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Jane Austen: Background of Her Novels
First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has consistently been Jane
Austen's most popular novel. It portrays life in the genteel rural society
of the day, and tells of the initial misunderstandings and later mutual
enlightenment between Elizabeth Bennet (whose liveliness and quick wit have
often attracted readers) and the haughty Darcy. The title Pride and
Prejudice refers (among other things) to the ways in which Elizabeth and
Darcy first view each other. The original version of the novel was written
in 1796-1797 under the title First Impressions, and was probably in the
form of an exchange of letters.
Jane Austen's own tongue-in-cheek opinion of her work, in a letter to her
sister Cassandra immediately after its publication, was: "Upon the whole...
I am well satisfied enough. The work is rather too light, and bright, and
sparkling; it wants [i.e. needs] shade; it wants to be stretched out here
and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of
solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story: an
essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonapart‚,
or anything that would form a contrast and bring the reader with increased
delight to the playfulness and general epigrammatism of the general style".
In 1809 Jane Austen, her mother, sister Cassandra, and Martha Lloyd moved
to Chawton, near Alton and Winchester, where her brother Edward provided a
small house on one of his estates. This was in Hampshire, not far from her
childhood home of Steventon. Before leaving Southampton, she corresponded
with the dilatory publisher to whom she had sold Susan (i.e. Northanger
Abbey), but without receiving any satisfaction.
She resumed her literary activities soon after returning into Hampshire,
and revised Sense and Sensibility, which was accepted in late 1810 or early
1811 by a publisher, for publication at her own risk. It appeared
anonymously ("By a Lady") in October 1811, and at first only her immediate
family knew of her authorship: Fanny Knight's diary for September 28, 1811
records a "Letter from Aunt Cass. to beg we would not mention that Aunt
Jane wrote Sense and Sensibility"; and one day in 1812 when Jane Austen and
Cassandra and their niece Anna were in a "circulating library" at Alton,
Anna threw down a copy of Sense and Sensibility on offer there, "exclaiming
to the great amusement of her Aunts who stood by, "Oh that must be rubbish,
I am sure from the title."" There were at least two fairly favorable
reviews, and the first edition eventually turned a profit of œ140 for her.
Encouraged by this success, Jane Austen turned to revising First
Impressions, a.k.a. Pride and Prejudice. She sold it in November 1812, and
her "own darling child" (as she called it in a letter) was published in
late January 1813. She had already started work on Mansfield Park by 1812,
and worked on it during 1813. It was during 1813 that knowledge of her
authorship started to spread outside her family; as Jane Austen wrote in a
letter of September 25th 1813: "Henry heard P. & P. warmly praised in
Scotland, by Lady Robert Kerr & another Lady; -- & and what does he do in
the warmth of his brotherly vanity and Love, but immediately tell them who
wrote it!".
Since she had sold the copyright of Pride and Prejudice outright for œ110
(presumably in order to receive a convenient payment up front, rather than
having to wait for the profits on sales to trickle in), she did not receive
anything more when a second edition was published later in 1813. A second
edition of Sense and Sensibility was also published in October 1813. In May
1814, Mansfield Park appeared, and was sold out in six months; she had
already started work on Emma. Her brother Henry, who then conveniently
lived in London, often acted as Jane Austen's go-between with publishers,
and on several occasions she stayed with him in London to revise proof-
sheets. In October 1813, one of the Prince Regent's physicians was brought
in to treat an illness that Henry was suffering from; it was through this
connection that Jane Austen was brought into contact with Mr. Clarke. James
Stanier Clarke was the Prince Regent's librarian, and transmitted to her
the Prince's request that she dedicate her next work (Emma) to him, an
honour that Jane Austen would probably rather have done without (see her
letter on the infidelities of the Prince and his wife). Some of Mr.
Clarke's "helpful" suggestions showed up in the Plan for a Novel. [More
complete versions of these letters, as printed in Austen-Leigh's Memoir,
are also available on-line.]
Pride and Prejudice
First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has consistently been Jane
Austen's most popular novel. It portrays the initial misunderstandings and
later mutual enlightenment between Elizabeth Bennet (whose liveliness and
quick wit have often attracted readers) and the haughty Darcy. Jane Austen
wrote in a letter about Elizabeth, "I must confess that I think her as
delightful a character as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able
to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know". The title
Pride and Prejudice refers (among other things) to the ways in which
Elizabeth and Darcy first view each other. The original version of the
novel was written in 1796-1797 under the title First Impressions, and was
probably in the form of an exchange of letters; First Impressions was
actually the first of Jane Austen's works to be offered to a publisher, in
1797 by Jane Austen's father, but the publisher turned it down without even
looking at the manuscript.
Mansfield Park
This novel, originally published in 1814, is the first of Jane Austen's
novels not to be a revised version of one of her pre-1800 writings.
Mansfield Park has sometimes been considered atypical of Jane Austen, as
being solemn and moralistic, especially when contrasted with the
immediately preceding Pride and Prejudice and the immediately following
Emma. Poor Fanny Price is brought up at Mansfield Park with her rich uncle
and aunt, where only her cousin Edmund helps her with the difficulties she
suffers from the rest of the family, and from her own fearfulness and
timidity. When the sophisticated Crawfords (Henry and Mary), visit the
Mansfield neighbourhood, the moral sense of each marriageable member of the
Mansfield family is tested in various ways, but Fanny emerges more or less
unscathed. The well-ordered (if somewhat vacuous) house at Mansfield Park,
and its country setting, play an important role in the novel, and are
contrasted with the squalour of Fanny's own birth family's home at
Portsmouth, and with the decadence of London.
Readers have a wide variety of reactions to Mansfield Park_most of which
already appear in the Opinions of Mansfield Park collected by Jane Austen
herself soon after the novel's publication. Some dislike the character of
Fanny as "priggish" (however, it is Edmund who sets the moral tone here),
or have no sympathy for her forced inaction (doubtless, those are people
who have never lacked confidence, or been without a date on Friday night!).
Mansfield Park has also been used to draw connections between the "genteel"
rural English society that Jane Austen describes and the outside world,
since Fanny's uncle is a slave-owner (with an estate in Antigua in the
Caribbean; slavery was not abolished in the British empire until 1833).
Like a number of other topics, Jane Austen only chose to allude glancingly
to the slave trade and slavery in her novels, though she was aware of
contemporary debates on the subject. Mansfield Park was one of only two of
Jane Austen's novels to be revised by her after its first publication, when
a second edition came out in 1816 (this second edition was a failure in
terms of sales).
Emma
Emma, published in 1815, has been described as a "mystery story without a
murder". The eponymous heroine is the charming (but perhaps too clever for
her own good) Emma Woodhouse, who manages to deceive herself in a number of
ways (including as to who is really the object of her own affections), even
though she (and the reader) are often in possession of evidence pointing
toward the truth. Like Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, Marianne
Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and
Prejudice, she overcomes self-delusion during the course of her novel. The
book describes a year in the life of the village of Highbury and its
vicinity, portraying many of the various inhabitants.
Emma was dedicated to the dissolute Prince Regent (George Augustus
Frederick), at hisrequest; he was the uncle of Victoria, and was Prince
Regent from 1811-1820 and later king George IV (1820-1830). Jane Austen was
apparently not especially pleased by this honour (see her letter on the
infidelities of the Prince and his wife). This episode was productive of
her amusing correspondence with Mr. Clarke.
Persuasion
This relatively short novel, her last, was written in the last few years of
Jane Austen's life, and published only after her death in 1817 (though she
described it, in a letter of March 13 1816, as "a something ready for
publication", she probably would have revised it further, if she had not
already been ill with her eventually fatal disease by the time she stopped
working on it). It involves an older heroine than any of her other novels
do (Anne Elliot is 27), and is also the only novel whose events are
explicitly dated to a specific year (1814-1815). Eight years before the
novel begins, Anne Elliot (whom Jane Austen described in one of her letters
as a "heroine [who] is almost too good for me") had been persuaded by an
older friend of the family, whom she respects, to give up her engagement to
the then-poor Captain Wentworth. Like Mansfield Park, this novel has a
number of characters who are in the navy (two of Jane Austen's brothers
were sailors), and several warm-hearted naval families are attractively
depicted; these contrast favorably with Anne's own family, in which she is
overlooked by her vain and rank-proud Baronet father and her cold and
selfish elder sister. In its autumnal mood, this novel is more serious in
tone than most of Jane Austen's other works, and perhaps is the most
conventionally "romantic" of them (and thus the one which has given rise to
the most speculation about her own affairs of the heart_for example, by
Kipling); however, there is still plenty of Jane Austen irony. Persuasion
also contains more description of background and natural beauty than the
previous novels. In her admiration for the seaside town of Lyme and dislike
of Bath, Anne Elliot reflects her creator's preferences.
After she had finished the first version of Persuasion, Jane Austen was
dissatisfied with the chapter in which Anne Elliot and the "unconsciously
constant" Captain Wentworth are reconciled; she then wrote two replacement
chapters which are universally considered much better than the first
attempt. The manuscript of the cancelled chapter is the only original
manuscript of any part of Jane Austen's published novels which has survived.
Minor Writings
Jane Austen's minor writings (besides her letters) include the Juvenilia
(early short pieces written for the amusement of her family, before she had
started on any of her novels), several incomplete beginnings of novels,
Lady Susan, the Plan of a Novel, some light verse, some prayers, and a few
other miscellaneous fragments.
Sense and Sensibility
This novel contrasts two sisters: Marianne, who, with her doctrines of love
at first sight, fervent emotions overtly expressed, and admiration of the
grotesque "picturesque", represents the cult of "sensibility"; and Elinor,
who has much more "sense", but is still not immune from disappointments.
Despite some amusing characters and true Jane Austen touches, it is not
generally considered to be her best novel. According to Cassandra, it was
probably the first of the novels to be started (sometime before 1797, under
the early name Elinor and Marianne); it was worked on in 1797, and probably
again heavily revised before publication in 1811.
It was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be published, and appeared
without her name on the title page (only "By a Lady"). It was advertised as
an `Interesting Novel', which meant (in the jargon of the day) that it was
a love story. Jane Austen pledged herself to cover her publisher's losses,
if necessary, but actually realized œ140 in profit. It was one of only two
novels that Jane Austen revised after publication, when a second edition
came out in 1813. The first and second editions were probably not more than
a thousand copies each, but the readership would have been very much larger,
due to the institution of "circulating libraries" (book rental shops), and
also the fact that the novel was published in three separately-bound
volumes (as was the usual practice).
Northanger Abbey
This playful short novel is the one which most resembles Jane Austen's
Juvenilia. It is the story of the unsophisticated and sincere Catherine
Morland on her first trip away from home, for a stay in Bath. There she
meets the entertaining Henry Tilney; later, on a visit to his family's
house (the "Northanger Abbey" of the title) she learns to distinguish
between the highly charged calamities of Gothic fiction and the realities
of ordinary life (which can also be distressing in their way). Like Jane
Austen's Love and Freindship, this book makes fun of the conventions of
many late 18th century literary works, with their highly wrought and
unnatural emotions; some of this humor derives from the contrast between
Catherine Morland and the conventional heroines of novels of the day (for
an idea of the latter, see the Plan of a Novel).
An early version of the book was written under the title Susan (in 1798-99
according to Cassandra). It was actually the first of Jane Austen's novels
sold to a publisher (a publisher named Crosby bought it in 1803 for œ10).
He advertised it as forthcoming, but never issued it. Jane Austen had the
manuscript bought back more than ten years later, after several of her
other novels had been published, and apparently made some revisions, but
finally "put it on the shel[f]" (letter of March 13, 1816). It was only
after her death in 1817 that her brother Henry finally had it published
(together with Persuasion). The title "Northanger Abbey" was not chosen by
Jane Austen (she referred to the book in her letter as "Miss Catherine").
The most famous quote from Northanger Abbey is probably Henry Tilney's
pseudo-gothic satire (see also Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland on
marriage vs. dancing, the "Defense of the Novel", the walk to Beechen Cliff
(Henry and Eleanor Tilney with Catherine Morland), and quotes on the
opposition between the "heroic" and the "natural"). (By the way, in this
novel Jane Austen uses the word "baseball"_the first person, as far as is
known, to use this word in writing by over fifty years.)
ADDITIONAL FEATURED ESSAYS
Marriage: The Perfect Ending To Pride And Prejudice
An individual often finds himself in a conflict with the rules of society. Occasionally, rebelling is the path to happin
Pride And Prejudice
In by Jane Austen the entire novel is designed around a running theme: . The passage in the novel that best relates this
Pride And Prejudice
In by Jane Austen the entire novel is designed around a running theme: . The passage in the novel that best relates this
Pride And Prejudice
Jane Austen's , set in Nineteenth century England, is a novel about marriage. Austen's feminine writing and weaved story
Pride And Predjudice
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, set in Nineteenth century England, is a novel about marriage. Austen's feminine writi
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