The reception history of Jane Austen shows how Austen's works, at first having modest fame, became wildly popular. Her books are both the subject of great study and the center of various fan culture. Jane Austen, the writer of such works as "Pride and Prejudice" (1813) and "Emma" (1815), has become one of the most famous novelists in the English language.
During her lifetime, Austen's books did not make her very famous. Like a great number of women writers at that time, she chose to publish her books secretly. Only among people in the aristocracy, her writing was an open secret. At the time they were published, Austen's works were thought fashionable by members of high society. However, they received only a few good reviews. By the mid-nineteenth century, her works were respected by people who were learned in literature. They thought that liking her works was a sign that they were clever. In 1870, her nephew published "Memoir of Jane Austen". This showed her to a wider public as "dear, quiet aunt Jane". After this, her works were published again in popular editions. By the twentieth century, lots of groups had formed. Some praised her and some defended her from the " masses". However, they all claimed to be true Janeites, or people who really appreciated Austen.
Early in the twentieth century, scholars made a collection of her works (the first for any British novelist). But it was not until the 1940s that Austen was widely accepted as a "great English novelist". In the second half of the twentieth century, people began studying Austen more and more, and in different ways. For example, they studied her works artistically, ideologically, and historically. The university English departments began developing in the first half of the twentieth century. As they grew, criticism of Austen split into remarkable high culture and popular culture trends. In the late twentieth century, fans made Jane Austen societies and clubs. They praised Austen, her time, and her works. In the early twenty-first century, Austen fans support an industry of printed sequels and prequels. They also support Austen's work in television and film.
Jane Austen lived her entire life as part of a large and close family. Her family was in the lower part of the English gentry. Her family's steady support was very important to Austen's development as a writer. For example, Austen read her first drafts of all of her books to her family. In this way, she received encouragement and help. In fact, it was her father who first tried to put her book in print. Austen's training as a writer lasted from when she was a teenager until she was about 35. During this time, she experimented with different literary forms. This included the epistolary novel (novel in letters), which she tried and did not like. She wrote and revised three important novels and began a fourth. When "Sense and Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), "Mansfield Park" (1814) and "Emma" (1815) came out in print, she became a successful writer.
However, novel-writing was not easy for women in the early nineteenth century. This was because it made them famous. It also made people think them . So like a great number of other female writers, Austen published her books secretly. In time, though, her writing became an open secret among the aristocracy. In one of her visits to London, the Prince Regent invited her to his home. His librarian showed her around and said that the Regent liked her books very much. The librarian added that "if Miss Austen had any other Novel forthcoming, she was quite at liberty to it to the Prince". Austen did not like the prince, who spent a lot of money. She did not want to follow this suggestion. However, her friends persuaded her to follow it. Therefore, "Emma" was dedicated to him. Austen refused the librarian's suggestion after that to write a historical romance for the prince's daughter's marriage.
In the last year of her life, Austen revised "Northanger Abbey" (1817) and wrote "Persuasion" (1817). She also began another novel, which was later titled "Sanditon". She could not finish it before her death. Austen did not have time to see "Northanger Abbey" or "Persuasion" through the press. However, her family published them as one book after she died. Her brother Henry included a "Biographical Notice of the Author". This short biography made people think of Austen as a quiet aunt who wrote in her free time. "Neither the hope of fame nor profit mixed with her early motives (purposes) ... [S]o much did she from , that no accumulation of fame would have induced (made) her, had she lived, to affix (put) her name to any productions of her public she turned away from any allusion to the character of an authoress." However, Austen shows excitement in her letters about getting her books in print. She was also interested in how much money the books would make. Austen was a professional writer.
Austen's works are noted for their realism, biting social commentary, and clever use of free indirect speech. They are also remarkable for their burlesque and irony. They criticize the novels of sensibility of the second half of the eighteenth century. They are part of the change to nineteenth-century realism. As Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert explain, Austen laughed at "love at first sight, the primacy (first importance) of passion over all other emotions and/or duties, the of the hero, the sensitivity of the heroine, the lovers' proclaimed (declared) indifference to financial considerations, and the cruel of parents". Austen's stories, though comic, focus on the way women depend on marriage to secure social standing and economic security. She was also concerned with moral problems, like Samuel Johnson, who strongly influenced her.
Austen's books quickly became fashionable. Aristocrats who liked to set the fashion and taste of the day especially liked them. Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough wrote about "Sense and Sensibility" in a letter to a friend. She said: "it is a clever novel.  ... tho' it ends stupidly, I was much amused by it." The 15-year-old daughter of the Prince Regent, Princess Charlotte Augusta, compared herself to Marianne Dashwood. She remarked, "I think Marianne & me are very like in "disposition", that certainly I am not so good, the same , &tc". "Pride and Prejudice" was enjoyed by Richard Sheridan, a person who wrote plays. He told a friend to "[b]uy it immediately" for it "was one of the cleverest things" he had ever read. Anne Milbanke, future wife of Lord Byron, wrote that "I have finished the Novel called Pride and Prejudice, which I think a very superior (good) work." She added that "is the most "probable" fiction I have ever read" and had become "at present the fashionable novel". The Dowager Lady Vernon told a friend that "Mansfield Park" was "[n]ot much of a novel, more the history of a family party in the country, very natural". Lady Anne Romilly told her friend, the writer Maria Edgeworth, that "["Mansfield Park"] has been pretty generally admired here". Edgeworth later said that "we have been much entertained with Mansfield Park".
High society liked and approved of Austen's novels. However, they received few reviews while she was alive. There were two for "Sense and Sensibility". "Pride and Prejudice" received three. "Mansfield Park" received none. There were seven for "Emma". Most of the reviews were short, careful, and approving. They mostly focused on the moral lessons of her books. Brian Southam writes about these reviewers: "their job was merely to provide brief (short) notices, extended with quotations, for the benefit (good) of women readers compiling their library lists and interested only in knowing whether they would like a book for its story, its characters and moral".