Titans of History

JANE AUSTEN

1775–1817

Like Shakespeare, she took, as it were, the common dross of humanity, and by her wonderful power of literary alchemy, turned it into pure gold. Yet she was apparently unconscious of her strength, and in the long roll of writers who have adorned our noble literature there is probably not one so devoid of pedantry or affectation, so delightfully self-repressive, or so free from egotism, as Jane Austen.

George Barnett Smith, in The Gentleman’s Magazine, No. 258 (1895)

A parson’s daughter who completed just six novels during her short life, Jane Austen emerged from deliberate anonymity to become English literature’s best-loved female writer. Her gently ironic yet profound novels of love, manners and marriage transformed the art of writing fiction.

Acutely observed and subtly incisive, Austen’s works are acknowledged as masterpieces. Her irony conceals a penetrating gaze, encapsulated in the famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice (1813): “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” This was the world she chronicled: “The Assemblies of Nottingham are, as in all other places, the resort of the young and the gay, who go to see and be seen; and also of those, who, having played their matrimonial cards well in early life, are now content to sit down to a game of sober whist or quadrille.” Thus, in 1814, was encapsulated the purpose of the endless round of entertainments that consumed the lives of England’s gentry and aristocracy: to find matches for the new generation.

As the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft commented, a girl’s “coming out,” at the age of fifteen or sixteen, was purely “to bring to market a marriageable miss, whose person is taken from one place to another, richly caparisoned.” The market they chose was of paramount importance. One prudent clergyman advised his stepsisters not to move to rural Oxfordshire, on the grounds that the location “is but an indifferent one for young ladies to shine in.” Ambitious young women—or those with ambitious parents—would head for London.

No one was under any illusions about where they stood in the pecking order. It was unlikely that a provincial parson’s daughter, such as Jane Austen, with her modest portion and limited connections, would even meet, let alone marry, a son of the high aristocracy. The daughters of the elite, carrying substantial dowries, were rigorously protected against the adventurers who infiltrated London’s society balls in the hopes of bagging themselves an heiress.

Parents and children alike were aware that choices were determined as much by financial considerations as by inclination. “When poverty comes in at the door love flies out the window,” one gentlewoman reminded her daughter in 1801. The absolute minimum a gentleman could hope to scrape by on during this period was about £280 a year. But this would require a life, as one bride accepted, where “we shall live in a quiet domestic manner and not see much company.”

Even an esquire on £450 a year would struggle to satisfy the social requirements of his class: a country household, lodgings in London, visits to the theater and the opera, attendance at balls and pleasure gardens. One impecunious suitor complained to his beloved that: “Every parent takes utmost care to marry his child [where there] is money, not considering inclination … your papa no doubt may marry you to one [that] will make large settlements, keep an equipage and support you in all grandeur imaginable.” Prudence ruled as much as passion. The lurking specter of spinsterhood propelled many young women toward a match offering little but financial security.

Austen’s amused restraint was in marked contrast to the romantic melodrama in fashion at the time, and the historian Macaulay thought that her well-constructed comedies of manners were the closest to perfection that writing could ever hope to reach.

The seventh child of eight, Austen spent her life among a large and affectionate family in Hampshire and Bath. “Her life passed calmly and smoothly, resembling some translucent stream which meanders through our English meadows, and is never lashed into anger by treacherous rocks or violent currents,” wrote George Barnett Smith in 1895. She wrote about ordinary lives, about the petty dramas of lively provincial society, about the preoccupations, the squabbles, the complexities and the exhausting difficulties of unexceptional people. Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), the best-selling author of Ivanhoe, was one of the few to recognize the extent of Austen’s genius at the time, writing that she had “the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting.” She pastiched the fashionable Gothic melodrama in Northanger Abbey, and broke away from the prevailing tradition that literature should be about great figures, great events or great dramas. Austen showed that the small and the conversational could be just as compelling, and her witty depictions of the elaborate matrimonial dances of the English gentry are thinly disguised social commentary, displaying a shrewd understanding of human motivation and social necessity.

Along the way, Austen produced some of literature’s most memorable characters, drawn with her typical precision and intricacy. Aloof Mr. Darcy, obsequious Mr. Collins, flustered Mrs. Bennet and her wry and long-suffering husband, Mr. Bennet, populate Pride and Prejudice. Feisty, outspoken daughter Elizabeth Bennet is one of literature’s most engaging heroines, closely followed by the flawed but well-intentioned Emma Woodhouse of Emma (1816), who finds her equilibrium with the sensible and honorable George Knightley.

Austen’s novels may end happily, but not without revealing the situation of women of her class and era. Marriage determined a woman’s fate. As Charlotte Lucas’s marriage to the ridiculous Mr. Collins so eloquently demonstrates, almost any kind of marriage was deemed better than being an old maid. Elizabeth Bennet’s decision to challenge this convention is presented as admirable, but daring. Whereas we know that Elizabeth’s wit and charm will win her a husband (and a well-deserved place in the aristocracy), we also know that scores of women like Charlotte will not be so lucky and will have to compromise. Under a calm surface, Austen illuminates the prejudices, the scandals, the sheer misfortune and misunderstanding that could leave women without a husband, and in the absence of a personal fortune, dependent entirely on the kindness of others for survival. Austen also suggested, through the successful social elevation of both male and female characters by means of marriage, that a stagnant but often snobbish aristocracy was in need of new blood.

The novelist who excelled in her treatment of love and marriage never herself married. She was, by all accounts, vivacious and attractive. The only surviving picture of her, a drawing done by her sister Cassandra, seems not to have done her justice. She had at least two semi-serious flirtations. At twenty-six she was briefly engaged to Harris Bigg-Withers, an heir five years her junior. Facing a lifetime with a man by all accounts as unfortunate as his name, Austen broke it off after less than a day. Rumors prevail of another, later attachment that was Austen’s true love. Her beloved sister Cassandra, who also remained unmarried, destroyed much of her correspondence after her death.

Instead, Austen chose something her heroines never consider: a career. She had written since her childhood, producing stories, anecdotes and vignettes to amuse her family. In the upheaval after the family left her beloved childhood home, Austen stopped writing. Settling gratefully back in Hampshire with her mother and sister, Austen turned again to the works that she had begun a decade before. Elinor and Marianne became Sense and Sensibility (1811), and First Impressions became Pride and Prejudice. With the help of her brother Henry’s negotiating skills, Austen’s works were published under the authorship of simply “a lady,” with Northanger Abbey and Persuasion appearing posthumously in 1818. Famously private, Austen resisted attempts by the press and her proud family to make known the identity of this appealing writer, whose fans included the Prince Regent. Her authorship was made public only after her early death from, it is conjectured, Addison’s disease.

In her short, uneventful life this extraordinary writer created works that resonate even more strongly today than they did in the early 19th century. The modern cult of Jane Austen continues apace, as fans try to discover more about the elusive novelist’s life, and Hollywood films attempt to weave romantic tales out of the sketchy biographical details that exist. Many would agree, however, that her novels suffice. Discreet, ironic, witty and compassionate, Austen’s masterful writing is the measure of the woman.