Difference between revisions of "Jane Austen"

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Jane Austen (December 16, 1775 – July 18, 1817) was a British writer in the early nineteenth century. Her works include various comic stories, six completed novels, and two unfinished novels, but her best-known works may be Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

She wrote her first two works, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, in her early twenties. Northanger Abbey, her third manuscript, sold to a publisher for ten pounds, but was not immediately published.

Austen's family moved to Bath when she was 25. This marks the beginning of a fallow period in her writing, and eight years of much family upheaval. In 1809, Austen, her sisters, and her mother moved to Chawton, where she was able to write again.

Sense and Sensibility was finally published in 1811, and Pride and Prejudice followed in 1813. Mansfield Park and Emma followed in 1814 and 1815. Austen finished her work Persuasion in 1816, when the rights for Northanger Abbey were bought back by Austen's brother.

Jane Austen died July 18, 1817, just a few months before her last two novels were published together in December, finally identifying her and her previous works.

Novel outlines

In Pride and Prejudice, the two antagonists are the immensely wealthy Mr. Darcy and the middle-class Elizabeth Bennet. Her prejudice against his pride and disdain is gradually broken down by his kindness.

In Emma, the protagonist, Emma Woodhouse, is a comically incompetent matchmaker who almost misses her own true love.

External links

• Film Adaptations of Jane Austen's Novels
• Online appreciation of Jane Austen fansite
• [1]
• The Jane Austin Center, Bath