title: Bird

text: The length and nature of parental care varies widely amongst different orders and species. At one extreme, parental care in megapodes ends at hatching; the newly hatched chick digs itself out of the nest mound without parental assistance and can fend for itself immediately. At the other extreme, many seabirds have extended periods of parental care, the longest being that of the great frigatebird, whose chicks take up to six months to fledge and are fed by the parents for up to an additional 14 months. The "chick guard stage" describes the period of breeding during which one of the adult birds is permanently present at the nest after chicks have hatched. The main purpose of the guard stage is to aid offspring to thermoregulate and protect them from predation.In some species, both parents care for nestlings and fledglings; in others, such care is the responsibility of only one sex. In some species, other members of the same species—usually close relatives of the breeding pair, such as offspring from previous broods—will help with the raising of the young. Such alloparenting is particularly common among the Corvida, which includes such birds as the true crows, Australian magpie and fairy-wrens, but has been observed in species as different as the rifleman and red kite. Among most groups of animals, male parental care is rare. In birds, however, it is quite common—more so than in any other vertebrate class. Although territory and nest site defence, incubation, and chick feeding are often shared tasks, there is sometimes a division of labour in which one mate undertakes all or most of a particular duty.


title: Bird

text: The point at which chicks fledge varies dramatically. The chicks of the "Synthliboramphus" murrelets, like the ancient murrelet, leave the nest the night after they hatch, following their parents out to sea, where they are raised away from terrestrial predators. Some other species, such as ducks, move their chicks away from the nest at an early age. In most species, chicks leave the nest just before, or soon after, they are able to fly. The amount of parental care after fledging varies; albatross chicks leave the nest on their own and receive no further help, while other species continue some supplementary feeding after fledging. Chicks may also follow their parents during their first migration.


title: Bird

text: Brood parasitism, in which an egg-layer leaves her eggs with another individual's brood, is more common among birds than any other type of organism. After a parasitic bird lays her eggs in another bird's nest, they are often accepted and raised by the host at the expense of the host's own brood. Brood parasites may be either "obligate brood parasites", which must lay their eggs in the nests of other species because they are incapable of raising their own young, or "non-obligate brood parasites", which sometimes lay eggs in the nests of conspecifics to increase their reproductive output even though they could have raised their own young. One hundred bird species, including honeyguides, icterids, and ducks, are obligate parasites, though the most famous are the cuckoos. Some brood parasites are adapted to hatch before their host's young, which allows them to destroy the host's eggs by pushing them out of the nest or to kill the host's chicks; this ensures that all food brought to the nest will be fed to the parasitic chicks.


title: Bird

text: Birds have evolved a variety of mating behaviours, with the peacock tail being perhaps the most famous example of sexual selection and the Fisherian runaway. Commonly occurring sexual dimorphisms such as size and colour differences are energetically costly attributes that signal competitive breeding situations. Many types of avian sexual selection have been identified; intersexual selection, also known as female choice; and intrasexual competition, where individuals of the more abundant sex compete with each other for the privilege to mate. Sexually selected traits often evolve to become more pronounced in competitive breeding situations until the trait begins to limit the individual's fitness. Conflicts between an individual fitness and signalling adaptations ensure that sexually selected ornaments such as plumage colouration and courtship behaviour are "honest" traits. Signals must be costly to ensure that only good-quality individuals can present these exaggerated sexual ornaments and behaviours.


title: Bird

text: Inbreeding causes early death (inbreeding depression) in the zebra finch "Taeniopygia guttata". Embryo survival (that is, hatching success of fertile eggs) was significantly lower for sib-sib mating pairs than for unrelated pairs.


title: Bird

text: Darwin's finch "Geospiza scandens" experiences inbreeding depression (reduced survival of offspring) and the magnitude of this effect is influenced by environmental conditions such as low food availability.


title: Bird

text: Incestuous matings by the purple-crowned fairy wren "Malurus coronatus" result in severe fitness costs due to inbreeding depression (greater than 30% reduction in hatchability of eggs). Females paired with related males may undertake extra pair matings (see Promiscuity#Other animals for 90% frequency in avian species) that can reduce the negative effects of inbreeding. However, there are ecological and demographic constraints on extra pair matings. Nevertheless, 43% of broods produced by incestuously paired females contained extra pair young.


title: Bird

text: Inbreeding depression occurs in the great tit ("Parus major") when the offspring produced as a result of a mating between close relatives show reduced fitness. In natural populations of "Parus major", inbreeding is avoided by dispersal of individuals from their birthplace, which reduces the chance of mating with a close relative.


title: Bird

text: Southern pied babblers "Turdoides bicolor" appear to avoid inbreeding in two ways. The first is through dispersal, and the second is by avoiding familiar group members as mates.


title: Bird

text: Cooperative breeding in birds typically occurs when offspring, usually males, delay dispersal from their natal group in order to remain with the family to help rear younger kin. Female offspring rarely stay at home, dispersing over distances that allow them to breed independently, or to join unrelated groups. In general, inbreeding is avoided because it leads to a reduction in progeny fitness (inbreeding depression) due largely to the homozygous expression of deleterious recessive alleles. Cross-fertilisation between unrelated individuals ordinarily leads to the masking of deleterious recessive alleles in progeny.


title: Bird

text: Birds occupy a wide range of ecological positions. While some birds are generalists, others are highly specialised in their habitat or food requirements. Even within a single habitat, such as a forest, the niches occupied by different species of birds vary, with some species feeding in the forest canopy, others beneath the canopy, and still others on the forest floor. Forest birds may be insectivores, frugivores, or nectarivores. Aquatic birds generally feed by fishing, plant eating, and piracy or kleptoparasitism. Many grassland birds are granivores. Birds of prey specialise in hunting mammals or other birds, while vultures are specialised scavengers. Birds are also preyed upon by a range of mammals including a few avivorous bats. A wide range of endo- and ectoparasites depend on birds and some parasites that are transmitted from parent to young have co-evolved and show host-specificity.


title: Bird

text: Some nectar-feeding birds are important pollinators, and many frugivores play a key role in seed dispersal. Plants and pollinating birds often coevolve, and in some cases a flower's primary pollinator is the only species capable of reaching its nectar.


title: Bird

text: Birds are often important to island ecology. Birds have frequently reached islands that mammals have not; on those islands, birds may fulfil ecological roles typically played by larger animals. For example, in New Zealand nine species of moa were important browsers, as are the kererū and kokako today. Today the plants of New Zealand retain the defensive adaptations evolved to protect them from the extinct moa.


title: Bird

text: Many birds act as ecosystem engineers through the construction of nests, which provide important microhabitats and food for hundreds of species of invertebrates. Nesting seabirds may affect the ecology of islands and surrounding seas, principally through the concentration of large quantities of guano, which may enrich the local soil and the surrounding seas.


title: Bird

text: A wide variety of avian ecology field methods, including counts, nest monitoring, and capturing and marking, are used for researching avian ecology.


title: Bird

text: Since birds are highly visible and common animals, humans have had a relationship with them since the dawn of man. Sometimes, these relationships are mutualistic, like the cooperative honey-gathering among honeyguides and African peoples such as the Borana. Other times, they may be commensal, as when species such as the house sparrow have benefited from human activities. Several bird species have become commercially significant agricultural pests, and some pose an aviation hazard. Human activities can also be detrimental, and have threatened numerous bird species with extinction (hunting, avian lead poisoning, pesticides, roadkill, wind turbine kills and predation by pet cats and dogs are common causes of death for birds).


title: Bird

text: Birds can act as vectors for spreading diseases such as psittacosis, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, mycobacteriosis (avian tuberculosis), avian influenza (bird flu), giardiasis, and cryptosporidiosis over long distances. Some of these are zoonotic diseases that can also be transmitted to humans.


title: Bird

text: Domesticated birds raised for meat and eggs, called poultry, are the largest source of animal protein eaten by humans; in 2003, tons of poultry and tons of eggs were produced worldwide. Chickens account for much of human poultry consumption, though domesticated turkeys, ducks, and geese are also relatively common. Many species of birds are also hunted for meat. Bird hunting is primarily a recreational activity except in extremely undeveloped areas. The most important birds hunted in North and South America are waterfowl; other widely hunted birds include pheasants, wild turkeys, quail, doves, partridge, grouse, snipe, and woodcock. Muttonbirding is also popular in Australia and New Zealand. Although some hunting, such as that of muttonbirds, may be sustainable, hunting has led to the extinction or endangerment of dozens of species.


title: Bird

text: Other commercially valuable products from birds include feathers (especially the down of geese and ducks), which are used as insulation in clothing and bedding, and seabird faeces (guano), which is a valuable source of phosphorus and nitrogen. The War of the Pacific, sometimes called the Guano War, was fought in part over the control of guano deposits.


title: Bird

text: Birds have been domesticated by humans both as pets and for practical purposes. Colourful birds, such as parrots and mynas, are bred in captivity or kept as pets, a practice that has led to the illegal trafficking of some endangered species. Falcons and cormorants have long been used for hunting and fishing, respectively. Messenger pigeons, used since at least 1 AD, remained important as recently as World War II. Today, such activities are more common either as hobbies, for entertainment and tourism,


title: Bird

text: Amateur bird enthusiasts (called birdwatchers, twitchers or, more commonly, birders) number in the millions. Many homeowners erect bird feeders near their homes to attract various species. Bird feeding has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry; for example, an estimated 75% of households in Britain provide food for birds at some point during the winter.


