Her legacy is not a piece of reportage from the society of a particular past, but a wise and compelling exploration of human nature. Her men and women speak their needs and define the barriers that separate them from peace and satisfaction. They are as alive today in their longings as they were, two hundred years ago, when she first gave them breath.
A Few Words About Sources
ALMOST AS SOON as I began to read Jane Austen’s novels, I became curious about her life. Who was the woman who created Elizabeth Bennet, Fanny Price, and, my favorite, Emma Woodhouse? Where did her profound insights into human nature come from and how did she learn to animate her characters so that they leaped from the page? Someone pointed me in the direction of her nephew’s 1870 memoir, the words of James Edward Austen-Leigh, which, for all its strange, obstinate gaps, is still the place to begin. (He was a favorite nephew—handsome, gifted—and his piece is illuminated with an affection that his aunt returned.) Lord David Cecil’s A Portrait of Jane Austen (1978) is also affectionate, as though he too were a favored nephew. I could not have done without David Gilson’s comprehensive A Bibliography of Jane Austen (1982). Marilyn Butler’s Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (1975) is a model of scholarship, as is Mary Lascelles’ Jane Austen and Her Art (1939), and both are wonderfully readable. Tony Tanner’s Jane Austen (1986) is richly informative on the novels themselves. Books by Nigel Nicolson (The World of Jane Austen, 1991), Jean Freeman (Jane Austen in Bath, 1969) and Irene Collins (Jane Austen and the Clergy, 1994) provided me with a much-needed sense of context.
There have been many biographies of Jane Austen, and I am grateful I have had these to lean upon. Works by Park Honan (1987) and John Halperin (1984) each brought new perspectives, as did Helen Lefroy’s 1997 Jane Austen. In a crisp twenty-nine pages Sylvia Townsend Warner captured a brilliant life with her own sparkling prose (Jane Austen, 1951) and demonstrated the powers of the short, short, short biography. Every writer, established or aspiring, should read this marvelous little book. Two recent biographies have once again raised the level of Jane Austen scholarship, at the same time making the reading of literary biography a distinct pleasure. Claire Tomalin (Jane Austen, A Life, 1997) writes with grace and generosity, bringing new psychological insights and observations. We might wonder at times if there is anything more to be known about Jane Austen, but Tomalin has found nuances of sensibility and interpreted them wisely. David Nokes (Jane Austen, 1997) is both sensitive to detail and dramatic in presentation, drawing with enviable erudition on the backdrop of social history.
Jane Austen’s Letters, collected and edited by Deirdre Le Faye (first published in 1995 and later updated), provides an extraordinary window onto the woman Jane Austen was. Jane Austen’s letter hoard was purged by her sister Cassandra (and perhaps by others), who was either extraordinarily sensitive about the family reputation or dedicated to guarding the image of Jane-the-Saint.
I am grateful to James Atlas, the editor of Penguin Lives, and to my many friends who have entered into long and patient discussion with me about Jane Austen and offered me their theories, their interpretations, and their encouragement. My debt to Jane Austen herself is incalculable.
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