THE CONTENTS: 1.JANE AUSTEN- THE HOTTEST WRITER IN HOLLYWOOD3 - The secret of her success.

4 - The life and loves of Jane Austen5 - Jane Austen, Hollywood star...7 - CONCLUSION8 - Literature...9

JANE AUSTEN- the hottest writer in HOLLYWOOD When the BBC screened its latest adaption of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, it was watched by a record 18 million British viewers. The series was then sold to 18 countries round the world, from America to Australia, from Iceland to Israel. There are Jane Austen fans in all corners of globe, and even special Jane Austen discussion groups on the Internet. In her lifetime she never once travelled abroad, indeed she hardly ever left the south of England. When she died a spinster, in 1817, only four of her six novels had been published, all anonymously, and she had earned a grand total of 648.65 from her books. Now, nearly 200 years later sales of her novels rival modern bestsellers such as John le Carr, reaching 35,000 a week. There have been film and television productions of not only Pride and Prejudice, but also Emma, Persuasion, and Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility. Her house in Chawton in Hampshire is visited by 200 people a day.

THE SECRET OF HER SUCCESS What makes her worldwide success so surprising is her narrowness of the world her stories portary, 'three or four families in a country village' as Jane Austen herself said. However, according to Nigel Nicolson, author of The World Of Jane Austen, the explanation for her enduring success is very simple: 'Her novels are love stories, always ending in a wedding. They show a wonderful understanding of the little moves that little people made then, and still do make, towards and away from each other. They are also very funny.' Or, as the author P.D. James wrote, 'All the books have the same basic plot- searching for and finding the right mate.' but the difference is that these were written by a genius.

THE LIFE AND LOVES OF JANE AUSTEN She was born in 1775, the seventh of eight children. Her father was the Reverend George Austen. They were not well off, and lived in a rambling rectory in the village of Steventon in the Hampshire hills. By the time she was 12, Jane was writing stories about heroines imprisoned in haunted castles, being rescued by glamorous heroes. In Jane's own life there were three romantic attachments. The first was a handsome Irish iaw student called Tom Lefroy, who she met in 1795, but who had to return to Ireland a year later. The second, in 1801, was a young man called Samuel Blackall, who she fell in love with when on holiday in Devon, but who tragically died suddenly, soon after. The third was a large young man called Harris Bigg-Wither, whose proposal she briefly accepted in 1802, but 'he had nothing to recommend him but his size', so she changed her mind. She knew only too well that marriage was important for someone in her position, for the only work suitable for a penniless clergyman's daughter was school teaching or being governess. Jane wrote to her niece: 'Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor- which is one of the most strong argument in favour of matrimony.' Thus in her novels, it is not just love, but also money which makes the institution of marriage so important. In 1801 the family had moved to Bath, where she was very unhappy. To make matters worse, in 1805 her father died, leaving his widow, Jane and her only sister Cassandra, also unmarried, even poorer than before. For four years they had to move from house to house, often staying with relatives. Finally in 1809 her brother Edward allowed them to live in a house on his estate in Chawton, only a few miles from Steventon where she had grown up. Here she was much happier, despite being the poor relation, dependent on charity. She not only revised her earlier novels but was able to write new ones, using her 5

experiences to satirize and make fun of the social inequalities she saw around her. At last in 1811, Sense and Sensibility, was the first of her novels to be published. In 1816, Jane Austen fell ill with a disease of the kidneys. She died on July 18, 1817, in the arms of her sister Cassandra. She was only 41.

JANE AUSTEN, HOLLYWOOD STAR The influence of cinema and television has led to worldwide fame for this quiet-living spinster with a sense of fun. People see the movie and then read the book. Not everyone is pleased by this. Winifred Wilson, member of the Jane Austen Society, says, ' These screen adaptations should have kept closer to the text. They are too heavy on romance and too light on satire. However, the actress Emma Thompson, who adapted Sense and Sensibility for the cinema, won't accept this. She says her screenplay is full of satire, and deals with the relationship between love and money. She went to Jane Austen's grave in Winchester Cathedral to say thank you for the Hollywood Oscar she won for the film. As she said at the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles, 'I do hope Jane knows how big she is in Uruguay.'

CONCLUSION Jane Austen showed us thorough her novels what means to dream, love, or simply said- to live a life. Emma Thompson said that Jane is big in Uruguay, but as we all know she's big in the whole world. She never got married or had any great luck in love, but all her novels end happily- with marriage. Her lust for marriage can be seen from a lot of her acts, one of them is her letter to her niece. World is lucky that one great woman lived times ago, the great Jane Austen.

LITERATURE - NEW HEADWAY, english course; Liz & John Soars - www.oup.com/elt/headway