A surprising contradiction – Jane Austen, was one of the most astute observers of love, marriage and flirtation in her time, but she never experienced the sublime happiness of being a loving and beloved wife. Is this such a contradiction?

Written by Violet
Literary critic

Like her heroines, Jane Austen was a witty, beautiful and very self-sufficient girl. But the mores of the time considered the latter quality is more a disadvantage than an advantage. After all, a young girl’s main objective was the need to marry, and marriage was seen only as a profitable economic solution.

As a result, engagements were often arranged not for love but for economic reasons. She wrote about this in all her novels, expressing the central idea that “happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”

The Austen family, where both parents came from ancient and respected families, was not considered poor and the need was not experienced, but also did not luxuriate. Given the pecuniary position of the Austen family, neither Jane nor Cassandra could expect a certain nobleman to take financial advantage of an alliance with either of them, so they had to rely on natural charm and feminine charms. In the case of marriage, a girl’s dowry went directly to her husband, and so young men who wished to supplement the budget through a successful marital union, hunted for more affluent heiresses.

Still, there were several supposed marriages in Jane’s life, but they never happened. At thirty, Jane Austen wore a bonnet, demonstrating to those around her that she was now an old maid and no longer planned to marry.

The writer was probably in love with literature and her unquenchable desire to write novels with happy endings. In the stories she wrote, everything was clear, and the characters’ fates were easy to control with pen and ink.

Interesting fact: Her most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice, was initially rejected by a publisher who found it boring and unsellable.

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, it was considered indecent for a woman to engage in writing – it was like walking around in a man’s suit. That’s why all of Jane Austen’s first editions came out without the author’s name. Miss Austen hid her studies for a long time, even from close friends. She wrote on small pieces of postal paper that could be quickly hidden if someone caught her doing it unexpectedly. Besides, the writer had a special alarm, a creaky door in the hall. Jane rejected all attempts to fix it.

Books written by Jane Austen

The books that Jane Austen wrote and published in her lifetime are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816) and the books published after her death, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1818).

How J. Austin died

The writer died at the age of 41. The exact reasons for her death are still unknown. According to the official version, the writer suffered from a very rare disease, Addison’s Disease. It is a rare endocrine disorder in which the adrenal glands lose the ability to produce enough hormones, especially cortisol.

The latest version of what happened was put forward by employees of the British Library: they suggested that the writer had been poisoned by arsenic contained in the medicine for rheumatism.