3 Jane Austen And Her Works - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Jane Austen and Her Works by Sarah Tytler is a biographical account written in the late 19th century. This work delves into the life and literary contributions of Jane Austen, highlighting her evolution as a writer. It likely discusses the themes and characters of her most renowned novels, such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility, while also providing insights into the social context of her time.

In this chapter, we hear about the inspiration in Jane's early life

Transcript

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.

Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.

But before we begin,

Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter Three Jane Austen wrote stories in addition to all manner of quips and cranks,

Impromptu verses and mocking stanzas from her childhood upwards.

In admitting the childish practice after she was a middle-aged woman,

She called it an innocent amusement,

But a waste of time which,

As she had found to her regret,

Might have been more profitably employed.

She had accumulated numerous copies full of such stories,

For the most part burlesques of the melodramatic extravagances of other writers,

By the time she was sixteen.

The published story which is nearest to this style is Northanger Abbey.

She seems to have completed two stories which were not parodies between the age of sixteen and twenty.

Both of these were in the old-fashioned form of letters.

One of them she rewrote in another shape and it was ultimately published under the title of Sense and Sensibility.

The other,

Lady Susan,

Was only published along with a little memoir of the author nine years ago.

Two among her masterpieces were written between her twenty-first and twenty-third years.

Pride and Prejudice,

Named originally First Impressions,

Was written in ten months,

Between 1796 and 1797.

Sense and Sensibility,

The reproduction from the earlier story in letters called Eleanor and Marianne,

Occupied the author between 1797 and 1798.

But Northanger Abbey,

Which holds a place beside Pride and Prejudice,

Was written also in 1798.

Jane Austen wrote with the knowledge and approval of her father and mother and the rest of her family.

There is still in existence a letter written by Mr Austen and addressed to Mr Cadell in November 1797,

Immediately after the completion of Pride and Prejudice.

The father simply states he has in his possession a manuscript novel in three volumes about the length of Miss Burney's Evelina.

He asks whether Mr Cadell would choose to be concerned in bringing it out,

What would be the expense of publishing if at the author's risk,

And what the publisher would venture to advance for the copyright if on perusal it was approved of.

The proposal was declined by return of post,

More from excess of caution than from erring criticism,

Since the manuscript was never in the publisher's hands.

It is almost needless to say that the rejected novel is unquestionably among the best of English novels.

Pride and Prejudice was not published till 16 years after it had been composed.

Sense and Sensibility,

The first published of Jane Austen's novels,

Not for 13 years after the first time it was rewritten.

Northanger Abbey was the first sold of these earlier novels,

But it cannot be considered more lucky than its predecessors.

It was disposed of to a publisher in Bath for the modest sum of £10,

Five years after it was written and two years before the death of Jane Austen's father.

It lay ignominiously in a drawer in the shop of its purchaser for many years,

And at last it was brought back for the sum originally given by one of the author's brothers,

Who,

When the transaction was finished,

Triumphantly informed the dilatory publisher he had just resold a work by the well-known author of Pride and Prejudice.

Northanger Abbey was not brought out till 1818 after Jane Austen's death,

Where it appeared together with her last story,

Persuasion.

Surely few young authors have had to suffer greater and more prolonged disappointment in finding a publisher and a public.

This experience may serve as a consolation to all struggling literary aspirants.

On the other hand,

We may seek generation after generation of authors doomed to obscurity,

Temporary or permanent,

Before we find another Jane Austen.

Of a nephew and a niece of the authors who took to youthful novel writing in their aunt's lifetime,

It is recorded neither of their novels ever saw the light.

Yet we might have said of them they had novel writing in their blood.

It is said that Jane Austen bore her early literary disappointments very philosophically.

She did not write for money,

Her father was in easy circumstances,

She might not then anticipate fame,

Though she was far from undervaluing her powers,

And she did not overrate the worth of a literary reputation.

Still,

I can scarcely comprehend the equanimity of a very young woman remaining entirely unshaken by the unbroken train of undeserved failures and rebuffs.

