Jane Austen
Jane Austen |
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Jane Austen (1775-1817) was a noteworthy novelist who published in the early 18th century. Austen only published four novels, during her lifetime. Experts say her novels earned her approximately 750 pounds. Other novelists of the time, including other female novelists, were more successful. But Austen's popularity grew, while most of her contemporaries are forgotten.
Her original four novels were published anonymously. After her death two more complete novels were published, and her name was made public. In the late 18th century a seventh novel was published, together with two uncompleted novels, and what literary experts call her "juvenalia", works written solely for her family, when she was still a girl.
In the twentieth and twenty-first century dozens of films have been adapted from her novels, as well as several films fictionalizing elements of her life.
Thousands of novels and novellas have been written, based on the characters she created, by more recent authors.
Family
[edit | edit source]Austen's father George Austen, an Oxford graduate, was a clergyman, who supplemented his income by housing and tutoring students in his rectory, and by farming his glebe, and some additional land he leased. Her father's annual income has often been estimated to be about 400 pounds per year.
George Austen, and his wife, Cassandra, had a total of eight children, of whom Jane was the seventh. Cassandra Leigh was a younger daughter of a wealthy Oxford Professor, and this family connection enabled her sons to attend Oxford for free, an opportunity taken by their eldest son, James, and their fourth son, Henry. George, the second son, was born with developmental problems, and was not raised with his siblings. Edward, the third son, was adopted by a wealthy uncle and aunt, who had no children of their own. Jane's only sister, Cassandra Austen, the fifth child, never married, after her fiance died prior to their wedding. Jane's remaining two brothers, Frank and Charles both joined the Royal Navy, at twelve years old, and rose to be Admirals.
Jane's father retired to Bath, in 1800, with his wife and two daughters, where he lived until his death, in 1805. After his death his widow, daughters, and family friend Martha Lloyd, all moved in with newly married Frank, and his young wife Mary. Frank and his wife shared their home with the four older women until 1809, when Edward made Chawton Cottage, a cottage on one of his estates, available to them. The eight years she lived there seem to have been Austen's most prolific.
Medical experts debate what illnesses Austen had in the last year of her life.