Jane Austen
Jane Austen, one of Britain's great novelists, published her novels anonymously and was not widely celebrated or acknowledged until after her death. Born in Hampshire, England in 1775, Austen was one of eight children and lived a quiet clergyman family's life in the English countryside. She was schooled at home, and for a time at a girl's boarding school. Austen's family loved to tell stories and perform plays. She began to write stories and novellas as a teenager. Her first novel, Sense and Sensibility (1811), is the story of two unmarried sisters and the dilemmas they face in matters of love and life. The situation of unmarried women in England was fraught with financial, emotional, and moral pitfalls. Austen captures these issues with humor and deeply-felt understanding. Austen's writing in the genre of the Comedy of Manners, satirizing the social pretensions of the monied class, added new approaches of complexity and wit, along with flawless prose. Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice (1813) balances contrasting principles in the form of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, who must navigate social rank and moral dilemmas in their search for happiness. Emma (1815) examines a woman's manipulation of her friends and family and her errors in judgement. All of Austen's novels have been adapted for film, including 1995's Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson, and Emma (1996) with Gwyneth Paltrow. In 2007, the movie Becoming Jane attempted to fill in the details of Jane Austen's life and loves. Jane Austen became ill in 1815, and died in 1817.
