Biography of the English writer Jane Austen. Jane Austen

Jein Austen Career: Writer
Birth: Great Britain" Steventon, 16.12.1775 - 18.7
Jane Austen is an English writer, a classic of English and world literature, the founder of the family, “ladies' novel.” Born December 16, 1775. Jane Austen's books "Sense and Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), "Mansfield Park" (1814) "Emma" (1815) are considered recognized masterpieces and captivate with the artless sincerity and simplicity of the plot, against the backdrop of deep psychological insight into the souls of the characters and ironic, soft, truly “English” humor. Jane Austen is still rightfully considered the “First Lady” English literature. Her works are required reading in all colleges and universities in the UK. Austen's work is distinguished by a constant striving for perfection. For the first time in the novel genre she used the “view from the outside,” “the voice of the author.” She died at the age of 42 years. Her last novel, “Senditon” (1817), even as an unfinished excerpt, arouses genuine interest among the reader.

She was called: “the incomparable Jane,” English young ladies of noble and ignorant families were brought up and tested on her novels, their literary taste was honed, she still attracts and enchants filmmakers, memorial centers and museums and literary clubs named after her are being created all over the world. Moreover, there is a website on the Internet, one that is updated every day - weekly critical articles and essay, dedicated to creativity Miss British Novel!

But, I’m afraid that her existence still represents the same mystery for us as it once was, just like two hundred and extra years back!

Not much is known about her, although Jane’s family, devoted to her memory, reverently preserved her writings: all of them, including unfinished passages!

But here’s the thing: she didn’t keep any diaries, and her letters were either not preserved or were buried in archives. Yes and translation to Russian language Documents dating back nearly three hundred years seem to many to be boring, if not worthless. I will try to tell you the little that I managed to discover, compose, systematize, and generalize. What I had a chance to reflect on and managed to draw conclusions. It's up to you to judge whether it worked:

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England, in the family of a rural pastor. Besides her, there were six more brothers and a sister in the family. Due to lack of funds, Jane could not accept a systematic education, but, possessing remarkable talent and strong will, an open and cheerful character, she did a lot of self-education, read and, together with her brothers and sister, analyzed what she read, writing everything down in notebooks. In the family of a rural priest, they not only read the Bible and spiritual books, but also performed performances - charades, jokes and skits, read novels and argued about what they read, enthusiastically and sympathetically listening to the opinion of Jane, who could capture the essence of the book she read in two or three words and with an indescribable sense of humor in their faces, retell a few scenes from the novel from memory.

At the age of fourteen, Jane wrote her first parody - a joke called "Love and Friendship" - on 18th century didactic opuses with sentimentally dull heroes and heroines smelling roses, sobbing over them, and fainting every five minutes!

Why - novels! She also composed a great parody - a pamphlet on O. Goldsmith's "History of England" - the fundamental work of a historian and political scientist! This dusty tome was kept in a closet in her father’s office, and Jane took the time to examine it, meticulously and sensitively. A local doctor who came to visit her father listened to Jane’s reading for a long time and with interest, and praised her for reading interesting, serious books, and having learned that the girl had presented to his attention her personal humorous work, he laughed in amazement, shook his white-headed head in amazement, and later spent a long time telling his neighbors - patients about how smart little Jane is - the pastor's daughter, not only can collect bouquets and pour tea porcelain cups!

However, housework also gave Jane pleasure. There is evidence that, living quite secluded and secluded, rarely traveling outside the estate, she nevertheless maintained a smooth and amiable disposition, a smile under no circumstances left her face, and until the end of her days, darkened serious illness - no matter how much it is forbidden to judge from the documents, she had signs of a cancerous tumor, with severe metastases throughout the body (author) - she remained the favorite of her nephews, brothers, mother and, especially, father!

Neither she nor her sister had a chance to get married. Whether Miss Jane’s meager dowry played a role here, or her outward ugliness, or the great level of independence and intelligence that was almost immediately noticeable in her, is hard to judge.

About whether Jane herself had feelings for anyone sincere feelings- unknown. She preferred to lock her soul and heart, openly, fully, expressing herself only in her books, which became famous during her lifetime. By the way, she published them all under the pseudonym: “a certain Lady D” and, of course, could not fully enjoy her fame, but, nevertheless, having read in English newspapers an analysis of her novel “Emma” by Sir Walter Scott himself, (he reviewed the book almost this minute after its release, in 1816 - the author) she felt truly happy!

Walter Scott, reviewing the writer’s final novel, published during her lifetime, noted that the main thing in Austen’s works is “the subtlest touch, thanks to which, moreover, vulgar events and characters become interesting from the truthfulness of the descriptions and feelings.” Austen doesn't put himself above his characters. She just teases them a little. In "Emma" there is absolutely no bad people. Even the slob Frank Churchill finds a decent apology and a wonderful missus. Such a complacent attitude towards the characters apparently comes from the character of the author herself - she had a wonderful sense of humor and irony, but she was constantly restrained by tact and rare kindness, as a result - irony could rarely turn into sarcasm.

Another time, Jane is noted to have a certain predilection for the theme of “hunting for suitors,” which she develops and shows from different angles in most of her novels. Even tactlessly, as the reason for such an obsessive plot of the works, the “old maidenhood” of Jane Austen herself is mentioned!

But, I think, the final fact did not have any significance in this place.

Jane Austen - a master of everyday life, a master of the finest depiction of characters and faces through the prism of irony, humor, unobtrusive reasoning, shows us with the help of a “simple chronicle of the life of two or three families” the history of feelings and souls, the struggle between dark and light in a person’s character, somewhere maybe a story national type, the history of a country through a piece of the life of an individual, the whole history of an era in one, roughly outlined, memorable character.

What are the heroes of the novel “Pride and Prejudice” worth: Miss Elizabeth Bennet, her dad, always immersed in thoughts and books; disheveled and always clucking like a hen, a mother concerned only with secular gossip and an easy arrangement for the fate of her daughters! Or the caricature of the young girl from Northanger Abbey, who was obsessed with Gothic horror novels and seriously believed that real life was also full of mystical ghosts!

Jane perfected her close skills all the way. She tried several forms of the novel and they were all finished, moreover, if they remained magically imperfect under her light and flying pen, which increasingly fell out of thin fingers: due to periodic pain, she could no longer hold it for long!

She tried all forms of novel prose; moreover, she wrote little novel- a short story in letters "Lady Suzanne" - a dazzling and intriguing portrait of a heartless society lady and an epic novel (in small form) "Mansfield Park", with a lot of characters and many storylines. Both novels were extremely popular; London's social drawing rooms never tired of wondering who this mysterious lady was, giving readers a new book every year - one more interesting than the other! They borrowed novels from a friend, read them until they became old, the young ladies reasoned and behaved like the heroines of “Lady D,” and she still enjoyed the silence of the small estate and was quietly fading away, despite all the attempts of her relatives to help her. Outwardly, her existence was uneventful. She lived hundreds of other lives in her books, where her heroines laughed, fell in love, ironized and made fun of themselves and their loved ones, despaired and fought for their love to the end.

Was the “lady of the English novel” happy in her own way? Maybe yes. She did not put herself above her heroines. I didn’t identify myself with them. She effortlessly created her own personal world, in which she lived not only “by the right of the author,” but also “by the right of feeling and heartfelt attraction.” And it continues to exist to this day.

Jane died on July 18, 1817 in Winchester. Before her death, she tried to complete her last novel, Sanditon.

She left only a few pages unfinished, leaving her readers with the eternal mystery of the name: “Jane Austen.” The writer's family conscientiously collected and stored everything she wrote. Even rough scraps. These three thick hand-bound volumes became the basis for full meeting works of Jane Austen, published smoothly a hundred years after her death!

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Jane Austen short biography English writer, the founders of the “women’s” novel, are described in this article.

