“For my own
part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
Jane Austen
(1775 - 1817)
Curious facts
about:
Since her novels
were published anonymously, her identity as the author was not known until
after her death.
For her first love, Austen got a story worthy of one of her novels --
one that in fact has certain things in common with that of Marianne
Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility.
The object of her love, Tom Lefroy, was the Irish nephew of her close
friend Anne Lefroy. Knowing that Tom would lose his inheritance if he
married a "nobody," Anne Lefroy hurried Tom out of the county when the
romance came to her attention. (Tom later became the Chief Justice of
Ireland.)
The first two of Jane Austen’s
novels, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, which she submitted for
publication were met with disdain by publishers. Pride and Prejudice ( known at
that time as First Impression) was dismissed out of hand and returned unopened
by Cadell publisher in 1797. The other,
Northanger Abbey, ( then known as Susan)
was bought by Cosby and Co. publishers in 1803. When they didn’t publish
it, it was subsequently bought back from them by her brother Henry and it was
published by Murray in 1817 after Jane Austen’s death.