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
Education Alice Meynell
In the summer of 1852 Elizabeth and Alice Thompson (later AM ) began their education under their father's instruction. Recording her daughters' lessons, Christiana Thompson writes, Dear little angels do their writing . ....
Education Mary Lavin
ML took her MA from University College, Dublin, with a thesis on Jane Austen for which she received first class honours.
Peterson, Richard F. Mary Lavin. Twayne.
20
Education Frances Arabella Rowden
FAR was taught until she was about eighteen by her schoolmistress aunt Arabella . In 1792 she was enrolled as a boarder at the Abbey School in Reading, where Jane Austen had spent a...
Education J. K. Rowling
Formative early reading included Richard Scarry and Kenneth Grahame 's The Wind in the Willows. Joanne Rowling did not care for Enid Blyton as a young child but acquired a taste for her later...
Education Elizabeth Taylor
Her first school, where she went at the age of six, was a little private establishment called Leopold House, which gave a grounding in English and maths and team games.
Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books.
12-13
When Betty was eleven...
Education Edna Lyall
Since the cousin with whom she shared lessons was three years older, Ada Ellen read a good many books at that time which must have been far beyond . . . [her] powers. At twelve...
Education H. D.
HD's father encouraged her education, although he refused to allow her to attend art school. Instead, she was encouraged to study mathematics and was tutored by her brother Eric . Eric also provided his sister...
Education Harriet Shaw Weaver
HSW 's family encouraged her in the regular pursuits of a young, middle-class Victorian woman. From her father she inherited an enthusiasm for poetry—she especially liked Shakespeare , Coleridge , and Whitman —and she read...
Education Bernice Rubens
At university, she was President of both the student Music and Socialist societies, as well as a member of the Students' Union Council.
Gilbert, Sarah. “Bernice Rubens”. Cardiff University Magazine, Vol.
1
, No. 1.
BR later found that her education slowed her development as a writer...
Family and Intimate relationships Sarah, Lady Pennington
Her father, John Moore , was an apothecary practising in the fashionable resort of Bath in Somerset, who seems to have become rich in his practice. His name and place of residence appears on...
Family and Intimate relationships Eliza Kirkham Mathews
The pair had met that summer. At four years the younger, he was just twenty-one.
Mathews, Anne Jackson. Memoirs of Charles Mathews, Comedian. R. Bentley.
1: 198
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Charles Mathews
In the account of the marriage given by Mathews's second wife (who does not sound...
Family and Intimate relationships Beatrix Potter
The day after receiving this letter, BP re-read the end part of Jane Austen 's Persuasion. I thought my story had come right with patience & waiting like Anne Eliott [sic]'s did.
Grinstein, Alexander. The Remarkable Beatrix Potter. International Universities Press.
116
Family and Intimate relationships George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans (later GE ) accepted a proposal of marriage from a young artist, still unidentified, only to withdraw it when she apparently realised that her eager imagination had attributed to him attractions that...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Jane Howard
They had been living together for more than a year, and EJH had already embarked on the difficult stepmother relationship with the three Amis children—especially the two boys, who were living with them, and were...
Family and Intimate relationships Cassandra Cooke
CC was a first cousin of her namesake Cassandra Leigh Austen , and first cousin once removed, as well as godmother, of the latter's daughter Jane Austen . The older and younger novelist were not...

Timeline

By Christmas 1869: Francis Galton, mathematician, scientist,...

Writing climate item

By Christmas 1869

Francis Galton , mathematician, scientist, and eugenicist, published Hereditary Genius: An Enquiry into its Laws and Consequences,

1872: US writer Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncy,...

Writing climate item

1872

US writer Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncy, or Chauncey, Woolsey) published her highly popular and influential story for girls entitled What Katy Did.
American National Biography. http://www.anb.org/articles/home.html.

February 1906: Publisher J. M. Dent launched Everyman's...

Writing climate item

February 1906

Publisher J. M. Dent launched Everyman's Library, aiming to reprint 1,000 classic titles: the first year's 155 volumes included Æschylus , Shakespeare , Jane Austen practically complete,
Clair, Colin. A Chronology of Printing. Cassell.
169
and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu .

1924: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth...

Women writers item

1924

Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press published The Rector's Daughter, a novel by F. M. (or Flora Macdonald) Mayor .

1937: Beatrice Kean Seymour wrote and published...

Women writers item

1937

Beatrice Kean Seymour wrote and published a biography entitiled Jane Austen , Study for a Portrait.

22 July 1949: The house in the village of Chawton in Hampshire...

Women writers item

22 July 1949

The house in the village of Chawton in Hampshire where Jane Austen lived with her mother and sister from 1809 until her death was opened to the public, having been bought for three thousand pounds...

17 November 1958: The sale began at Sotheby's of the collection...

Writing climate item

17 November 1958

The sale began at Sotheby's of the collection of first editions built up by the bibliographer Michael Sadleir , who had recently died.

23 April 1996: The annual BAFTA (British Academy of Film...

Writing climate item

23 April 1996

The annual BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television ) Awards were presented at the LondonPalladium in celebration of one hundred years of British film-making.

By late 1996: Helen Fielding hit the best-selling jackpot...

Women writers item

By late 1996

Helen Fielding hit the best-selling jackpot when her novelBridget Jones's Diary (originally a newspaper column begun the previous year) was published as a book.

: Oneword Radio, with offices in London, was...

Building item

By Summer2000

Oneword Radio , with offices in London, was set up to broadcast to readers: the bulk of its programming came from audiobooks read serially, sometimes though not always abridged.

By 11 May 2002: John Murray, publishers of Austen and Byron...

Writing climate item

By 11 May 2002

John Murray , publishers of Austen and Byron among many others, and one of the few independent publishers remaining after rapid change in the industry, sold out to bookselling chain W. H. Smith .

15 April 2003: Iranian academic Azar Nafisi published Reading...

Writing climate item

15 April 2003

Iranian academic Azar Nafisi published Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, a remarkable work of social and political commentary intertwined with and expressed through literary criticism.

July 2003: Chawton House in the village of Chawton in...

Women writers item

July 2003

Chawton House in the village of Chawton in Hampshire, once owned by Jane Austen 's brother Edward Austen Knight , opened its doors as Chawton House Library , a research centre in women's writing.

16 April 2007: Novelist Yann Martel began a project of sending...

Writing climate item

16 April 2007

Novelist Yann Martel began a project of sending a book every two weeks to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper together with an admonitory letter; on a website he recorded the books sent and gave the...

Texts

No bibliographical results available.