Jane Austen | The View Outside

It’s the start of the A-Z Challenge today. If you’re not quite sure what that is click the link above 🙂

I thought id start off with a great writer who everyone knows…. Jane Austen

Born in 1775 in Hampshire England, she is the earliest of the writers I’ll be looking at over the course of April. With no real formal education, Austen started to write poems and short stories when she was 12 and published her first piece of work at the age of 19.

Its incredible to think that at the age of 36 she would have had no idea that by publishing Sense and Sensibility she was about to become one of the most well known and widely read writers of English Literature, ever!

Her observation on social behaviour features heavily in her work and has meant that she has become an important writer amongst critics and historians. Her novels are witty observations of the lives of the middle and upper classes of Georgian Britain.

Sadly, she died at the age of 42, but fortunately for the world with 6 timeless novels for us to enjoy.

My Favourite Jane Austen Quotes:

“An artist cannot be slovenly.”

“The person, whether it be a gentleman or a lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” OUCH!

“Life is a quick succession of busy nothings.”

“Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.”

“For my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

In my opinion, Jane Austen was, is, the mother of chick lit, so I find myself asking…why the hell have I never read any of her work? The problem is that I feel I know it so well already, from the numerous TV adaptations and films that already exist. There have even been books and films written about people reading Austen! 😉