title: Bird

text: In religion, birds may serve as either messengers or priests and leaders for a deity, such as in the Cult of Makemake, in which the Tangata manu of Easter Island served as chiefs or as attendants, as in the case of Hugin and Munin, the two common ravens who whispered news into the ears of the Norse god Odin. In several civilisations of ancient Italy, particularly Etruscan and Roman religion, priests were involved in augury, or interpreting the words of birds while the "auspex" (from which the word "auspicious" is derived) watched their activities to foretell events.


title: Bird

text: They may also serve as religious symbols, as when Jonah (, dove) embodied the fright, passivity, mourning, and beauty traditionally associated with doves. Birds have themselves been deified, as in the case of the common peacock, which is perceived as Mother Earth by the people of southern India. In the ancient world, doves were used as symbols of the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna (later known as Ishtar), the Canaanite mother goddess Asherah, and the Greek goddess Aphrodite. In ancient Greece, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and patron deity of the city of Athens, had a little owl as her symbol. In religious images preserved from the Inca and Tiwanaku empires, birds are depicted in the process of transgressing boundaries between earthly and underground spiritual realms. Indigenous peoples of the central Andes maintain legends of birds passing to and from metaphysical worlds.


title: Bird

text: Birds have featured in culture and art since prehistoric times, when they were represented in early cave paintings. Some birds have been perceived as monsters, including the mythological Roc and the Māori's legendary , a giant bird capable of snatching humans. Birds were later used as symbols of power, as in the magnificent Peacock Throne of the Mughal and Persian emperors. With the advent of scientific interest in birds, many paintings of birds were commissioned for books.


title: Bird

text: Among the most famous of these bird artists was John James Audubon, whose paintings of North American birds were a great commercial success in Europe and who later lent his name to the National Audubon Society. Birds are also important figures in poetry; for example, Homer incorporated nightingales into his "Odyssey", and Catullus used a sparrow as an erotic symbol in his Catullus 2. The relationship between an albatross and a sailor is the central theme of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", which led to the use of the term as a metaphor for a 'burden'. Other English metaphors derive from birds; vulture funds and vulture investors, for instance, take their name from the scavenging vulture.


title: Bird

text: Perceptions of bird species vary across cultures. Owls are associated with bad luck, witchcraft, and death in parts of Africa, but are regarded as wise across much of Europe. Hoopoes were considered sacred in Ancient Egypt and symbols of virtue in Persia, but were thought of as thieves across much of Europe and harbingers of war in Scandinavia. In heraldry, birds, especially eagles, often appear in coats of arms.


title: Bird

text: In music, birdsong has influenced composers and musicians in several ways: they can be inspired by birdsong; they can intentionally imitate bird song in a composition, as Vivaldi, Messiaen, and Beethoven did, along with many later composers; they can incorporate recordings of birds into their works, as Ottorino Respighi first did; or like Beatrice Harrison and David Rothenberg, they can duet with birds.


title: Bird

text: Although human activities have allowed the expansion of a few species, such as the barn swallow and European starling, they have caused population decreases or extinction in many other species. Over a hundred bird species have gone extinct in historical times, although the most dramatic human-caused avian extinctions, eradicating an estimated 750–1800 species, occurred during the human colonisation of Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian islands. Many bird populations are declining worldwide, with 1,227 species listed as threatened by BirdLife International and the IUCN in 2009.


title: Bird

text: The most commonly cited human threat to birds is habitat loss. Other threats include overhunting, accidental mortality due to collisions with buildings or vehicles, long-line fishing bycatch, pollution (including oil spills and pesticide use), competition and predation from nonnative invasive species, and climate change.


title: Bird

text: Governments and conservation groups work to protect birds, either by passing laws that preserve and restore bird habitat or by establishing captive populations for reintroductions. Such projects have produced some successes; one study estimated that conservation efforts saved 16 species of bird that would otherwise have gone extinct between 1994 and 2004, including the California condor and Norfolk parakeet.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Alan Michael Ritchson (born November 28, 1982) is an American actor, model, singer and songwriter. He made his acting debut as Aquaman / Arthur Curry on The CW superhero series "Smallville" (2005–2010), where he appeared as a guest star between the fifth and tenth seasons. Ritchson gained further prominence for portraying Thad Castle on the Spike TV sitcom "Blue Mountain State" (2010–2012), a role he reprised in the . He also headlined the SyFy action series "Blood Drive" (2017). In 2018, he returned to superhero television as Hank Hall / Hawk on the DC Universe / HBO Max series "Titans". Ritchson left "Titans" in 2021 and, in 2022, began portraying the title character on the Amazon Prime Video series "Reacher."


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Outside of television, Ritchson played Raphael in the 2014 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" reboot and its , along with appearing in "" (2013). He made his directorial debut and co-starred in the action-comedy "" (2021).


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Ritchson was born on November 28, 1982, in Grand Forks, North Dakota He is the son of Vickie Ritchson, a high school teacher and David Ritchson, a retired U.S. Air Force chief master sergeant. He is the second of three boys. During his childhood, his family moved to Rantoul, Illinois. At age 10, Ritchson's family settled in Niceville, Florida. He attended Niceville High School and graduated in 2001. In a 2013 interview with Indonesian magazine "Da Man", he stated that he once obtained a full music scholarship. From 1999 to 2003, he attended as a dual-enrollment student and graduated with an Associate of Arts degree at Okaloosa Walton Community College, now Northwest Florida State College. He was a member of the Fine Arts division's Soundsations and Madrigal Singers.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Alan Ritchson first came to the attention of the public in 2004 when he appeared on "American Idol" as one of the top 87 contestants in the third season before being cut in Hollywood. His appearance on the show was noted for his striptease in one episode in which he wooed judge Paula Abdul.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: His television acting credits include a recurring guest star role on the television series "Smallville" as Arthur Curry, a.k.a. Aquaman, a small role as an army officer in the 2006 Hallmark Channel movie "Though None Go with Me" alongside Cheryl Ladd, and the role of Lucian Manet in the 2009 Lifetime original film "Nora Roberts' Midnight Bayou". His role in Smallville marked the first time that an actor portrayed Aquaman in an officially licensed live-action production. His "Smallville" co-star, Justin Hartley, has since portrayed Aquaman in an unaired pilot of the same name. Ritchson reprised his role as Aquaman in the final season. In 2009, he appeared on a third-season episode of Starz's "Head Case" in which he played a male stripper. Ritchson also made an appearance on "", in which he played a dead victim in episode 19 of season 8. In 2011, he appeared in an episode of season 3 of "90210" as a love interest for main character Teddy Montgomery (Trevor Donovan).


title: Alan Ritchson

text: In 2010, he started playing the main role of Thad Castle, the captain of a college football team, in Spike TV's "Blue Mountain State". He stayed on the show until it was cancelled after its third season in February 2012. He also appeared in a number of television shows, including "Hawaii Five-0". In 2015, Ritchson became a regular on the NBC variety show "I Can Do That" (based on the Israeli variety show) alongside Nicole Scherzinger, Ciara, Joe Jonas, Cheryl Burke and Jeff Dye, and hosted by Marlon Wayans. In 2016, he appeared in "Nosedive", an episode of the anthology series "Black Mirror".


title: Alan Ritchson

text: In 2017, he played the main character in the Syfy series "Blood Drive". In 2018, Ritchson played the recurring role of Hank Hall / Hawk in the DC Universe series "Titans". His initial deal was for just two episodes but he was promoted to a series regular for the second season. Producers decided to reduce the number of characters and Ritchson was written out of the series.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: In 2020, Ritchson was announced to be portraying Jack Reacher in an eponymous series on Amazon Prime.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Movie credits include a role in the 2006 film "The Butcher", as well as a minor role in 2009's "Fired Up!" In 2007, director Robert Zemeckis used Ritchson for his facial image, physique and movement for actor Ray Winstone of the title character of "Beowulf".


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Ritchson portrayed Gloss, a tribute in the 75th Hunger Games, in "" (2013). Ritchson also portrayed Raphael in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", a reboot to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film series after the four previous films. Ritchson would later criticize producers of the new "TMNT" live-action films, claiming they mistreated him and other actors portraying the turtles during and after filming.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: He returned to his role as Thad Castle in the Blue Mountain State movie, "". Ritchson co-starred in Rooster Teeth Production's first feature-length movie—the science fiction comedy "Lazer Team" in January 2016. He also played a medium role in "The Wedding Ringer".


title: Alan Ritchson

text: In 2018, Ritchson was announced as the director, co-writer, and producer of "", a comedy-thriller film inspired by the eponymous organization. He also co-starred as an NSA agent. The film will be the first original project of Phreaker Films, a film fund run by Ritchson. The rights for "Dark Web: Cicada 3301" were acquired by Lionsgate in 2020, who released the film digitally on March 12, 2021.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Ritchson resides in Florida with his wife Catherine and their three children. Ritchson has spoken openly about his struggles with bipolar disorder.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Other projects include an independent album called "This Is Next Time", released in late 2005 and appearing in a Russian commercial for Orbit gum.


title: Alan Ritchson

text: Ritchson also appears in a web series entitled, "Enormous Friends" with his "Blue Mountain State" co-star, Rob Ramsay.


title: Jane Austen

text: Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.


title: Jane Austen

text: With the publication of "Sense and Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), "Mansfield Park" (1814), and "Emma" (1816), she achieved modest success but only little fame in her lifetime since the books were published anonymously. She wrote two other novels—"Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion", both published posthumously in 1818—and began another, eventually titled "Sanditon", but died before its completion. She also left behind three volumes of juvenile writings in manuscript, the short epistolary novel "Lady Susan", and the unfinished novel "The Watsons".


