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
Literary responses Frances Jacson
The Critical Review did this novel proud, first listing it, then praising it warmly for its superior moral tendency.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
4th ser. 1 (1812): 668
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
4th ser. 6 (1814): 688
Sarah, Lady Davy , told Sarah Ponsonby
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...
Literary responses Maria Edgeworth
John Ward, later Earl of Dudley , who had at first admired ME 's tales, later compared her to her disadvantage with Jane Austen (whose name, however, he did not know) and suspected Richard Lovell Edgeworth
Literary responses Rachel Hunter
The Critical Review offered its warm commendation on the volume.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
3rd ser. 1 (1804): 118
Jane Austen 's teasing response to The Spoiled Child in particular appears in her own twelve-year-old niece's proudly claiming that...
Literary responses Frances Jacson
Maria Edgeworth read this novel on its appearance (firmly preferring it to Jane Austen's Emma), and two years later mentioned it as the title defining FJ 's achievement.
Percy, Joan. “An Unrecognized Novelist: Frances Jacson (1754-1842)”. British Library Journal, Vol.
23
, No. 1, pp. 81-97.
96n5
Published almost simultaneously with Austen
Literary responses Anita Desai
Donna Seaman , reviewer for Booklist, invoked the comparison of AD to Austen and acknowledged some substance to the parallel: indeed, she is a deceptively gracious storyteller, writing like an embroiderer concealing a sword...
Literary responses Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Henry James 's review in 1865 considered Braddon's success alongside that of Collins , pronouncing her the founder of the sensation novel (defined as devising domestic mysteries adapted to the wants of a sternly prosaic...
Literary responses Charlotte Smith
CS 's biographer Loraine Fletcher feels that in her Catherine the young Jane Austen uses Ethelindeas a touchstone of literary intelligence for her characters.
Fletcher, Loraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. Macmillan.
121
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors Todd, Janet and Marilyn Butler, Pickering.
7: 188
Fletcher, Loraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. Macmillan.
120-1
Literary responses Rachel Hunter
This novel was the second of RH 's to be affectionately mocked by Jane Austen . Austen sent her niece the future Anna Lefroy a letter purportedly for delivery to RH herself, in the formal...
Literary responses Charlotte Yonge
During her lifetime CY was ranked as a serious novelist with Austen , Trollope , Balzac , and Zola . Contemporaries like Louisa Alcott , Margaret Oliphant , Ellen Wood , and Rhoda Broughton made...
Literary responses Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
English reviewers, for instance in the Gentleman's Magazine, were ready with their praise.
Dow, Gillian. “The British Reception of Madame de Genlis’s Writings for Children: Plays and Tales of Instruction and Delight”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
29
, No. 3, pp. 367-81.
374
Jane Austen implied in a letter of 1800 that the first volume of this work had left her mind stored...
Literary responses Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
SFG 's importance to the influential Mary Wollstonecraft can be gauged from the way that Wollstonecraft used and built on her writings, recommended them, measured others by their standard, and also did not hesitate to...
Literary responses Amy Levy
The Jewish press was outraged by what it saw as the antisemitism of this novel. The Jewish Chronicle did not review it, but implied strong disapprobation in an article entitled Critical Jews. The Jewish...
Literary responses Angela Thirkell
The Times called this novel a suite instead of a symphony.
Strickland, Margot. Angela Thirkell: Portrait of a Lady Novelist. Duckworth.
127
Not for the first time AT was likened to Austen , but this time the likeness was held to lie in not mentioning...
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...

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