Jane Austen & Charlotte Bronte: Alike or Different?
Two revered 19th-century authors, two unique paths
In today’s Literary Ladies lite edition, we’ll look at two of the most revered classic authors of all time and see the differences in their backgrounds and paths to publication, as well as the important similarities.
Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë might be linked by their early 19th-century British backgrounds and legions of devotees.
Perhaps they're often compared (or less gracefully, lumped together) because they were among the group of British women writers who made an immense contribution to literature in the first part of the 1800s.
Yet, we don't feel the need to compare Thackeray with Dickens, do we? That said, Jane and Charlotte did have some significant things in common — not least of which is because they both longed to see their writing in print at a time when this was a rare thing for women.
Surprisingly, Charlotte would have balked at any comparison, being no Austen fan herself. According to James Edward Austen-Leigh, nephew of Jane Austen:
“No two writers could be more unlike each other than Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë; so much so that the latter was unable to understand why the former was admired, and confessed that she herself ‘should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.’”
Jane Austen: a distinctive talent
Born in 1775 in Hampshire, England, Jane Austen was part of a convivial middle-class family consisting of five brothers and an elder sister, Cassandra, with whom she was very close. The Austens valued education; the two girls briefly attended boarding school and continued to receive further education at home.
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