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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Eves and welcome to this Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: Today is January nineteen. The day was January eighteen thirteen.

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Speaker 1: An add in the Morning Chronicle announced the publication of

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Speaker 1: the novel Pride and Prejudice, by the author of Sense

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Speaker 1: and Sensibility. The three volumes set would be sold at

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Speaker 1: eighteen shillings and the unnamed author, of course, was Jane Austen.

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Speaker 1: Jane Austen was born on December sixteenth, seventeen seventy five

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Speaker 1: and Stephenton, Hampshire in England. Her mother was Cassandra Austen

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Speaker 1: and her father was the Reverend George Austen. She was

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Speaker 1: part of a pretty big family. She had one sister

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Speaker 1: and six brothers, and her lively family and upbringing helped

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Speaker 1: nurture Jane's creativity. The siblings put on plays and took

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Speaker 1: advantage of their father's scholarship by reading books from his

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Speaker 1: substantial library. Jane's mother wrote poem and her brother James,

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Speaker 1: was also a word smith. He and their brother Henry

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Speaker 1: even started a magazine called The Loiterer in seventeen eighty nine.

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Speaker 1: So when Jane began writing, she drew her settings from

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Speaker 1: the places she knew growing up. Around seventeen eighty six

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Speaker 1: or eighty seven, she wrote some of her earliest known pieces.

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Speaker 1: In those humble but prolific beginnings, she wrote versus, short

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Speaker 1: stories and plays that weren't quite as serious as her

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Speaker 1: later work. In Volume the first volume the second. In

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Speaker 1: Volume the third, Austin demonstrates her wit and smarts with

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Speaker 1: her parodies of popular writings at the time. She told

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Speaker 1: stories of violence and drunkenness, with confident young women, often

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Speaker 1: taking the helm in her tails. But after her last

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Speaker 1: dated entry in these manuscripts in seventeen ninety three, Jane's

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Speaker 1: satirical and the third writing took a turn. Her epistolary

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Speaker 1: novel Lady Susan, probably written around seventeen ninety three or

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Speaker 1: ninety four, marks a move toward longer, more buttoned up

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Speaker 1: subject matter, and by sev the young writer had begun

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Speaker 1: another epistolary novel called Eleanor and Marion, which would lose

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Speaker 1: its form as a novel in Letters to become the

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Speaker 1: book we now know as Sense and Sensibility. She paid

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Speaker 1: Thomas Egerton to have the novel published in three volumes

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Speaker 1: in eighteen eleven, and it did pretty well, selling all

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Speaker 1: of its first edition copies by July thirteen. Jane made

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Speaker 1: on forty pounds off of that first edition, which is

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Speaker 1: roughly about nine thousand pounds or more than eleven thousand

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Speaker 1: U s. Dollars in today's money. That was a success

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Speaker 1: for Jane, but the ambitious writer definitely wasn't done yet.

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Speaker 1: She already had another book in her back pocket. Austin

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Speaker 1: had written a book called First Impressions from October seventeen

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Speaker 1: ninety six to August seventy seven. Her father, ever the

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Speaker 1: advocate for his daughter's work, wrote a letter to a

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Speaker 1: London publishing company in seventeen ninety seven saying he could

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Speaker 1: send them the manuscript. They rejected his offer, but over

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Speaker 1: a decade later, Jane was cozy with her family in

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Speaker 1: a large cottage in the village of Chawton, and she

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Speaker 1: was ready to keep trying to get First Impressions out there.

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Speaker 1: From eighteen eleven to eighteen twelve, she revised the manuscript

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Speaker 1: and retitled it Pride and Prejudice. Thomas Egerton, happy with

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Speaker 1: the success of Sense and Sensibility, offered Jane a hundred

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Speaker 1: and ten pounds for the copyright to Pride and Prejudice.

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Speaker 1: This time Egerton paid for printing and advertising the book

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Speaker 1: himself and kept the profits, as opposed to publishing on

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Speaker 1: commission and charging a percentage for each book sold like

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Speaker 1: he had done before. And this time the novel was

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Speaker 1: credited to the author of Sense and Sensibility, whereas the

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Speaker 1: book Sense Insensibility had just been credited to a lady. No. Seriously,

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Speaker 1: Jane's womanhood had to be kept a secret because writing

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Speaker 1: wasn't the ideal trade for women, and women of Jane's

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Speaker 1: stature definitely shouldn't be paid handsomely in money and attention

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Speaker 1: for publishing their writing anyway. The book follows twenty year

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Speaker 1: old Elizabeth Bennett, who's a member of the upper middle

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Speaker 1: class known as the gentry, and her roller coaster of

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Speaker 1: a relationship with the socially superior Fitzwilliam Darcy during the

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Speaker 1: regency period. After much back and forth, the two overcome

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Speaker 1: their pride and prejudice for a happy ending. A second

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Speaker 1: edition of the book was published later in eighteen thirteen

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Speaker 1: after the first sold out, and a third was published

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventeen. Though it sold well. Other authors at

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Speaker 1: the time had mixed reactions, and critics remained relatively quiet,

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Speaker 1: though the few reviews it got were generally positive. Pride

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Speaker 1: and Prejudice was criticized for its limited perspective and praised

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Speaker 1: for its social realism. Either way, it was successful thanks

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Speaker 1: to her largely upper class readership, so Jane got the

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Speaker 1: short end of the stick. She could have made much

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Speaker 1: more money had she published her second novel on commission too. Instead,

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Speaker 1: that money went to Egerton, who had published the books

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Speaker 1: in poor quality but at a high price. While she

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Speaker 1: was alive, Austin garnered little fame and moderate financial success.

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Speaker 1: But when the book A Memoir of Jane Austen was

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Speaker 1: published in eighteen seventy, people took incredible interest and the

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Speaker 1: woman who had published all her works anonymously during her

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Speaker 1: lifetime and since then Pride and Prejudice in Austin have

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Speaker 1: become a beloved part of English literature. I'm Eve Stepcote,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. If you'd like to hear more

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Speaker 1: about Jane Austen, listen to the episode of Stuffy Misston

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Speaker 1: History Class called It's the Jane Austen episode. You can

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Speaker 1: subscribe to This Day in History class on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to producer Chandler Mays for all his audio work.

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Speaker 1: We'll see you here in the same place tomorrow