Commenti critici a cura di Vincenzo Alfio.
Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born in the village of Steventon, Hampshire in 1775, within five years of Wordsworth and Scott. She was the seventh of eight children. Her father, George, had been a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford and lately Rector of Steventon. Her mother, Cassandra, nee Leigh, came from an ancient family, linked to the Leighs of Stonehill Abbey in Warwickshire. Jane and her sister, also Cassandra, were sent to school in Oxford and Southampton, before attending the Abbey School in Reading, and were encouraged to write from an early age. Jane started writing novels in 1790, at the age of only 14, while she was living in Steventon, although her first novel to be published, Sense and Sensibility, did not appear until 1811.
Although her early life appeared secure enough, it was touched by tragedy. Her cousin, Eliza Hancock, married a French nobleman, who was arrested and guillotined on his return to Paris soon after the French Revolution. Her aunt, Mrs. Leigh Perrot, was arrested when falsely accused of stealing a card of lace, and suffered eight months imprisonment with the threat of the death penalty, before she was able to prove her innocence.
On her father's retirement, in 1801, the family moved to Bath. Jane's years at Bath were not happy. The family made acquaintances, but few friends. Their stay at Bath was broken up by annual excursions to the seaside: to Sidmouth, Dawlish and Lyme Regis. As was the custom, the sons of the family pursued careers (two of Jane's brothers joined the Navy), while the daughters stayed at home, awaiting marriage and involving themselves with domestic affairs. A neighbour from their Hampshire days, Harris Bigg-Wither of Manydown Park (Wootton St. Lawrence) asked Jane to marry him in the Winter of 1802. Though she initially accepted, a sleepless night saw the poor man turned down the following morning.