Jane Austen short biography

She was born on December 16, 1775 in Steventon in the family of a priest. There were 8 children in their family. Jane was especially friendly with her sister Casandra; they were similar and had never been married.

Since childhood, Jane has read many books by English novelists (Fielding, Richardson, Shakespeare). From 1783 to 1786 Together with her sister Cassandra she studied at Oxford, Southampton and Reading. Jane had no luck with schools; in the first, she and Cassandra suffered from the despotic temper of the headmistress and almost died after contracting typhus. Another school in Reading, on the contrary, was run by a very good-natured person, but the knowledge of the students was the last concern of her life. Having returned his daughters home, the father himself took care of their education.

Austen's literary career began in 1789. When she was only 14 years old, she wrote her first little-known work, Love and Friendship.

From 1811 to 1817 she wrote the novels Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1811), and Northanger Abbey (1818). The latter was published posthumously. The novel Sanditon remained unfinished.

Jane Austen loved dresses, balls, and fun. But she was reserved and modest.
Jane Austen never married. When Jane was 20 years old, she had an affair with her neighbor, Thomas Lefroy, the future Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and at that time a law student. However, the marriage of young people would be impractical, since both families were relatively poor and hoped to take advantage of the marriages of their offspring to improve materially and social status, so Jane and Tom had to break up. At the age of 30, Jane put on a cap and never took it off as a sign of renunciation of hopes for personal happiness.

Jane Austen born December 16, 1775 in the town of Steventon, Hampshire. Her father, George Austin, was a parish priest. He came from an old Kentish family and was an enlightened and widely educated man. His wife, Cassandra Lee, also belonged to an old but impoverished family. In addition to Jane, the family had six boys and one girl (Cassandra). Jane Austen was the second to last child.

Despite the high infant mortality rate in those years, they all survived. The elder brother, James (1765-1819), had a penchant for literary studies: wrote poetry, prose, but followed in his father’s footsteps. The family preferred not to talk about the second brother, George (1766-1838): he was mentally disabled and never learned to speak. For his sake, Jane learned the alphabet of the mutes. The third brother, Edward (1767-1852), was adopted by wealthy childless relatives of the Austin Knights, which opened up wide opportunities for him - from the gentry he moved into the nobility.

The brightest and most romantic fate was that of the fourth, beloved brother Jane Austen, Henry Thomas (1771-1850). A passionate and not very practical man, he tried many professions in his life: he served in the army, was a banker, at first he was successful, but then he went bankrupt and was ordained. He was married to Eliza de Feyde, the widow of a French nobleman who ended his days in the guillotine. Eliza had a lot of influence on Jane. It is to Eliza that he owes a good knowledge of the French language and French authors: La Rochefoucauld, Montaigne, La Bruyère, as well as a love of theater.

Two other brothers, Francis William and Charles John, were naval sailors who rose to the rank of admiral. But Jane had a special friendship with her sister Cassandra. Cassandra, like her sister, never got married. Her chosen one, the young priest Thomas Fowle, died of yellow fever in the West Indies, where he went in the hope of earning money for the upcoming wedding. When he died, Cassandra was only twenty-four years old.

Much less definite information is available about the writer herself. Opinions of contemporaries differ even about her appearance. Jane “is not at all pretty, she is prim for her twelve years, capricious and unnatural,” as her cousin Philadelphia said. “She is attractive, good-looking, thin and graceful, only her cheeks are somewhat round,” said the brother of her close friend. Cassandra's portrait of Jane is similar to this description.

Jane Austen loved outfits, balls, fun. Her letters are full of descriptions of hat styles, stories about new dresses and gentlemen. Fun was combined in her with a natural intelligence and a decent education, especially for a girl of her circle and position, who had not even graduated from school.

In the period from 1783 to 1786. Together with her sister Cassandra she studied at Oxford, Southampton and Reading. Jane had no luck with schools; in the first, she and Cassandra suffered from the despotic temper of the headmistress and almost died after contracting typhus. Another school in Reading, on the contrary, was run by a very good-natured person, but the knowledge of the students was the last concern of her life. Having returned his daughters home, George Austin decided to educate them himself and was very successful in this. Skillfully guiding their reading, he instilled in the girls a good literary taste and taught them to love classical authors, whom he knew well from his own occupation. Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Hume were read. They were also interested in novels, reading such authors as Ridcharson, Fielding, Stern, Maria Edgeworth, Fanny Burney. Among the poets they preferred were Cowper, Thomson, and Thomas Gray. The formation of Jane Austen's personality took place in an intellectual environment - among books, constant conversations about literature, discussions of what was read and what was happening.

Although all short life the writer spent time in the provinces, Steventon, Bath, Chotin, Winchester, only occasionally traveling to London, Big world with its events and cataclysms: wars, uprisings, revolutions - constantly burst into the seemingly calm and measured existence of the daughter of an English priest.

Jane Austen never got married. When Jane was 20 years old, she had an affair with her neighbor, Thomas Lefroy, the future Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and at that time a law student. However, the marriage of young people would be impractical, since both families were relatively poor and hoped to take advantage of the marriages of their offspring to improve their financial and social situation, so Jane and Tom had to separate. At thirty, Jane put on a cap, thereby announcing to the world that from now on she was an old maid, saying goodbye to hopes for personal happiness, although she had once been proposed to. The Austins had never been rich, and after the death of their father, their financial circumstances became even more constrained. Jane provided for the family and helped her mother with housework.

Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817 in Winchester, where she went to be treated for Addison's disease. She didn't have time to finish her last novel"Sanditon".

She was buried in Winchester Cathedral.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) - writer, satirist, classic of English and world literature. In Great Britain, she became a herald of realism and is considered the founder of ladies' and family novels. Her works belong to the so-called novels of morals, in which modern society described with a bit of satire.

Family

Jane was born in the English county of Hampshire, in the small town of Steventon.

Her father served in rural church pastor He belonged to an ancient Kentish family, was a very educated and widely enlightened man, and was well versed in literature. His wife Cassandra Lee also belonged to an old but impoverished family. Mom was a homely woman, well-read and educated; she very skillfully told fairy tales to her children.

In total, eight children were born into the Austin family; Jane had six more brothers and one sister. Jane was the second to last among the children. Those times were characterized by very high infant mortality, but the Austins all survived.

The eldest brother James was inclined towards literature, in his youth he wrote poetic and prose works. small works, but then decided, like his father, to connect his life with serving in the church. James lived to be 54 years old.

The second brother George was not quite a full-fledged child in psychologically, I haven’t learned to talk. The family tried to talk less about him, but Jane loved her brother so much that she learned the alphabet of the dumb to communicate with him. George lived to be 70 years old.

The third brother, Edward, was adopted by Austin relatives who were unable to have children. The Knight family provided the boy with ample opportunities; from the gentry (English untitled small landed nobility), he became a nobleman. Died at the age of 85.

Jane's most beloved brother was the romantic and flamboyant Henry Thomas. He was an enthusiastic person, rather impractical, and tried several professions during his life - he went to serve in the army as a soldier, tried himself as a banker, at first his business went well, but then Henry Thomas went bankrupt. In the end, he, like his father, took orders and became a priest. He was married to Eliza de Feyd. The woman was the widow of a French nobleman who ended his life on the guillotine. Jane Austen was very friendly with Eliza, it was thanks to her that the future writer knew well French, became interested in theater and re-read the works of many French writers(La Bruyère, La Rochefoucauld, Montaigne). Beloved brother Henry Thomas lived a long life - 79 years.

Brother Charles John became a sailor, then rose to the rank of British rear admiral, and was commander-in-chief of the British naval forces in China and the East Indies. Died at the age of 73.

Brother Francis William, like Charles John, began his life path a military sailor, rose to the rank of fleet admiral. Of the Austin children, he lived the longest - 91 years.

