16 December: Jane Austen

On this date in 1775, Jane Austen was born. Here are 10 things you might not know about the English novelist.

1. Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire. Her father was a clergyman and she had six brothers and one sister, Cassandra. Two of her brothers reached high ranks in the navy. Another brother, George, didn't live with the family. He suffered from epilepsy and learning difficulties and may have been deaf. He was looked after by another family, paid for by the Austens. This may have been because, with seven siblings, plus boys boarding there to be tutored by their father, the Rectory may have been too much for him.
2. Jane was very close to her sister, Cassandra. As a child, she wrote stories about her. One of Austen’s first stories was called The Beautifull [sic] Cassandra, in which the heroine shoplifts a hat and punches a cook. When Cassandra was sent away to be tutored by a Mrs Ann Cawley, Jane went with her, even though she was only seven at the time.
3. While they were there, both Jane and Cassandra became very ill with “putrid sore throat” – probably diphtheria. Jane almost died, but Mrs Cawley didn't even let Mrs Austen know. It was Jane's cousin, Jane Cooper, another pupil, who wrote to Jane's mother with the news. Mrs Austen and her sister Mrs Cooper set off for Southampton to collect their daughters. The Austen sisters recovered under their mother’s care at home but tragically Mrs Cooper caught the infection and died soon afterwards at her home in Bath. Had Jane Cooper not alerted them, however, it's likely Jane Austen would have died.
4. Jane never married, but her life wasn't completely devoid of romance. She had a relationship with a man named Tom Lefroy, but the relationship ended because if he'd married Jane, a “nobody”, he would have lost his inheritance. There was holiday romance in Devon with an unnamed clergyman who died suddenly before he had the chance to propose. Jane did get one proposal, from the brother of some of her friends while she was staying with them. His name was Harris Bigg-Wither. Jane accepted at first – she'd known him a long time, he was well off and it might be her last chance to marry. However, she changed her mind overnight and turned him down in the morning. We don't know for sure why. Perhaps because he was, according to Jane's niece Caroline Austen, “very plain in person - awkward, and even uncouth in manner” or perhaps she just didn't fancy being Mrs Bigg-Wither! Quite likely, she decided she didn't love him, and, as she wrote in one of her letters, “nothing can be compared to the misery of being bound without Love.”
5. She named her characters after her people in her mother's family tree, mostly people connected with the Wentworth family of Yorkshire. Once she'd finished a novel, too, she didn't forget about the characters and had a good idea in her head how their lives panned out after the end of the book. For example, Kitty Bennet eventually married a clergyman near Pemberley, while Mary ended up with a clerk who worked for her Uncle Philips. We know this from the memoir written by one of her nephews.
6. Jane is known for her association with the city of Bath. The family moved there when her father retired. Jane, as an unmarried daughter, would have had no say in this. She was simply expected to move with them, from the home she'd grown up in. It's often said that Jane hated Bath and was so depressed there that she stopped writing for a couple of years. Others speculate that wasn't the case at all, but that in the city, there was a much busier social scene and Jane didn't have time to write.
7. Knowledge about Jane's life is somewhat patchy. There's a lot of speculation and things we simply don't know. This is because her sister destroyed many of Jane's letters to her after she died, and cut chunks out of the ones she kept. Nobody knows why she did this. Again there is speculation that perhaps Jane wasn't the sweet, popular maiden aunt her family liked to remember, and her letters contained some acerbic comments about some family members. Subsequent generations destroyed still more of her letters.
8. She was known for being very good with her hands, excelling at sewing, making envelopes and a game called bilbocatch, which involved catching a ball in a cup. When Jane needed a break from writing, she'd play this game and was known to have caught the ball more than 100 times in succession.
9. Jane died at the age of 41 after a long illness. The cause of her death isn't known but modern doctors speculate it could have been Addison's disease or Hodgkin's lymphoma. She continued to work in spite of her illness, and dismissed her condition as "bile" and rheumatism. As her illness progressed, however, she experienced difficulty walking and lacked energy and was confined to bed. She is buried at Winchester Cathedral, mainly because she died nearby and her brother was a clergyman who could have arranged for her to be buried there. Her family didn't even think it was worth mentioning on her gravestone that she was a writer.
10. Jane Austen's novels are loved by many people, not only romantically inclined women. She had plenty of male fans, too, including at least two British Prime Ministers. Harold Macmillan read her novels and Winston Churchill even credited her with helping him win World War II. Rudyard Kipling and Sir Walter Scott were also big fans. However, others didn't like her – Mark Twain and DH Lawrence hated her books with a passion. ‘Everytime I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone,’ wrote Mark Twain.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle