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The mistress of fiction in the pre-Victorian era, Jane
Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at Steventon,
Hampshire, England to Rev. George Austen and the former
Cassandra Leigh. She was their seventh child and the
second daughter. She was noted for her witty
observations on the society which she woved in her
novels, all of which were published anonymously. With
meticulous detail, Austen painted a lucid picture of the
quiet everyday life of the upper middle classes. She
wrote about people among whom she lived in. Her lifetime
companion and closest confidante was her elder sister,
Cassandra.
Although Jane had no formal education, she was an
extensive reader and by the time she reached her teens,
was writing amusing parodies. She had two periods of
fruitful literary activity. The first lasted from 1795
to 1798, when she wrote the earlier versions of Sense
and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger
Abbey. The second period lasted from 1811 to 1816 when
her mastery of her craft deepened, and her works
received recognition.
After her father's death in 1805, she moved with her
family several times and eventually settled in Chawton,
where she lived and wrote for the last eight years of
her life. She died on July 18, 1817, at the age of 41.
Jane Austen - The Book
This omnibus edition has Austen's four famous novels:
Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield
Park and Emma. Her works can be considered both as
romantic comedy and social satire. Austen gives us a
deep psychological insight into the English society of
those times. Her characters and events are based on
people and circumstances which she happened to observe
in real life. In most of her novels, her characters
correct their flaws as a result of some suffering.
In Sense and Sensibility, Austen makes the readers
realize that sensibility, although wanted in all, should
be balanced with good sense and judgment.
Pride and Prejudice, her undoubted magnum opus, centers
around the Bennet family, and the Bennet daughters'
search for suitable husbands. This novel displays that
reality should precede appearance, and deliberations
precede impulse while forming opinions. Elibeth relying
on her impulses and the appearance of Fitzwilliam Darcy
forms a negative opinion of him. During the course of
time deliberation and reality changes her attitude and
both end up getting married.
Mansfield Park introduces us to Fanny Price, an
intelligent and sensitive girl who comes to live with
her aunt, Lady and Sir Bertram, and her cousins.
Patronized by three of her cousins, she ultimately finds
a friend in Edmund, and marries him.
The central theme of Emma is self-deception and the
heroine, Emma Woodhouse is a total personification of
the theme. This novel describes the transformation of a
domineering, self-centered meddler Emma, into a humbled
woman ready for marriage, to the aptly named, Mr.
Knightly. |
