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Dossier 1 Jane Austen and Her Times Early Life
Jane Austen and Her Times - Early Life
Jane Austen is famous for six novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfi eld Park (1814), Emma (1815), Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (1817, published after Jane died).
The beginning
Jane was born on 16th December, 1775 in a small village about 60 miles to the west of London, called Steventon. She was the seventh of eight children. She had six older brothers, an older sister, called Cassandra (we’ll be meeting her later), and a younger brother. ‘I hope,’ her father said, when she was born, ‘that Jane will be a companion for her sister.’ He was right. Jane and Cassandra were very close and exchanged hundreds of letters during their lives. Why Steventon? Her father was the clergyman there – the head person at the church in the village.
Quick facts
Name: Jane Austen Born: in Steventon, England on 16th December, 1775 Died: Winchester, on 18th July, 1817 (aged 41) Education: French, music, writing, and other studies useful for young ladies Key works: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfi eld Park (1814), Emma (1815), Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (1817)
Paper was handmade and expensive when Jane was alive. This didn’t stop her writing hundreds of letters, and her books, of course. Ink was made with natural ingredients mixed with water. Jane wrote with a 'quill' made from a feather.
Jane Austen is known today as the fi rst English woman to write great comic novels.
Jane Loves Laughter (…and Books)
The Austen house at Steventon was a lively place. The children, including the girls, were encouraged to learn, be curious, and read anything they found in their father’s library. We know how much Jane read because her fi rst works were inspired by some well-known books of the time. In fact, as a young girl, Jane recreated these popular works in a way that was meant to make her readers laugh. She exaggerates, laughs at, and copies these writers. Her sister, Cassandra, did the drawings for these little books. In her early writing, Jane’s main characters are women. All are confi dent and make their own decisions, even if that sometimes goes against the social rules of the time. In these books, we get a sense of Jane, and how she saw herself.
The Austen home at Steventon, by Edward Austen-Leigh.
Jane wrote in Pride and Prejudice: ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and to laugh at them in our turn?’
The family of Adrianus Bonebakker during a visit, by Adriaan Bonebakker (1809).
A World of Money
Jane lived in a world where travel was diffi cult and slow, and you were expected to spend time only with people of a similar wealth and social class to you. Her father and mother were not rich, but did have enough money to pay for a small number of servants. Jane was lucky. She had a large family. Some of her brothers did have money and good connections.
There were many rules for the people who worked in your house – your servants. Servants had to enter a room silently, not talk in a loud voice, sing or shout. They had to go up and down stairs quietly.
The Austens were a family of writers. Jane’s mother and two of her brothers wrote. Together, the children created and performed plays at their home. Education
Girls were usually educated at home. Jane and her sister Cassandra went to school for a short time, but they did most of their learning at home.
Jane and Cassandra were sent to school in Oxford in 1783, where Jane became very ill and nearly died, and then to Reading in 1785. Here, the sisters learned French, music, writing, and other studies useful for young ladies, such as dancing, religion, household management, languages and literature. Jane returned to Steventon in 1786, at the age of 11, and never left the family again, but that didn't mean she stopped studying. Her father, and a family friend, William Hastings, had a good library. Her brothers, James and Henry, also helped her with her studies.
Social connections
Jane enjoyed dances and family visits. Importantly for us, as we read her clever and funny pictures of life in nineteenth-century England, her family and friendships gave her lots of material for her novels. In fact, Jane Austen is admired today for her realism. But it is important to remember that novels come from her writer’s imagination – characters and events are not exact copies, but made larger, and more foolish, for our entertainment. Social connections were usually formed through meetings, usually beginning with morning ‘calls’ (with printed name cards sent from house to house), undertaken in the afternoon.
‘The Music Lesson’, by Louis Moritz, 1808.
‘My idea of good company…is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation.’ Jane Austen, Persuasion
In her writing, Jane laughs at the foolish rules of her times, but with her usual honesty, she invites us to admit that we all laugh at each other.
Jane’s Inspiration
Eliza Capot was Jane’s cousin. As a close friend of Jane’s, and a lady of the highest social circles, many people believe Eliza inspired Jane’s writing, both because she was confi dent and fashionable, and in the stories she told of her life.
Marriage
In Jane Austen's time, women usually married between the ages of 23 and 27; after 27 women were 'too old' to marry. If she had no wealth of her own, she could only live with her brother and his wife or work as a ladies’ companion, governess, or teacher on a minimal salary, living in poverty. For Austen’s women, marriage to a man with money was the only way for them to avoid poverty. But what happens if a woman and man fall in love without money? Tom Lefroy was a brilliant student of law who met Jane in 1790, but Jane’s family was not rich or important enough for his family. He was sent away and they never met again.
Dancing
Dancing was an important part of life in the time of Jane Austen. In her novels, dances help us to get to know the characters, and laugh at some of them! They are also a way for us to understand who is more or less ‘important’ in society. Rules of etiquette were strictly observed. A gentleman could not dance with a woman more than twice, unless he wanted to marry her. He had also to make sure that all ladies danced a few times. A lady had to accept all gentlemen who asked for a dance: if she refused one, she could not dance for the rest of the evening. Dances of this period were lively and full of energy. These included traditional English and Scottish ‘country dances’, and the fashionable French cotillion – where couples dance in fours.
Thomas Langlois Lefroy, (1776-1869), aged about 20.
Many people believe that Tom and Jane each provide some of the inspiration for both Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.
A gentleman could ask a lady to dance, but only if she had already been introduced to him.
