Featuring authors during their birthday month started out as a way to return This Awful Awesome Life to its literary roots.
Jay Speyerer and I wanted to feature and discuss authors and their works in addition to exploring the human condition. This column has allowed me to do both. To close out this year, I have selected Jane Austen.
Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist born in Steventon, Hampshire.
Her father, George, was a rector. He was descended from a wealthy family of wool merchants.
Because inheritance was reserved for the eldest male, several branches of the Austen family including George’s fell into financial difficulties.
Jane’s mother, Cassandra Leigh came from the prominent Leigh family. Her father was a rector at All Souls College, Oxford, so Cassandra grew up socializing with the gentry.
Jane was the youngest of six children (four boys and two girls). Cassandra typically kept her infant children with her for several months before sending them to live with a wet nurse who would care for them until they were 12-18 months old. One of Jane’s older brothers, George, was intellectually challenged and was sent away to be permanently fostered before Jane was born.
Jane and her older sister, Cassie, were close. The Austen family was, by all reports, lively and openly discussed current events, social norms, and politics. The children were encouraged to offer their opinions and observations. Jane began writing at a young age and often read her poems and stories to the entire family.
She divided her early works (90,000 words in total - now known as Juvenilia) into three volumes entitled Volume the First, Volume the Second, and Volume the Third. These works were often satires and reflections of society. She had a sharp wit and was often merciless in her take downs of hypocrisy.
She wrote the satirical novel, Love and Freindship (correct spelling), which was told in a series of letters. at the age of fourteen. She followed up with The History of England, a thirty-four-page book with miniatures drawn by her sister Cassie. It was a parody of Oliver Goldsmith’s History of England. Literary historians speculate that Jane decided she wanted to become a professional writer around this time. It was a daring choice for a woman. Around the age of eighteen, she began producing longer more serious works.
Jane often began to work on novels only to abandon them until years later when she found a different perspective or angle to improve the plot. When she became an aunt for the first time, Jane wrote a series of letters to the child. She continued this tradition with each niece or nephew.
When she was twenty (1797), she met Tom Lefroy, a neighbor who was leaving for London to begin training to be a barrister. Jane and Tom became fond of each other, but the budding romance was shut down by Tom’s family in Ireland because of her family’s poor financial prospects. They needed Tom to marry well to solve their own financial crisis.
Marrying for financial security and social position were considerations for both sexes. It was often more important than the notion of marrying for love and companionship. Lefroy is probably the only man she ever loved. Many believe he was her inspiration for the character, Mr. Darcy. Jon Spence, in his 2003 biography of Austen (Becoming Jane Austen) suggests that she used Lefroy’s personality as inspiration for the character Elizabeth Bennett and her own personality for Mr. Darcy. Sadly, we will never know.
In 1802, she received a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither. Harris was unattractive and at times dull and disagreeable, but Jane had known him since childhood. The marriage would be financially advantageous for her family, and she accepted. After considering what life would be like in a loveless marriage to someone with Harris’ temperament, she ended their engagement the following day. It was the only proposal she ever received.
Austen worked steadily on her manuscripts from 1796-1798. Her brother Henry submitted them for publication for her without her name because writing was not considered a serious or appropriate undertaking for a gentle woman. In 1803, Benjamin Crosby, a London publisher bought the publishing rights to Susan, the working title of the manuscript that would eventually be titled Northanger Abbey. Crosby paid £10 (roughly £1,030 in 2023). Though he initially advertised the novel, he failed to publish it as promised. Austen had to buy back her rights to her own manuscript in 1816, so it could be published elsewhere.
After her father died in 1805, Jane, her mother, and her sister were basically homeless and dependent on the men in the Austen family for financial support. They had to move around a lot, which interrupted Jane’s writing.
Austen published her first novel, Sense and Sensibility in 1811. Instead of using her name, the publisher used “By A Lady.” Her novel received favorable reviews, and she earned a modest amount of money. It gave her some financial independence and a psychological boost. Books were typically printed and sold on commission. The cost was deducted before an author earned any money. If they printed more than they sold, authors had to pay for extra books. The publisher chose to use expensive paper, which significantly reduced her earnings, but it was a start.
She followed up with Pride and Prejudice in 1813, Mansfield Park in 1814, and Emma in 1815.
In 1815, Austen’s health began to decline. It was likely caused by Addison’s disease or Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She died in 1816 before receiving the literary praise her work deserved. Her family published Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan in 1817, a year after her death. At the time of her death she was working on two novels, The Watsons and Sandition.
During her life, it’s estimated that she wrote around 3,000 letters to family and friends. After her death, Cassie destroyed most of these letters. Jane was known for her often acerbic comments and merciless wit. Cassie didn’t want the family drama made public, and she wanted to preserve Jane’s privacy. Around 160 letters remained and were allowed to be published.
Austen’s work remained popular, but out of print until the 1820s when critics began to realize her genius. Since 1833, her works have remained continually in print. They have been adapted into major Academy Award winning films. Her plots and characters have inspired writers for generations. Readers still search for their own Mr. Darcy or want to be him.
Austen wrote about the social plight of women and the importance of having an independent mind and spirit in spite of the financially dependent role forced upon them by society. She addressed the burdens forced on families by birth order inheritance and social hierarchies. She cautioned us to marry for love and never to let our hearts be sacrificed for money or social status. She laughed at the folly of the elites and gave us permission to see the emperor undressed and laugh at his vanity.