简奥斯丁的英文简介

Jane Austen was a major English novelist, whose brilliantly witty, elegantly structured satirical fiction marks the transition in English literature from 18th century neo-classicism to 19th century romanticism.

Jane Austen was born on 16 December, 1775, at the rectory in the village of Steventon, near Basingstoke, in Hampshire. The seventh of eight children of the Reverend George Austen and his wife, Cassandra, she was educated mainly at home and never lived apart from her family. She had a happy childhood amongst all her brothers and the other boys who lodged with the family and whom Mr Austen tutored. From her older sister, Cassandra, she was inseparable. To amuse themselves, the children wrote and performed plays and charades, and even as a little girl Jane was encouraged to write. The reading that she did of the books in her father's extensive library provided material for the short satirical sketches she wrote as a girl.

At the age of 14 she wrote her first novel, Love and Freindship (sic) and then A History of England by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian, together with other very amusing juvenilia. In her early twenties Jane Austen wrote the novels that were later to be re-worked and published as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. She also began a novel called The Watsons which was never completed.

As a young woman Jane enjoyed dancing (an activity which features frequently in her novels) and she attended balls in many of the great houses of the neighbourhood. She loved the country, enjoyed long country walks, and had many Hampshire friends. It therefore came as a considerable shock when her parents suddenly announced in 1801 that the family would be moving away to Bath. Mr Austen gave the Steventon living to his son James and retired to Bath with his wife and two daughters. The next four years were difficult ones for Jane Austen. She disliked the confines of a busy town and missed her Steventon life. After her father's death in 1805, his widow and daughters also suffered financial difficulties and were forced to rely on the charity of the Austen sons. It was also at this time that, while on holiday in the West country, Jane fell in love, and when the young man died, she was deeply upset. Later she accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, a wealthy landowner and brother to some of her closest friends, but she changed her mind the next morning and was greatly upset by the whole episode.

After the death of Mr Austen, the Austen ladies moved to Southampton to share the home of Jane's naval brother Frank and his wife Mary. There were occasional visits to London, where Jane stayed with her favourite brother Henry, at that time a prosperous banker, and where she enjoyed visits to the theatre and art exhibitions. However, she wrote little in Bath and nothing at all in Southampton.

Then, in July, 1809, on her brother Edward offering his mother and sisters a permanent home on his Chawton estate, the Austen ladies moved back to their beloved Hampshire countryside. It was a small but comfortable house, with a pretty garden, and most importantly it provided the settled home which Jane Austen needed in order to write. In the seven and a half years that she lived in this house, she revised Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and published them ( in 1811 and 1813) and then embarked on a period of intense productivity. Mansfield Park came out in 1814, followed by Emma in 1816 and she completed Persuasion (which was published together with Northanger Abbey in 1818, the year after her death). None of the books published in her life-time had her name on them — they were described as being written "By a Lady". In the winter of 1816 she started Sanditon, but illness prevented its completion.

Jane Austen had contracted Addisons Disease, a tubercular disease of the kidneys (see Jane Austen's Illness by Sir Zachary Cope, British Medical Journal, 18 July 1964 and Australian Addisons Disease Assoc.). No longer able to walk far, she used to drive out in a little donkey carriage which can still be seen at the Jane Austen Museum at Chawton. By May 1817 she was so ill that she and Cassandra, to be near Jane's physician, rented rooms in Winchester. Tragically, there was then no cure and Jane Austen died in her sister's arms in the early hours of 18 July, 1817. She was 41 years old. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

English
writer,
who
first
gave
the
novel
its
modern
character
through
the
treatment
of
everyday
life.
Although
Austen
was
widely
read
in
her
lifetime,
she
published
her
works
anonymously.
The
most
urgent
preoccupation
of
her
young,
well-bred
heroines
is
courtship,
and
finally
marriage.
Austen's
best-known
books
include
Pride
and
Prejudice
(1813)
and
Emma
(1816).
Virginia
Woolf
called
her
"the
most
perfect
artist
among
women."
Jane
Austen
was
born
in
Steventon,
Hampshire,
where
her
father
was
a
rector.
She
was
the
second
daughter
and
seventh
child
in
a
family
of
eight.
The
first
25
years
of
her
life
Austen
spent
in
Hampshire.
She
was
tutored
at
home.
Her
parents
were
avid
readers
and
she
received
a
broader
education
than
many
women
of
her
time.
On
her
father's
retirement,
the
family
moved
to
Bath.
Austen
focused
on
middle-class
provincial
life
with
humor
and
understanding.
She
depicted
the
life
of
minor
landed
gentry,
country
clergymen
and
their
families,
in
which
marriage
mainly
determined
women's
social
status.
Most
important
for
her
were
those
little
matters,
as
Emma
says,
"on
which
the
daily
happiness
of
private
life
depends."
Although
Austen
restricted
to
family
matters,
and
she
passed
the
historical
events
of
the
Napoleonic
wars,
her
wit
and
observant
narrative
touch
has
been
inexhaustible
delight
to
readers.
Of
her
six
great
novels,
four
were
published
anonymously
during
her
lifetime.
At
her
death
on
July
18,
1817
in
Winchester,
Austen
was
writing
the
unfinished
Sanditon.
Austen
was
buried
in
Winchester
Cathedral.