Pride and Prejudice-All About Austen

I know I said that I was going to start with the "Poisonwood Bible", but I decided that reading Pride and Prejudice would be much more entertaining to start with. And you can never go wrong with Austen!!!

Introduction to Pride and Prejudice Notes:

Jane Austen:

Was born on December 16, 1775 in Steventon Rectory in Hampshire, England. Her parents were apart of the landed gentry and her father, George Austen, served as the rector (grounds keeper) of the Anglican parishes At Steventon, Hampshire. Austen had a large immediate family of six brothers and one sister (who was Jane's closest friend)

After the Austens were forced to take their two daughters out of boarding school and Jane continued her education with the help of her father and her brothers James and Henry. (Henry later became her literary agent) During this time Austen began writing with the encouragement of her family.

As early as 1787 Austen began writing short stories, plays and poems for her family's entertainment. Twenty-nine of these early literary works were published posthumous as "Juvenilia" and contained literature written between 1787 and 1793.

Austen wrote her first literary work between 1793 & 1795, a short epistolary novel (novel written as a series of documents) titled "Lady Susan". (which is described as Austen's most ambitious early piece of literature, in both topic and content)

Following "Lady Susan", Austen published and wrote several more novels anonymously (due to the fact that it was considered highly unorthodox and improper for a woman to write) from 1795 until her death on 18 July 1817, including "Emma" and "Mansfield Park". In December of 1817 (following her death) Austen's last two works "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey" were published.  In those two novels, Henry Austen contributed a Biographical Note which for the first time identified Jane as the author of her works.