公共英語考試短文閱讀欣賞：Jane·Austen
I love reading novels, especially those classics. My favorite writer is Jane Austen, the one who wrote pride and prejudice. When BBC screened its latest adaptation of Jane Austen's novel pride and prejudice, it was watched by a record 18 million British viewers. The series was then sold to 18 countries round the world, from America to Australia, from Iceland to Israel, there are Jane Austen fans in all corners of the globe, and even special Jane Austen discussion groups on the internet.
Jane Austen never once traveled aboard in her life time and she hardly ever left the south of England. When she died a spinster in 1817, only four of her six novels had been published, all anonymous and she eared a grand total of 648.65 pounds from her books. Now, nearly 200 years later, sales of her novels rival modern bestsellers, reaching 35,000 a week. There have been film and television productions of not only pride and prejudice, but also Emma, Persuasion, and the Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility. Her house in Chawton in Hampshire is visited by 200 people a day.
She wad born in 1775, the seventh of eight children. Her father was the reverend George Austen. They were not well off, and lived in a village. By the time when she was 12, Jane was writing stories about heroines imprisoned in haunted castles, being rescued by glamorous heroes. In Jane's own life there were three romantic attachments. The first was a handsome Irish law student called Tom Lefroy, who she met in 1795, but who had to return to Ireland a year later. The second, in 1801, was a young man called Samuel Blackall who she fell in love with when on holiday in Devon, but who tragically died suddenly soon after. The third was a large young man called Harries whose proposal she briefly accepted in 1802, "but he had nothing to recommend him but his size," so she changed her mind.
In 1801 the family moved to Bath, where she was very unhappy. To make matters worse, in 1805 her father died, leaving his widow, Jane and her only sister Cassandra, also unmarried, even poorer than before. For four years they had to move from house to house, often staying with relatives. Finally in 1809 her brother Edward allowed them to live in a house on his estate in Chawton, only a few miles from Steventon where she had grown up. Here she was much happier, despite being the poor relation, dependent on charity. She not only revised her earlier novel but was able to write new ones, using her experiences to satirize and make fun of the social inequalities she saw around her. At last in 1811, Sense and Sensibility was the first of her novels to be published.
參考譯文:
我喜歡看小說，特別是那些精典名著。我特別喜愛的一個作者是簡.奧斯丁。她寫過一部小說叫《傲慢與偏見》。當BBC(英國廣播公司)上映簡.奧斯丁的《傲慢與偏見》小說的最終改寫本時，當時創下了1800萬英國觀眾的收看記錄。之后，一系列的叢書出售到全世界18個國家，從美國到澳大利亞，從冰島到以色列，全世界到處到有簡.奧斯丁的狂熱書迷，甚至在互聯網上還有專門的簡.奧斯丁的討論組。
簡.奧斯丁在她的生活中沒有出過一次國，甚至從末離開過英國的南部。在1987年她過世的時候，還是個末婚女子，她的六部小說只有四部已經出版，并且全部是匿名的，她只掙到了共648.65英鎊，這就是她小說的全部酬勞。如今，也就是此后將近200年后，她小說的銷售商擊敗了當今的頂級推銷員，每星期可達到35000英鎊的收益。已經成為電影、電視出版物的不僅僅是《傲慢與偏見》，還有《埃瑪》、《勸導》、還有奧斯卡獲獎作品《理智與情感》。她在漢普郡Chawton的家，每天都不低于200人參觀拜訪。
簡.奧斯丁出生于1775年，是家里八個孩子中的第七個。她的父親是受人尊敬的牧師喬治. 奧斯丁。她們家不富裕，而且住在一個鄉村里。直到她十二歲的那年，簡.奧斯丁一直在寫關于女主人公被關押在魔鬼城堡的故事，直到被魅力英雄拯救出來。在簡的生命中，有三次浪漫的情感歷程。第一次，是與一個英俊的愛爾蘭法律系的學生，名叫Tom Lefroy，她是在1795年遇到他的，但他不得不在一年之后返回愛爾蘭。第二次是在1801年，一個名叫Samuel Blackall的年青男子在德爾郡的假日里讓她墜入愛河。但是那個男子沒過多久，突然悲慘地死去了。第三次是與一個名叫Harries大個子年青人，在1802年他向她未婚的時候，她暫且允諾了他，"但是他除了他的架碼之外，一無所長"，于是她改變了主意。
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