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen gained far more status after her death, and her six full-length novels have rarely been out of print. A significant transition in her posthumous reputation occurred in 1833, when her novels were republished in Richard Bentley's Standard Novels series, illustrated by Ferdinand Pickering, and sold as a set. They gradually gained wider acclaim and popular readership. In 1869, fifty-two years after her death, her nephew's publication of "A Memoir of Jane Austen" introduced a compelling version of her writing career and supposedly uneventful life to an eager audience.


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen has inspired a large number of critical essays and literary anthologies. Her novels have inspired many films, from 1940's "Pride and Prejudice" to more recent productions like "Sense and Sensibility" (1995) and "Love & Friendship" (2016).


title: Jane Austen

text: Little biographical information about Austen's life exists except the few letters that survived and the biographical notes her family members wrote. During her lifetime, Austen may have written as many as 3,000 letters, but only 161 survive. Her older sister Cassandra burned or destroyed the bulk of letters she received in 1843, to prevent their falling into the hands of relatives and ensuring that "younger nieces did not read any of Jane Austen's sometimes acid or forthright comments on neighbours or family members". Cassandra meant to protect the family's reputation from her sister's penchant for forthrightness; in the interest of tact she omitted details of family illnesses and unhappinesses.


title: Jane Austen

text: The first Austen biography was Henry Thomas Austen's 1818 "Biographical Notice". It appeared in a posthumous edition of "Northanger Abbey", and included extracts from two letters, against the judgement of other family members. Details of Austen's life continued to be omitted or embellished in her nephew's "A Memoir of Jane Austen", published in 1869, and in William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh's biography "Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters", published in 1913, all of which included additional letters. The legend the family and relatives created reflected their bias in favour of presenting the image of "good quiet Aunt Jane", the portrayal of a woman whose domestic situation was happy and whose family was the mainstay of her life. Modern biographers include details previously excised from the letters and family biographies, but Austen scholar Jan Fergus explains that the challenge is to avoid presenting the opposite view – one of Austen languishing in periods of deep unhappiness who was "an embittered, disappointed woman trapped in a thoroughly unpleasant family".


title: Jane Austen

text: Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on 16 December 1775. She was born a month later than her parents expected; her father wrote of her arrival in a letter that her mother "certainly expected to have been brought to bed a month ago". He added that the newborn infant was "a present plaything for Cassy and a future companion". The winter of 1776 was particularly harsh and it was not until 5 April that she was baptised at the local church with the single name Jane.


title: Jane Austen

text: George Austen (1731–1805), served as the rector of the parishes of Steventon and Deane. He came from an old and wealthy family of wool merchants. As each generation of eldest sons received inheritances, the wealth was divided, and George's branch of the family fell into poverty. He and his two sisters were orphaned as children and had to be taken in by relatives. In 1745, aged fifteen, George Austen's sister Philadelphia was apprenticed to a milliner in Covent Garden. At the age of sixteen, George entered St John's College, Oxford, where he most likely met Cassandra Leigh (1739–1827). She came from the prominent Leigh family; her father was rector at All Souls College, Oxford, where she grew up among the gentry. Her eldest brother James inherited a fortune and large estate from his great-aunt Perrot, with the only condition that he change his name to Leigh-Perrot.


title: Jane Austen

text: George Austen and Cassandra Leigh were engaged, probably around 1763, when they exchanged miniatures. He had received the living of the Steventon parish from the wealthy husband of his second cousin Thomas Knight. They married on 26 April 1764 at St Swithin's Church in Bath, by license, in a simple ceremony, two months after Cassandra's father died. Their income was modest, with George's small "per annum" living; Cassandra brought to the marriage the expectation of a small inheritance at the time of her mother's death.


title: Jane Austen

text: The Austens took up temporary residence at the nearby Deane rectory until Steventon, a 16th-century house in disrepair, underwent necessary renovations. Cassandra gave birth to three children while living at Deane: James in 1765, George in 1766, and Edward in 1767. Her custom was to keep an infant at home for several months and then place it with Elizabeth Littlewood, a woman living nearby to nurse and raise for twelve to eighteen months.


title: Jane Austen

text: In 1768, the family finally took up residence in Steventon. Henry was the first child to be born there, in 1771. At about this time, Cassandra could no longer ignore the signs that little George was developmentally disabled. He was subject to seizures, may have been deaf and mute, and she chose to send him out to be fostered. In 1773, Cassandra was born, followed by Francis in 1774, and Jane in 1775.


title: Jane Austen

text: According to Honan, the atmosphere of the Austen home was an "open, amused, easy intellectual" one, where the ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered and discussed. The family relied on the patronage of their kin and hosted visits from numerous family members. Mrs Austen spent the summer of 1770 in London with George's sister, Philadelphia, and her daughter Eliza, accompanied by his other sister, Mrs Walter and her daughter Philly. Philadelphia and Eliza Hancock were, according to Le Faye, "the bright comets flashing into an otherwise placid solar system of clerical life in rural Hampshire, and the news of their foreign travels and fashionable London life, together with their sudden descents upon the Steventon household in between times, all helped to widen Jane's youthful horizon and influence her later life and works."


title: Jane Austen

text: Cassandra Austen's cousin Thomas Leigh visited a number of times in the 1770s and 1780s, inviting young Cassie to visit them in Bath in 1781. The first mention of Jane occurs in family documents on her return, "... and almost home they were when they met Jane & Charles, the two little ones of the family, who had to go as far as New Down to meet the chaise, & have the pleasure of riding home in it." Le Faye writes that "Mr Austen's predictions for his younger daughter were fully justified. Never were sisters more to each other than Cassandra and Jane; while in a particularly affectionate family, there seems to have been a special link between Cassandra and Edward on the one hand, and between Henry and Jane on the other."


title: Jane Austen

text: From 1773 until 1796, George Austen supplemented his income by farming and by teaching three or four boys at a time, who boarded at his home. The Reverend Austen had an annual income of £200 () from his two livings. This was a very modest income at the time; by comparison, a skilled worker like a blacksmith or a carpenter could make about £100 annually while the typical annual income of a gentry family was between £1,000 and £5,000. Mr. Austen also rented the 200-acre Cheesedown farm from his benefactor Thomas Knight which could make a profit of £300 () a year.


title: Jane Austen

text: During this period of her life, Austen attended church regularly, socialised with friends and neighbours, and read novels—often of her own composition—aloud to her family in the evenings. Socialising with the neighbours often meant dancing, either impromptu in someone's home after supper or at the balls held regularly at the assembly rooms in the town hall. Her brother Henry later said that "Jane was fond of dancing, and excelled in it".


title: Jane Austen

text: In 1783, Austen and her sister Cassandra were sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs Ann Cawley who took them with her to Southampton when she moved there later in the year. In the autumn both girls were sent home when they caught typhus and Austen nearly died. Austen was from then home educated, until she attended boarding school in Reading with her sister from early in 1785 at the Reading Abbey Girls' School, ruled by Mrs La Tournelle, who had a cork leg and a passion for theatre. The school curriculum probably included some French, spelling, needlework, dancing and music and, perhaps, drama. The sisters returned home before December 1786 because the school fees for the two girls were too high for the Austen family. After 1786, Austen "never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment".


title: Jane Austen

text: The remainder of her education came from reading, guided by her father and brothers James and Henry. Irene Collins believes that Austen "used some of the same school books as the boys" her father tutored. Austen apparently had unfettered access both to her father's library and that of a family friend, Warren Hastings. Together these collections amounted to a large and varied library. Her father was also tolerant of Austen's sometimes risqué experiments in writing, and provided both sisters with expensive paper and other materials for their writing and drawing.


title: Jane Austen

text: Private theatricals were an essential part of Austen's education. From her early childhood, the family and friends staged a series of plays in the rectory barn, including Richard Sheridan's "The Rivals" (1775) and David Garrick's "Bon Ton". Austen's eldest brother James wrote the prologues and epilogues and she probably joined in these activities, first as a spectator and later as a participant. Most of the plays were comedies, which suggests how Austen's satirical gifts were cultivated. At the age of 12, she tried her own hand at dramatic writing; she wrote three short plays during her teenage years.


title: Jane Austen

text: From the age of eleven, and perhaps earlier, Austen wrote poems and stories for the amusement of herself and her family. In these works, the details of daily life are exaggerated, common plot devices are parodied, and the "stories are full of anarchic fantasies of female power, licence, illicit behaviour, and general high spirits", according to Janet Todd. Containing work written between 1787 and 1793, Austen compiled fair copies of twenty-nine early works into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the "Juvenilia". She called the three notebooks "Volume the First", "Volume the Second" and "Volume the Third", and they preserve 90,000 words she wrote during those years. The "Juvenilia" are often, according to scholar Richard Jenkyns, "boisterous" and "anarchic"; he compares them to the work of 18th-century novelist Laurence Sterne.


