Georgian era

1714–1830 The Georgian architecture of The Circus, Bath, built between 1754 and 1768.
Preceded by	Stuart Period
Including	Regency Period
Followed by	Victorian era

Periods and eras in English history

Anglo-Saxon period	(927–1066)
Norman period	(1066–1154)
Plantagenet period	(1154–1485)
Tudor period	(1485–1603)
Elizabethan era	(1558–1603)
Stuart period	(1603–1714)
Jacobean era	(1603–1625)
Caroline era	(1625–1649)
The Interregnum	(1649–1660)
Restoration era	(1660–1688)
Georgian era	(1714–1830)
Victorian era	(1837–1901)
Edwardian era	(1901–1910)
World War I	(1914–1918)
Interwar Period	(1918–1939)
World War II	(1939–1945)
Modern Britain	(1945–Present)
v t e

The Georgian era is a period of British history which takes its name from, and is normally defined as spanning the reigns of, the first four Hanoverian kings of Great Britain (later the United Kingdom): George I, George II, George III and George IV. The era covers the period from 1714 to 1830, with the sub-period of the Regency defined by the Regency of George IV as Prince of Wales during the illness of his father George III. Often the short reign of the fifth and final Hanoverian king King William IV (1830 to 1837) is also included. The last Hanoverian monarch of the UK was William's niece Queen Victoria who is the namesake of the following historical era, the Victorian, which is usually defined as occurring from the start of her reign, when William died, and continuing until her death.

The term "Georgian" is typically used in the contexts of social history and architecture.

The Arts[link]

Georgian society and its preoccupations were well portrayed in the novels of writers such as Henry Fielding, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen, characterised by the architecture of Robert Adam, John Nash and James Wyatt and the emergence of the Gothic Revival style, which hearkened back to a supposed golden age of building design.

The flowering of the arts was most vividly shown in the emergence of the Romantic poets, principally through Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, John Keats, Lord Byron and Robert Burns. Their work ushered in a new era of poetry, characterized by vivid and colourful language, evocative of elevating ideas and themes.

The paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Joshua Reynolds and the young J. M. W. Turner and John Constable illustrated the changing world of the Georgian period - as did the work of designers like Capability Brown, the landscape designer.

Religious and social change[link]

It was a time of immense social change in Britain, with the beginning and other parts of the British Empire.

Social reform under politicians such as Robert Peel and campaigners like William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and members of the Clapham Sect began to bring about radical change in areas such as the abolition of slavery, prison reform and social justice. An Evangelical revival was seen in the Church of England with men such as George Whitefield, John Wesley (later to found the Methodists), Charles Wesley, Griffith Jones, Howell Harris, Daniel Rowland, William Cowper, John Newton, Thomas Scott, and Charles Simeon. It also saw the rise of Non-conformists and various Dissenting groups such as the Reformed Baptists with John Gill, Augustus Toplady, John Fawcett, and William Carey.

Philanthropists and writers such as Hannah More, Thomas Coram, Robert Raikes and Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, began to address the social ills of the day, and saw the founding of hospitals, Sunday schools and orphanages.

Fine examples of distinctive Georgian architecture are Edinburgh's New Town, Bath, Georgian Dublin, Grainger Town in Newcastle Upon Tyne as well as Bristol.

Empire[link]

The Georgian era was moreover a time of British expansion throughout the world. There was continual warfare, including the Seven Years War, known in America as the French and Indian War (1756-1763), American Revolution (1775-1783), the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). The British won all the wars except for the American Revolution, where the combined weight of the United States, France, Spain and the Netherlands overwhelmed Britain, which stood alone without allies.^[1]

Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies.^[2] Mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires. The government protected its merchants--and kept others out--by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from and minimize imports to the realm. The government had to fight smuggling--which became a favorite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French, Spanish or Dutch. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy, which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and sometimes seized them. Thus the British Navy captured New Amsterdam (New York) in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country.^[3]

The loss of some of the American Colonies in the American War of Independence was regarded as a national disaster and was seen by some foreign observers as heralding the end of Britain as a great power. In Europe, the wars with France dragged on for nearly a quarter of a century, 1793-1815. Victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) and the Battle of Waterloo (1815) under Admiral Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington brought a sense of triumphalism and political reaction.^[4]

The expansion of empire brought fame to statesmen and explorers such as Clive of India and Captain Cook, and sowed the seeds of the worldwide British Empire of the Victorian and Edwardian eras which were to follow.

Politics and social revolt[link]

With the ending of the War with France, the United Kingdom entered a period of greater economic depression and political uncertainty, characterised by social discontent and unrest. The Radical political party published a leaflet called The Political Register, also known as "The Two Penny Trash" to its rivals. The so-called March of the Blanketeers saw 400 spinners and weavers march from Manchester to London in March 1817 to hand the Government a petition. The Luddites destroyed and damaged machinery in the industrial north-west of England. The Peterloo Massacre in 1819 began as a protest rally which saw 60,000 people gathering to protest about their living standards, but was quelled by military action and saw eleven people killed and 400 wounded. The Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820 sought to blow up the Cabinet and then move on to storm the Tower of London and overthrow the government. This too was thwarted, with the conspirators executed or transported to Australia.

