Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Jane Austen was born in 1775 in the village of Steventon, Hampshire, in southern England. Her father was an Anglican clergyman. Austen began writing fiction as an adolescent, primarily for the amusement of her parents, her many siblings, and her close friends and relatives. The first novel she published was Sense and Sensibility (1811), which was followed by Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). During the writing of these novels she lived with her mother and sister in a small house on the estate of her brother Edward at Chawton in Hampshire, then moved to the city of Winchester in 1817 for medical treatment. There she died on July 18, 1817. Her early novel Northanger Abbey and her last completed novel, Persuasion, were published in 1818.
Austen is best known for the novels that were published in her lifetime. While they were well-received and admired by some of her contemporaries, none of her novels had her name on their title pages, and the numbers of copies published and circulated were relatively small. After her death, however, her reputation slowly grew, and by the later nineteenth century there was a steady stream of publications by and about her.
Austen’s reputation has always been marked by paradoxes. She has been seen as a timeless purveyor of “universal truths,” yet she was deeply embedded in her own historical moment; her works have been seen as part of the canon of great literary works, yet she has also been embraced by popular culture. This exhibition is designed to explore some of the paradoxes surrounding Jane Austen. The central section of this exhibition, “Historical Contexts,” documents and explains some of the many social and cultural phenomena she responded to in her novels. This section is framed by two sections—the first emphasizing the publication history of her major novels, the other emphasizing the publication of Austen memorabilia and fan material—that provide insight into how Austen was transformed into both a high priestess of English literature, and a household purveyor of homey truths.
Spotlight on Austen's Novels