Character Catalog

Jane Austen's first published novel, it contrasts two sisters with opposing temperaments: the sensible Elinor and the romantic Marianne. It examines the place of women in Georgian society and the choices imposed by the economic necessity of marriage.

Jane Austen's masterpiece, it follows Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy through a relationship shaped by class prejudice and pride. It is one of the most widely read and adapted novels in world literature.

A darker novel, it explores moral questions through the heroine Fanny Price, a poor cousin raised in a wealthy family. Austen subtly addresses the issue of slavery and moral conscience.

A portrait of an imperfect and overconfident heroine, Emma Woodhouse learns humility through her errors of judgment. This novel is often considered Austen's most technically ambitious, featuring a highly controlled narrative point of view.

A parody of the Gothic novels then hugely popular, it follows the naive Catherine Morland as she discovers the realities of English society. Austen demonstrates her wit and her keen awareness of the literary fashions of her time.

Jane Austen's last completed novel, it tells the story of a second chance for Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, separated years earlier by social conventions. It is her most melancholic and most personal work.

« I have got my own darling child from London... I must try to write of something else, and it shall be a complete change of subject – ordination. » She expresses her joy upon receiving the first copies of Pride and Prejudice.

« I am fully sensible that an Historical Romance, founded on the House of Saxe Cobourg, might be much more to the purpose of profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages as I deal in. »

« It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. » This ironic opening line is one of the most famous in English literature.

« What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour? »

Jane Austen's birthplace and childhood home, where she spent the first twenty-five years of her life and began writing her earliest novels. The rectory has been demolished, but the Church of St Nicholas still stands.

The house where Jane Austen lived from 1809 to 1817, the most productive period of her career. She revised and published her six major novels there; the house is today a museum, Jane Austen's House.

A fashionable spa town where Jane Austen lived from 1801 to 1806, which she enjoyed little despite its social bustle. Bath is the setting of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, novels in which she portrayed her ambivalence towards urban life.

Jane Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817 and was buried in the cathedral. Her grave slab is still visible in the north aisle, and a commemorative stained-glass window is dedicated to her.

A manor house belonging to her brother Edward Austen Knight, where Jane stayed regularly. These visits allowed her to observe life in the great English country houses, the setting of several of her novels.

Jane Austen wrote with a hand-cut goose quill on small sheets of paper. These modest tools were the instruments of all her literary creation, which she practised discreetly in the family drawing room.

Her small portable fold-top writing desk, now preserved at Jane Austen's House in Chawton, served as her workspace. It could be quickly closed to conceal her manuscripts from visitors.

Jane Austen played the pianoforte every morning, an instrument highly prized in middle-class English households of the time. Female musical practice was a mark of good breeding, a theme she explores throughout her novels.

Like all women of her social circle, Jane Austen regularly embroidered and sewed. These manual activities filled long family evenings and inspired her famous metaphor of 'two inches of ivory' to describe her art.

Local balls were major social events in Georgian England, and Jane Austen attended them regularly. These objects symbolise the social world she portrays with irony in her novels.

Letters were the primary means of communication between loved ones; Jane Austen wrote hundreds to her sister Cassandra. Correspondence is also a central narrative device in her novels, revealing characters and secrets.