Jane Austen & Hampshire
A sketch of Jane Austen, believed to be drawn by her sister Cassandra in 1810.
Jane Austen's novels include:
* Sense and Sensibility (1811)
* Pride and Prejudice (1813)
* Mansfield Park (1814)
* Emma (1815)
* Northanger Abbey (1817)
* Persuasion (1817)
Unfinished works
* Lady Susan
* The Watsons
* Sanditon
Jane Austen's parents were George Austen (1731–1805), and Cassandra Austen (1739–1827).
George came from a family of woollen manufacturers and was considered to be a
lower rank of the landed gentry.
Jane was born on 16th December 1775 at Steventon rectory in Hampshire where
George Austen was rector from 1765 until 1801 - a great deal of
Jane's life.
Steventon is a small village in north Hampshire south-west of Basingstoke, close to Overton, Oakley and North Waltham.
Jane's social life at Steventon, where she spent the first 25 years of her life, provided her with most of the material for her novels and most of her life-long friendships were made during this time.
Jane attended social gatherings at the Assembly Rooms in Basingstoke.
Now Barclays Bank, with a plaque on the wall of the bank commemorating Jane, in the Market Place in Basingstoke stands where the Assembly Rooms used to be.
It is known that she went shopping in Andover, Alton, Alresford, Basingstoke,
Whitchurch and Overton.
The rectory where Jane wrote Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility was destroyed in 1823.
If you visit Steventon you can see an iron pump (which replaced the wooden pump which served the Austens' house) in the field, next to a lime tree that is believed to have been planted by James Austen, Jane's eldest brother.
The 12th century Steventon Church, where Jane Austen worshipped, stands almost unchanged from those days.
In the church are memorial tablets to James Austen, who took over the parish from their father, his two wives and some of his relations.
Their graves are in the churchyard.
Forbidden Love
Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy in 'Becoming Jane'
It is said that unless you experience love you cannot write with any truth on the subject.
When Austen was twenty-one Tom Lefroy, a nephew of neighbours, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796. He had just finished a university degree and was moving to London to train as a barrister. Lefroy and Austen would have been introduced at a ball or other neighbourhood social gathering, and it is clear from Austen's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together: "I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together." The Lefroy family intervened and sent him away at the end of January. Marriage was impractical, as both Lefroy and Austen must have known. Neither had any money, and he was dependent on a great-uncle in Ireland to finance his education and establish his legal career. If Tom Lefroy later visited Hampshire, he was carefully kept away from the Austens, and Jane Austen never saw him again.
A film was made called 'Becoming Jane' in 2007 starring Anne Hathaway as Jane and the gorgeous James McAvoy as Tom Lefroy. It is based on reality but the detail of this romance that was not allowed to happen really is not known and can only ever be fictionalised.
Chawton House Hampshire
The cottage in Chawton where Jane Austen lived during the last
eight years of her life, now Jane Austen's House Museum
In 1809, Jane's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters the use of a large cottage in Chawton village that was part of Edward's nearby estate, Chawton House. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved into Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809.
Life was quieter than it had been since the family's move to Bath in 1800. The Austens did not socialise with the neighbouring gentry and entertained only when family visited.
Austen's niece Anna described the Austen family's life in Chawton: "It was a very quiet life, according to our ideas, but they were great readers, and besides the housekeeping our aunts occupied themselves in working with the poor and in teaching some girl or boy to read or write."
Jane writing was prolific in this setting.
Winchester Cathedral Hampshire
Jane's return to Hampshire in 1806, to live in Southampton, was something she yearned for, and she lived the rest of her life in Hampshire, after settling in Chawton in 1809.
Jane Austen loved Hampshire and rejoiced at being 'a Hampshire born Austen'.
She died on 18th July 1817 in Winchester and is buried in Winchester Cathedral.
Her gravestone reads:
"In Memory of JANE AUSTEN, youngest daughter of the late Revd GEORGE AUSTEN, formerly Rector of Steventon in this County She departed this Life on the 18th of July 1817, aged 41, after a long illness supported with the patience and hopes of a Christian. The benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections. Their grief is in proportion to their affection they know their loss to be irreparable, but in their deepest affliction they are consoled by a firm though humble hope that her charity, devotion, faith and purity have rendered her soul acceptable in the sight of her REDEEMER.'
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