Jane Austin is by far my favorite author, which is surprising since she isn’t my typical genre of book. It still can remember my emotions the first time I read Pride and Prejudice. I was completely captured. Her humor and wit inspire me. So when I came across this biography, I was excited to learn all about this fantastic woman.
This book is about as complete of a biography as one can write about Jane Austin. She was born on December 16, 1775, lived in England her whole life and never travel from it, then died at 41 years old on July 18, 1817. She never married and lived a typical experience for a woman of her time. What the book covers is mostly her family life. She had Five active brothers, one brother with a severe disability, and an older sister who also never married.
The most interesting part of this book was the last few chapters when Jane Austen decides to try and publish her books anonymously. She is a poor woman in her late thirties and is thrilled by the small amount of money she is able to earn. She only publishes four of her books in her lifetime and earns a grand total of £600. It is ironic how many millions others have made off of her hard work, but at least she was somewhat famous in her last years.
Overall, this book, though, was hard to read. The first two chapter should just be deleted completely. Chapter one focuses on dirtying Jane Austin’s reputation and picturing her as a bitter, disillusioned woman. I find that hard to believe even with the evidence presented. Throughout the rest of the book, acquaintances seek out her company and children love her. This doesn’t happen to bitter people. Also, what a person writes in private letters and how they act publicly are two different things. Jane Austen’s biting humor to her sister doesn’t seem to be how everyone else remembers her, but the author of this biography is convinced that everyone was just white-washing Jane Austen’s memory. I also know that Jane Austin’s novel feels optimistic. If she was bitter, it should have filtered through her writing. I have a big problem with this image of Jane Austen.
The second chapter is just a dizzying list of names and relationships in a random order. The summary of Jane Austen’s entire genealogy can be placed in the appendix. The stories in this chapter are then repeated in the rest of the book. From here, the book forces itself slowly into chronological order, but the writer suffers from lack of organization. Once you push through this slow beginning, things do pick up, but the strongest part of the book is the last few chapters.
I do recommend this book for hard Jane Austin fans, but the casual reader may find it slow. Either way, I am glad I read it and learned a lot about Jane Austen. It also encouraged me to keep writing!
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