Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Useful Jane Austen
    Useful Jane Austen
    Useful Jane Austen
    Ebook65 pages1 hour

    Useful Jane Austen

    By Martin Manser

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This book will help you:
    • plan your essays
    • revise better
    • prepare for exams

    This book provides:
    • Introduction to Jane Austen
    • Jane Austen’s life
    • Jane Austen and the English language
    • Jane Austen’s works
    • Outlines of Jane Austen’s major novels
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateSep 28, 2015
    ISBN9781483559087
    Useful Jane Austen
    Author

    Martin Manser

    Martin Manser is a professional writer and researcher. He is responsible for ‘The Penguin Wordmaster’ and ‘The Guinness Book of Words’.

    Read more from Martin Manser

    Related to Useful Jane Austen

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What’s So Great About Jane?

      Mar 26, 2020

      What’s So Great About Jane?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Becoming Jane

      Aug 31, 2023

      Becoming Jane
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Advent Of Christmas

      Nov 9, 2023

      The Advent Of Christmas
      6 min read

    • Article

      Jane Austen Trivia

      Mar 26, 2020

      Who knew that Jane brewed her own beer? In a letter to her sister Cassandra in January 1800, Jane told her, “We are brewing spruce beer again.” During this period, brewing was a traditional chore for women because water was often contaminated and it

      5 min read

    • Article

      Flesh & blood

      Apr 9, 2023

      Flesh & blood
      4 min read

    • Article

      Behind Every Great Woman Writer Is Another Woman

      Nov 15, 2017

      Persistent images of isolation can be used to weaken female power by giving the impression that there are no tried-and-tested models of intellectual collaboration between women. The post Behind Every Great Woman Writer Is Another Woman appeared first

      4 min read

    • Article

      The real Mr Darcy

      Nov 2, 2022

      The real Mr Darcy
      8 min read

    • Article

      Spirits Touching

      Oct 9, 2023

      by Emma Donoghue (Macmillan, $37.99) This novel focuses on two real people: Eliza Raine and her friend Anne Lister, pupils at an English boarding school in the early 1800s. As the background notes at the end helpfully explain, Eliza was born in Madr

      2 min read

    • Article

      Before Straight and Gay

      Feb 6, 2017

      Before Straight and Gay
      7 min read

    • Article

      Aspects Of Bohemian Love

      May 3, 2023

      Aspects Of Bohemian Love
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 19, 2022

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      Heart’s Content

      Jun 18, 2023

      In Emma of 83rd Street, the beloved characters and main storyline of Jane Austen’s Emma are transplanted from the fictional village of Highbury in England to Upper East Side, New York, and it works like a charm. Emma Woodhouse has just finished a deg

      5 min read

    • Article

      Belated Recognition

      Mar 1, 2021

      Belated Recognition
      6 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Kwan, Center, Iglesias, and More

      Jul 14, 2020

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from the likes of Kevin Kwan, Katherine Center, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Kwan, Center, Iglesias, and More appeare

      5 min read

    • Article

      Cosplaying Jane Austen

      Jul 22, 2017

      Cosplaying Jane Austen
      7 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Sep 8, 2021

      Great Read
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Keefe, Beagin, Welsh, and More

      Feb 26, 2019

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from the likes of Patrick Radden Keefe, Jen Beagin, Irvine Welsh and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to

      6 min read

    • Article

      Story Of A New Zealand Saga

      Nov 8, 2020

      Story Of A New Zealand Saga
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Life of GENTLEMAN JACK

      May 18, 2023

      The Life of GENTLEMAN JACK
      8 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Sep 8, 2021

      Great Read
      5 min read

    • Article

      Pioneering Women

      May 18, 2023

      Professional housekeeper, cook, confectioner, teacher, author; Elizabeth Raffald could be described by many job titles, but the most fitting is probably entrepreneur. Having spent some years working around Yorkshire, Raffald made her name in Manchest

      3 min read

    • Article

      Six Books to Read During a Stressful Family Holiday

      Dec 23, 2023

      Leo Tolstoy’s observation in Anna Karenina is famous to the point of becoming a cliché: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But it wouldn’t have become a truism if it didn’t resonate—whether or not you agree

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Useful Jane Austen

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Useful Jane Austen - Martin Manser

      Sensibility

      Introduction

      Jane Austen ranks high among the most loved of all English writers. In contrast to many other celebrated authors her reputation rests upon a relatively small output, of around half a dozen major novels and a few other fragments, but her lasting influence upon the subsequent development of the English novel is undisputable nonetheless.

      Austen’s own life was one of upper middle-class rural gentility and this is the orderly, prosperous and close-knit world that is depicted in her writing, which deals almost exclusively with the personal relationships and social entanglements of characters sharing a similarly refined country background. It was a small canvas upon which she chose to work but it allowed her to focus upon her characters in minute detail and to bring them fully and delightfully to life. Although her talent as a novelist was not widely remarked upon during her own lifetime, with one or two notable exceptions, Austen has since been justly praised both for her delicate rendering of character and for her close observation of the social milieu she took as the subject of her greatest works.

      Over the years, many critics have waxed lyrical about the ‘Austen touch’, an elusive descriptive term that attempts to draw together the different strands of Jane Austen’s style. Prominent features of her writing include great elegance, balance and sensitivity, as well as subtlety of tone and effect and a gentle, ironic wit, which prevents her stories descending into sentiment, as they might easily have done in the hands of a less accomplished stylist.

      Jane Austen

      Jane Austen’s Life

      The details of Jane Austen’s relatively short and relatively uneventful life are well established. Our knowledge of her is based on the letters she wrote – though her sister Cassandra destroyed an unknown number of letters relating to intimate details of Jane’s emotional life that she felt it was improper to make public – on letters written to her and about her, and on accounts of her written by members of her family after her death when she had achieved fame through her novels.

      Family Background

      Jane Austen was born in 1775. Her father was the rector of Steventon in Hampshire, and her mother was an intelligent and educated woman from the Leigh family, which had extensive connections that reached up into the minor aristocracy. Jane was the seventh of eight children. She had six brothers and one sister, Cassandra, her closest friend and confidante throughout her life. Her eldest brother, James, became a clergyman and took over her father’s parish after he retired. The second eldest, George, was mentally handicapped and was cared for mainly outside the family. The third, Edward, was adopted by childless relatives and eventually inherited their estate and took their name, but retained close contacts with his birth family. The fourth, Charles, was a businessman and banker until he became bankrupt, after which he too became a clergyman. Jane’s two younger brothers both served in the Royal Navy, one of them eventually rising to become Admiral of the Fleet.

      The Austens were not wealthy, but they were quite well-connected. Jane’s father had a moderate income as a clergyman, but he had eight children to provide for. His shrewdness in using the money and connections that he possessed enabled him to set all his sons up well. There was little money left over for his two daughters, but the Austens were a very close, happy, and loving family. Jane’s brothers ensured that she, her sister, and her mother were provided for after their father died. They were also a very literate family. They were all in the habit of writing little verses to one another; James and Charles edited a magazine while they were students at Oxford, and they also put on plays in the family barn at Steventon when they were home on vacation.

      First Writings

      Jane was sent to school in Reading, with Cassandra, for less than

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1