LITMIR.BIZ

       Life and Times

      ‘The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid’, says Mr Tilney in Northanger Abbey, Austen’s own opinions clearly channeled through her hero’s words. She was a devoted fan of the novel form, at a time when it was considered a frivolous entertainment – yet coming from a family of enthusiastic readers, she would go on to be one of the most enduring and beloved practitioners of the form. Enjoying minor success during her lifetime, her three unpublished novels show that there was potential for so much more, before her life was cruelly cut short at the eleventh chapter of Sanditon.

       Early years

      Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775, to George Austen, a cultivated and hardworking clergyman and Cassandra Leigh, who came from a prominent family in the gentry. Their household was completed by six brothers, and one beloved sister, Cassandra. Despite George Austen’s many efforts, including some farming, and running a boarding school, the family were in constant financial difficulty. However, they were uncharacteristically literary for a family of their stature. Their library housed over 500 books, and many members of the family engaged in some form of literary activity – Cassandra wrote comic verse, while two of their brothers ran a literary journal called The Loiterer, and they all often took part in amateur theatricals at home.

      It is difficult to establish much of Austen’s early biography, as her work lacked an overtly autobiographical element, even though the novels were all set in her general social milieu. Later accounts of her life are derived from letters to her sister Cassandra, and two biographies, one by her brother, and one by her nephew – both of which tend to editorialize her life through their own lens of propriety. We do know that she was a prolific writer from the young age of eleven, beginning with tongue-in-cheek parodies of the novels she found in her family library. The longest and most prominent of these is Love and Freindship, which was a burlesque of the prevalent sentimental genre of the time.

       ‘Female Scribblers’

      It was not unprecedented for a woman to have a career in writing at the end of the eighteenth century – in fact, Austen arrived at a time when professional female authors such as Ann Radcliffe and Frances Burney were carving out a market for themselves, and making a living from their writing. Austen never became as successful in her lifetime as some of her contemporaries, but her correspondences show that she was very much involved in the monetary side of her writing career. This makes sense considering that she was allowed merely £20 a year while her father was alive, and after his death was entirely reliant upon the charity of relatives. There were very few avenues for women to make money of their own, and even if they found one, it was considered at odds with respectability. Later accounts of Austen’s life attempted to portray her as indifferent to the monetary success of her writing, but this is likely more a reflection on contemporary social norms than fact. By the end of her career it is estimated that she had made £600-£700 from her writing alone, which is not inconsiderable given her financial status.

      Lady Susan

      Lady Susan was one of her earliest completed works, composed in around 1795, and the only one of her fully formed novels that was written in the epistolary form. It follows the exploits of the female rake, Lady Susan, who pursues men for their fortunes without scruples. That it was never published, Austen’s nephew later attributed to the fact that Austen herself considered it unworthy, but it is more likely that social strictures of the time would have made it unpopular or risqué. Through its epistolary form, it provides a unique insight into the thoughts and desires of its female protagonist, who seems incorrigible, but is nevertheless wonderfully entertaining. Likely modelled on Austen’s worldly cousin, Countess Eliza de Feuillide, Lady Susan is unlike any of Austen’s later heroines in her vivacious amorality, though we see some of her in the likes of Mary Crawford and even Elizabeth Bennet. The story of Lady Susan forms the basis of the cinematic work Love and Friendship (somewhat

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