From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that the groundwork of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike. And I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry. [145]

For detailed information concerning the retrospective diagnosis, its uncertainties and related controversies, see Honan (1987), 391–392; Le Faye (2004), 236; Grey (1986), 282; Wiltshire, Jane Austen and the Body, 221. Gilson, David. "Letter publishing history". Jane Austen in Context. Ed. Janet Todd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-82644-6. 121–159

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To return to what Jane might have looked like, Lucy suggests she was around five feet seven, with a twenty-four inch waist (the alarming consequence of wearing tight stays as a girl). She rebukes biographers who describe her as a ‘plump, dumpy woman’ based on Cassandra’s portrait rather than the evidence. Similarly, the romantic image of a lonely writer fits poorly with the known facts. Our current exhibitions, The Making of Pride and Prejudice and Satire and Scandal are free with House entry!

When Austen became an aunt for the first time aged eighteen, she sent new-born niece Fanny-Catherine Austen-Knight "five short pieces of ... the Juvenilia now known collectively as 'Scraps' .., purporting to be her 'Opinions and Admonitions on the conduct of Young Women '". For Jane-Anna-Elizabeth Austen (also born in 1793), her aunt wrote "two more 'Miscellanious [ sic] Morsels', dedicating them to [Anna] on 2 June 1793, 'convinced that if you seriously attend to them, You will derive from them very important Instructions, with regard to your Conduct in Life. '" [61] There is manuscript evidence that Austen continued to work on these pieces as late as 1811 (when she was 36), and that her niece and nephew, Anna and James Edward Austen, made further additions as late as 1814. [62] Le Faye (2014), xxv–xxvi; Sutherland (2005), 16–21; Fergus (2014), 12–13, 16–17, n.29, 31, n.33; Fergus (2005), 10; Tomalin (1997), 256. Austen's observations of early Worthing probably helped inspire her final, but unfinished novel, Sanditon, the story of an up-and-coming seaside resort in Sussex.

In mid-1815 Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher, [k] 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 poorly, and this failure offset most of the income from Emma. These were the last of Austen's novels to be published during her lifetime. [117] Looser, Devoney (13 December 2019). "Fan fiction or fan fact? An unknown pen portrait of Jane Austen". TLS: 14–15. Doody agrees with Tomalin; see Doody, "Jane Austen, that disconcerting child", in Alexander and McMaster 2005, 105. Byrne, Paula. Jane Austen and the Theatre. London and New York: Continuum, 2002. ISBN 978-1-84725-047-6. Stoneleigh Abbey: A Setting to Inspire Jane Austen for Her Novels". 18 September 2018 . Retrieved 26 November 2023.

Southam, B.C., ed. Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1870–1940. Vol. 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. ISBN 0-7102-0189-3. Wiltshire, John. Jane Austen and the Body: The Picture of Health. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-521-41476-8. Austen, Jane. Catharine and Other Writings. Ed. Margaret Anne Doody and Douglas Murray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-282823-1. Le Faye, Deirdre, ed. Jane Austen's Letters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-19-283297-2.

Anna Geary: 14-hour workdays are a walk in the park compared to motherhood

In 1768, the family finally took up residence in Steventon. Henry was the first child to be born there, in 1771. [26] At about this time, Cassandra could no longer ignore the signs that little George was developmentally disabled. He was subject to seizures, may have been deaf and mute, and she chose to send him out to be fostered. [27] In 1773, Cassandra was born, followed by Francis in 1774, and Jane in 1775. [28] Le Faye, Deirdre. "Letters". Jane Austen in Context. Ed. Janet Todd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-82644-6. 33–40 Devoney Looser, The Making of Jane Austen (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), 85. Lucy Worsley gives us Jane's life through the places she lived, and her few possessions. She never had a place of her own, as spinsters and widows were dependent on family charity for their survival in the early 19th century. Jane apparently had at least five chances at marriage, but never found her Mr. Darcy, and decided to let her novels be her children. This biography gives a fascinating history of her and her family, and my only complaint was that I would have liked more information about Cassandra, without whom Jane would not have been able to devote time to her novels.

Halperin, John. "Jane Austen's Lovers". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 Vol. 25, No. 4, Autumn, 1985. 719–720 Watt, Ian, ed. Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963. Jane's life itself doesn't sound very interesting; based on the facts that she never married or had children. She also seemed to have lived a quiet sort of life, she wasn't involved in scandals or anything like that. Which doesn't sound all that interesting, but in truth her life story is fascinating! Tomalin (1997), Appendix I, 283–284; see also A. Upfal, "Jane Austen's lifelong health problems and final illness: New evidence points to a fatal Hodgkin's disease and excludes the widely accepted Addison's", Medical Humanities, 31(1),| 2005, 3–11. doi: 10.1136/jmh.2004.000193

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Koppel, Gene (2 November 1989). "Pride and Prejudice: Conservative or Liberal Novel—Or Both? (A Gadamerian Approach)" . Retrieved 25 October 2016. Litz, A. Walton. "Chronology of Composition". The Jane Austen Companion. Ed. J. David Grey. New York: Macmillan, 1986. ISBN 0-02-545540-0. 47–62 Please see below for our opening times. Opening hours are 10am – 5pm with last admission at 4pm. There may be days when we need to amend these opening times. Although I did— for the most part—find Lucy Worsley's prose to be compelling, I thought that many of her arguments were unconvincing and biased.