There is one thing I feel sure Jane Austen must have grieved for.

Her father,

Who had superintended her education and taken a fatherly interest in her first attempts at authorship,

Did not live to see the faint dawn of the success which,

Although it came late,

Has proved ample.

Before quitting the subject of the novelist youth at Steventon,

I should like to say a word on the influences already referred to,

Which I believe affected Jane Austen as a woman and an author.

During her whole life,

She remained to a great extent engrossed by the interests of her family and their limited circle of old and intimate friends.

This was as it should be.

So far,

But there may be too much of a good thing.

The tendency of strictly restricted family parties and sets,

Where their members are above small bickerings and squabblings,

Is to form mutual admiration societies,

And neither does this more respectable and amiable weakness act beneficially upon its victims.

In the incessant intercourse between the Great House and Uppercross Cottage in Persuasion,

We have an example,

Under Jane Austen's own hand,

Of the evils of such constant communication among people of inferior understanding and intelligence.

If we look nearer home,

We may have a glimpse of disadvantages of a different sort.

As good as Jane Austen was,

There's a certain spirit of exclusiveness,

Intolerance,

Condescension,

And what may be classed as refined family selfishness,

In the attitude which she,

The happy member of a large and united family,

Distinguished by many estimable qualities,

Assumed to the world without.

She was independent of it to a large extent for social intercourse,

And so she told it candidly and just a little haughtily,

Forgetting for the most part the wants of less favoured individuals,

That she needed nothing from it.

Fondly loved and remembered as Jane Austen has been,

With much reason,

Among her own people,

In their considerable ramifications,

I cannot imagine her as greatly liked,

Or even regarded with anything save some amount of prejudice,

Out of the immediate circle of her friends and in general society.

I hope I may not be understood.

I do not mean the novelist was other than an excellent woman.

What I mean is,

She allowed her interests and sympathies to become narrow,

Even for her day,

And that her tender charity not only began,

But ended,

In large measure,

At home.

No doubt I'm alluding to the characteristics of a generation and class which showed themselves in a marked manner in the repugnance with which other intellectual gentlewomen shrank from acknowledging the profession of authorship,

With its obligations no less than its privileges,

As if it involved a degradation.

Jane Austen was the clear-sighted girl with the sharp pen,

If not the sharp tongue.

It would have been little short of a miracle if she could have conducted herself with such meekness in her remote rural world,

Or during the visit she paid to the great English watering place,

While she was all the time laughing in her sleeve,

So as not to provoke any suspicion of her satire,

Or any resentment at what might easily be held her presumption.

We may grant fully that Jane Austen was far too good an artist to make absolute copies from real persons to figure in the pages of her book,

And too good a woman not to regard such a practice as a breach of social honour.

But we all know how human beings,

Especially the duller amongst us,

Distrust and dislike,

Being turned into ridicule.

I do not mean to infer Miss Austen at any age was guilty of the mean and disloyal practice drawing out people until they exposed their weakness,

Then making game of the weakness,

Whether in the victim's company or out of it.

I have it on excellent authority that however thoroughly Jane Austen was able to sympathise with the witty repartees of two of her favourite heroines,

She was herself shy and silent.

Even in more familiar circles,

She was innocent of speaking sharp words,

And was considered rather distinguished for her tolerant indulgence to her fellow creatures than for her hard judgements upon them.

The tolerance belonged by right to her breadth of comprehension and to the humour which still more than wit characterised her genius.

The suggestion I make,

Then,

Is that seeing her neighbour's foibles,

As she certainly did,

She could not,

However generously she might use her superior knowledge,

Conceal it altogether,

And this was less likely to be the case when she was a young girl with some share of the thoughtlessness and rashness of other girls,

Than when she was a mature woman with a wisdom and gentleness of experience.

Reviews

Fascinating! Might we possibly be so lucky to be treated to the reading of Northanger Abbey someday by a certain delightful reader?😍❤️🙏🏼 thank you for this share…