Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Pride and Prejudice
- Born in the rectory at Steventon, Hampshire, the sixth of seven children of the Reverend
George and Cassandra Leigh Austen.
- Part of a lively, affectionate family who encouraged her as a child to read and write;
began at twelve writing parodies of popular and sentimental fiction. Like the rest
of her family, enjoyed producing and performing in amateur theatricals.
- Her closest lifetime relationship, with her only sister, Cassandra, who edited (and
censored) her letters after her death..
- Little known of the events of her life; never married, though she had several suitors.
- Moved with great unhappiness from Steventon to Bath after her father's retirement
(1801); upon his death in 1806, moved to Southampton and then, in 1809, to Chawton.
- Died at forty-two of what is believed to have been Addison's disease.
- First sustained writings were novels in epistolary form, beginning in 1794 with Lady
- Guarded her privacy and deliberately avoided literary circles; all works published
during her lifetime appeared anonymously.
- Her fiction favorably reviewed by Sir Walter Scott, the most popular novelist of the
- The chronology of her writing difficult to establish because she typically rewrote and
reworked earlier materials throughout her career--e.g., Lady Susan eventually
evolved into Northanger Abbey; First Impressions, into Pride and
Prejudice; Elinore and Marianne into Sense and Sensibility. Novels
published in a different order than they were begun or completed.
Juvenilia (written during her teens) (published in three volumes by Oxford
Love and Friendship (at fourteen)
A History of England (at fifteen)
A Collection of Letters and Lesley Castle (between sixteen and seventeen)
Lady Susan (between eighteen and nineteen)
Elinore and Marianne (written 1795-6)
First Impression (written 1797)
Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Mansfield Park (1814)
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (post. 1818)
Biographical and Critical Information
- Austen online
Republic of Pemberley: A Jane Austen website
Jane Austen -- a Japanese
site with many links.
The Jane Austen Homepage
Ostentatious Jane's Page
Bibliomania Study Guide to Jane
A Guide to the Jane Austen
The Jane Austen Society of North America site
The Jane Austen Centre --
Pride and Prejudice Paradise (a site
devoted to the film version)
- Selected print resources
A Companion to Jane Austen Studies, ed. by Laura C. Lambdin and Robert T. Lambdin,
Pride and Prejudice, Third Edition (Norton Critical Editions), ed. Donald Gray,
Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin, 1999.
The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, ed. by Edward Copeland and Juliet
Jane Austen's World, Maggie Lane, 1997.
Jane Austen: Her Life, Park Honan, 1986.
Pride and Prejudice: Modern Critical Interpretations, ed. Harold Bloom and
William Golding, 1987.
Approaches to Teaching Austen's Pride and Prejudice (Approaches to Teaching World
Literature, No 45), ed. Marcia McClintock Folsom, 1993.
Retired Discussion Series