Jane Austen Society of Australia

Jane Austen in Perspective
Introduction | Her family | Education | The Siblings & Cousin Eliza | After Steventon | What was she like? | Her illness and death | Her times: a brief background | Her works | Was she a legend in her lifetime? | In conclusion | Further reading

In conclusion 

Because Jane Austen does not deal with adventure and action in exotic places, but exclusively with the ‘3 or 4 families in a country village’ which she once described as the perfect subject for a novelist – it is sometimes asserted that her works are limited in scope, even if not in appeal. But human emotions are the same whether they are played out in exotic locations or in a country village. Sir Walter Scott’s description of her particular genius, written ten years after her death, sums this up exactly. Jane Austen, he says²⁴ 

….has a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I have ever met with. The Big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary common-place things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. ‘

The truth of the description and the sentiment’: this is what we connect with in her works and surely why we continue to read them … and to wish there were more. 

24. quoted in Tomalin pp. 255-6

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13 July 2006