Two hundred and seven years ago today, Jane Austen died in Winchester, England, at the age of forty-one.
It’s easy to forget how remarkable it is that we remember this. I don’t know when I’m going to die, but I feel confident that, whenever it is, no one will remember the date--or me--two centuries later. That’s how it is for most of us: The mark we leave in the world fades away as the people who kept us alive in their memories pass on in their turn.
But Jane Austen’s mark has never faded. Not in 1817, when a grieving Cassandra Austen, fresh from attending her sister’s last illness, wrote to their niece Fanny that losing Jane was “as if I had lost a part of myself.” Not in 1845, when Cassandra herself died, or in 1865, when the last surviving Austen sibling, Francis, passed away. Not in 1882, with Fanny's death, or in 1903, at the death of the last Austen niece or nephew old enough to have known Aunt Jane.
Even as everyone who loved her left the world, Austen's work stayed alive--and kept her alive--for succeeding generations, down to our own and surely beyond. Today is a sad day for Janeites, but the fact that we know why is something to celebrate.
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