title: Jane Austen

text: Among these works are a satirical novel in letters titled "Love and Freindship" , written at age fourteen in 1790, in which she mocked popular novels of sensibility. The next year, she wrote "The History of England", a manuscript of thirty-four pages accompanied by thirteen watercolour miniatures by her sister, Cassandra. Austen's "History" parodied popular historical writing, particularly Oliver Goldsmith's "History of England" (1764). Honan speculates that not long after writing "Love and Freindship", Austen decided to "write for profit, to make stories her central effort", that is, to become a professional writer. When she was around eighteen years old, Austen began to write longer, more sophisticated works.


title: Jane Austen

text: In August 1792, aged seventeen, Austen started writing "Catharine or the Bower", which presaged her mature work, especially "Northanger Abbey"; it was left unfinished and the story picked up in "Lady Susan", which Todd describes as less prefiguring than "Catharine". A year later, she began, but abandoned a short play, later titled "Sir Charles Grandison or the happy Man, a comedy in 6 acts", which she returned to and completed around 1800. This was a short parody of various school textbook abridgements of Austen's favourite contemporary novel, "The History of Sir Charles Grandison" (1753), by Samuel Richardson.


title: Jane Austen

text: When Austen became an aunt for the first time at age eighteen, she sent new-born niece Fanny-Catherine Austen-Knight "five short pieces of ... the Juvenilia now known collectively as 'Scraps' .., purporting to be her 'Opinions and Admonitions on the conduct of Young Women. For Jane-Anna-Elizabeth Austen (also born in 1793), her aunt wrote "two more 'Miscellanious ["sic"] Morsels', dedicating them to [Anna] on 2 June 1793, 'convinced that if you seriously attend to them, You will derive from them very important Instructions, with regard to your Conduct in Life. There is manuscript evidence that Austen continued to work on these pieces as late as 1811 (when she was 36), and that her niece and nephew, Anna and James Edward Austen, made further additions as late as 1814.


title: Jane Austen

text: Between 1793 and 1795 (aged eighteen to twenty), Austen wrote "Lady Susan", a short epistolary novel, usually described as her most ambitious and sophisticated early work. It is unlike any of Austen's other works. Austen biographer Claire Tomalin describes the novella's heroine as a sexual predator who uses her intelligence and charm to manipulate, betray and abuse her lovers, friends and family. Tomalin writes:


title: Jane Austen

text: Told in letters, it is as neatly plotted as a play, and as cynical in tone as any of the most outrageous of the Restoration dramatists who may have provided some of her inspiration ... It stands alone in Austen's work as a study of an adult woman whose intelligence and force of character are greater than those of anyone she encounters.


title: Jane Austen

text: According to Janet Todd, the model for the title character may have been Eliza de Feuillide, who inspired Austen with stories of her glamorous life and various adventures. Eliza's French husband was guillotined in 1794; she married Jane's brother Henry Austen in 1797.


title: Jane Austen

text: When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a neighbour, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796. He had just finished a university degree and was moving to London for training as a barrister. Lefroy and Austen would have been introduced at a ball or other neighbourhood social gathering, and it is clear from Austen's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together: "I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together."


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen wrote in her first surviving letter to her sister Cassandra that Lefroy was a "very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man". Five days later in another letter, Austen wrote that she expected an "offer" from her "friend" and that "I shall refuse him, however, unless he promises to give away his white coat", going on to write "I will confide myself in the future to Mr Tom Lefroy, for whom I don't give a sixpence" and refuse all others. The next day, Austen wrote: "The day will come on which I flirt my last with Tom Lefroy and when you receive this it will be all over. My tears flow as I write at this melancholy idea".


title: Jane Austen

text: Halperin cautioned that Austen often satirised popular sentimental romantic fiction in her letters, and some of the statements about Lefroy may have been ironic. However, it is clear that Austen was genuinely attracted to Lefroy and subsequently none of her other suitors ever quite measured up to him. The Lefroy family intervened and sent him away at the end of January. Marriage was impractical as both Lefroy and Austen must have known. Neither had any money, and he was dependent on a great-uncle in Ireland to finance his education and establish his legal career. If Tom Lefroy later visited Hampshire, he was carefully kept away from the Austens, and Jane Austen never saw him again. In November 1798, Lefroy was still on Austen's mind as she wrote to her sister she had tea with one of his relatives, wanted desperately to ask about him, but could not bring herself to raise the subject.


title: Jane Austen

text: After finishing "Lady Susan", Austen began her first full-length novel "Elinor and Marianne". Her sister remembered that it was read to the family "before 1796" and was told through a series of letters. Without surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the original draft survived in the novel published anonymously in 1811 as "Sense and Sensibility".


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen began a second novel, "First Impressions" (later published as "Pride and Prejudice"), in 1796. She completed the initial draft in August 1797, aged 21; as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as she was working on it and it became an "established favourite". At this time, her father made the first attempt to publish one of her novels. In November 1797, George Austen wrote to Thomas Cadell, an established publisher in London, to ask if he would consider publishing "First Impressions". Cadell returned Mr. Austen's letter, marking it "Declined by Return of Post". Austen may not have known of her father's efforts. Following the completion of "First Impressions", Austen returned to "Elinor and Marianne" and from November 1797 until mid-1798, revised it heavily; she eliminated the epistolary format in favour of third-person narration and produced something close to "Sense and Sensibility". In 1797, Austen met her cousin (and future sister-in-law), Eliza de Feuillide, a French aristocrat whose first husband the Comte de Feuillide had been guillotined, causing her to flee to Britain, where she married Henry Austen. The description of the execution of the Comte de Feuillide related by his widow left Austen with an intense horror of the French Revolution that lasted for the rest of her life.


title: Jane Austen

text: During the middle of 1798, after finishing revisions of "Elinor and Marianne", Austen began writing a third novel with the working title "Susan"—later "Northanger Abbey"—a satire on the popular Gothic novel. Austen completed her work about a year later. In early 1803, Henry Austen offered "Susan" to Benjamin Crosby, a London publisher, who paid £10 for the copyright. Crosby promised early publication and went so far as to advertise the book publicly as being "in the press", but did nothing more. The manuscript remained in Crosby's hands, unpublished, until Austen repurchased the copyright from him in 1816.


title: Jane Austen

text: In December 1800, George Austen unexpectedly announced his decision to retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to 4, Sydney Place in Bath, Somerset. While retirement and travel were good for the elder Austens, Jane Austen was shocked to be told she was moving away from the only home she had ever known. An indication of her state of mind is her lack of productivity as a writer during the time she lived in Bath. She was able to make some revisions to "Susan", and she began and then abandoned a new novel, "The Watsons", but there was nothing like the productivity of the years 1795–1799. Tomalin suggests this reflects a deep depression disabling her as a writer, but Honan disagrees, arguing Austen wrote or revised her manuscripts throughout her creative life, except for a few months after her father died. It is often claimed that Austen was unhappy in Bath, which caused her to lose interest in writing, but it is just as possible that Austen's social life in Bath prevented her from spending much time writing novels. The critic Robert Irvine argued that if Austen spent more time writing novels when she was in the countryside, it might just have been because she had more spare time as opposed to being more happy in the countryside as is often argued. Furthermore, Austen frequently both moved and travelled over southern England during this period, which was hardly a conducive environment for writing a long novel. Austen sold the rights to publish "Susan" to a publisher Crosby & Company, who paid her £10 (). The Crosby & Company advertised "Susan", but never published it.


title: Jane Austen

text: The years from 1801 to 1804 are something of a blank space for Austen scholars as Cassandra destroyed all of her letters from her sister in this period for unknown reasons. In December 1802, Austen received her only known proposal of marriage. She and her sister visited Alethea and Catherine Bigg, old friends who lived near Basingstoke. Their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither, had recently finished his education at Oxford and was also at home. Bigg-Wither proposed and Austen accepted. As described by Caroline Austen, Jane's niece, and Reginald Bigg-Wither, a descendant, Harris was not attractive—he was a large, plain-looking man who spoke little, stuttered when he did speak, was aggressive in conversation, and almost completely tactless. However, Austen had known him since both were young and the marriage offered many practical advantages to Austen and her family. He was the heir to extensive family estates located in the area where the sisters had grown up. With these resources, Austen could provide her parents a comfortable old age, give Cassandra a permanent home and, perhaps, assist her brothers in their careers. By the next morning, Austen realised she had made a mistake and withdrew her acceptance. No contemporary letters or diaries describe how Austen felt about this proposal. Irvine described Bigg-Wither as a somebody who "...seems to have been a man very hard to like, let alone love".


title: Jane Austen

text: In 1814, Austen wrote a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, who had asked for advice about a serious relationship, telling her that "having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around & entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection". The English scholar Douglas Bush wrote that Austen had "had a very high ideal of the love that should unite a husband and wife ... All of her heroines ... know in proportion to their maturity, the meaning of ardent love". A possible autobiographical element in "Sense and Sensibility" occurs when Elinor Dashwood contemplates that "the worse and most irremediable of all evils, a connection for life" with an unsuitable man.


title: Jane Austen

text: In 1804, while living in Bath, Austen started, but did not complete, her novel "The Watsons". The story centres on an invalid and impoverished clergyman and his four unmarried daughters. Sutherland describes the novel as "a study in the harsh economic realities of dependent women's lives". Honan suggests, and Tomalin agrees, that Austen chose to stop work on the novel after her father died on 21 January 1805 and her personal circumstances resembled those of her characters too closely for her comfort.


title: Jane Austen

text: Her father's relatively sudden death left Jane, Cassandra, and their mother in a precarious financial situation. Edward, James, Henry, and Francis Austen (known as Frank) pledged to make annual contributions to support their mother and sisters. For the next four years, the family's living arrangements reflected their financial insecurity. They spent part of the time in rented quarters in Bath before leaving the city in June 1805 for a family visit to Steventon and Godmersham. They moved for the autumn months to the newly fashionable seaside resort of Worthing, on the Sussex coast, where they resided at Stanford Cottage. It was here that Austen is thought to have written her fair copy of "Lady Susan" and added its "Conclusion". In 1806, the family moved to Southampton, where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. A large part of this time they spent visiting various branches of the family.


title: Jane Austen

text: On 5 April 1809, about three months before the family's move to Chawton, Austen wrote an angry letter to Richard Crosby, offering him a new manuscript of "Susan" if needed to secure the immediate publication of the novel, and requesting the return of the original so she could find another publisher. Crosby replied that he had not agreed to publish the book by any particular time, or at all, and that Austen could repurchase the manuscript for the £10 he had paid her and find another publisher. She did not have the resources to buy the copyright back at that time, but was able to purchase it in 1816.


title: Jane Austen

text: Around early 1809, Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life—the use of a large cottage in Chawton village which was part of the estate around Edward's nearby property Chawton House. Jane, Cassandra and their mother moved into Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809. Life was quieter in Chawton than it had been since the family's move to Bath in 1800. The Austens did not socialise with gentry and entertained only when family visited. Her niece Anna described the family's life in Chawton as "a very quiet life, according to our ideas, but they were great readers, and besides the housekeeping our aunts occupied themselves in working with the poor and in teaching some girl or boy to read or write."


title: Jane Austen

text: Like many women authors at the time, Austen published her books anonymously. At the time, the ideal roles for a woman were as wife and mother, and writing for women was regarded at best as a secondary form of activity; a woman who wished to be a full-time writer was felt to be degrading her femininity, so books by women were usually published anonymously in order to maintain the conceit that the female writer was only publishing as a sort of part-time job, and was not seeking to become a "literary lioness" (i.e. a celebrity).


title: Jane Austen

text: During her time at Chawton, Austen published four generally well-received novels. Through her brother Henry, the publisher Thomas Egerton agreed to publish "Sense and Sensibility", which, like all of Austen's novels except "Pride and Prejudice", was published "on commission", that is, at the author's financial risk. When publishing on commission, publishers would advance the costs of publication, repay themselves as books were sold and then charge a 10% commission for each book sold, paying the rest to the author. If a novel did not recover its costs through sales, the author was responsible for them. The alternative to selling via commission was by selling the copyright, where an author received a one-time payment from the publisher for the manuscript, which occurred with "Pride and Prejudice". Austen's experience with "Susan" (the manuscript that became "Northanger Abbey") where she sold the copyright to the publisher Crosby & Sons for £10, who did not publish the book, forcing her to buy back the copyright in order to get her work published, left Austen leery of this method of publishing. The final alternative, of selling by subscription, where a group of people would agree to buy a book in advance, was not an option for Austen as only authors who were well known or had an influential aristocratic patron who would recommend an up-coming book to their friends, could sell by subscription. "Sense and Sensibility" appeared in October 1811, and was described as being written "By a Lady". As it was sold on commission, Egerton used expensive paper and set the price at 15 shillings ().


title: Jane Austen

text: Reviews were favourable and the novel became fashionable among young aristocratic opinion-makers; the edition sold out by mid-1813. Austen's novels were published in larger editions than was normal for this period. The small size of the novel-reading public and the large costs associated with hand production (particularly the cost of handmade paper) meant that most novels were published in editions of 500 copies or less to reduce the risks to the publisher and the novelist. Even some of the most successful titles during this period were issued in editions of not more than 750 or 800 copies and later reprinted if demand continued. Austen's novels were published in larger editions, ranging from about 750 copies of "Sense and Sensibility" to about 2,000 copies of "Emma". It is not clear whether the decision to print more copies than usual of Austen's novels was driven by the publishers or the author. Since all but one of Austen's books were originally published "on commission", the risks of overproduction were largely hers (or Cassandra's after her death) and publishers may have been more willing to produce larger editions than was normal practice when their own funds were at risk. Editions of popular works of non-fiction were often much larger.


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen made £140 () from "Sense and Sensibility", which provided her with some financial and psychological independence. After the success of "Sense and Sensibility", all of Austen's subsequent books were billed as written "By the author of "Sense and Sensibility"" and Austen's name never appeared on her books during her lifetime. Egerton then published "Pride and Prejudice", a revision of "First Impressions", in January 1813. Austen sold the copyright to "Pride and Prejudice" to Egerton for £110 (). To maximise profits, he used cheap paper and set the price at 18 shillings (). He advertised the book widely and it was an immediate success, garnering three favourable reviews and selling well. Had Austen sold "Pride and Prejudice" on commission, she would have made a profit of £475, or twice her father's annual income. By October 1813, Egerton was able to begin selling a second edition. "Mansfield Park" was published by Egerton in May 1814. While "Mansfield Park" was ignored by reviewers, it was very popular with readers. All copies were sold within six months, and Austen's earnings on this novel were larger than for any of her other novels.


title: Jane Austen

text: Without Austen's knowledge or approval, her novels were translated into French and published in cheaply produced, pirated editions in France. The literary critic Noel King commented in 1953 that, given the prevailing rage in France at the time for lush romantic fantasies, it was remarkable that her novels with the emphasis on everyday English life had any sort of a market in France. King cautioned that Austen's chief translator in France, Madame Isabelle de Montolieu, had only the most rudimentary knowledge of English, and her translations were more of "imitations" than translations proper, as Montolieu depended upon assistants to provide a summary, which she then translated into an embellished French that often radically altered Austen's plots and characters. The first of the Austen novels to be published that credited her as the author was in France, when "Persuasion" was published in 1821 as "La Famille Elliot ou L'Ancienne Inclination".


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen learned that the Prince Regent admired her novels and kept a set at each of his residences. In November 1815, the Prince Regent's librarian James Stanier Clarke invited Austen to visit the Prince's London residence and hinted Austen should dedicate the forthcoming "Emma" to the Prince. Though Austen disapproved of the Prince Regent, she could scarcely refuse the request. Austen disapproved of the Prince Regent on the account of his womanising, gambling, drinking, spendthrift ways and generally disreputable behaviour. She later wrote "Plan of a Novel, according to Hints from Various Quarters", a satiric outline of the "perfect novel" based on the librarian's many suggestions for a future Austen novel. Austen was greatly annoyed by Clarke's often pompous literary advice, and the "Plan of A Novel" parodying Clarke was intended as her revenge for all of the unwanted letters she had received from the royal librarian.


title: Jane Austen

text: In mid-1815 Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher, who published "Emma" in December 1815 and a second edition of "Mansfield Park" in February 1816. "Emma" sold well, but the new edition of "Mansfield Park" did poorly, and this failure offset most of the income from "Emma". These were the last of Austen's novels to be published during her lifetime.


title: Jane Austen

text: While Murray prepared "Emma" for publication, Austen began "The Elliots", later published as "Persuasion". She completed her first draft in July 1816. In addition, shortly after the publication of "Emma", Henry Austen repurchased the copyright for "Susan" from Crosby. Austen was forced to postpone publishing either of these completed novels by family financial troubles. Henry Austen's bank failed in March 1816, depriving him of all of his assets, leaving him deeply in debt and costing Edward, James, and Frank Austen large sums. Henry and Frank could no longer afford the contributions they had made to support their mother and sisters.


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen was feeling unwell by early 1816, but ignored the warning signs. By the middle of that year, her decline was unmistakable, and she began a slow, irregular deterioration. The majority of biographers rely on Zachary Cope's 1964 retrospective diagnosis and list her cause of death as Addison's disease, although her final illness has also been described as resulting from Hodgkin's lymphoma. When her uncle died and left his entire fortune to his wife, effectively disinheriting his relatives, she suffered a relapse, writing: "I am ashamed to say that the shock of my Uncle's Will brought on a relapse ... but a weak Body must excuse weak Nerves."


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen continued to work in spite of her illness. Dissatisfied with the ending of "The Elliots", she rewrote the final two chapters, which she finished on 6 August 1816. In January 1817, Austen began "The Brothers" (titled "Sanditon" when published in 1925), completing twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably due to illness. Todd describes "Sanditon"s heroine, Diana Parker, as an "energetic invalid". In the novel, Austen mocked hypochondriacs, and although she describes the heroine as "bilious", five days after abandoning the novel, she wrote of herself that she was turning "every wrong colour" and living "chiefly on the sofa". She put down her pen on 18 March 1817, making a note of it.


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen made light of her condition, describing it as "bile" and rheumatism. As her illness progressed, she experienced difficulty walking and lacked energy; by mid-April she was confined to bed. In May, Cassandra and Henry brought her to Winchester for treatment, by which time she suffered agonising pain and welcomed death. Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817 at the age of 41. Henry, through his clerical connections, arranged for his sister to be buried in the north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. The epitaph composed by her brother James praises Austen's personal qualities, expresses hope for her salvation and mentions the "extraordinary endowments of her mind", but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer.


title: Jane Austen

text: In the months after Austen's death in July 1817, Cassandra, Henry Austen and Murray arranged for the publication of "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey" as a set. Henry Austen contributed a "Biographical Note" dated December 1817, which for the first time identified his sister as the author of the novels. Tomalin describes it as "a loving and polished eulogy". Sales were good for a year—only 321 copies remained unsold at the end of 1818.


title: Jane Austen

text: Although Austen's six novels were out of print in England in the 1820s, they were still being read through copies housed in private libraries and circulating libraries. Austen had early admirers. The first piece of what might now be called fan fiction (or real person fiction) using her as a character appeared in 1823 in a letter to the editor in "The Lady's Magazine". It refers to Austen's genius and suggests that aspiring authors were envious of her powers.


title: Jane Austen

text: In 1832, Richard Bentley purchased the remaining copyrights to all of her novels, and over the following winter published five illustrated volumes as part of his "Standard Novels" series. In October 1833, Bentley released the first collected edition of her works. Since then, Austen's novels have been continuously in print.


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen's works critique the sentimental novels of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. The earliest English novelists, Richardson, Henry Fielding and Tobias Smollett, were followed by the school of sentimentalists and romantics such as Walter Scott, Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, and Oliver Goldsmith, whose style and genre Austen repudiated, returning the novel on a "slender thread" to the tradition of Richardson and Fielding for a "realistic study of manners". In the mid-20th century, literary critics F. R. Leavis and Ian Watt placed her in the tradition of Richardson and Fielding; both believe that she used their tradition of "irony, realism and satire to form an author superior to both".


title: Jane Austen

text: Walter Scott noted Austen's "resistance to the trashy sensationalism of much of modern fiction—'the ephemeral productions which supply the regular demand of watering places and circulating libraries'". Yet her relationship with these genres is complex, as evidenced by "Northanger Abbey" and "Emma". Similar to William Wordsworth, who excoriated the modern frantic novel in the "Preface" to his "Lyrical Ballads" (1800), Austen distances herself from escapist novels; the discipline and innovation she demonstrates is similar to his, and she shows "that rhetorically less is artistically more." She eschewed popular Gothic fiction, stories of terror in which a heroine typically was stranded in a remote location, a castle or abbey (32 novels between 1784 and 1818 contain the word "abbey" in their title). Yet in "Northanger Abbey" she alludes to the trope, with the heroine, Catherine, anticipating a move to a remote locale. Rather than full-scale rejection or parody, Austen transforms the genre, juxtaposing reality, with descriptions of elegant rooms and modern comforts, against the heroine's "novel-fueled" desires. Nor does she completely denigrate Gothic fiction: instead she transforms settings and situations, such that the heroine is still imprisoned, yet her imprisonment is mundane and real—regulated manners and the strict rules of the ballroom. In "Sense and Sensibility" Austen presents characters who are more complex than in staple sentimental fiction, according to critic Keymer, who notes that although it is a parody of popular sentimental fiction, "Marianne in her sentimental histrionics responds to the calculating world ... with a quite justifiable scream of female distress."


title: Jane Austen

text: Richardson's "Pamela", the prototype for the sentimental novel, is a didactic love story with a happy ending, written at a time women were beginning to have the right to choose husbands and yet were restricted by social conventions. Austen attempted Richardson's epistolary style, but found the flexibility of narrative more conducive to her realism, a realism in which each conversation and gesture carries a weight of significance. The narrative style utilises free indirect speech—she was the first English novelist to do so extensively—through which she had the ability to present a character's thoughts directly to the reader and yet still retain narrative control. The style allows an author to vary discourse between the narrator's voice and values and those of the characters.


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen had a natural ear for speech and dialogue, according to scholar Mary Lascelles: "Few novelists can be more scrupulous than Jane Austen as to the phrasing and thoughts of their characters." Techniques such as fragmentary speech suggest a character's traits and their tone; "syntax and phrasing rather than vocabulary" is utilised to indicate social variants. Dialogue reveals a character's mood—frustration, anger, happiness—each treated differently and often through varying patterns of sentence structures. When Elizabeth Bennet rejects Darcy, her stilted speech and the convoluted sentence structure reveals that he has wounded her:


title: Jane Austen

text: From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that the groundwork of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike. And I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen's plots highlight women's traditional dependence on marriage to secure social standing and economic security. As an art form, the 18th-century novel lacked the seriousness of its equivalents from the 19th century, when novels were treated as "the natural vehicle for discussion and ventilation of what mattered in life". Rather than delving too deeply into the psyche of her characters, Austen enjoys them and imbues them with humour, according to critic John Bayley. He believes that the well-spring of her wit and irony is her own attitude that comedy "is the saving grace of life". Part of Austen's fame rests on the historical and literary significance that she was the first woman to write great comic novels. Samuel Johnson's influence is evident, in that she follows his advice to write "a representation of life as may excite mirth".


title: Jane Austen

text: Her humour comes from her modesty and lack of superiority, allowing her most successful characters, such as Elizabeth Bennet, to transcend the trivialities of life, which the more foolish characters are overly absorbed in. Austen used comedy to explore the individualism of women's lives and gender relations, and she appears to have used it to find the goodness in life, often fusing it with "ethical sensibility", creating artistic tension. Critic Robert Polhemus writes, "To appreciate the drama and achievement of Austen, we need to realize how deep was her passion for both reverence and ridicule ... and her comic imagination reveals both the harmonies and the telling contradictions of her mind and vision as she tries to reconcile her satirical bias with her sense of the good."


title: Jane Austen

text: As Austen's works were published anonymously, they brought her little personal renown. They were fashionable among opinion-makers, but were rarely reviewed. Most of the reviews were short and on balance favourable, although superficial and cautious, most often focused on the moral lessons of the novels.


title: Jane Austen

text: Sir Walter Scott, a leading novelist of the day, anonymously wrote a review of "Emma" 1815, using it to defend the then-disreputable genre of the novel and praising Austen's realism, "the art of copying from nature as she really exists in the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the splendid scenes from an imaginary world, a correct and striking representation of that which is daily taking place around him". The other important early review was attributed to Richard Whately in 1821. However, Whately denied having authored the review, which drew favourable comparisons between Austen and such acknowledged greats as Homer and Shakespeare, and praised the dramatic qualities of her narrative. Scott and Whately set the tone for almost all subsequent 19th-century Austen criticism.


title: Jane Austen

text: Because Austen's novels did not conform to Romantic and Victorian expectations that "powerful emotion [be] authenticated by an egregious display of sound and colour in the writing", 19th-century critics and audiences preferred the works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Notwithstanding Walter Scott's positivity, Austen's work did not match the prevailing aesthetic values of the Romantic zeitgeist. Her novels were republished in Britain from the 1830s and sold steadily, but they were not best-sellers.


title: Jane Austen

text: The first French critic who paid notice to Austen was Philarète Chasles in an 1842 essay, dismissing her in two sentences as a boring, imitative writer with no substance. Austen was almost completely ignored in France until 1878, when the French critic Léon Boucher published the essay "Le Roman Classique en Angleterre", in which he called Austen a "genius", the first French author to do so. The first accurate translation of Austen into French occurred in 1899 when Félix Fénéon translated "Northanger Abbey" as "Catherine Moreland".


title: Jane Austen

text: In Britain, Austen gradually grew in the estimation of the literati. Philosopher and literary critic George Henry Lewes published a series of enthusiastic articles in the 1840s and 1850s. Later in the century, novelist Henry James referred to Austen several times with approval, and on one occasion ranked her with Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Henry Fielding as among "the fine painters of life".


title: Jane Austen

text: The publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh's "A Memoir of Jane Austen" in 1869 introduced Austen to a wider public as "dear aunt Jane", the respectable maiden aunt. Publication of the "Memoir" spurred the reissue of Austen's novels—the first popular editions were released in 1883 and fancy illustrated editions and collectors' sets quickly followed. Author and critic Leslie Stephen described the popular mania that started to develop for Austen in the 1880s as "Austenolatry". Around the start of the 20th century, an intellectual clique of "Janeites" reacted against the popularisation of Austen, distinguishing their deeper appreciation from the vulgar enthusiasm of the masses.


title: Jane Austen

text: In response, Henry James decried "a beguiled infatuation" with Austen, a rising tide of public interest that exceeded Austen's "intrinsic merit and interest". The American literary critic A. Walton Litz noted that the "anti-Janites" in the 19th and 20th centuries comprised a formidable literary squad of Mark Twain, Henry James, Charlotte Brontë, D. H. Lawrence and Kingsley Amis, but in "every case the adverse judgement merely reveals the special limitations or eccentricities of the critic, leaving Jane Austen relatively untouched".


