Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of the most famous authors in the western canon (possibly helped along by a certain well-known Colin-Firth-diving-into-a-pond scene in the BBC Pride and Prejudice television serial adaptation). And our fascination isn't just with her works: it's with the woman herself. There are countless biographies, a museum, websites, and films: Miss Austen Regrets, Becoming Jane, and, I would argue, the 1999 Mansfield Park adaptation, wherein Fanny Price has more in common with her spirited author than with the rather prudish and timid heroine of the novel. Jane Austen [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons But the irony of our obsession with Jane Austen the woman is that during her lifetime, her works were all published anonymously. Her first novel to be published, Sense and Sensibility, was simply 'By a Lady'. Her next published novel, Pride and Prejudice, was 'By the Author of Sense and Sensibility. Childhood & Education Jane Austen was born into a family of lower gentry in Hampshire, where her father was Rector of Steventon. 16 December 1775. She had seven siblings: six brothers (five older, one younger), and an older sister,…