Biography and Bibliography

Biography

Jane Austen was born at the rectory in the village of Steventon on 16 December, 1775.   She was seventh of eight children born to the Reverend George Austen and his wife, Cassandra.  Jane’s education was done from the home due to local illnesses. She possessed the childhood that many people dreamed of during that time period. Jane was always creatively expressive, and performed plays as a child with her sister and was encouraged to write. As a child, she drew, played piano, and also wrote. As Jane grew older, her family moved to Bath where she spent much of her time. 
               At the age of 14 she wrote her first novel, Love and Friendship, and in her early twenties she wrote the novels that, after some work later on, would be published as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey.  Many of Austen’s greatest works were thought to be influenced by personal experiences and tragedy. She loved the country and it upset her greatly when her father decided they were moving to Bath in 1801. 
              Austen hated the bustle of city life encountered in Bath, and consequently her writing ceased because of it.  Jane did fall in love; however, when the young man died, she was crushed.  She accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, a rich landowner, but changed her mind. Finally in 1809 her brother Edward offered his mother and two sisters permanent housing back at Austen’s beloved Hampshire, a place she used as the setting for most of her work.  She ended up contracting Addisons Disease, a tubercular disease of the kidneys, and lost her ability to walk.  Unfortunately, there was no cure and Austen suffered and died in 1817 at 41 years of age.  For all the wonderful works she created not one bore her name—they were simply accredited “By a Lady.”

Information for biography found at the Jane Austen Society of Australia and IMDB Movie Database

Critical Sources

                  Booth, Wayne C.  Point of View and the Control of Distance in Emma.   Nineteenth-Century Fiction 16. 2 (1961): 95-116.
                                                              Austen's attempt to sway her reader's judgment

                 Ferguson, Frances.  Jane Austen, Emma, and the Impact of Form.  MLQ: Modern Language Quarterly 61.1 (2000): 157-180.
                                                              Austen's form and her connection between society and the individual

                Grossman, Jonathan H.  The Labor of the Leisured in Emma: Class, Manners, and Austen.   Nineteenth-Century Literature 54.2. (1999):143-164.                                                              The experience and mannerisms of the upper-class

                Gunn, Daniel P. Free Indirect Discourse and Narrative Authority in Emma.  Narrative 12.1 (2004): 35-54.
                                                                Austen's displacement of narratorial presence and judgment

                Hughes, R.E.  The Education of Emma Woodhouse.  Nineteenth-Century Fiction 16.1 (1961):69-74.
                                                               The symbolism and structure of Emma's moral and sexual growth

               Kramp, Michael. The Woman, the Gypsies, and England: Harriet Smith's National Role.  College Literature 31.1(2004): 147-168.
                                                                Harriet's influence on Emma and society in the 19th century

               Miller, Christopher.  Jane Austen's Aesthetics and Ethics of Surprise.  Narrative 13.3 (2005): 238-260.
                                                Austen's use of surprise in her novels

               Stewart, Maaja A.  The Fools in Austen's Emma.  Nineteenth-Century Literature 41.1 (1986): 72-86.
                                                               Emphasis on Miss Bates and Mr. Woodhouse and their influence