Most of you will probably know this already, but as a newbie, everything is interesting to me. I thought I would look at whose work Jane Austen might have been influenced by.

First of all, I discovered that purchasing a new book in Jane Austen's time would have cost me the equivalent of £100 today! That would have made my own library a lot smaller than it is now. In Jane's time, then, families and friends would share novels. They also had a circulating library.

The Gothic novels Jane refers to were very popular in her day. They were the equivalent to the modern Mills & Boon novels. Jane also read novels on proper conduct.

An author whose work inspired her was Ann Radcliffe, who is mentioned in Northanger Abbey. Other novelists who are said to have influenced her were Frances Burney and Maria Edgeworth. Maria Edgeworth is known as the Irish Jane Austen and was one of the most influential writers of her time.

Burney's novel Cecilia, a novel Jane enjoyed, mentioned the phrase Pride and Prejudice three times, so may have inspired the title of one of her own novels.

A little known writer she enjoyed was Charlotte Lennox, who wrote poetry, prose and drama.

Male writers she enjoyed were Samuel Johnson, William Cowper, George Crabbe, Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Henry Fielding.

Some other things I learned:

During the 1810s, new works by women exceeded those by men by 23%. In the 1820s, this trend was reversed.

During the Napoleonic wars, paper was manufactured from imported linen rags.