Jane Austen, professional writer

As a novelist, Jane Austen dealt in the little things that loom momentous in the everyday routines of an ordinary life: preparations for an outing, the choice of partners at a dance, the chance for intrigue in a game of cards. What we know of her life is drawn to the same miniature scale: small facts and slender insights hoarded, vetted, and handed down by a protective family who memorialized and effaced their famous aunt in equal measure. We have the six novels, all published in an intense seven-year period; some 160 letters, survivors from a much larger correspondence; and a little more than 1,100 pages of manuscript writings — apprentice pieces, experiments, and unfinished works — stretching over thirty years. Austen died aged 41 at the height of her powers. Read more of this article written by Kathryn Sutherland
 jane-austen-professional-writer