JANE AUSTEN

"I bought a concert ticket and a sprig of flowers for my old age."

From a letter to her sister Cassandra when Jane was not yet 38.

It was the life she picked for herself. I find it hard to believe that she could not have married if she had wanted. Perhaps she was just too intelligent for the men of the time.

I need to read a biography of her.

I can remember my grandmother saying she thought she was old at 40. Perhaps it was the times; we think of age differently now. But maybe she'd always felt "old." I've always had a premonition of age. Yes, I did my immature things, but the foundation of my consciousness was always "old." I don't know so much at Jane Austen. There's just so much to know, not enough time to discover it.

all I know about Jane Austen is she is without doubt in the top 10 of English language writers of all time. Her prose is delicious, a word I use for a handful of writers (the only modern one being John Irving, who could spark up some on his plot and story lines of late).

In the late 1700s, early 1800s, the life expectancy would have been approx. 40-50 years of age. She died at 42. She was, by the standards of her time, an older woman. Even now a study of the life expectancy for our era in the developed world is only 74...in the 50s it was 67. Some always exceed these "norms" but there are also many who never make it. I'd say Jane was bang on for her era.