Timeline[link]

1714

Upon the death of his second cousin Queen Anne, George Louis, Elector of Hannover succeeds as the new King, George I, of Great Britain and Ireland, the former of which had itself been established in 1706. This is the beginning of the House of Hanover's reign over the British Crown.

1715

The Whig Party wins the British Parliamentary Election for the House of Commons. This was the party that was in general opposition of the policies of the King.

1727

George I dies and his son George, Prince of Wales ascends to the throne as George II

1746

The final Jacobite rising is crushed at the Battle of Culloden.

1760

George II dies, and his grandson George, Prince of Wales ascends to the throne as George III, since his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, had died in March 1751.

1763

Britain is victorious in the Seven Years War. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 grants Britain domain over vast new territories around the world.

1765

The Stamp Act is passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, causing much unrest in the Thirteen Colonies in North America.

1775

The War of Independence begins in the Thirteen Colonies, specifically in Massachusetts.

1776

The Thirteen Colonies in North America declare their independence from the British Crown and British Parliament.

1781

The British Army in America under Lord Cornwallis surrenders to George Washington after its defeat in Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781.

1783

British formally recognizes the independence of the original 13 American States when the Treaty of Paris of 1783 is signed by David Hartley, representing George III, and by the American treaty delegation.

1801

The Act of Union 1800 comes into effect on 1 January, uniting the Kingdoms of Great Britain and of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

1811

George, Prince of Wales begins his nine-year period as the regent (he became known as George, Prince Regent) for George III, who has become delusional. This sub-period of the Georgian Era is defined as the regency period.

1815

Napoleon I of France is defeated by the Seventh Coalition under The Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, in what is now Flanders, Belgium.

1819

The Peterloo Massacre occurs.

1820

George III dies, and his son George, Prince Regent ascends to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as George IV.

1830

George IV dies. According to some authorities, this is the end of the Georgian era of the House of Hannover. However, many other authorities continue this Era during the relatively-short reign of his brother, The Prince William, Duke of Clarence, who became William IV.

1833

Slavery Abolition Act is passed by Parliament through the influence of William Wilberforce and the Evangelical movement, thus criminalizing the African Slave trade and all its cruelties and abominations within the British Empire.

1837

William IV dies, ending the Georgian Era, and is succeeded by his niece, Queen Victoria, the last member of the House of Hanover. She married Prince Albert, who was of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and so, when their son Albert Edward, Prince of Wales succeeded as Edward VII, that House gained the British throne.

	120px
George I	George II	George III	George IV

See also[link]

• Kingdom of Great Britain
• 18th century Britain

Further reading[link]

• Holmes, Richard. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (2009)
• Boyd, Hilton. A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People?: England 1783-1846 (2008) 783pp
• Briggs, Asa. The making of modern England, 1783-1867: The age of the improvement (1959)
• Evans, E.J. Britain before the Reform Act: politics and society 1815-1832 (1989)
• Gould, Eliga H. "American independence and Britain's counter-revolution," Past & Present (1997) #154 pp 107-41
• Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains, The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery (Basingstoke: Pan Macmillan, 2005)
• Mokyr, Joel. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850 (2010)
• Phillips, Charles. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Kings and Queens of Britain. London: Hermes House (Arness Publishing), 2006 ISBN 0-681-45961-1
• Turner, M.J. The Age of Unease: government and reform in Britain, 1782-1832 (2000)
• Watson J. Steven. The Reign of George III: 1760-1815 (1960)
• Williams, Basil. The Whig Supremacy 1714-1760 (1939) online edition
• Woodward; E. L. The Age of Reform, 1815-1870, (1938) online edition

Note: In the twentieth century, the period 1910–1936 was informally called the Georgian Era during the reign of George V (following the Edwardian Era), and is sometimes still referred to as such.^[5]; see Georgian Poetry.

External links[link]

• Roque's Map of London Online, 1746
• Georgians British Library history resources about the Georgian era, featuring collection material and text by Dr. Matthew White.
• Timelines: Sources from history - British Library interactive

Jane Austen
A watercolour and pencil sketch of Austen, believed to have been drawn from life by her sister Cassandra (c. 1810)[A]
Born	(1775-12-16)16 December 1775 Steventon Rectory, Hampshire, England
Died	18 July 1817(1817-07-18) (aged 41) Winchester, Hampshire, England
Resting place	Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire, England
Period	1787 to 1809-1811
Genres	Romance
Signature

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism and biting social commentary has gained her historical importance among scholars and critics.^[1]

Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry.^[2] She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer.^[3] Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years into her thirties. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth.^[B] From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.

Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century realism.^[4][C] Her plots, though fundamentally comic,^[5] highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security.^[6] Her work brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but the publication in 1869 of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced her to a wider public, and by the 1940s she had become widely accepted in academia as a great English writer. The second half of the 20th century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship and the emergence of a Janeite fan culture.

Biographical information concerning Jane Austen is "famously scarce", according to one biographer.^[7] Only some personal and family letters remain (by one estimate only 160 out of Austen's 3,000 letters are extant),^[8] and her sister Cassandra (to whom most of the letters were originally addressed) burned "the greater part" of the ones she kept and censored those she did not destroy.^[9] Other letters were destroyed by the heirs of Admiral Francis Austen, Jane's brother.^[10] Most of the biographical material produced for fifty years after Austen's death was written by her relatives and reflects the family's biases in favour of "good quiet Aunt Jane". Scholars have unearthed little information since.^[7]

Life and career[link]

Family[link]

Silhouette of Cassandra Austen, Jane's sister and closest friend

Austen's parents, George Austen (1731–1805), and his wife Cassandra (1739–1827), were members of substantial gentry families.^[11] George was descended from a family of woollen manufacturers, which had risen through the professions to the lower ranks of the landed gentry.^[12] Cassandra was a member of the prominent Leigh family; they married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath.^[13] From 1765 until 1801, that is, for much of Jane's life, George Austen served as the rector of the Anglican parishes at Steventon, Hampshire,^[14] and a nearby village. From 1773 until 1796, he supplemented this income by farming and by teaching three or four boys at a time who boarded at his home.^[15]

Austen's immediate family was large: six brothers—James (1765–1819), George (1766–1838), Edward (1767–1852), Henry Thomas (1771–1850), Francis William (Frank) (1774–1865), Charles John (1779–1852)—and one sister, Cassandra Elizabeth (Steventon, Hampshire, 9 January 1773–1845), who, like Jane, died unmarried. Cassandra was Austen's closest friend and confidante throughout her life.^[16] Of her brothers, Austen felt closest to Henry, who became a banker and, after his bank failed, an Anglican clergyman. Henry was also his sister's literary agent. His large circle of friends and acquaintances in London included bankers, merchants, publishers, painters, and actors: he provided Austen with a view of social worlds not normally visible from a small parish in rural Hampshire.^[17] George was sent to live with a local family at a young age because, as Austen biographer Le Faye describes it, he was "mentally abnormal and subject to fits".^[18] He may also have been deaf and mute.^[18] Charles and Frank served in the navy, both rising to the rank of admiral. Edward was adopted by his fourth cousin, Thomas Knight, inheriting Knight's estate and taking his name in 1812.^[19]

Early life and education[link]

Steventon rectory, as depicted in A Memoir of Jane Austen, was in a valley and surrounded by meadows.^[20]

Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon rectory and publicly christened on 5 April 1776.^[21] After a few months at home, her mother placed Austen with Elizabeth Littlewood, a woman living nearby, who nursed and raised Austen for a year or eighteen months.^[22] In 1783, according to family tradition, Jane and Cassandra were sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs. Ann Cawley and they moved with her to Southampton later in the year. Both girls caught typhus and Jane nearly died.^[23] Austen was subsequently educated at home, until leaving for boarding school with her sister Cassandra early in 1785. The school curriculum probably included some French, spelling, needlework, dancing and music and, perhaps, drama. By December 1786, Jane and Cassandra had returned home because the Austens could not afford to send both of their daughters to school.^[24]

Austen acquired the remainder of her education by reading books, guided by her father and her brothers James and Henry.^[25] George Austen apparently gave his daughters unfettered access to his large and varied library, was tolerant of Austen's sometimes risqué experiments in writing, and provided both sisters with expensive paper and other materials for their writing and drawing.^[26] According to Park Honan, a biographer of Austen, life in the Austen home was lived in "an open, amused, easy intellectual atmosphere" where the ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered and discussed.^[27] After returning from school in 1786, Austen "never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment".^[28]

Private theatricals were also a part of Austen's education. From when she was seven until she was thirteen, the family and close friends staged a series of plays, including Richard Sheridan's The Rivals (1775) and David Garrick's Bon Ton. While the details are unknown, Austen would certainly have joined in these activities, as a spectator at first and as a participant when she was older.^[29] Most of the plays were comedies, which suggests one way in which Austen's comedic and satirical gifts were cultivated.^[30]

Juvenilia[link]

Portrait of Henry IV. Declaredly written by "a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian", The History of England was illustrated by Austen's sister Cassandra (c. 1790).

Perhaps as early as 1787, Austen began to write poems, stories, and plays for her own and her family's amusement.^[31] Austen later compiled "fair copies" of 29 of these early works into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the Juvenilia, containing pieces originally written between 1787 and 1793.^[32] There is manuscript evidence that Austen continued to work on these pieces as late as the period 1809–11, and that her niece and nephew, Anna and James Edward Austen, made further additions as late as 1814.^[33] Among these works are a satirical novel in letters titled Love and Freindship [sic], in which she mocked popular novels of sensibility,^[34] and The History of England, a manuscript of 34 pages accompanied by 13 watercolour miniatures by her sister Cassandra.

