Jane Austen

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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.
Photograph of a colourized print of Jane Austen, from a drawing by a Mr Andrews commissioned by Austen's nephew James Edward Austen Leigh as frontispiece to his "Memoir of Jane Austen", 1870 (fifty years after she died). She is shown seated, with a book on her lap, wearing a blue dress and light brown bonnet.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Augusta Webster
She omits reviews from this collection, but provides readers with an opportunity to consider literary topics. The Translation of Poetry argues that because [i]n poetry the form of the thought is part of the thought...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Muriel Jaeger
MJ 's next chapter deals with the male counterparts of the previous chapter's examples (Frederic Lamb , but also Dugald Stewart and Henry Brougham ), setting the Society for the Suppression of Vice against...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Brigid Brophy
Some items are reprinted from Don't Never Forget, including a piece on Jane Austen , fiercely condemnatory of her cult following (which BB finds demeaning and condescending), which concludes with unreserved praise: I think...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Margaret Kennedy
Here Kennedy argues that entertainment and enjoyment are valuable aims for the novel. She maintains that the novelist is, in essence, a storyteller, but the storyteller-novelist has been excluded by a literary society that devalues...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Penelope Fitzgerald
It includes Fitzgerald's comments on works by Jane Austen , George Eliot , Margaret Oliphant , Barbara Pym , Carol Shields , and Amy Tan , as well as on a number of recent literary...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Catherine Hutton
CH was reading Jane Austen : at this stage she saw Austen's novels as trifles, but agreeable ones.
Hutton, Catherine. Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century. Editor Beale, Catherine Hutton, Cornish Brothers, 1891.
175
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Muriel Jaeger
In an amusing fantasy entitled Trial of Jane Austen the accused stands charged with masquerading as a great writer.
Jaeger, Muriel. Shepherd’s Trade. Arthur H. Stockwell, 1965.
118
Pompous or foolish witnesses accuse her of ignoring national politics, social problems, sex, professional careerism...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Julia Kavanagh
In this second work of women's literary history, JK once again limits herself to the novel. Her canon comprises ten authors, from Aphra Behn to Sydney Morgan by way of Sarah Fielding , Frances Burney
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Susan Ferrier
SF 's letters deal mainly with day-to-day occurrences, but her literary opinons are always worth having. She comments on several works by Lady Charlotte Campbell (later Bury) . Reading Austen 's Emma in 1816 (the...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anne Thackeray Ritchie
The previously published essays include pieces on Austen and Landseer , and the early Toilers and Spinsters.
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Elizabeth Bowen
She writes admiringly of Jane Austen , but far less so of George Eliot , whom she regards as over-intellectual.
Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
81-2
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...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Vernon Lee
In her first essay, Lee offers a summary analysis of the English novelistic tradition. Judging them especially, though not entirely, on their treatments of morality, she evaluates writers including Jane Austen , Maria Edgeworth ,...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Mary Russell Mitford
Her sharp comments on Jane Austen 's appearance and character are much quoted, though her many passages in celebration of Austen's works are often forgotten.
Pigrome, Stella. “Mary Russell Mitford”. The Charles Lamb Bulletin, Vol.
66
, Charles Lamb Society, Apr. 1989, pp. 53-62.
60
She praises Pride and Prejudice warmly, pronouncing Austen almost...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Anna Margaretta Larpent
This later diary, generally written daily at any odd moment, provides indexing of special events which reveals AML 's methodical character. Occasional months are missing here and there. The diarist offers penetrating comment on a...

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