Jane Austen Works, Novels, Plays, EBooks, Literature

Jane Austen Works & Literature

About Jane Austen

Leading a virtually uneventful life, Jane Austen still managed to compose some of the finest works of literature the Western world has ever seen. Although she wasn't particularly successful in her own lifetime, her work is now part of the Western Canon of literature. In 1801 the family moved from Steventon, Hampshire to Bath. She received a relatively good education from a relative at Oxford and then in Southampton. When her father died, she, her mother, and her sister moved into a cottage on an estate her brother Edward owned in Chawton. In 1802, a wealthy man named Harris Bigg-Wither proposed to Austen, but, following her heart, she declined the proposal although it would have meant her financial stability. Although her work was in line with the Romantic movement in English literature, romance in an Austen novel usually signals tragedy. In-fact, the woman who chooses the more moderate and rational path is rewarded. Publishing her work anonymously, as was customary in her time, prevented her from being received in literary circles. Her most famous works include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Emma (1816), and Northanger Abbey (1817). Austen had the talent of presenting ordinary, everyday life in a charming and insightful manner which continues to capture readers imaginations today. Although all her novels are romances, Austen's ability to integrate observations on the human condition within a convincing love story is what has kept her reputation alive. Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817 in Winchester Hampshire, London from Addison’s disease.