Austen's History parodied popular historical writing, particularly Oliver Goldsmith's History of England (1764).^[35] Austen wrote, for example: "Henry the 4th ascended the throne of England much to his own satisfaction in the year 1399, after having prevailed on his cousin & predecessor Richard the 2nd, to resign it to him, & to retire for the rest of his Life to Pomfret Castle, where he happened to be murdered."^[36] Austen's Juvenilia are often, according to scholar Richard Jenkyns, "boisterous" and "anarchic"; he compares them to the work of 18th-century novelist Laurence Sterne and the 20th century comedy group Monty Python.^[37]

Adulthood[link]

As Austen grew into adulthood, she continued to live at her parents' home, carrying out those activities normal for women of her age and social standing: she practised the fortepiano, assisted her sister and mother with supervising servants, and attended female relatives during childbirth and older relatives on their deathbeds.^[38] She sent short pieces of writing to her newborn nieces Fanny Catherine and Jane Anna Elizabeth.^[39] Austen was particularly proud of her accomplishments as a seamstress.^[40] She also attended church regularly, socialized frequently with friends and neighbours,^[41] and read novels—often of her own composition—aloud with her family in the evenings. Socializing with the neighbours often meant dancing, either impromptu in someone's home after supper or at the balls held regularly at the assembly rooms in the town hall.^[42] Her brother Henry later said that "Jane was fond of dancing, and excelled in it".^[43]

In 1793, Austen began and then abandoned a short play, later entitled Sir Charles Grandison or the happy Man, a comedy in 6 acts, which she returned to and completed around 1800. This was a short parody of various school textbook abridgments of Austen's favourite contemporary novel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753), by Samuel Richardson.^[44] Honan speculates that at some point not long after writing Love and Freindship [sic] in 1789, Austen decided to "write for profit, to make stories her central effort", that is, to become a professional writer.^[45] Beginning in about 1793, she began to write longer, more sophisticated works.^[45]

Between 1793 and 1795, Austen wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, usually described as her most ambitious and sophisticated early work.^[46] It is unlike any of Austen's other works. Austen biographer Claire Tomalin describes the heroine of the novella as a sexual predator who uses her intelligence and charm to manipulate, betray, and abuse her victims, whether lovers, friends or family. Tomalin writes: "Told in letters, it is as neatly plotted as a play, and as cynical in tone as any of the most outrageous of the Restoration dramatists who may have provided some of her inspiration....It stands alone in Austen's work as a study of an adult woman whose intelligence and force of character are greater than those of anyone she encounters."^[47]

Early novels[link]

After finishing Lady Susan, Austen attempted her first full-length novel—Elinor and Marianne. Her sister Cassandra later remembered that it was read to the family "before 1796" and was told through a series of letters. Without surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the original draft survived in the novel published in 1811 as Sense and Sensibility.^[48]

Thomas Langlois Lefroy, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, by W. H. Mote (1855); in old age, Lefroy admitted to a nephew that he had been in love with Jane Austen: "It was boyish love."^[49]

When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a nephew of neighbours, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796. He had just finished a university degree and was moving to London to train as a barrister. Lefroy and Austen would have been introduced at a ball or other neighbourhood social gathering, and it is clear from Austen's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together: "I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together."^[50] The Lefroy family intervened and sent him away at the end of January. Marriage was impractical, as both Lefroy and Austen must have known. Neither had any money, and he was dependent on a great-uncle in Ireland to finance his education and establish his legal career. If Tom Lefroy later visited Hampshire, he was carefully kept away from the Austens, and Jane Austen never saw him again.^[51]

Austen began work on a second novel, First Impressions, in 1796. She completed the initial draft in August 1797 when she was only 21 (it later became Pride and Prejudice); as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as she was working on it and it became an "established favourite".^[52] At this time, her father made the first attempt to publish one of her novels. In November 1797, George Austen wrote to Thomas Cadell, an established publisher in London, to ask if he would consider publishing "a Manuscript Novel, comprised in three Vols. about the length of Miss Burney's Evelina" (First Impressions) at the author's financial risk. Cadell quickly returned Mr. Austen's letter, marked "Declined by Return of Post". Austen may not have known of her father's efforts.^[53] Following the completion of First Impressions, Austen returned to Elinor and Marianne and from November 1797 until mid-1798, revised it heavily; she eliminated the epistolary format in favour of third-person narration and produced something close to Sense and Sensibility.^[54]

During the middle of 1798, after finishing revisions of Elinor and Marianne, Austen began writing a third novel with the working title Susan—later Northanger Abbey—a satire on the popular Gothic novel.^[55] Austen completed her work about a year later. In early 1803, Henry Austen offered Susan to Benjamin Crosby, a London publisher, who paid £10 for the copyright. Crosby promised early publication and went so far as to advertise the book publicly as being "in the press", but did nothing more. The manuscript remained in Crosby's hands, unpublished, until Austen repurchased the copyright from him in 1816.^[56]

