Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday: Reflecting On Her Importance

Jane Austen is enjoying 250 years on December 16, 2025, and a number of events have been launched and planned to celebrate the famous author of Pride and Prejudice (published in 1813) throughout the whole year, which will culminate on 12–16 December, according to the organizers of Jane Austen’s House.  In addition to this, celebrations include events named after some of the author's most famous novels, such as a Pride and Prejudice Festival in January, a Sense and Sensibility Festival in May, an Emma Festival in July, and a Persuasion & Poetry Festival in September.

There are also events that focus on the personal life of the author, such as an exhibition titled A Very Respectable Company – Jane Austen and her Southampton Circle, which was held at the Sea City Museum on March 29, 2025, focusing on rare letters, paintings and personal items belonging to the 250 year old author, as well as a Regency Week Ball, which was held in June. 

Jane Austen wrote only six novels, most of them under the simple pseudonym of “By a Lady” for all but two of her completed six novels: 

—Sense and Sensibility (published in 1811),

—Pride and Prejudice (published in 1813),

—Mansfield Park (published in 1814),

—Emma (published in 1816),

—Northanger Abbey (published in 1817), and 

—Persuasion (published in 1817).

However, the impact of these works have been far-reaching, and they are all considered to be classics of literature. In fact, she has been described as one of the most important novelists in literature. This seems counterintuitive, as most of her novels are romances about the seemingly uneventful lives of the British upper classes, which one would not expect to attract a broad audience.

Portrait of Jane Austen

The importance of Jane Austen

If her novels seem to be little more than lightweight romance, what she impresses with is her well-honed sense of satire and irony. This refined sense of satire and irony is closely related to a narrative technique, which she has been described as inventing: Free indirect discourse. This is where the author colors their third-person narrative with the thinking of the character in first person narrative.

It is challenging and brilliant at the same time. First, the author has to rely on the intelligence of the reader to figure out whose voice they are listening to: the author or the character. More than that, it can be seen as the precursor to stream of consciousness, a modernist method of portraying how characters think in real time. 

Stream of consciousness is a style of narration that was pioneered by modernist writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and can be seen as an advanced version of free indirect discourse. In fact, it is even tempting to link Virginia Woolf’s high praise and devotion to Jane Austen with her eventual development of stream of consciousness. 

Virginia Woolf in her aptly named essay — Jane Austen — said of the author: "[S]he is one of the most consistent satirists in the whole of literature. . . She encircles [her characters] with the lash of a whip-like phrase which, as it runs round them, cuts out their silhouettes for ever. But there they remain; no excuse is found for them and no mercy shown them."

And this is what Austen is most well-known for. She achieves this ruthless satire by being ruthlessly consistent in portraying the foibles of her characters without ever interrupting with her authorial voice. This is the main use to which she puts the free indirect discourse that she pioneered in developing. 

Let’s look at an example from Sense and Sensibility (published in 1811):

Mrs John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy, would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? 

In this passage, the first sentence can be described as being the author’s third-narrative voice. Austen retains this third-person perspective; however, it is the voice of the character Mrs. John Dashwood that we are listening to. The author means to mock the selfishness and greed of Mrs.words John Dashwood by emphasizing the exaggerated language that she uses. 

This includes using the words "impoverishing," “dreadful,” and “rob his child” to describe taking away what is a modest sum from a large inheritance. Plus, one can hear something of Mrs. Dashwood's tone of voice, heightened emotion, and mannerisms when talking in phrases like “and his only child too” 

Sadly, the author died at a relatively early age at 41 on July 18, 1817. She wrote and published only six novels. Virginia Woolf said of her death: “the most perfect artist among women, the writer whose books are immortal, died just as she was beginning to feel confidence in her own success.” 

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, August 01).  Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday: Reflecting On Her Importance. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/jane-austen-250th-birthday