But Jane was especially friendly with her older sister Cassandra and trusted her with all her plans and secrets. Cassandra knew absolutely everything about her sister Jane, and the great writer died in her arms. Cassandra was not married, she loved the young priest Thomas Fowl. He went to the West Indies, where he wanted to earn money for the upcoming wedding with his beloved Cassandra, but died there from an acute viral tropical disease (yellow fever), which is transmitted by mosquito bites. Cassandra remained faithful to her loved one until the end of her life.

Unfortunately, Jane lived the shortest of the Austin children, only 42 years old. Just think how much longer beautiful works this talented woman could have written. In addition, very little is known about the writer, much less than about her famous brothers. Jane did not keep diaries; the story of her life was formed from endless letters and memories of her family.

Exactly big family Jane influenced her as a writer. She corresponded with her relatives, especially her brothers and their wives. From the letters that Jane received from her family, she drew material for her works.

Childhood and education

The Austin family did not have enough money to provide all their children with a formal education. But Jane had strong will and a remarkable natural talent, she devoted a lot of time to self-education. I read, and then, together with my sister and brothers, I analyzed what I read, making some notes in a notebook.

She was very open girl and had a cheerful character. The fact that dad served as a priest did not mean that the Austin family only read the Bible and spiritual literature. Children loved to perform performances with jokes, skits and charades. Most of all they liked to read novels, then discuss, argue and retell scenes from the works from memory.

There are different opinions about the writer’s appearance at a young age. Her cousin Philadelphia called Jane not at all pretty and not natural, capricious and prim. But the brother of Jane’s friend talked about her attractiveness, subtlety and elegance, said that she was pretty, only her cheeks were a little round.
Young Jane Austen appeared to the world through a drawing made by her sister Cassandra.

It is known for certain that Jane loved balls, fun and dresses. Her letters kept talking about gentlemen, new styles of dresses, fashionable hats.

The girl was unlucky with educational institutions. She went to the first girls' school in Southampton with her sister Cassandra, but there was such an oppressive headmistress that she drove the students to nervous breakdowns. Here the sisters almost died of typhus.

The girls were transferred to another school in Reading, but there the principal, on the contrary, was a very good-natured person, but she was least concerned about the knowledge of the students. In the end, the father took his daughters home and began to educate them himself. It should be noted that he succeeded in this, instilling in young girls good literary taste and teaching them to love the classics. He skillfully supervised his daughters' reading; the works of Shakespeare, Thomas Gray, Goldsmith, Thomson, Hume, Cowper, Richardson, Fanny Burney, Fielding, Maria Edgeworth, and Sterne were studied.

Literary activity

At the age of fourteen, Jane composed her first comic parody called “Love and Friendship.” Here she laughed a little at the sentimental and boring heroines who constantly smell the roses and cry over them, and then faint every five minutes.

And after re-reading Goldsmith’s fundamental work “The History of England,” Jane composed a parody pamphlet on it. The political scientist's historical work was kept in his father's office in a closet. It was rather dusty, because it was of no interest to other children, but Jane was not too lazy to study it with all her characteristic attentiveness and meticulousness. One day, a local doctor came to visit her father, and Jane read her parody to him. He listened to the girl for a long time and with interest, then praised her for reading such books. But when I found out that it was her own literary work, was very amazed and laughed for a long time. And then he told his patients and neighbors how clever the priest Jane was: she not only poured tea into porcelain cups and made flower arrangements, but also wrote excellent essays.

Jane really always loved household chores. Despite the fact that the Austin family lived secludedly and secludedly, rarely leaving the boundaries of their estate, Jane turned out to be a girl with an amiable and even disposition, and there was always a smile on her face. Until the end of her days, she was the favorite of the whole family - brothers, parents, sisters, nephews, and her father especially doted on her.

Despite the calm and measured provincial life, the daughter of an English priest was aware of all world cataclysms and events; uprisings, revolutions and wars did not leave her indifferent. Her young and mature years fell during the period Napoleonic wars, uprisings in Ireland, war of independence in North America and the industrial revolution in England. Many of Jane's relatives were direct participants in these events. For example, the fate of Eliza de Feyd radically changed French revolution, brothers Charles and Francis were participants in the war with France. Jane corresponded with them and obtained invaluable material for her works from here.

In her writings there are no wars or revolutions, and the actions never went beyond the borders of England, but the influence of what was happening around the world was always felt.

Jane Austen's work can be divided into two periods. From 1795 to 1798 she created her own early novels- “Three Sisters” and “Beautiful Cassandra”.

Then came the period of novels that made her famous throughout the world:

• “Senses and Sensibility” (“Reason and Sensibility”). The novel is based on love stories two sisters. One is the sensible and reserved Elinor, the second is the romantic and passionate nature of Marianne. How they perceive life differently, experience heart dramas and, in the end, gain family happiness. The book has been filmed several times.
• "Pride and Prejudice". Jane began working on this novel at the age of 21. But the publishers did not publish the manuscript, and it lay there for more than 15 years. When the novel Sense and Sensibility was successfully published in 1811, Jane finally had the opportunity to publish her first brainchild. But before that, she carefully reworked it.
• "Mansfield Park". Vladimir Nabokov called this novel a fairy tale, the story of Cinderella. Forgotten by everyone, lonely and defenseless, Fanny eventually becomes the wife of the protagonist. But this is far from the most best work Jane Austen, even her mother considered the main character somewhat insipid.
• "Emma". In 1815, Jane completed her fourth major novel. Humorous work, in which main character– young Emma, ​​the daughter of rich parents, is trying to somehow diversify her leisure time. She loves to dream, but she is sure that she herself will never get married. Emma enthusiastically wooes all her friends and acquaintances, trying to arrange their personal lives. But surprises happen to her one after another.
• Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. These two novels were published after the writer's death.

Austen's works are distinguished by simple and sincere plots, while during reading there is an involuntary penetration into the psychology and souls of the characters. In Jane Austen's novels there is always a soft, pure English humor. She was the first to use the so-called “outside perspective” (“author’s voice”) in novels. The works of Jane Austen are considered compulsory study in British universities and colleges.

She is called "the incomparable Jane." For the third century, English young ladies from noble and not so noble families have been honing their literary knowledge and tastes on the novels of Jane Austen. Until now, her works remain attractive to the film industry. Many centers, museums and literary clubs named after Jane have been created around the world.

Personal life, illness and death

Jane had a serious illness - Addison's disease, which resulted in a cancerous tumor with metastases throughout the body. The writer went to Winchester for treatment, where her heart stopped on July 18, 1817. She was buried here, in Winchester Cathedral.

She was not married. In her youth Jane had romantic relationship with neighbor Thomas Lefroy. But their marriage did not take place. Both were from poor families, and the parents wanted more profitable matches for their children, in order to improve their financial situation. They separated, and at the age of 30, Jane announced that she had said goodbye to hopes for a happy life. family life and admitted that she was an old maid.

Jane described her entire personal life, which she would like to live, in her novels. They certainly have a happy ending and they are a must read.

In 2007, director Julian Jarrold made a film about the life of the writer Jane Austen. Miss English Novel was played by an actress Ann Hataway.

Jane Austen(Austen) (Jane Austen) (1775-1817), English novelist, famous for her witty and insightful portrayal of provincial society. Born on December 16, 1775 in Steventon (Hampshire), in the family of a priest. In the priest's house there were not at all prim morals; amateur performances were staged there; read novels with enthusiasm when reading novels was still considered a dubious activity; enthusiastically listened to Jane's youthful comic writings. Having received almost no formal education, Jane read a lot and already at the age of fourteen she could write funny and edifying parodies of various recognized examples of literature of the 18th century - from sentimental novels to O. Goldsmith's History of England.

In Austen's work, two periods of fruitful activity are clearly visible, separated by a rather long break: 1795-1798, when the early novels were created, and 1811-1816, a strikingly intense period of first dizzying successes and deepening mastery, when Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" and wrote the last three completed novels - "Mansfield Park", "Emma" and "Persuasion". Since all Jane Austen's novels were published anonymously, on behalf of a certain "lady", a loud literary fame she, of course, could not use it, but three novels went through two editions during her lifetime; "Pride and Prejudice" was especially praised, and he himself spoke approvingly of "Emma" Walter Scott .