Bath and Southampton[link]

Royal Crescent in Bath

In December 1800, Mr Austen unexpectedly announced his decision to retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to Bath. While retirement and travel were good for the elder Austens, Jane Austen was shocked to be told she was moving from the only home she had ever known.^[57] An indication of Austen's state of mind is her lack of productivity as a writer during the time she lived at Bath. She was able to make some revisions to Susan, and she began and then abandoned a new novel, The Watsons, but there was nothing like the productivity of the years 1795–99.^[58] Tomalin suggests this reflects a deep depression disabling her as a writer, but Honan disagrees, arguing Austen wrote or revised her manuscripts throughout her creative life, except for a few months after her father died.^[59]

In December 1802, Austen received her only proposal of marriage. She and her sister visited Alethea and Catherine Bigg, old friends who lived near Basingstoke. Their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither, had recently finished his education at Oxford and was also at home. Bigg-Wither proposed and Austen accepted. As described by Caroline Austen, Jane's niece, and Reginald Bigg-Wither, a descendant, Harris was not attractive—he was a large, plain-looking man who spoke little, stuttered when he did speak, was aggressive in conversation, and almost completely tactless. However, Austen had known him since both were young and the marriage offered many practical advantages to Austen and her family. He was the heir to extensive family estates located in the area where the sisters had grown up. With these resources, Austen could provide her parents a comfortable old age, give Cassandra a permanent home and, perhaps, assist her brothers in their careers. By the next morning, Austen realised she had made a mistake and withdrew her acceptance.^[60] No contemporary letters or diaries describe how Austen felt about this proposal.^[61] In 1814, Austen wrote a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, who had asked for advice about a serious relationship, telling her that "having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around & entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection".^[62]

In 1804, while living in Bath, Austen started but did not complete a new novel, The Watsons. The story centres on an invalid clergyman with little money and his four unmarried daughters. Sutherland describes the novel as "a study in the harsh economic realities of dependent women's lives".^[63] Honan suggests, and Tomalin agrees, that Austen chose to stop work on the novel after her father died on 21 January 1805 and her personal circumstances resembled those of her characters too closely for her comfort.^[64]

Mr Austen's final illness had struck suddenly, leaving him, as Austen reported to her brother Francis, "quite insensible of his own state", and he died quickly.^[65] Jane, Cassandra, and their mother were left in a precarious financial situation. Edward, James, Henry, and Francis Austen pledged to make annual contributions to support their mother and sisters.^[66] For the next four years, the family's living arrangements reflected their financial insecurity. They lived part of the time in rented quarters in Bath and then, beginning in 1806, in Southampton, where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. A large part of this time they spent visiting various branches of the family.^[67]

On 5 April 1809, about three months before the family's move to Chawton, Austen wrote an angry letter to Richard Crosby, offering him a new manuscript of Susan if that was needed to secure immediate publication of the novel, and otherwise requesting the return of the original so she could find another publisher. Crosby replied he had not agreed to publish the book by any particular time, or at all, and that Austen could repurchase the manuscript for the £10 he had paid her and find another publisher. However, Austen did not have the resources to repurchase the book.^[68]

Chawton[link]

The cottage in Chawton where Jane Austen lived during the last eight years of her life, now Jane Austen's House Museum

Around early 1809, Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life—the use of a large cottage in Chawton village^[69] that was part of Edward's nearby estate, Chawton House. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved into Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809.^[70] In Chawton, life was quieter than it had been since the family's move to Bath in 1800. The Austens did not socialise with the neighbouring gentry and entertained only when family visited. Austen's niece Anna described the Austen family's life in Chawton: "It was a very quiet life, according to our ideas, but they were great readers, and besides the housekeeping our aunts occupied themselves in working with the poor and in teaching some girl or boy to read or write."^[71] Austen wrote almost daily, but privately, and seems to have been relieved of some household responsibilities to give her more opportunity to write.^[72] In this setting, she was able to be productive as a writer once more.^[73]

Published author[link]

First edition title page from Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen's first published novel (1811)

During her time at Chawton, Jane Austen successfully published four novels, which were generally well-received. Through her brother Henry, the publisher Thomas Egerton agreed to publish Sense and Sensibility,^[D] which appeared in October 1811. Reviews were favourable and the novel became fashionable among opinion-makers;^[74] the edition sold out by mid-1813.^[E] Austen's earnings from Sense and Sensibility provided her with some financial and psychological independence.^[75] Egerton then published Pride and Prejudice, a revision of First Impressions, in January 1813. He advertised the book widely and it was an immediate success, garnering three favourable reviews and selling well. By October 1813, Egerton was able to begin selling a second edition.^[76] Mansfield Park was published by Egerton in May 1814. While Mansfield Park was ignored by reviewers, it was a great success with the public. All copies were sold within six months, and Austen's earnings on this novel were larger than for any of her other novels.^[77]

