Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) was a renowned British author who led a writing life of the inimitable artist. Though she was known for her modesty and charm, she was fully aware of and mastered her gifts as a writer and observer. Here you’ll find a selection of quotes about Jane Austen from authors, actors, and other notable public figures.
Born in Stevenson, Hampshire (England) to a middle-class family who valued education, Austen’s talents were recognized early on and taken seriously by her whole family. The males in her family played a key role in getting her first works published.
Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility set the stage for slow and steady sales for her subsequent books. Ever since her works have captured the imaginations of readers and writers everywhere. She has influenced generations of writers, and it seems that many have an opinion about her.
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Gin Austen: 50 Cocktails to Celebrate the Novels of Jane Austen by Colleen Mullaney is a clever little book celebrating the exquisite novels of Jane Austen with boozy delicacies and attendant wordplay. From the publisher:
In six enduring novels, Jane Austen captured the fancies and foibles of Regency England, and this book celebrates the picnics, luncheons, dinner parties, and glamorous balls of Austen’s world. Learn what she and her characters might have imbibed, and what tools, glasses, ingredients, and skills you simply must possess.
Raise your glass to Sense and Sensibility with a Hot Barton Rum or Elinorange Blossom. Toast Pride and Prejudice with a Salt & Pemberley, Fizzy Miss Lizzie, or Cousin Collins. Read More→
Rosario Castellanos (born Rosario Castellanos Figueroa; May 25, 1925 – August 7, 1974), author, poet, and diplomat, was one of Mexico’s most influential literary voices of the twentieth century.
This brief biography will examine her life and work, which dealt with issues of culture and gender in her home country, and which went on to influence contemporary Mexican feminist theory and cultural studies.
Castellanos was born in Mexico City and raised near her family’s ranch in Comitán in the southern state of Chiapas near the Guatemalan border. She was quite shy as a child and never completely felt part of her family. A soothsayer once told her mother that one of her two children would die, and she screamed, “Not the boy!”
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Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982) is a 1957 novel by the controversial author known for her Objectivist philosophy. Here we’ll explore a selection of quotes from Atlas Shrugged that give a taste of its style and substance.
Atlas Shrugged was Rand’s fourth and longest novel, her last major work of fiction, and the one she considered her magnum opus. She went on to focus on nonfiction after its publication.
The novel takes place in a version of the United States where private businesses are suffering due to harsh regulations and laws. Lovers Dagny Taggart and Hank Reardon struggle to fight against looters who are aiming to profit from their productivity. Read More→
Just in time for settling in with a good book in front of the fireplace (or wood stove, or what the heck, even your radiator) on a stormy night, this deliciously thrilling collection was released, appropriately, on Halloween — October 31, 2019.
Handheld Press Ltd., based in Bath, England (onetime home of Jane Austen) presentsWomen’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890 – 1940.
Edited by Melissa Edmundson, this compilation of strange tales by women authors — including some lesser-known gems by some of the classic authors on this site — will be of great interest to readers of literary ghosts stories, the supernatural, and other kinds of thrillers. From the publisher: Read More→
The Sundial by Shirley Jackson (1916 – 1965) was this prolific American author’s fourth novel, published in 1958. It was generally well received, though she had yet to reached her peak as a novelist.
Jackson was already famous for her iconic short story, “The Lottery,” and her amusing memoirs of prettied-up domestic life.
After the publication of her masterpiece novels, The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) Jackson struggled with writer’s block and agoraphobia, as well as a host of physical ailments. She died at age 48, a victim of poor health and habits. Read More→
It may be fair to say that the acclaimed 1987 film, Babette’s Feast, is better known than the short story by Danish author Isak Dinesen upon which it’s based. In fact, it’s possible that fans of the movie aren’t aware that it’s based on Dinesen’s story, nor even anything about her.
Isak Dinesen (1885 – 1962) was the nom de plume of this writer, best known for her 1937 memoir Out of Africa, which details her life as the owner of a coffee plantation in colonial Kenya.
Born Karen Christenze Dinesen into a family of aristocrats, merchants, and landed gentry, she was later known after marriage as Karen von Blixen-Finecke. The marriage conferred on her the title of Baroness, but didn’t last. Her ex-husband’s philandering left her with the lifelong effects of syphilis. Read More→
Radclyffe Hall (August 12, 1880 – October 7, 1943), British novelist and poet, is remembered as the author of groundbreaking lesbian literature; her most enduring work is the controversial 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness.
Hall’s struggles with love and gender identity worked their way into her fiction and contributed to a complicated, often unhappy life. (photo at right courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Born in Bournemouth, Hampshire, Marguerite Radclyffe Hall’s father was a wealthy Englishman with the unusual moniker Radclyffe Radclyffe-Hall, and her mother, Mary Jane Diehl, was American. Read More→
