The Little Duke, works...
Literary responses
Elizabeth von Arnim
The Benefactress received positive reviews in the US and England. A number of critics likened the author to Jane Austen
, while The Examiner referred to her as the Unknown Genius. The Daily Mail...
Literary responses
Elizabeth von Arnim
This novel elicited a wide range of responses from reviewers. John Middleton Murry
consoled EA
when she received harsh criticism in the Times Literary Supplement. He told her there was no way to protect...
Textual Production
Sarah Tytler
In a single volume, ST
's Jane Austen
and Her Works offered a short biography and a plot summary of the major novels, interspersed with critical commentary.
Tytler, Sarah. Jane Austen and Her Works. Cassell, Petter, Galpin, 1880.
prelims
Occupation
Sarah Tytler
As regards the typical feminine curriculum, ST
resented the tradition of mandatory music teaching—of the piano—to young women, and the slight to other branches of education in the extravagant favour shown to one branch.
Tytler, Sarah. Three Generations. J. Murray, 1911.
235-6
Education
Susan Tweedsmuir
She was, however, always reading as a child: she and her sister had few books, but knew by heart whole chapters of the ones they did have. As a child Susan hated Mrs Mortimer
's...
Textual Production
Joanna Trollope
JT
's modernised retelling of Sense and Sensibility (published in October 2013), is one of a series of projected Jane Austen
updates. In January 2014 Trollope discussed Austen in a podcast with Fay Weldon
in...
Textual Production
Joanna Trollope
JA pursued her Austen
connection with a talk on her at a charity Christmas supper held at Chawton House Library
on 5 December 2015.
Literary responses
Frances Trollope
FT
's rambunctious widow was greatly admired by both her male and female readership. Even the Athenæum, which was usually unsupportive of her work, offered a positive review: [s]o frequently has it been our...