However, her success and creativity do not seem to have had much influence on Miss Austen’s life. As far as one can judge from her letters and the memoirs of her relatives, until the very end she remained, first of all, a cheerful, attentive, gentle and affectionately ironic daughter, sister and aunt in her large and loving family. Jane Austen died in Winchester on July 18, 1817.

The youthful works of Jane Austen differ from the first experiences of most other authors in that they are often funny in themselves, regardless of the features of her discernible in them. later creativity. For example, "Love and Friendship", a work composed at the age of fourteen, is a hilarious parody of melodramatic opuses of the 18th century. Among Jane's youthful writings, preserved by her family and published in three volumes more than a hundred years after her death, there are other rather witty works. These, without detracting from its literary merits, include "Northanger Abbey", published in 1818, since this novel was written as a parody of the then very popular "Gothic novel" and is close in style, material and time of writing to the youthful writings of Jane Austen. In "Northanger Abbey" we're talking about about a naive young lady who went crazy reading “Gothic novels” and imagined that in real life, if you look closely, an ominous mysticism also reigns.

"Sense and Sensibility" (1811) begins as a parody of melodramatic writings last century, which the writer had already ridiculed earlier in “Love and Friendship,” but then develops in a completely unexpected direction. The message of the novel, lying on the surface, is that sensitivity - enthusiasm, openness, responsiveness - is dangerous if it is not tempered by caution and prudence - a warning that is quite appropriate from the lips of a writer who grew up in a priest's house. Therefore, Marianne, the embodiment of sensitivity, passionately falls in love with a charming gentleman, who turns out to be a scoundrel; Meanwhile, her sensible sister Elinor chooses a completely reliable young man as the object of her affection, for which she ultimately receives a reward in the form of a legal marriage.

"Pride and Prejudice" and Prejudice", 1813) - one of the most famous English novels. This is Jane Austen's undisputed masterpiece. Here, for the first time, she is in complete control of her passions and capabilities; moralizing considerations do not intrude into the analysis and characterization of characters; the plot gives scope to her sense of the comic and the author's sympathies. "Pride and Prejudice" is a novel about the hunt for suitors, and this theme is illuminated by the author from all sides and explored in all its outcomes - comic, ordinary, emotional, practical, hopeless, romantic, common sense and even (in the case of Mr. Bennet) tragic.

In the interval between two periods, when large-scale works were created one after another, in 1803-1805, Jane Austen wrote two unique opuses: “Lady Susan” - a short novel in letters, in the spirit of a merciless the humor of her youthful works, a bright, caustic portrait of a heartless society lady; “The Watsons” is a not very interesting fragment of the novel, again touching on the theme of hunting for suitors, but in the most serious, strict tone, anticipating her next completed novel. "Mansfield Park" (1814) is Jane Austen's largest work, with a diverse cast of characters and a wide thematic scope.

"Emma" (1815) is considered the pinnacle of Jane Austen's work, the clearest example of her comic writing. The theme of the novel is self-deception. The reader is given the opportunity to follow the changes that occur with the charming Emma, ​​turning from an arrogant, narcissistic young commander into a humble, repentant young lady, ready to marry a man who is able to protect her from her own mistakes.

Persuasion, published 1818, Jane Austen's last completed novel, is again radically different from its predecessor. But this is not a turn in the direction of Mansfield Park, but an appeal to as yet unexplored areas, only touched upon in passing by the character of Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility. The novelty of Persuasion lies in its serious and compassionate treatment of feeling. And in Sanditon, published 1925, a work that Jane Austen undertook a few months before her death and which remains an intriguing fragment, it talks about how appearances can be deceiving and how difficult it is to make fair judgment, all with with such technical fearlessness and such plasticity that, it seems, one could expect even more from this book than was achieved in Pride and Prejudice and Emma.