Jane Austen

Jane Austen

• Birth:    December 15, 1775
• Death:    July 18, 1817
• Nationality:   English
• Education:    Reading Abbey Girls' School
• Author URL: 
• Books Written (from Wikipedia)
• Novels
  

  • Sense and Sensibility (1811)
  • Pride and Prejudice (1813)
  • Mansfield Park (1814)
  • Emma (1815)
  • Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)
  • Persuasion (1818, posthumous)
  • Lady Susan (1871, posthumous)

  Unfinished fiction
  

  • The Watsons (1804)
  • Sanditon (1817)

  Other works
  

  • Sir Charles Grandison (adapted play) (1793, 1800)^[p]
  • Plan of a Novel (1815)
  • Poems (1796–1817)
  • Prayers (1796–1817)
  • Letters (1796–1817)

  Juvenilia — Volume the First (1787–1793)^[q]
  

  • Frederic & Elfrida
  • Jack & Alice
  • Edgar & Emma
  • Henry and Eliza
  • The Adventures of Mr. Harley
  • Sir William Mountague
  • Memoirs of Mr. Clifford
  • The Beautifull Cassandra
  • Amelia Webster
  • The Visit
  • The Mystery
  • The Three Sisters
  • A beautiful description
  • The generous Curate
  • Ode to Pity

  Juvenilia — Volume the Second (1787–1793)
  

  • Love and Freindship
  • Lesley Castle
  • The History of England
  • A Collection of Letters
  • The female philosopher
  • The first Act of a Comedy
  • A Letter from a Young Lady
  • A Tour through Wales
  • A Tale

  Juvenilia — Volume the Third (1787–1793)
  

  • Evelyn
  • Catherine, or The Bower
• Biography

From Spring 2019 OSHER class on Jane Austen by Heather Parish
Daughter of a clergyman and never married.
Early novels written from 1796-1798

• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)

Later novels written 1809-1817:

• Mansfield Park (1814)
• Emma (1815)
• Persuasion (1818, posthumous)

• Austen's life bridged the transition between the Age of Reason (also called The Enlightenment) and the Romantic Age, and her fiction often illustrates the tension between the emphasis on reason in the former and the emphasis on emotion in the latter.
• Her novels are restricted to the middle and gentry classes that she lived in and departed from the Gothic novels of adventure and horror that were popular fiction of the day. Still, her novels sold well and were well respected, largely due to their comic elements (satire, absurdity and exposure of foolishness) and their commentary on society and everydau English life.
• She published under the pseudonym, "A Lady" and her name was not put on her novels until after her death
• Austen is critically admired for her sens of irony, her realism and her character development.

Historical elements to be aware of:

• Sense of strict etiquette, standards of behavor and the importance respectability.
• The position of women in Austen's time-particularly married women versus unmarried.
• Class snobbery and the importance of owning land versus being "in trade."
• A rise in egalitatian ideas from the Enlightment.

Why Austen in the 21st Century?

• Great words and technique
• Memorable characters
• Enduring humor
• Situations cultuarally relevant
• Complexity and goes beyond "romance" genre
• Exploration of relationships and the self

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• Works by Jane Austen at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Jane Austen at Internet Archive
• Works by Jane Austen at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Jane Austen's Fiction Manuscripts Digital Edition, a digital archive from the University of Oxford
• A Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh
• Jane Austen at the British Library
• Jane Austen Society of the United Kingsom
• Jane Austen Society of the United States
•  Central California Jane Austen Society