Jane Austen Literary Influences

Born in the late 1800s, Jane Austen was a novelist, writing romantic and domestic novels. Austen’s first book, Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811, and her last books including Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published in 1817. She wrote only six novels, but her reader base is vast. Austen remains an influential literature figure to critics and present-day college students. Her credibility as a classic novelist has spanned from her first book in 1811 to present day. She was able to hold a spot among canonical texts for centuries, therefore, it is important to recognize the people who have been influenced by her words. So many people have read Jane Austen novels. There are various readers that form the history of a book’s readers.

First, I have read most of Jane Austen’s books, and have enjoyed her writing. Immersing myself into her book’s culture has made me want to learn more about who else has been impacted by her writing. To clarify, by “book culture,” I mean everything outside surrounding the text. More specifically, what social conventions made these texts possible, as well as the culture that the novel constructs. Lastly, readers should want to know more about who came before them in regards to whom that book was read by, and who these books inspired. Understanding a book’s history is essential when opening up an old text for leisure reading or analysis. By understanding the history of a book’s readers, one might go into a reading with a clear idea of different perspective to take. This is not to say that every reader should have the same interpretation of Austen’s texts. However, knowing how someone else felt about her work might help one come to their own

My first source is the Reading Experience Database (RED), which gives scholars and others of the like accurate documentation on readers of specific authors and their works. A second source I’ll be using is Deidre Lynch’s book Janeites: Austen’s Disciples and Devotees. I will focus my analysis on chapters 3 and 4 which include, “Sense by the Numbers: Austen’s Work as a Regency Popular Fiction” by Barbara M. Benedict, and the latter of the chapters which is on “Decadent Austen Entails: Forster, James, Firbank, and the ‘Queer Taste’ of Sanditon” by Clara Tuite. A third source is Katie Halsey’s book on Jane Austen and her Readers, 1786-1945. This text is an examination of interactions readers have had with Austen’s