Jane Austen

The English novelist Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in Steventon in Hampshire, in Southern England. With her love stories, she came to be one of the English literature's classic authors. She was the second youngest in a family of eight children. Her father was a vicar. After his death in 1805 Jane came to live with her mother and older sister, first at Bath in Somerset, where the family moved a few years before her father's death, and later in Chawton in Hampshire. Two of her brothers became admirals. Her elder sister Cassandra remained Jane's best friend for life. Both sisters died unmarried.

Jane Austen began writing at a young age. The novel Love and friendship she wrote when she was only fourteen years old, in 1790. But the first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, was published first in 1811. Three further novels were published during her lifetime, Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815). Two others were published after her death in 1817 in what might have been Addison's disease. She was only 41 years.

Her novels are all played out among the English countryside aristocracy. People and situations in everyday life are described with a refined irony. The stories often carry an undertone of criticism against the aristocratic social conventions.

Jane Austen's novels and all the movies and TV serials based on them are very popular and well-liked even today. Her novel figures continue to fascinate, and are also surprisingly "modern". The heroines are women who are striving to know themselves and who want to make something of their lives. The heroes are strong and honorable and after all the intricacies and intrigues they win their beloved woman in the end. Jane Austen had a wonderful knowledge of human nature and a remarkable ability to portray and depict vibrant personalities.

Fairly little is known about the details of her life or her personality, so we'll see what the horoscope has to say. It looks like this:

Jane Austen, 16 December 1775, 23:45, Steventon, England

(Source: Astro DataBank)

Mercury, the planet of writing and composing, rules both the Ascendant and the Midheaven. Mercurial Gemini and Virgo are prominent signs as are also Libra and Sagittarius. Air and Earth are dominant elements. The most prominent houses are the First, Second and Fourth Houses, those of her person, her resources, and family. Most planets are concentrated to the first quadrant and the northern hemisphere (in the lower part of the chart) which shows a person who is independent and enterprising and for whom the inherent resources and her own ability and talent are the basis for all external success. It also shows the importance for her of home and family.

The Ascendant in Virgo tells us that order, precision and diligence were key parts of her personality. Mercury-disposed Neptune, in an almost exact conjunction with the Ascendant, of course reflects the genius author for whom the literary expression means everything. The conjunction with the Ascendant is complemented by a square to the Sun in Sagittarius and a trine to Mars and Pluto in Capricorn, all in the Fourth House of home and family. Neptune also rules via sensitive Pisces the Seventh House of relationships - the overriding theme of her novels.

The Jupiter-disposed Sun is located deep in the Fourth House in conjunction with the IC. We understand that home and family formed the starting point and the base of her life and authorship. The retrograde Fourth House ruler Jupiter highest in the sky in Mercury-ruled Gemini in conjunction with the Midheaven gives the image of the successful authorship and also reflects the recognition that Jane Austen's works came to meet with long after her death. Jupiter is in mutual reception with the chart ruler Mercury in Sagittarius in the Third House of writing and the position of Mercury indicates her curiosity, keen eye and ability to verbally or in writing reproduce and communicate her findings. Mercury also forms an opposition to Uranus in Gemini in the Ninth House.

The Moon in Libra on the Second House cusp in conjunction with Saturn, exalted in the same sign, and in opposition to Chiron in Aries in the Neptune-ruled Seventh House of relationships - while in trine with Jupiter in Gemini - provides a complex image of the novelist who somehow seems to almost obliterate herself (Neptune in conjunction with the Ascendant) and refrain from a marriage of her own (Neptune-ruled Seventh House) and instead devote herself to portray her literary characters' often transformative and dramatic love life.

The planet of love, Venus, is "Ptolemaically" unaspected (ie. lacking any significant aspects with other planets) and is in penetrating Scorpio in Jane Austen's Second House of resources, skills and talents. Among the minor aspects it still forms are semi squares to both the Sun and Neptune and a quincunx to Chiron in the Seventh House. One senses a deep internal emotional pain associated with close, intimate relationships (Chiron in the Seventh House in opposition to the Moon/Saturn, and in quincunx with Venus in Scorpio). At the same time Chiron forms trines with the North Lunar node in Leo in the Eleventh House and with Mercury in Sagittarius in the Third House of writing.

That her family was the center of her circle of friends is also suggested by the Eleventh House (friends, groups) in Moon-ruled Cancer (home, family). It was by all accounts in this close circle of family and friends that Jane Austen got the inspiration for her authorship, which is also reflected by the Sun in Sagittarius and Mars/Pluto in Capricorn in the Fourth House of home and family. The conjunction between the two latter planets shows a powerful inner creative resource and strength, reinforced by trines to Neptune and the Ascendant in Virgo.

The Sixth House of daily routines, work and health are in revolutionary Uranus-ruled Aquarius and reflects both the sudden changes that Jane Austen sometimes experienced - especially when her father a few years before his death suddenly decided that the family should move from her beloved childhood home to Bath in Somerset, where she did not like to live, and also the serious illnesses she suffered, first typhoid in childhood, which almost extinguished her young life, and then the debilitating illness that led to her untimely death at just 41 years of age.

If we let Pars Fortunae, the Part of Fortune, sum it all up, we can see that the position in Sagittarius in close conjunction with Mercury in the Third House of writing shows that Jane Austen's happiness above all lay in her creative writing and that her authorship meant fulfillment to her.