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fashion; after the death of her father in 1805, she lived

with her mother and sister, first at Southampton and

then at Chawton; finally she took lodgings at Winchester

to be near a doctor, and there she died on July 18, 1817,

and was buried in the cathedral. Apart from a few visits

to friends in London and elsewhere, and the vague report

of a love affair with a gentleman who died suddenly, there

is little else to chronicle in this quiet and uneventful life.

But quiet and uneventful though her life was, it yet

supplied her with material for half a dozen novels as

perfect of their kind as any in the language. While still

a young girl she had experimented with various styles of

writing, and when she completed "Pride and Prejudice"

at the age of twenty-two, it was clear that she had found

her appropriate form. This novel, which in many respects

she never surpassed, was followed a year later by

"Northanger Abbey," a satire on the "Gothic" romances

then in vogue; and in 1809 she finished "Sense and Sensi-

bility," begun a dozen years before. So far she had not

succeeded in having any of her works printed; but in 1811

"Sense and Sensibility" appeared in London and won

enough recognition to make easy the publication of the

others. Success gave stimulus, and between 1811 and 1816,

she completed "Mansfield Park," "Emma," and "Persuasion."

The last of these and "Northanger Abbey" were published

posthumously.

The most remarkable characteristic of Jane Austen as a

novelist is her recognition of the limits of her knowledge

of life and her determination never to go beyond these

limits in her books. She describes her own class, in the

part of the country with which she was acquainted; and

both the types of character and the events are such as she

knew from first-hand observation and experience. But to

the portrayal of these she brought an extraordinary power

of delicate and subtle delineation, a gift of lively dialogue,

and a peculiar detachment. She abounds in humor, but it

is always quiet and controlled; and though one feels that

she sees through the affectations and petty hypocrisies of

her circle, she seldom becomes openly satirical. The fine-

ness of her workmanship, unexcelled in the English novel,

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