JaneAusten Bite-sizedbiographiesofBritain’smost fascinatinghistoricalfigures 1. WilliamShakespeare PeterHolland 2. GeorgeEliot RosemaryAshton 3. CharlesDickens MichaelSlater 4. CharlesDarwin AdrianDesmond,JamesMoore, andJanetBrowne 5. IsaacNewton RichardS.Westfall 6. ElizabethI PatrickCollinson 7. GeorgeIII JohnCannon 8. BenjaminDisraeli JonathanParry 9. ChristopherWren KerryDownes 10. JohnRuskin RobertHewison 11. JamesJoyce BruceStewart 12. JohnMilton GordonCampbell 13. JaneAusten MarilynButler 14. HenryVIII EricIves 15. QueenVictoria K.D.Reynoldsand H.C.G.Matthew 16. WinstonChurchill PaulAddison 17. OliverCromwell JohnMorrill 18. ThomasPaine MarkPhilp 19. J.M.W.Turner LukeHerrmann 20. WilliamandMary TonyClaydonandW.A.Speck Jane Austen Marilyn Butler 1 1 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork FirstpublishedintheOxfordDictionaryofNationalBiography2004 Thispaperbackeditionfirstpublished2007 (cid:1)c OxfordUniversityPress2007 DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2007 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby AshfordColourPressLtd,Gosport,Hampshire ISBN978–0–19–921760–1(Pbk.) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Abouttheauthor vii 1 Childhood 1 2 Themakingofawriter 11 3 Earlynovels 31 4 AustenatChawton 55 5 Deathandimage 77 6 Austen’sreputation 91 Sources 113 Index 115 This page intentionally left blank About the author Marilyn Butler specializes in the study of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century litera- ture and is the former Rector of Exeter College, Oxford (1993–2004). Between 1986 and 1993 she was King Edward VII Professor of English Liter- ature at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of JaneAustenandtheWarofIdeas (1975) andhaseditedorintroducededitionsofMansfield Park, Emma, and Northanger Abbey. Her other publications include Romantics, Rebels and Reac- tionaries(1981)and(aseditor)TheWorksofMaria Edgeworth(1999–2003). This page intentionally left blank 1 Childhood Jane Austen (1775–1817), novelist, was born on 16 December 1775 at the rectory in Steventon, near Basingstoke, Hamp- shire, the seventh child and younger daughter of George Austen (1731–1805), rector of Deane and Steventon, and private tutor, and his wife, Cassandra (1739–1827), youngest daughter of the RevdThomasLeigh(1696–1764)andJaneWalker (d.1768). The Austens and the Leighs GeorgeAustenwastheonlysonofWilliamAusten (1701–1737), a surgeon of Tonbridge, Kent, and 1 Rebecca, daughter of the Gloucester physician