The Persuasive and Provincial Jane Austen

By Sara Wilson
Jane Austen was a provincial lady who wrote about the provincial society she knew so well. Yet in spite of her curiously restricted life, during which she never married and rarely left the company of her affectionate family, she used sharp wit and irony to expose the snobbery and hypocrisy she witnessed in that society. ' Her novels are so popular today that a whole industry has evolved to support the tourists who flock to Bath, Chawton and Steventon - places she lived in and wrote about.
When Jane Austen was born on December 17, 1775, her parents had been eagerly anticipating h...