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen's works have attracted legions of scholars. The first dissertation on Austen was published in 1883, by George Pellew, a student at Harvard University. Another early academic analysis came from a 1911 essay by Oxford Shakespearean scholar A. C. Bradley, who grouped Austen's novels into "early" and "late" works, a distinction still used by scholars today. The first academic book devoted to Austen in France was "Jane Austen" by Paul and Kate Rague (1914), who set out to explain why French critics and readers should take Austen seriously. The same year, Léonie Villard published "Jane Austen, Sa Vie et Ses Oeuvres", originally her PhD thesis, the first serious academic study of Austen in France. In 1923, R.W. Chapman published the first scholarly edition of Austen's collected works, which was also the first scholarly edition of any English novelist. The Chapman text has remained the basis for all subsequent published editions of Austen's works.


title: Jane Austen

text: With the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles' "Jane Austen and Her Art", the academic study of Austen took hold. Lascelles analyzed the books Austen read and their influence on her work, and closely examined Austen's style and "narrative art". Concern arose that academics were obscuring the appreciation of Austen with increasingly esoteric theories, a debate that has continued since.


title: Jane Austen

text: The period since World War II has seen a diversity of critical approaches to Austen, including feminist theory, and perhaps most controversially, postcolonial theory. The divide has widened between the popular appreciation of Austen, particularly by modern Janeites, and academic judgements. In 1994, literary critic Harold Bloom placed Austen among the .


title: Jane Austen

text: In the People's Republic of China after 1949, writings of Austen were regarded as too frivolous, and thus during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966–69, Austen was banned as a "British bourgeois imperialist". In the late 1970s, when Austen's works was re-published in China, her popularity with readers confounded the authorities who had trouble understanding that people generally read books for enjoyment, not political edification.


title: Jane Austen

text: In a typical modern debate, the conservative American professor Gene Koppel, to the indignation of his liberal literature students, mentioned that Austen and her family were "Tories of the deepest dye", i.e. Conservatives in opposition to the liberal Whigs. Although several feminist authors such as Claudia Johnson and Mollie Sandock claimed Austen for their own cause, Koppel argued that different people react to a work of literature in different subjective ways, as explained by the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. Thus competing interpretations of Austen's work can be equally valid, provided they are grounded in textual and historical analysis: it is equally possible to see Austen as a feminist critiquing Regency society and as a conservative upholding its values.


title: Jane Austen

text: Austen's novels have resulted in sequels, prequels and adaptations of almost every type, from soft-core pornography to fantasy. From the 19th century, her family members published conclusions to her incomplete novels, and by 2000 there were over 100 printed adaptations. The first dramatic adaptation of Austen was published in 1895, Rosina Filippi's "Duologues and Scenes from the Novels of Jane Austen: Arranged and Adapted for Drawing-Room Performance", and Filippi was also responsible for the first professional stage adaptation, "The Bennets" (1901). The first film adaptation was the 1940 MGM production of "Pride and Prejudice" starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. BBC television dramatisations since the 1970s have attempted to adhere meticulously to Austen's plots, characterisations and settings. The British critic Robert Irvine noted that in American film adaptations of Austen's novels, starting with the 1940 version of "Pride and Prejudice", class is subtly downplayed, and the society of Regency England depicted by Austen that is grounded in a hierarchy based upon the ownership of land and the antiquity of the family name is one that Americans cannot embrace in its entirety.


title: Jane Austen

text: From 1995, many Austen adaptations appeared, with Ang Lee's film of "Sense and Sensibility", for which screenwriter and star Emma Thompson won an Academy Award, and the BBC's immensely popular TV mini-series "Pride and Prejudice", starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. A 2005 British production of "Pride and Prejudice", directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, was followed in 2007 by ITV's "Mansfield Park", "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion", and in 2016 by "Love & Friendship" starring Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan, a film version of "Lady Susan", that borrowed the title of Austen's "Love and " [sic].


title: Jane Austen

text: In 2013, Austen's works featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail to mark the bicentenary of the publication of "Pride and Prejudice". Austen is on the £10 note issued by the Bank of England which was introduced in 2017, replacing Charles Darwin. In July 2017, a statue of Jane Austen was erected in Basingstoke, Hampshire on the 200th anniversary of her death.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit (SDK) and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, offering games, music, books, movies, and television programs. Content that has been purchased on Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through the Android and iOS apps.


title: Google Play

text: Applications are available through Google Play either for free or at a cost. They can be downloaded directly on an Android device through the proprietary Google Play Store mobile app or by deploying the application to a device from the Google Play website. Applications utilizing the hardware capabilities of a device can be targeted at users of devices with specific hardware components, such as a motion sensor (for motion-dependent games) or a front-facing camera (for online video calling). The Google Play Store had over 82 billion app downloads in 2016 and over 3.5 million apps published in 2017, while after a purge of apps, it is back to over 3 million. It has been the subject of multiple issues concerning security, in which malicious software has been approved and uploaded to the store and downloaded by users, with varying degrees of severity.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play was launched on March 6, 2012, bringing together Android Market, Google Music, Google Movies, and the Google eBookstore under one brand, marking a shift in Google's digital distribution strategy. Following their rebranding, Google has expanded the geographical support for each of the services. Since 2018, Google has gradually sunsetted the Play brand: Play Newsstand was rebranded as Google News in 2018; Play Music was discontinued in favor of YouTube Music in 2020; and Play Movies & TV was rebranded as Google TV in 2021.


title: Google Play

text: By 2017, Google Play featured more than 3.5 million Android applications. After Google purged a lot of apps from the Google Play Store, the number of apps has risen back to over 3 million Android applications. As of 2017, developers in more than 150 locations could distribute apps on Google Play, though not every location supports merchant registration. Developers receive 85% of the application price, while the remaining 15% goes to the distribution partner and operating fees. Developers can set up sales, with the original price struck out and a banner underneath informing users when the sale ends. Google Play allows developers to release early versions of apps to a select group of users, as alpha or beta tests. Users can pre-order select apps (as well as movies, music, books, and games) to have the items delivered as soon as they are available. Some network carriers offer billing for Google Play purchases, allowing users to opt for charges in the monthly phone bill rather than on credit cards. Users can request refunds within 48 hours after a purchase.


title: Google Play

text: At the Google I/O 2013 Developer Conference, Google announced the introduction of Google Play Games. Google Play Games is an online gaming service for Android that features real-time multiplayer gaming capabilities, cloud saves, social and public leaderboards, and achievements. Its standalone mobile app was launched on July 24, 2013.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play Books is an ebook digital distribution service. Google Play offers over five million ebooks available for purchase, and users can also upload up to 1,000 of their own ebooks in the form of PDF or EPUB file formats.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play Movies & TV was a video on demand service offering movies and television shows available for purchase or rental, depending on availability.


title: Google Play

text: , movies are available in over 110 countries, while TV shows are available only in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom.


title: Google Play

text: Google announced on March 22, 2022, that Google Play will remove Play Movies & TV from their store and will be moved to Google TV by May 2022.


title: Google Play

text: On September 23, 2019, Google launched its Google Play Pass games and apps subscription service in the US. As of September 2019, subscribers could access the games and apps without ads and in-app purchases. The program is invitation-only for app developers, who then can integrate the service into their existing apps.


title: Google Play

text: Google introduced Project Mainline in Android 10, allowing core OS components to be updated via the Google Play Store, without requiring a complete system update.


title: Google Play

text: On December 4, 2019, Qualcomm announced their Snapdragon 865 supports GPU drivers updated via the Google Play Store. This feature was initially introduced with Android Oreo but vendors had not added support yet.


title: Google Play

text: In 2020, Google launched a new children-focused 'Teacher Approved' section for the Google Play Store. Apps marked as 'Teacher Approved' meet higher standards approved for educational purposes.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play (previously styled Google play) originated from three distinct products: Android Market, Google Music and Google eBookstore.


title: Google Play

text: Android Market was announced by Google on August 28, 2008, and was made available to users on October 22. In December 2010, content filtering was added to Android Market, each app's details page started showing a promotional graphic at the top, and the maximum size of an app was raised from 25 megabytes to 50 megabytes. The Google eBookstore was launched on December 6, 2010, debuting with three million ebooks, making it "the largest ebooks collection in the world". In November 2011, Google announced Google Music, a section of the Google Play Store offering music purchases. In March 2012, Google increased the maximum allowed size of an app by allowing developers to attach two expansion files to an app's basic download; each expansion file with a maximum size of 2 gigabytes, giving app developers a total of 4 gigabytes. Also in March 2012, Android Market was re-branded as Google Play.


title: Google Play

text: In May 2021, Google Play announced plans to implement a new section with privacy information for all applications in its storefront. The project is similar to App Store's privacy labels and is expected to be released in full in the first half of 2022. The feature will show users what kind of information each app collects, whether the data it stores is encrypted and whether users can opt out of being tracked by the application.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play Music was a music and podcast streaming service and online music locker. It features over 40 million songs, and gives users free cloud storage of up to 50,000 songs.


