Becoming Jane Austen

The letter, held at the British Library, is one of about 160 by Jane Austen to have survived. It is significant because it’s rare and, more subtly, because it seems to confirm what we think we know about Austen. Here is the spinster chronicler of the domestic, a writer who famously saw no need to directly reference the Napoleonic Wars (1803– 15) in her fiction.

Yet this sketch, suggesting someone living a modest life, is at best only a partial picture. In her own lifetime, Austen was a successful novelist. Although she never married, she was part of a large family. In A Memoir of Jane Austen (1869), Edward describes her as “the delight of all her nephews and nieces”. She was also someone whose place in society – essentially that of the poor relation – meant that she observed the English landed gentry up close without the sense of security and status enjoyed by those who inherited or married money.

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Cultural capital

Jane was born in 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, where her father, George (1731–1805), was the rector. Though the Reverend Austen’s family had made money as wool merchants, George’s branch weren’t well off. In 1764, he married Cassandra Leigh (1739–1827), whose father was a fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1768 until the turn of the century, the Austens lived in Steventon’s rectory. Jane had six brothers and a beloved older sister, Cassandra (1773–1845). George supplemented his modest clerical income by farming and teaching.

Though money was perennially tight, the Austens – a close and warm family - had cultural capital aplenty. Ideas were discussed freely in a home that often welcomed visitors from the wider world. Well educated by the standards of her time, Jane was able to access her father’s library and that of a family friend, colonial administrator Warren Hastings (1732–1818). In addition, family and friends staged plays.

From a young age, Jane wrote poems, plays and stories, often with the kind of satirical edge familiar from her novels. It was an apprenticeship for a professional writing career that began in earnest around 1795, though it was not until 1811 that one of her novels, Sense and Sensibility, made it into print.

Jane never married, though she was attracted to Tom Lefroy (1776–1889), a dashing and intelligent trainee barrister from Ireland. Marriage between the pair was impossible, because neither had any money. In 1802, Jane briefly accepted a proposal from Harris Bigg-Wither, the charmless heir to extensive estates, but immediately regretted her decision and recanted her acceptance. In their different ways, both of these men appear to correspond to Austen archetypes.

Jane Austen's House, Chawton, Hampshire — Austen’s cottage in Chawton is now a museum devoted to her life and works (Photo by Peter Thompson/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Era of uncertainty

In 1800, George unexpectedly decided to retire from the church, heralding an period of uncertainty in Jane’s life. The following year, the Austen family moved to Bath, where George and Cassandra had married. In 1805, George died, which left Jane, her sister and their mother in a precarious financial position. Cassandra later destroyed a cache of Jane’s letters from this period, which suggests it was a difficult time.

In 1809, after a period living in Southampton, the Austen women at last began to enjoy a more settled life again. They moved to Chawton, Hampshire, where Jane’s brother Edward gifted them the use of a cottage after he inherited the Elizabethan country pile Chawton House from a childless cousin, Thomas Knight.

Jane’s literary life came fully into focus in Chawton, though her books were initially published anonymously, as was common in this period. But then, in 1816, just as her career began building momentum following the publication of Emma (1815), Jane fell ill. She died in July 1817, possibly from Addison’s disease or Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Since 1833, Jane Austen’s novels have never been out of print. But why are they so popular? One answer may lie in the idea that Jane wrote about marriage, money, status and family not because these were small themes but because, for women of her class, these represented huge forces shaping their lives. Think of her less as a miniaturist, more as a supremely gifted writer who focused on the most revealing details.

Austen's literary contemporaries

We look at four fellow writers of the 18th and early 19th centuries who proved influential in Jane’s life and work

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97)

Whereas Austen subtly chronicled women’s lives, Mary Wollstonecraft (novelist Mary Shelley’s mother) railed at the patriarchy. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), she argued that women were not – as many men rather conveniently supposed – inherently inferior to men, but were denied education and opportunities.

Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823)

The Gothic stories penned by Radcliffe, the most popular novelist of her era, were dark romances. Austen satirised Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) in the posthumously published Northanger Abbey (1817). This probably affected Radcliffe’s reputation, which has recovered in recent years as scholars have reassessed her work.

Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

A towering literary figure in his day, Scott’s well-known novels include Waverley (1814), Rob Roy (1817) and Ivanhoe (1819). Though his own work was widescreen and romantic, he was a huge admirer of Austen’s fiction – and, as is clear in both of their writings, the feeling was mutual.

James Stanier Clarke (1766–1834)

In 1805, Clarke became librarian to George, Prince of Wales, later both the monarch and an Austen fanboy. Clarke helpfully offered writing advice to Jane. In response to his mansplaining, she wrote a humorous essay, ‘Plan of a Novel, according To Hints from Various Quarters’, which wasn’t published until long after her death.