Jane Austen is making the new tenner an instant classic – but how much do you really know about the literary icon?
It's been 200 years since Jane Austen died and the famous novelist is being dedicated by getting put on the new tenner
THE Bank of England has made the £10 note an instant classic – by putting Jane Austen on it.
The author will feature on the new plastic tenner from September 14 — 200 years after her death.
Born on December 16, 1775, she penned great novels including Emma and Pride And Prejudice and her life story was just as gripping.
Here we reveal ten little-known facts about the writer.
She nearly died as a child. In 1783, Jane’s parents, rector George Austen and mum Cassandra, sent an eight-year-old Jane and her ten-year-old sister Cassandra to Oxford for tutoring. While there, the pair became ill with “putrid sore throat”. Jane came close to death but their teacher chose not to alert her parents. Thankfully a cousin, who was staying with them, wrote to the family and they brought their daughters home, where they recovered.
Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings
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She had a secret brother. While A Memoir Of Jane Austen – written by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh in 1869 – mentions only five brothers, there was a secret sixth sibling, George. He was largely omitted from family records, it is thought, because he had epilepsy and learning difficulties.
Although the Austens supported him financially, he was looked after by another family in Monk Sherborne, Hampshire, near Steventon Rectory where Jane grew up.
She broke off her engagement. While her novels’ heroines married their perfect man, Jane was not so lucky.
Her only proposal came from Harris Bigg-Wither, who was heir to a considerable estate. At first Jane accepted, but changed her mind, knowing she would be unhappy married to a man she did not love.
Her novels were the children she never had. In letters to her sister Cassandra, Jane described her most famous work, Pride And Prejudice – which has sold more than 20million copies worldwide – as her “darling child”.
She still imagined her characters’ lives after finishing a novel. In A Memoir Of Jane Austen, her nephew James wrote: “She would tell us particulars about the subsequent careers of some of her people.”
Two such revelations were that, after the close of Pride And Prejudice, Kitty Bennet married a clergyman, while Mary Bennet ended up living with a clerk who worked for her Uncle Philips.
She dedicated novel Emma to a man she hated. Jane once wrote in a letter that she loathed the Prince Regent because of the unkind way he was said to treat his estranged wife. But it transpired the royal was a fan and sent word that he would “allow” her to dedicate a book to him. Reluctantly, Jane asked her publisher to grant him his wish.
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She made it into space. Well, sort of. Since her death on July 18, 1817, aged 41, Jane has had an asteroid and a crater on Venus named after her.
She has superfans. Like Justin Bieber’s Beliebers and Taylor Swift’s Swifties, Jane has fanatical readers who call themselves “Janeites”.
She had male fans too. While Jane’s novels are seen by some as chick-lit, they have many male admirers. Former PM Harold Macmillan was a fan and Winston Churchill even credited reading her works with helping him win World War Two.
Her gravestone does not mention she was an author. Jane’s family did not see her writing as worth recording at her grave in Winchester Cathedral. And her books brought her little fame in her lifetime.
