Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen Biography

Jane Austen was an English novelist from the Regency Era. She was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775. Jane’s father, George Austen, served as a rector of the Anglican parishes. Jane was baptized at a local church on April 5, 1776. She is famous for her six novels, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Persuasion (1817) and Northanger Abbey (1817). Her novels are mainly a commentary and critique of the landed gentry in late-eighteenth-century Britain. Her plots generally explore the plight of women, their quest to find a perfect suitor, and their dependence on marriage to secure social and economic security. She deploys irony and sarcasm to expose the hypocrisy of the patriarchal society of her time.

Austen’s writings also mirror the transition from the sentimentalist novels of the late-eighteenth century to the literary realism of the early-nineteenth century. During Austen’s time, British women did not have the right to sign legal contracts; hence, Austen had to publish her works anonymously. Understandably, there is a shortage of biographical sources. Nonetheless, details of her life have been pieced together from the letters she wrote her older sister, Cassandra. However, these, too, aren’t all that authoritative since Cassandra burned most of these letters in 1843, except the ones she wished to keep. Allegedly, Austen may have written over 3,000 letters, of which only 161 could be recovered.