Austen learned that the Prince Regent admired her novels and kept a set at each of his residences.^[F] In November 1815, the Prince Regent's librarian invited Austen to visit the Prince's London residence and hinted Austen should dedicate the forthcoming Emma to the Prince. Though Austen disliked the Prince, she could scarcely refuse the request.^[78] She later wrote Plan of a Novel, according to hints from various quarters, a satiric outline of the "perfect novel" based on the librarian's many suggestions for a future Austen novel.^[79]

In mid-1815, Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher,^[G] who published Emma in December 1815 and a second edition of Mansfield Park in February 1816. Emma sold well but the new edition of Mansfield Park did not, and this failure offset most of the profits Austen earned on Emma. These were the last of Austen's novels to be published during her lifetime.^[80]

While Murray prepared Emma for publication, Austen began to write a new novel she titled The Elliots, later published as Persuasion. She completed her first draft in July 1816. In addition, shortly after the publication of Emma, Henry Austen repurchased the copyright for Susan from Crosby. Austen was forced to postpone publishing either of these completed novels by family financial troubles. Henry Austen's bank failed in March 1816, depriving him of all of his assets, leaving him deeply in debt and losing Edward, James, and Frank Austen large sums. Henry and Frank could no longer afford the contributions they had made to support their mother and sisters.^[81]

Illness and death[link]

Jane Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

Jane Austen's memorial gravestone in the nave of Winchester Cathedral

Early in 1816, Jane Austen began to feel unwell. She ignored her illness at first and continued to work and to participate in the usual round of family activities. By the middle of that year, her decline was unmistakable to Austen and to her family, and Austen's physical condition began a long, slow, and irregular deterioration culminating in her death the following year.^[82] The majority of Austen biographers rely on Dr. Vincent Cope's tentative 1964 retrospective diagnosis and list her cause of death as Addison's disease. However, her final illness has also been described as Hodgkin's lymphoma.^[H] Recent work by Katherine White of Britain's Addison’s Disease Self Help Group suggests that Austen probably died of bovine tuberculosis,^[83] a disease (now) commonly associated with drinking unpasteurized milk. One contributing factor or cause of her death, discovered by Linda Robinson Walker and described in the Winter 2010 issue of Persuasions on-line, might be Brill–Zinsser disease, a recurrent form of typhus, which she had as a child. Brill–Zinsser disease is to typhus as shingles is to chicken pox; when a victim of typhus endures stress, malnutrition or another infection, typhus can recur as Brill–Zinsser disease. ^[84]

Austen continued to work in spite of her illness. She became dissatisfied with the ending of The Elliots and rewrote the final two chapters, finishing them on 6 August 1816.^[I] In January 1817, Austen began work on a new novel she called The Brothers, later titled Sanditon upon its first publication in 1925, and completed twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably because her illness prevented her from continuing.^[85] Austen made light of her condition to others, describing it as "Bile" and rheumatism, but as her disease progressed she experienced increasing difficulty walking or finding the energy for other activities. By mid-April, Austen was confined to her bed. In May, Jane and Cassandra's brother Henry escorted the two of them to Winchester for medical treatment. Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817, at the age of 41. Henry, through his clerical connections, arranged for his sister to be buried in the north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. The epitaph composed by her brother James praises Austen's personal qualities, expresses hope for her salvation, mentions the "extraordinary endowments of her mind", but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer.^[86]

Posthumous publication[link]

After Austen's death, Cassandra and Henry Austen arranged with Murray for the publication of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey as a set in December 1817.^[J] Henry Austen contributed a Biographical Note which for the first time identified his sister as the author of the novels. Tomalin describes it as "a loving and polished eulogy".^[87] Sales were good for a year—only 321 copies remained unsold at the end of 1818—and then declined. Murray disposed of the remaining copies in 1820, and Austen's novels remained out of print for twelve years.^[88] In 1832, publisher Richard Bentley purchased the remaining copyrights to all of Austen's novels and, beginning in either December 1832 or January 1833, published them in five illustrated volumes as part of his Standard Novels series. In October 1833, Bentley published the first collected edition of Austen's works. Since then, Austen's novels have been continuously in print.^[89]

Reception[link]

Contemporary responses[link]

In 1816, the editors of The New Monthly Magazine noted Emma's publication but chose not to review it.^[K]

Austen's works brought her little personal renown because they were published anonymously. Although her novels quickly became fashionable among opinion-makers, such as Princess Charlotte Augusta, daughter of the Prince Regent, they received only a few published reviews.^[90] Most of the reviews were short and on balance favourable, although superficial and cautious.^[91] They most often focused on the moral lessons of the novels.^[92] Sir Walter Scott, a leading novelist of the day, contributed one of them, anonymously. Using the review as a platform from which to defend the then disreputable genre of the novel, he praised Austen's realism.^[93] The other important early review of Austen's works was published by Richard Whately in 1821. He drew favourable comparisons between Austen and such acknowledged greats as Homer and Shakespeare, praising the dramatic qualities of her narrative. Whately and Scott set the tone for almost all subsequent 19th-century Austen criticism.^[94]

19th century[link]

Because Austen's novels failed to conform to Romantic and Victorian expectations that "powerful emotion [be] authenticated by an egregious display of sound and colour in the writing",^[95] 19th-century critics and audiences generally preferred the works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot.^[96] Though Austen's novels were republished in Britain beginning in the 1830s and remained steady sellers, they were not bestsellers.^[97]

One of the first two published illustrations of Pride and Prejudice, from the Richard Bentley edition.^[98] Caption reads: "She then told him [Mr Bennett] what Mr Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment."

