Jane Austen by Sarah Fanny Malden (1889) offers an excellent 19th-century view of Jane Austen’s works, along with a handful of chapters on the life of this beloved British author. This excerpt, featuring one such chapter, offers glimpses of Jane Austen’s childhood and what she engaged with as a young woman.
Born in Steventon, Hampshire (England), Jane (1775 – 1817) was part of a convivial middle-class family consisting of five brothers and her sister Cassandra, with whom she was very close. Her father was an esteemed rector. Jane spent the first twenty-five years of her life in Steventon, after which the family moved to Bath.
Mrs. Malden said of her sources, “The writer wishes to express her obligations to Lord Brabourne and Mr. C. Austen Leigh for their kind permission to make use of the Memoir and Letters of their gifted relative, which have been her principal authorities for this work.” Read More→
By Elodie Barnes | On April 10, 2022 | Updated March 15, 2025 | Comments (0)
Simone de Beauvoir first met the French author Violette Leduc in 1945. At the time, de Beauvoir and her partner Jean-Paul Sartre were the golden couple of Parisian intellectual circles, while Violette Leduc was a struggling writer mired in poverty.
Their first meeting, in the heady atmosphere of the Café Flore on the Left Bank, came only after Leduc had observed de Beauvoir and Sartre from a distance for several months, gathering the courage to introduce herself.
The resulting friendship seemed unlikely. Yet it lasted for several years, with mutual respect and admiration that survived Leduc’s unrequited attraction to de Beauvoir as well as the differing circumstances of the two women and their wildly diverging experiences of success. Read More→
By Sarah Fanny Malden | On March 28, 2022 | Updated April 4, 2022 | Comments (0)
Jane Austen’s love life has long been the subject of conjecture. Her purported romance with Thomas Lefroy, a young Irishman, for example, was the subject of the 2003 book Becoming Jane Austen, which was adapted to the middling 2007 film, Becoming Jane.
Sincere attempts have been made to sort fact from fiction when it comes to Jane Austen’s romances, and this excerpt from Jane Austen by Sarah Fanny Malden (1889) is an excellent endeavor.
This book is focused more on Austen’s work than on her life, with the exception of a handful of chapters, this being one of them. The publication was part of an Eminent Women series published by W.H. Allen & Co., London. Read More→
By Janet Saidi | On March 10, 2022 | Updated August 23, 2022 | Comments (1)
If you’re like me, you’ve many times had to explain what Jane Austen is really about — you might find yourself explaining to friends who just don’t get it, that Austen is not all about finding a man who’s wealthier and more powerful than you are, to marry.
This musing, pondering the question of what Jane Austen’s women want, is excerpted from The Austen Connection, reprinted by permission.
Sure, these novels follow the traditional Marriage Plot. These novels may have invented the plot as we know it today. Read More→
By Marcie McCauley | On March 9, 2022 | Updated February 7, 2026 | Comments (0)
Literary Ladies contributor Marcie McCauley delves into children’s book author Beverly Cleary’s beloved character, Ramona Quimby, with this appreciation.
“The sight of that smooth, faintly patterned cloth fills me with longing,” writes Beverly Cleary, recalling an early childhood memory of Thanksgiving.
At first, a moment of calm for the young girl: anticipating relatives seated around the dining room table. Then, activity: she finds a bottle of blue ink, pours some out, presses her hands into it, then “all around the table I go, inking handprints on that smooth white cloth.” Read More→
Categories: 
Comments: