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.
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, 1984, pp. 212-14.
213-14
She was a favourite writer...
Literary responses
Ethel Wilson
Negative reviews seemed to repeat Macmillan
's original worry that the collection was half-cooked. Aunt Topaz was characterized by the Canadian Forum as a terrible bore, whom the reviewer found almost as tiresome to...
Literary responses
Mary Brunton
Brunton's English publisher, Longman
, registered in the year of publication that the book was in great demand and very much admired on the whole, though some complain of the later part of the work...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Jenkins
The novel was criticised by some for its exclusively upper-middle-class reach—a view which was energetically countered by Rose Macaulay
on a radio programme.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson, 2004.
107
The Times Literary Supplement welcomed with joy a novel where the...
Literary responses
Emma Marshall
One of EM
's clerical admirers called this book a particularly strong instance of the way her heroines (if not quite up to Jane Austen
's Anne Elliot or Charlotte Yonge
's Violet in Heartsease...
Literary responses
E. M. Delafield
Punch gave the novel a very positive review, which Heinemann
used in their advertising: An almost uncannily penetrating study of the development of a poseuse. Told with remarkable insight and a care that is both...
Literary responses
Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins
Jane Austen
called this novel very good and clever, but tedious.
Nicholls, C. S., editor. The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons. Oxford University Press, 1993.
Literary responses
Emily Eden
Marghanita Laski
, who acknowledged the enjoyment purveyed by EE
's relish of polished cynicism, also felt she could be enjoyed only so long as Jane Austen
is quite forgotten.
qtd. in
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Gale Research, 1981–2025, Numerous volumes.
Evelina was an instantaneous success. While FB
's identity was still unknown she repeatedly listened to praise of herself, uttered in ignorance that she had any concern in it. Samuel Johnson
(like friends of Swift
Literary responses
Anne Plumptre
Kotzebue was then all the rage. The Critical Review discussed AP
's The Natural Son in December 1798, explaining the changes made in her version for stage presentation, and considering her biography of Kotzebue. But...
Literary responses
Mary Cholmondeley
None of these later novels achieved the success of Red Pottage. Critic Vineta Colby
writes that MC
's last novels invited the neglect they received from critics and public alike, because of their extreme...
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
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
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...
Literary responses
Harriett Mozley
HM
's brother John Henry
(later famous as Cardinal Newman) said her first book had the fault of being too brilliant.
qtd. in
Tillotson, Kathleen et al. “Harriett Mozley”. Mid-Victorian Studies, Athlone Press, 1965, pp. 38-48.
38-9
It was read everywhere by both High and Low Church parties. Several...
