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.
The central character is the undowered girl Florence Leslie—so called because of her birth in Italy—whose high-minded principles have been fuelled by indiscriminate
Aguilar, Grace. Woman’s Friendship. D. Appleton and Company.
13
reading in history, poetry, and romance at an early age...
Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
again partnered herself with Jane Austen
, completing the earlier of Austen's two unfinished novels as Emma Watson, The Watsons Completed.
This unfinished novel, a standing temptation to sequel-writers, was first completed by...
Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
published another novel conceived of as complementary to Austen
: The Youngest Miss Ward, a prequel to Mansfield Park.
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Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
published a pendant to yet another Austen
novel: Lady Catherine's Necklace, which foregrounds minor characters from Pride and Prejudice and adds a number of new ones.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Author summary
Joan Aiken
JA
was a popular and successful later twentieth-century writer of short stories and longer fictions for children, most of which are fantasies or have strong supernatural or mystery elements. She also wrote adult novels (both...
Textual Production
Joan Aiken
Next year came The Smile of the Stranger, a historical romance whose English heroine experiences not only the French Revolution (since she has been living with her father in France) but other markers...
Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
published Mansfield Revisited, A Novel, a sequel to Austen
's Mansfield Park and a harbinger of escalation in fiction of this type.
“Joan Aiken”. Fantastic Fiction.
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Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
published Jane Fairfax: A Novel to Complement Emma, another parallel Jane Austen
.
“Joan Aiken”. Fantastic Fiction.
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Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
published Eliza's Daughter, which ties in with and continues Jane Austen
's Sense and Sensibility, by relating the story of Colonel Brandon's mysterious ward.
“Joan Aiken”. Fantastic Fiction.
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Literary responses
Louisa May Alcott
Following her death, G. K. Chesterton
in a laudatory (if sexist) review classed LMA
with Austen
as an early realist, and praised her apt depictions of human truths.
Chesterton, G. K. “Louisa Alcott”. Critical Essays on Louisa May Alcott, edited by Madeleine B. Stern, G. K. Hall, pp. 212-14.
213-14
She was a favourite writer...
Textual Production
Naomi Alderman
In another article of similar date (early 2017), Alderman praises an early love, the webcomic, formerly the comic strip. Her favourites include as Kate Beaton
's webcomic Hark a Vagrant, which often, as in...
Occupation
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Meanwhile she prepared to receive evacuees from London, and volunteered for first aid work, nursing, and night shifts with the ARP (Air Raid Precaution)
.
For her three weeks' work in this capacity she earned £900. She did even better in spring 1957 by appearing on an ITV
quiz programme, the $64,000 Question, to answer questions on the novels...
Literary responses
Diana Athill
Through her great age and greater panache DA
became something of a cult figure. Edward Field
wrote that she functioned for the British public as the Chief Guide to Old Age.
Field, Edward. “Edward Field’s Introduction”. Letters to a Friend, p. xi - xx.
xx
She was awarded...
Intertextuality and Influence
Margaret Atwood
The world before is a slightly exaggerated and unmercifully satirised version of today's reality: gated communities, vertiginous inequalities, frequently mutating viruses, sadistic pornography online, and commodification of everything. True to Atwood's principles, she finds the...
Timeline
Early August 1591: Sir John Harington's translation of Ariosto's...
Writing climate item
Early August 1591
Sir John Harington
's translation of Ariosto
's heroicromanceOrlando Furioso (which means something like Roland Run Mad) was published.
17 August 1759: In the Seven Years' War, the British navy...
National or international item
17 August 1759
In the Seven Years' War, the British navy won a crucial victory over the French fleet at the battle of Lagos, WestAfrica.
1765: The didactic History of Little Goody Two-Shoes...
Writing climate item
1765
The didactic History of Little Goody Two-Shoes was published by John Newbery: the most popular children's book of its period. It had fourteen reprints before 1814.
About 1766: Printer and engraver John Spilsbury perfected...
Building item
About 1766
Printer and engraver John Spilsbury
perfected the dissected map which became the forerunner of the jigsaw puzzle.
By June 1766: James Fordyce anonymously printed his Sermons...
Building item
By June 1766
James Fordyce
anonymously printed his Sermons to Young Women. It went through ninety-five British reprints by 1850, plus half as many again in the USA.
About 27 March 1782: Eliza Hancock, aged nineteen, married Jean-François...
April 1792: The Marseillaise was composed in France as...
National or international item
April 1792
The Marseillaise was composed in France as a revolutionary song.
By August 1794: The Necromancer, or The Tale of the Black...
Writing climate item
By August 1794
The Necromancer, or The Tale of the Black Forest, translated by Peter Teuthold
from the German of Karl Friedrich Kahlert
, appeared: it was one of the gothichorrid novels of Austen
's Northanger Abbey.
1796-1815: Throughout these war years the Bibliothèque...
Writing climate item
1796-1815
Throughout these war years the Bibliothèque britannique, published in Geneva, kept open cultural relations between France and England.
23 July 1796: Horrid Mysteries. A Story, translated by...
Writing climate item
23 July 1796
Horrid Mysteries. A Story, translated by P. Will
from Karl Friedrich August Grosse
(one of the gothichorrid novels of Austen
's Northanger Abbey), was advertised as just out.
26 April 1798: Francis Lathom's The Midnight Bell, A German...
Writing climate item
26 April 1798
Francis Lathom
's The Midnight Bell, A German Story, one of the gothichorrid novels mentioned in Jane Austen
's Northanger Abbey, was advertised as newly published.
25 June 1798: A new tax on the upper classes came into...
National or international item
25 June 1798
A new tax on the upper classes came into effect, levying two guineas for the privilege of running a coach or carriage with armorial bearings (that is, a coat of arms) painted on it.
10 May to 14 August 1813: The British Institution held a retrospective...
Building item
10 May to 14 August 1813
The British Institution
held a retrospective exhibition of 141 paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds
at its Pall Mall Picture Galleries: a major event of the social season, both cultural and patriotic.
Barchas, Janine. What Jane Saw. http://www.whatjanesaw.org.
9 June 1819: The library of the late Queen Charlotte was...
9 December 1826: The Literary Gazette printed a Key to Marianne...
Women writers item
9 December 1826
The Literary Gazette printed a Key to Marianne Spencer Hudson
's silver-fork novel, Almack's (titled after the well-known elite gentlemen's club of the same name), which had already reached its second edition this year. The...