Jane Austen 1775-1817
English writer, who first gave the novel its modern character through the treatment of everyday life. Although Austen was widely read in her lifetime, she published her works anonymously.
The most urgent preoccupation of her bright, young heroines is courtship and finally marriage. Austen herself never married. Her best-known books include PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1813) and EMMA (1816). Virginia Woolf called Austen "the most perfect artist among women."
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (from Pride and Prejudice, 1813)
Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, where her father, Rev. George Austen, was a rector.
< Return to the 'Recreation' page
Jane Austen