Austen had many admiring readers in the 19th century who considered themselves part of a literary elite: they viewed their appreciation of Austen's works as a mark of their cultural taste. Philosopher and literary critic George Henry Lewes expressed this viewpoint in a series of enthusiastic articles published in the 1840s and 1850s.^[99] This theme continued later in the century with novelist Henry James, who referred to Austen several times with approval and on one occasion ranked her with Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Henry Fielding as among "the fine painters of life".^[100]

The publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 introduced Austen to a wider public as "dear aunt Jane", the respectable maiden aunt. Publication of the Memoir spurred the reissue of Austen's novels—the first popular editions were released in 1883 and fancy illustrated editions and collectors' sets quickly followed.^[101] Author and critic Leslie Stephen described the popular mania that started to develop for Austen in the 1880s as "Austenolatry".^[102] Around the turn of the century, members of the literary elite reacted against the popularization of Austen. They referred to themselves as Janeites in order to distinguish themselves from the masses who did not properly understand her works.^[103] For example, James responded negatively to what he described as "a beguiled infatuation" with Austen, a rising tide of public interest that exceeded Austen's "intrinsic merit and interest".^[104]

During the last quarter of the 19th century, the first books of criticism on Austen were published. In fact, after the publication of the Memoir, more criticism was published on Austen in two years than had appeared in the previous fifty.^[105]

20th century and beyond[link]

Several important works paved the way for Austen's novels to become a focus of academic study. The first important milestone was a 1911 essay by Oxford Shakespearean scholar A. C. Bradley, which is "generally regarded as the starting-point for the serious academic approach to Jane Austen".^[106] In it, he established the groupings of Austen's "early" and "late" novels, which are still used by scholars today.^[107] The second was R. W. Chapman's 1923 edition of Austen's collected works. Not only was it the first scholarly edition of Austen's works, it was also the first scholarly edition of any English novelist. The Chapman text has remained the basis for all subsequent published editions of Austen's works.^[108] With the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles's Jane Austen and Her Art, the academic study of Austen took hold.^[109] Lascelles's innovative work included an analysis of the books Jane Austen read and the effect of her reading on her work, an extended analysis of Austen's style, and her "narrative art". At the time, concern arose over the fact that academics were taking over Austen criticism and it was becoming increasingly esoteric—a debate that has continued to the beginning of the 21st century.^[110]

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In a spurt of revisionist views in the 1940s, scholars approached Austen more sceptically and argued that she was a subversive writer. These revisionist views, together with F. R. Leavis's and Ian Watt's pronouncement that Austen was one of the great writers of English fiction, did much to cement Austen's reputation amongst academics.^[111] They agreed that she "combined [Henry Fielding's and Samuel Richardson's] qualities of interiority and irony, realism and satire to form an author superior to both".^[112] The period since World War II has seen more scholarship on Austen using a diversity of critical approaches, including feminist theory, and perhaps most controversially, postcolonial theory. However, the continuing disconnection between the popular appreciation of Austen, particularly by modern Janeites, and the academic appreciation of Austen has widened considerably. Jane Austen was the favourite novelist of political philosopher Leo Strauss.^[113]

Sequels, prequels, and adaptations of almost every sort have been based on the novels of Jane Austen, from soft-core pornography to fantasy.^[114] Beginning in the middle of the 19th century, Austen family members published conclusions to her incomplete novels, and by 2000 there were over 100 printed adaptations.^[115] The first film adaptation was the 1940 MGM production of Pride and Prejudice starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson.^[116] BBC television dramatisations, which were first produced in the 1970s, attempted to adhere meticulously to Austen's plots, characterisations, and settings.^[117] In 1995 a great wave of Austen adaptations began to appear, with Ang Lee's film of Sense and Sensibility, for which screenwriter and star Emma Thompson won an Academy Award, and the BBC's immensely popular TV mini-series Pride and Prejudice, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.^[118]

Books and scripts that use the general storyline of Austen's novels but change or otherwise modernise the story also became popular at the end of the 20th century. For example, Clueless (1995), Amy Heckerling's updated version of Emma, which takes place in Beverly Hills, became a cultural phenomenon and spawned its own television series.^[119] In a 2002 vote to determine whom the UK public considers the greatest British people in history, Austen was ranked number 70 in the list of the "100 Greatest Britons".^[120] In 2003, Austen's Pride and Prejudice came second in the BBC's The Big Read, a national poll to find the "Nation's best-loved book."^[121]

