Main Influence: JANE AUSTEN (Novelist)

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was a major English novelist, whose witty, elegantly structured fiction marks the start of the 19th century romanticism.

At the age of 14 she wrote her first novel, Love and Friendship, and then A History of England by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian, and others.  In her early twenties Jane Austen wrote the novels that were later to be re-worked and published as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. 

As a young woman Jane enjoyed dancing (an activity which features frequently in her novels) and she attended balls in many of the great houses of the neighbourhood. She loved the country, enjoyed long country walks, and had many Hampshire friends.

Jane Austen then went on to write Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and published them in 1811 and 1813.  Mansfield Park came out in 1814, followed byEmma in 1816 and she completed Persuasion, which was published together with Northanger Abbey in 1818, the year after her death. None of the books published in her life-time had her name on them — they were described as being written "By a Lady". In the winter of 1816 she started Sanditon, but illness prevented its completion.

Jane Austen had contracted Addisons Disease, a tubercular disease of the kidneys.  Tragically, there was then no cure and Jane Austen died in her sister's arms in the early hours of 18 July, 1817. She was 41 years old. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral.