“IT is a truth
universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune
must be in want of a wife.”
― The opening of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
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| Jane Austen portrait by James Andrews (colored and reproduced) |
Jane Austen was
born on 16 December 1775 in Stevenson Rectory, a small village in Hampshire,
England. Jane's parents, George and
Cassandra, were well-respected in their community. Her father, educated at
Oxford University, served as village rector of their Anglican parish. The
family was close and the children grew up in a creative environment. When Jane
was young, she and her siblings were encouraged to read –from their father and
mother’s extensive library. All eight Austen children wrote poems, plays and novellas. Jane soon distinguished herself among her
siblings with a creative voice and wrote novels. Two of which –Sense and Sensibility and Pride
and Prejudice—were published anonymously.
Since Jane was a lady in the registered
gentry, she could not earn a living from the sale of her writings nor sign her
name as the author. It wasn’t until Jane
died, at forty-one years old, that her siblings, Cassandra and Henry, pushed
for the publication of Persuasion and
Northanger Abbey, and for authorship
to be attributed to all of her works.
When We Met: I was 29, and we had just moved to Sacramento,
when I saw the film adaptation of Sense
and Sensibility. I fell in love with
the story and decided to read the book.
It took a minute to get used to the language, but Austen’s story was
powerful and easy to love. After Sense and Sensibility, I read Pride and Prejudice, a perfect novel
that leveled me halfway through when Darcy proclaims his love for Lizzy. No
film has ever been able to deliver the surprise of that paragraph – or the written
perfection of Lizzy’s reaction. After that Came Emma, then Mansfield Park,
my favorite. After that I read Persuasion, another perfect beauty.
Why She’s Good: She’s
funny. She tells stories of families,
not just individuals. Austen delivers stories about the search for
true love and understanding in a world that is not perfect. Her characters have faults, weaknesses, and
strengths, just like we all do, and they remind you of people you know. The reader can’t tell the heroes from the
villains until disaster strikes—and disaster always strikes. Austen is able to deliver socially complicated
stories with happy endings, one right after another. Time after time, she stepped up to the plate,
hit a home run and then (because she was an English Lady) was not allowed to
run the bases. I think Jane serves as an
example of writing something for its own beautiful reward, that may or may not
be recognized in a writer’s lifetime.
Plot Variations: Two sisters, one rational and the other
romantic and emotional, find themselves fatherless and unable to enter
respectable English society without a stigma attached to them. An
intelligent daughter of a country gentlemen realizes that she will soon be expected
to marry, even though her dowry would never attract anyone of sound
character. A brilliant young lady is
sent to live with an unkind aunt, who serves at a beautiful estate that is paid
for and run by slave labor. A young matchmaker
with no financial concerns discovers that she is not the lady of noble
character she thinks she is.
Buy One: Pride
and Prejudice is Austen’s most revered novel, and the one I have read the
most. BUT I usually recommend Sense and Sensibility, the easiest read
and the one that brings the reader right into the life of the British gentry at
the end of the 18th century. In both
novels there is a strong sister relationship between the two main characters
and you love them both—even though they are polar opposites. If you have a kindle, Amazon offers a free Pride and Prejudice for download here and Sense and Sensibility for a
whopping ninety-nine cents here. You’re
welcome.
Favorite Quote: Jane Austen was as witty as Elizabeth Bennet (from
Pride and Prejudice) and wrote as much as Fanny Price (Mansfield Park). I love how she would candidly express her
mind, especially when ladies were ostracized for saying such things. About the gentry not reading modern novels,
she said: “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good
novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
Trivia: Many modern stories borrow from Austen. Clueless
is a modern version of Emma. Bridget
Jones’ Diary is a version of Pride
and Prejudice, complete with the scandalous love triangle. Bollywood did their own version and called it
“Bride and Prejudice” – because that’s allowed, apparently. From
Prada to Nada is a modern Sense and
Sensibility. And everywhere, everywhere there are vampire and zombie renditions of
Austen’s novels.
The Secret Betrayal: Austen was dissatisfied with the way that
society treated women. English ladies
could not earn their income and their financial support was given to them in an
allowance from their husbands. If a
woman stayed unmarried, usually because she was not pretty, she was most likely
to become poor. Austen was seen as
someone who disrespected the ways of the gentry by writing about the dependence
of women on marriage, especially to gain acceptable social standing. Would it be possible that many women traded their
quest for love in favor of economic security? Oh, you bet!
As Austen writes in Mansfield Park, “There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as
there are pretty women to deserve them.”
