WRITER

Jane Austen

1775 - 1817

Photo of Jane Austen

Icon of person Jane Austen

Jane Austen ( OST-in, AW-stin; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works are an implicit critique of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Jane Austen has received more than 17,295,805 page views. Her biography is available in 136 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 126 in 2019). Jane Austen is the 47th most popular writer (down from 43rd in 2019), the 35th most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 33rd in 2019) and the 5th most popular British Writer.

Jane Austen is most famous for her novels, such as Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

Memorability Metrics

  • 17M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 80.46

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 136

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 8.57

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 6.08

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Mansfield Park
Fiction, Social life and customs, Adoptees
Fanny Price is born to a poor family, but is sent to her mother's rich relations to be brought up with her cousins. There she is treated as an inferior by all except her cousin Edmund, whose kindness towards her earns him her steadfast love. Fanny is quiet and obedient and does not come into her own until her elder cousins leave the estate following a scandalous play put on in their father's absence. Fanny's loyalty and love is tested by the beautiful Crawford siblings. But their essentially weak natures and morals show them for what they really are, and allow Fanny to gain the one thing she truly desires.
1814
Persuasion
Love stories, English
Persuasion tells the love story of Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth, whose sister rents Miss Elliot's father's house, after the Napoleonic Wars come to an end. The story is set in 1814. The book itself is Jane Austen's last published book, published posthumously in December of 1818.
1789
Pride and Prejudice
feelings, young ladies, domestic fiction
Pride and Prejudice is a romance novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story charts the emotional development of the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, marriage and money in the British Regency. --wikipedia
1813
Northanger Abbey
Mate selection, Cousins, Fiction
Northanger Abbey is both a perfectly aimed literary parody and a withering satire of the commercial aspects of marriage among the English gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century. But most of all, it is the story of the initiation into life of its naïve but sweetly appealing heroine, Catherine Morland, a willing victim of the contemporary craze for Gothic literature who is determined to see herself as the heroine of a dark and thrilling romance. When Catherine is invited to Northanger Abbey, the grand though forbidding ancestral seat of her suitor, Henry Tilney, she finds herself embroiled in a real drama of misapprehension, mistreatment, and mortification, until common sense and humor—and a crucial clarification of Catherine’s financial status—puts all to right. Written in 1798 but not published until after Austen’s death in 1817, Northanger Abbey is characteristically clearheaded and strong, and infinitely subtle in its comedy.
1833
Sense and Sensibility
Inheritance and succession, Mate selection, Social classes
When Mr. Dashwood dies, he must leave the bulk of his estate to the son by his first marriage, which leaves his second wife and three daughters (Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret) in straitened circumstances. They are taken in by a kindly cousin, but their lack of fortune affects the marriageability of both practical Elinor and romantic Marianne. When Elinor forms an attachment for the wealthy Edward Ferrars, his family disapproves and separates them. And though Mrs. Jennings tries to match the worthy (and rich) Colonel Brandon to her, Marianne finds the dashing and fiery Willoughby more to her taste. Both relationships are sorely tried. But this is a romance, and through the hardships and heartbreak, true love and a happy ending will find their way for both the sister who is all sense and the one who is all sensibility. - Publisher.
1811
Emma
Social life and customs, Mate selection, Fiction
Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively comedy of manners among her characters. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the very first sentence she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich." Emma, however, is also rather spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives; and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray.
1816

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Jane Austen ranks 47 out of 7,302. Before her are Charles Baudelaire, Émile Zola, Stendhal, Euripides, Gustave Flaubert, and Aristophanes. After her are Aeschylus, Simone de Beauvoir, Octave Mirbeau, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sappho, and Thomas Mann.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1775, Jane Austen ranks 1. After her are André-Marie Ampère, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, J. M. W. Turner, Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, Lucien Bonaparte, Eugène François Vidocq, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Carlota Joaquina of Spain, Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach, Adam Albert von Neipperg, and Georg Friedrich Grotefend. Among people deceased in 1817, Jane Austen ranks 1. After her are Tadeusz Kościuszko, Germaine de Staël, Charles Messier, André Masséna, Marie Walewska, Karađorđe, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Princess Charlotte of Wales, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, and Fyodor Ushakov.

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, Jane Austen ranks 35 out of 8,785. Before her are Margaret Thatcher (1925), Anne Boleyn (1501), Alexander Fleming (1881), James Cook (1728), James Prescott Joule (1818), and Alexander Graham Bell (1847). After her are Robert Hooke (1635), David Hume (1711), Mary I of England (1516), John Maynard Keynes (1883), Alfred Hitchcock (1899), and John Lennon (1940).

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Among WRITERS In United Kingdom

Among writers born in United Kingdom, Jane Austen ranks 5. Before her are William Shakespeare (1564), Lord Byron (1788), Agatha Christie (1890), and Charles Dickens (1812). After her are Arthur Conan Doyle (1859), Daniel Defoe (1660), Emily Brontë (1818), Virginia Woolf (1882), Charlotte Brontë (1816), Lewis Carroll (1832), and Mary Shelley (1797).

British born Writers

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