Jane Austen For Dummies Read Free Page B

of the courtship novel and the originator of the
Regency romance
(courtship literature set specifically in England’s Regency period, 1811–1820, during which Jane Austen actually lived, as opposed to authors today who write Regency romances, copying Jane Austen). She’s a keen observer of her world (late-18th- and early-19th-century England), a subtle
satirist
(one who writes works that attempt to improve society or humanity), and a shrewd analyst of human behavior (a century before psychologists decided that observing human behavior was a reliable way to understand human beings).
    Her small literary output of six major novels, two fragments of novels, about two dozen youthful pieces of fiction (later called her
Juvenilia
), and a
novella,
or short novel, is in inverse proportion to her popularity. Type her name into an Internet search engine, and within seconds you can explore nearly 13 million results. But reading a novel by Jane Austen is far more fun and enlightening than clicking through Internet Web sites. So, too, I hope, is reading this book.
    Her novels are always selling. They inspire commercial films and television miniseries, as well as Broadway shows. Readers who can’t get enough Austen buy dozens of sequels by authors who attempt to continue the events of her novels, which I believe she has already brought to closure. Her face, or the image that’s believed to be an approximation of what she looked like, appears on tea mugs, T-shirts, computer mouse pads, and tote bags, prompting people who already own these items to buy more of the same items, but with Austen’s face on them. Writers attach her name to dating guides, which always strikes me as ironic: Sure, guys have always been guys, but Austen’s characters didn’t date as we understand dating. (You can find more about how young people got to know each other in Chapter 6.) Writers also attach the Austen name to cookbooks, tea books, decorating books — anything writers and publishers can relate to Jane Austen. That’s because she’s hot stuff today.
    Identifying the Lady Writer
    The current blog that “Austen’s everywhere” would undoubtedly shock Austen because during her most productive writing years (1809–1816), even her readers didn’t know her name. Her first published novel,
Sense and Sensibility
(1811), appeared with the title page reading “By A Lady.” And her second published novel was no help because
Pride and Prejudice
was published with the byline “By The Author Of
Sense and Sensibility
.” You can guess how the bylines of her other novels read: “By The Author Of. . . .”
    Do you see a pattern here? Being a lady meant more than being a courteous woman. A lady was a member of a social class called the
gentry.
This class owned land and was genteel. While some female (and note, I didn’t write the word “lady” just now) novelists had their names in their bylines, they usually explained that they wrote because of financial distress — an ailing husband or wastrel husband with a brood of young children to support, and so forth. But a
lady
didn’t write for money; she wrote for personal fulfillment — though Jane Austen enjoyed making the money, too! At the same time, the cryptic byline preserved her anonymity, which Austen desired. The byline identifying the author as a “Lady” also told the contemporary reader what to expect: a polite, well-mannered book with ladies and gentlemen as characters. And Austen didn’t disappoint.
    While Austen’s identity as an author was leaking here and there, it was only after Austen’s death at age 41 that the public finally discovered, through obituary notices, that Jane Austen was the “Lady” who wrote
Pride and Prejudice, Emma,
and so on. Her literary executor brother Henry prefaced a “Biographical Notice of the Author” with her name and the titles of her four