Yes, today is Jane Austen’s birthday!

Born on 16th December 1775, countless admirers of her novels and numerous Janeite societies across the world are marking the day with enthusiasm and reverence – and no doubt there’s been an increase in her online sales as her name is brought to the forefront of people’s minds just in time for a Christmas purchase.

Her novels are, of course, endlessly discussed, praised and analysed – for very good reason.

They are brilliant.

And there are inevitably many commendable film and television versions so that access to her stories is everywhere. Her characters are so vivid and memorable, her plots satisfying, so that they transfer with some ease to the screen.

But it’s not the same.

However good and faithful to plot, character and event, watching a screen version can only serve Austen in a peripheral, limited way.

For it’s her language, her extraordinary range of humour, her ability to define character so precisely that are the jewels of Jane Austen. Her exquisite narration as well as her dialogue are ever compelling and brilliant.

And like all great writers, her economy of expression matched with such clarity and apparent ease have to be read to be appreciated.

And in common with great writers, her characters are timeless and ever relatable.

We all know or have known a Mrs Elton – Emma – with her appalling self-importance and obsession with social standing that causes her dialogue to be inflated and self-serving:

Life would be a blank to me without music …I am dotingly fond of music – passionately fond.

Then there’s the eponymous heroine Emma herself. Considering it presumptuous if a certain family in the village invites her and her father to their party, she is most annoyed when they subsequently fail to receive an invitation:

She felt that she should like to have had the power of refusal.

That phrase so often comes to mind – the desire not to be left out yet the wish not to go! I defy anyone who has not experienced this feeling!

In Emma again, the pertinent observation that There are people who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves leaps off the page as we all think easily of someone conforming to this just as One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other from Persuasion and Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like – from Mansfield Park, echo with similar truths.

Then there’s the delightful remark of

I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other

– a very accurate declaration from Emma by the heroine herself before she comes to self-knowledge and understanding later in the novel and is fortunate to gain the delectable Mr Knightley into the bargain. He is just about my favourite Austen hero – leaving aside, naturally, the portrayal of Mr Darcy in a certain film version of Pride and Prejudice …!

But that’s the point, really. If I am speaking simply from the experience of reading the novels, Mr Knightly wins hands down as my gallant and gracious hero – he is thoughtful, sensible, intelligent, interesting, loving, generous – and forgiving. The ideal man. The reader’s impression is built up over days, even weeks, of reading rather than the immediate impression that encountering the face on the screen provokes.

And not wanting to ignore the women, it’s Fanny Price in Mansfield Park and Anne Elliot in Persuasion who gain my admiration, both of them not the conventional idea of heroines at all but portrayed with such poignancy by Austen.

For however sublime the screenplay, the direction, interpretation, costumes, settings and size of budget, skilful actors will give us their idea of a character – their appalling Mr Collins, their quick-witted, elegant Emma, their long-suffering Charlotte – and so on.

Whereas reading the novels allows us to create our own images and match them to people, perhaps, in our own lives, understanding their foibles, obsessions and idiosyncrasies, their frailties and vulnerabilities, watching their development and progress towards some sort of fulfilment. The actor does not get in the way – instead, Austen speaks directly to us as her readers.

So Happy Birthday, Jane!

Thank you for endless pages of pleasure, of entertainment, of deep thought and equally hilarious irony and humour.

And I recommend that you just pick up any Austen novel and turn to any page, to be guaranteed something of value, of worth and delight. Even for just a few precious moments.

For after all, as she tells us so truthfully and simply in Mansfield Park:

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings

So why not spend some of those busy nothings in her very good company?

You won’t regret it!