In 2007, the article Rejecting Jane by British author David Lassman, which examined how Austen would fare in the modern day publishing industry,^{[122][123][124][125][126]} achieved worldwide attention when Austen's work -- submitted under a pseudonym == was rejected by numerous publishers.^[127]

List of works[link]

See also[link]

Jane Austen portal

• Family tree showing Jane Austen, her parents and her siblings
• Family tree showing Jane Austen's siblings and her nephews and nieces
• Timeline of Jane Austen
• Styles and themes of Jane Austen

Notes[link]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Primary works

Secondary works

Biographies

Essay collections

Monographs and articles

External links[link]

Find more about Jane Austen on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

Online works

Museums

Special Collections

Fan sites and societies

Other

v t e Jane Austen General Life Jane Austen Timeline of Jane Austen A Memoir of Jane Austen Places Jane Austen Centre Jane Austen's House Museum Chawton House Chawton House Library People Cassandra Austen Charles Austen Francis Austen Eliza Hancock Catherine Hubback Thomas Langlois Lefroy Analysis Janeite Jane Austen in popular culture Styles and themes of Jane Austen Georgian society in Jane Austen's novels Reception history of Jane Austen Works Major Sense and Sensibility (1811) Pride and Prejudice (1813) Mansfield Park (1814) Emma (1815) Northanger Abbey (1817) Persuasion (1817) Minor Lady Susan Sanditon (unfinished) The Watsons (unfinished) Juvenilia Love and Freindship The Beautifull Cassandra The History of England Characters Elinor Dashwood Edward Ferrars Marianne Dashwood John Willoughby Elizabeth Bennet Fitzwilliam Darcy Jane Bennet Lydia Bennet Charles Bingley Fanny Price Edmund Bertram Mary Crawford Henry Crawford Tom Bertram Maria Bertram Emma Woodhouse George Knightley Anne Elliot Captain Frederick Wentworth Catherine Morland Henry Tilney Adaptations Sense and Sensibility 1981 TV miniseries 1995 film 2008 TV miniseries Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009 novel) From Prada to Nada (2011 film) Pride and Prejudice 1940 film First Impressions (1959 musical) 1980 TV miniseries 1995 TV miniseries Darcy's Story Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy (2003 film) Mr. Darcy's Daughters (2003 novel) An Assembly Such as This (2003 novel) Duty and Desire (2004 novel) These Three Remain (2005 novel) Bride and Prejudice (2004 film) 2005 film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009 parody novel) Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls (2010 parody novel) Mansfield Park 1983 TV miniseries 1999 film 2007 TV miniseries Opera Emma 1972 TV miniseries Clueless (1995 film) 1996 film 1996 TV miniseries 2009 TV miniseries Aisha (2009 film) Northanger Abbey 1986 TV miniseries 2007 TV miniseries Persuasion 1960 TV miniseries 1971 TV miniseries 1995 film 2007 TV miniseries

Amanda Vickery (born 1962, Preston, Lancashire) is a British historian, writer, radio and television presenter, academic reviewer, and professor of Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London.

Education[link]

Amanda Vickery graduated from the former Bedford College, London (now part of Royal Holloway, University of London) where she completed her PhD in Modern History.^[1]

Career[link]

Vickery is professor of Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London and has held academic posts at Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of York. Her academic interests encompass the Late Modern period from the seventeenth century to the present with a strong emphasis on the Georgian period in England.

Writing[link]

She has written widely on social history, literature, the history of romance and the home, politics, law and crime with an emphasis on women's studies and feminism.

In 1998 she published her first book The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England, for which she received the Whitfield prize, the Wolfton History prize and the Longman-History Today prize.^[2]

In 2006 she co-edited Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830.^[3]

In 2009, Vickery authored Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England to wide critical acclaim.^[4][5][6]

Television[link]

Vickery has contributed to a number of Open University history programmes for the BBC.

In November 2010 she presented At Home with the Georgians, a three-part television series for BBC Two based on her book Behind Closed Doors.^[7]

Vickery has appeared on "The Review Show" on BBC Two, as on September 30, 2011.

Radio[link]

Vickery is a regular contributor to a number of arts, history, and cultural review programmes for BBC. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time, Saturday Review, and Start the Week.

In 2009 she wrote and presented the 30-part series A History of Private Life on BBC Radio 4,^[8] which received critical acclaim.^{[9][10][11][12]} It has since been made into a BBC CD.^[13]

In 2010, she presented the four-part BBC Radio 4 history series Voices from the Old Bailey.^[14][15] Vickery makes programmes for Radio 4 through independent production company Loftus Audio.^[16]

In March 2011 she was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3.^[17]

Books[link]

• The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England (1998)
• [ed.] Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830 (2006)
• Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (2009)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Review of At Home With The Georgians, Leicester Mercury