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    Jane Austen
    Jane Austen
    Jane Austen
    Ebook88 pages1 hour

    Jane Austen

    By Helen Lefroy

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    About this ebook

    Jane Austen's reputation rests on the six novels she wrote in her short life - enduringly popular novels which have become part of the fabric of English life, and which have reached new audiences through recent dramatisations on screen and stage. This book, which draws on her letters, describes Jane's life in the vicarage at Steventon and later at Bath and Chawton, and her relationships with family and friends - especially her beloved sister, Cassandra, and the engaging Tom Lefroy (who it was rumoured was the love of her life). It also describes the parties and balls in country houses and assembly rooms which she attended and the detail of nineteenth-century life which she so sharply observed and which provided the backgroung to her novels. This book is a pleasure for anyone wanting to understand the life of one of our great novelists.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateOct 24, 2011
    ISBN9780752474021
    Jane Austen

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      Book preview

      Jane Austen - Helen Lefroy

      INTRODUCTION

      Jane Austen (1775–1817) wrote only six complete novels, two of which were published after her death. In these novels the life of the gentry, landowners and clergy at the end of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries is shown in detail. They are peopled by an assembly of characters, men and women, old and young – some, but not many, children – who are unforgettable and can become as real to the reader as his or her own friends and family. Jane Austen did not step outside her own self-imposed limits. She does not write of titled people in grand houses – although she knew the aristocratic families living in the corner of North Hampshire where she lived with her parents for her first twenty-five years, and as a young and attractive girl was invited to the annual balls given by titled families.

      Critics accuse Jane Austen of being obsessed with money and rich relations. But both were a necessity in the society to which she belonged. As the younger daughter of a country parson she knew from an early age that without a dowry she would be unlikely to find a husband among her circle of friends. An eldest son would inherit the property and money to keep it together, or he might be lucky and marry a rich wife. What became of younger sons? They entered the church, the armed forces, and the law; not until later in the nineteenth century did they engage in trade. As benefices in the Church of England were largely privately owned or the property of university colleges, it was essential to know or be related to owners of advowsons and rectories. Twice Mr Austen sought to advance the careers of his two naval sons, both of them reliable, enthusiastic and thoroughly professional young officers, by invoking the help of friends in high places.

      All Jane Austen’s work shows a recognizable standard of values. Her father was a country vicar; his family remained faithful Christians throughout their lives, and went regularly to church. Jane took for granted that a person should be sincere, unselfish, disinterested and unworldly, and that virtue should be judged by good sense and good taste. These beliefs are fundamental to her work. In Sense and Sensibility, the first of her novels to be published, the impetuous Marianne, who judges by the heart, is contrasted with her sister Elinor who believes that the heart should be disciplined by good sense and moral principle. Marianne is of course far more attractive a character than Elinor – and should not have been paired off at the end of the book with Colonel Brandon! Pride and Prejudice shows the foolishness of trusting to first impressions which are corrected by understanding and reflection. Emma (in Emma) is over-confident and tries to manage the lives of others without pausing to understand their characters, or even her own.

      Jane and her elder sister Cassandra were inseparable friends from childhood. It is from Jane’s letters to Cassandra, written whenever they were away from each other, that one learns the details of their everyday life: the price of muslin, the arrival of yet more nephews and nieces, and the state of their mother’s health. All these details are interspersed with comments kind and cruel about friends, relations and strangers. Jane Austen’s interest revolved around people – their eccentricities, appearance and dialogue. From them she created the characters which give her novels universal and lasting appeal.

      ONE

      STEVENTON – THE EARLY YEARS

      For generations Austens had lived at Horsmonden in Kent, where they were engaged in the woollen industry. At the end of the seventeenth century John Austen, owner of the family property, married a remarkably strong and determined woman, Elizabeth Weller. Widowed in 1704, and with a string of debts and children, she took on the job of housekeeper at Sevenoaks Grammar School and also lodged the Master. As funds were only available for her eldest son to go to university, the younger boys were obliged to seek apprenticeships. Francis became a prosperous lawyer in Sevenoaks and William a surgeon in Tonbridge. William – Jane’s grandfather – died when his son George (1731–1805) was six years old. From 1741 to 1747 George Austen – Jane’s father – attended Tonbridge School. An equable temperament, firm character and ability to work hard enabled him to take up the scholarship to St John’s College, Oxford, reserved for a boy from Tonbridge School. After taking his degree the Tonbridge connection enabled him to stay on at St John’s for a further seven years, studying divinity.

      He was ordained a priest in the Church of England; he returned to Kent to take up the job of second master at his old school, and at the same time to be perpetual curate at Shipbourne, a few miles away. Three years later he went back to his Oxford college as assistant chaplain. As a bachelor he could remain at St John’s indefinitely but with no financial resources of his own, if he wished to marry he must find a benefice rich enough to support a family. A female second cousin had married Thomas Knight, the owner of the estate of Godmersham in Kent, who then had the good fortune to inherit more property and land in Hampshire, at Steventon and Chawton. Thomas Knight was able to offer the benefice of Steventon to George Austen. George’s wealthy uncle Francis purchased two more benefices in parishes near Steventon: George could have whichever became available first. So with the prospect of a tolerable income from two parishes, George set out to woo and to win the heart of Cassandra Leigh, younger daughter of the Revd Thomas Leigh of Harpsden, near Henley-on-Thames.

      Cassandra came from the Gloucestershire family of Leigh, who were descended from Sir Thomas Leigh, Lord Mayor of London in the time of Elizabeth I. Wealthy and powerful, he acquired the enormous mansion and surrounding lands of Stoneleigh Abbey. As a reward for welcoming Charles I to the Abbey during the Civil War, Thomas Leigh’s

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