PARES | Spanish Archives

Identification

Type:

Person

Preferred form:

Austen, Jane (1775-1817)

Fechas de existencia:

Inglaterra (Reino Unido) 1775-12-16 - Winchester (Inglaterra, Reino Unido) 1817-07-18 (Nació en Steventon)

History:

English writer.

She was born in 1775 in Steventon, a small village in northeast of Hampshire, England. The daughter of Anglican clergyman George Austen and Cassandra Leigh, she showed an early interest in reading and writing. Her formal education was brief; after attending school in Oxford and later the Abbey School in Reading, she had to interrupt her studies due to the family's financial limitations. However, she continued her self-education at home with the support of her father and siblings.

During her youth, Austen began writing short stories, poems, and parodies, which she compiled into volumes titled Volume the First, Volume the Second, and Volume the Third. At the age of 20, she started drafting Elinor and Marianne (later Sense and Sensibility), First Impressions (which became Pride and Prejudice), and Susan (eventually Northanger Abbey).

In 1801, the Austen family moved to Bath. After her father's death in 1805, Jane, her mother, and sister faced financial difficulties. After a period in Southampton, her brother Edward offered them a home in Chawton, Hampshire, in 1809. This is where Austen's most productive period began. She published Sense and Sensibility in 1811 and Pride and Prejudice in 1813, both anonymously. This was followed by Mansfield Park in 1814 and Emma in 1815. Although her novels started gaining recognition, Austen never achieved fame during her lifetime.

In 1816, while working on Persuasion, Austen began to show signs of illness. She passed away on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, at the age of 41, accompanied by her sister Cassandra. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously.

Her novels have inspired numerous film, literary, and theatrical adaptations, solidifying her work as classics of world literature. In Spain, her works began to be translated in 1919. Notable early translators of Austen's work into Spanish include Manuel Ortega y Gasset, Isabel de Palencia, José Jordán de Urríes, and María Teresa Moré.