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 Nell Dunn
ND was educated at a convent school, which she left at the age of fourteen. Reading of some texts which were vital to her experience—Jane Austen and Jean-Paul Sartre —came after she had left...
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 Emily Jane Pfeiffer
Her family's financial troubles prevented EJP from receiving a formal or thorough education. In her own words, education was not within the reach of the gently born who were also poor, therefore I had little...
Education F. Tennyson Jesse
Though FTJ did not receive much formal education, she read voraciously. Important discoveries were theBrontësisters , Jane Austen , and Constance Garnett 's translations of Tolstoy .
Colenbrander, Joanna. A Portrait of Fryn. A. Deutsch, 1984.
33
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 Sarah Orne Jewett
She read extensively as a child, and came early to authors as diverse as Jane Austen , George Eliot , Margaret Oliphant , Henry Fielding , Laurence Sterne , Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriet Beecher Stowe
Education Winifred Peck
Later, when she was a seasoned schoolgirl, her stepmother (concerned at the narrowness of the teaching she and her siblings had received) set about communicating some general knowledge, including literary knowledge, and introduced authors new...
Education Flora Macdonald Mayor
Although FMM 's father was, for the most part, more concerned with her fragile health than her academic development, the twin sisters received some home-schooling from their mother to quite a high level, since she...
Education Julia O'Faolain
JOF 's mother used to tell her suspense-driven fairy-tales, most of which were later published.
O’Faolain, Julia. Trespassers, A Memoir. Faber and Faber, 2014.
6
When Julia was very young they gave her nightmares.
O’Faolain, Julia. Trespassers, A Memoir. Faber and Faber, 2014.
2-3
Her father agreed to give her The Child's...
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 Mary Linskill
Mary Jane Linskill had two sisters and three brothers, besides, says Stamp, four other siblings who died very young. She was four years older than Elizabeth, the next to survive. Years later a baby named...
Family and Intimate relationships Carola Oman
Having worked before her marriage with the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants (founded by Octavia Hill ), Mary Oman worked in Oxford for innumerable charities including the Church Missionary Society .
Oman, Carola. An Oxford Childhood. Hodder and Stoughton, 1976.
112
She supported...
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...
Family and Intimate relationships Cassandra Cooke
Cassandra's cousin Jane Austen criticised the household management of Samuel Cooke (who was her godfather), judging him a disagreable, fidgetty master to his servants.
qtd. in
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
In his professional capacity he worried about competing with the Methodists
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...

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,
Saturday Review. Chawton.
28.739 (25 December 1869): 832-3

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.
There seems to be no agreement as to the spelling of her...

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, 1969.
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 .
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.

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.
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

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.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(18 November 1958): 12

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.
“1996 British Academy of Film and Television Awards”. Infoplease.

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 novel Bridget Jones's Diary (originally a newspaper column begun the previous year) was published as a book.
Shulman, Nicola. “Some Consolations of the Single State”. Times Literary Supplement, 1 Nov. 1996, p. 26.
26

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

Building item

By Summer 2000

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.
Kent, Paul. “Oneword”. The Author, Vol.
cxii
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2001, pp. 30-1.
30
Oneword Radio. http://www.oneword.co.uk/.
Mslexia. Mslexia Publications.
14 (2002): 6
Teller, Neville. “To the Editor”. The Author, Vol.
121
, No. 1, 1 Mar.–31 May 2010, p. 36.
36

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 .
Reynolds, Nigel. Last chapter as oldest publisher is bought out,, 11 May 2002. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/05/11/nmurr11.xml.

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.
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop. http://Bookshop.Blackwell.co.uk.

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.
“House and Estate. History”. Chawton House Library.

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.