title: Google Play

text: In June 2018, Google announced plans to shut down Play Music by 2020 and offered users to migrate to YouTube Music, migration to Google Podcasts was announced in May 2020. In October 2020, the music store for Google Play Music was shutdown. Google Play Music was shut down in December 2020 and was replaced by YouTube Music and Google Podcasts.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play Newsstand was a news aggregator and digital newsstand service offering subscriptions to digital magazines and topical news feeds. Google released Newsstand in November 2013, combining the features of Google Play Magazines and Google Currents into a single product.


title: Google Play

text: , the basic Newsstand service, was available worldwide. As of 2017, paid Newsstand content was available in more than 35 countries.


title: Google Play

text: On May 15, 2018, the mobile app merged with Google News & Weather to form Google News. The Newsstand section continued to appear on the Google Play website until November 5, 2018, but now is only available through the Google News app.


title: Google Play

text: Until March 2015, Google Play had a "Devices" section for users to purchase Google Nexus devices, Chromebooks, Chromecasts, other Google-branded hardware, and accessories. A separate online hardware retailer called the Google Store was introduced on March 11, 2015, replacing the Devices section of Google Play.


title: Google Play

text: Apart from searching for content by name, apps can also be searched through keywords provided by the developer. When searching for apps, users can press on suggested search filters, helping them to find apps matching the determined filters. For the discoverability of apps, Google Play Store consists of lists featuring top apps in each category, including "Top Free", a list of the most popular free apps of all time; "Top Paid", a list of the most popular paid apps of all time; "Top Grossing", a list of apps generating the highest amounts of revenue; "Trending Apps", a list of apps with recent installation growth; "Top New Free", a list of the most popular new free apps; "Top New Paid", a list of the most popular new paid apps; "Featured", a list of new apps selected by the Google Play team; "Staff Picks", a frequently-updated list of apps selected by the Google Play team; "Editors' Choice", a list of apps considered the best of all time; and "Top Developer", a list of apps made by developers considered the best. In March 2017, Google added a "Free App of the Week" section, offering one normally-paid app for free. In July 2017, Google expanded its "Editors' Choice" section to feature curated lists of apps deemed to provide good Android experiences within overall themes, such as fitness, video calling and puzzle games.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play enables users to know the popularity of apps, by displaying the number of times the app has been downloaded. The download count is a color-coded badge, with special color designations for surpassing certain app download milestones, including grey for 100, 500, 1,000 and 5,000 downloads, blue for 10,000 and 50,000 downloads, green for 100,000 and 500,000 downloads, and red/orange for 1 million, 5 million, 10 million and 1 billion downloads.


title: Google Play

text: Users can submit reviews and ratings for apps and digital content distributed through Google Play, which are displayed publicly. Ratings are based on a 5-point scale. App developers can respond to reviews using the Google Play Developer Console.


title: Google Play

text: Google has redesigned Google Play's interface on several occasions. In February 2011, Google introduced a website interface for the then-named Android Market that provides access through a computer. Applications purchased are downloaded and installed on an Android device remotely, with a "My Market Account" section letting users give their devices a nickname for easy recognition. In May 2011, Google added new application lists to Android Market, including "Top Paid", "Top Free", "Editor's Choice", "Top Grossing", "Top Developers", and "Trending". In July, Google introduced an interface with a focus on featured content, more search filters, and (in the US) book sales and movie rentals. In May 2013, a redesign to the website interface matched the then-recently redesigned Android app. In July 2014, the Google Play Store Android app added new headers to the Books/Movies sections, a new Additional Information screen offering a list featuring the latest available app version, installed size, and content rating, and simplified the app permissions prompt into overview categories. A few days later, it got a redesign consistent with the then-new Material Design design language, and the app was again updated in October 2015 to feature new animations, divide up the content into "Apps and Games" and "Entertainment" sections, as well as added support for languages read right-to-left. In April 2016, Google announced a redesign of all the icons used for its suite of Play apps, adding a similar style and consistent look. In May 2017, Google removed the shopping bag from the Google Play icon, with only the triangle and associated colors remaining. In March 2018, Google experimented by changing the format of the screenshots used for the App pages from the WebP format to PNG but reverted the change after it caused the images to load more slowly. The update also saw small UI tweaks to the Google Play Store site with the reviews section now opening to a dedicated page and larger images in the light box viewer. In July 2022, Google announced a new logo for the Google Play Store that is more uniform in color with other Google services.


title: Google Play

text: Launched in 2017, Google Play Instant, also known as Google Instant Apps, allows a user to use an app or game without installing it first.


title: Google Play

text: Google states in its Developer Policy Center that "Google Play supports a variety of monetization strategies to benefit developers and users, including paid distribution, in-app products, subscriptions, and ad-based models", and requires developers to comply with the policies in order to "ensure the best user experience". It requires that developers charging for apps and downloads through Google Play must use Google Play's payment system. In-app purchases unlocking additional app functionality must also use the Google Play payment system, except in cases where the purchase "is solely for physical products" or "is for digital content that may be consumed outside of the app itself (e.g. songs that can be played on other music players)." Support for paid applications was introduced on February 13, 2009, for developers in the United States and the United Kingdom, with support expanded to an additional 29 countries on September 30, 2010. The in-app billing system was originally introduced in March 2011. All developers on Google Play are required to feature a physical address on the app's page in Google Play, a requirement established in September 2014.


title: Google Play

text: In February 2017, Google announced that it would let developers set sales for their apps, with the original price struck out and a banner underneath informing users when the sale ends. Google also announced that it had made changes to its algorithms to promote games based on user engagement and not just downloads. Finally, it announced new editorial pages for what it considers "optimal gaming experiences on Android", further promoting and curating games.


title: Google Play

text: Google allows users to purchase content with credit or debit cards, carrier billing, gift cards, or through PayPal. Google began rolling out carrier billing for purchases in May 2012, followed by support for PayPal in May 2014.


title: Google Play

text: The rumor of Google Play gift cards started circulating online in August 2012 after references to it were discovered by "Android Police" in the 3.8.15 version update of the Google Play Store Android app. Soon after, images of the gift cards started to leak, and on August 21, 2012, they were made official by Google and rolled out over the next few weeks.


title: Google Play

text: As of April 2017 Google Play gift cards are available in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.


title: Google Play

text: Google introduced in-app subscriptions to Google Play in May 2012. In June 2016, some sources reported that Google announced that subscriptions charged through Google Play would now split the revenue 85/15, where developers receive 85% of revenue and Google takes 15%, a change from the traditional 70/30 split in years prior. The move followed Apple's then-recently announced change of the same model, although commentators were quick to point out that while Apple grants the 85/15 revenue share after one year of active subscriptions, Google's subscription change takes effect immediately. As of January 1, 2018, the transaction fee for subscription products decreased to 15% for any subscribers developers retain after 12 paid months, establishing that, unlike what sources were reporting, Google is using the same model as Apple with in-app subscriptions on the App Store.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play Store, shortened to Play Store on the Home screen and App screen, is Google's official pre-installed app store on Android-certified devices. It provides access to content on Google Play, including apps, books, magazines, music, movies, and television programs. Devices do not ship with the Google Play Store in China, with manufacturers offering their own alternative.


title: Google Play

text: Google Play Store filters the list of apps to those compatible with the user's device. Developers can target specific hardware components (such as compass), software components (such as widget), and Android versions (such as 7.0 Nougat). Carriers can also ban certain apps from being installed on users' devices, for example tethering applications.


title: Google Play

text: There is no requirement that Android applications be acquired using the Google Play Store. Users may download Android applications from a developer's website or through a third-party app store alternative. Google Play Store applications are self-contained Android Package files (APK), similar to .exe files to install programs on Microsoft Windows computers. On Android devices, an "Unknown sources" feature in Settings allows users to bypass the Google Play Store and install APKs from other sources. Depending on developer preferences, some apps can be installed to a phone's external storage card.


title: Google Play

text: The Google Play Store app features a history of all installed apps. Users can remove apps from the list, with the changes also synchronizing to the Google Play website interface, where the option to remove apps from the history does not exist.


title: Google Play

text: Google publishes the source code for Android through its "Android Open Source Project", allowing enthusiasts and developers to program and distribute their own modified versions of the operating system. However, not all these modified versions are compatible with apps developed for Google's official Android versions. The "Android Compatibility Program" serves to "define a baseline implementation of Android that is compatible with third-party apps written by developers". Only Android devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements may install and access the Google Play Store application. As stated in a help page for the Android Open Source Project, "Devices that are "Android compatible" may participate in the Android ecosystem, including Android Market; devices that don't meet the compatibility requirements exist outside that ecosystem. In other words, the Android Compatibility Program is how we separate "Android compatible devices" from devices that merely run derivatives of the source code. We welcome all uses of the Android source code, but only Android compatible devices—as defined and tested by the Android Compatibility Program—may participate in the Android ecosystem."


title: Google Play

text: Since August 2019, all new and updated Google Play apps must have 64-bit binaries, with some exceptions. Since August 2021, Google Play will not serve apps that only have 32-bit binaries to devices compatible with 64-bit apps. This requirement does not apply to Android TV or Wear OS apps.


title: Google Play

text: In 2012, Google began decoupling certain aspects of its Android operating system (particularly its core applications) so they could be updated through the Google Play store independently of the OS. One of those components, Google Play Services, is a closed-source system-level process providing APIs for Google services, installed automatically on nearly all devices running Android 2.2 "Froyo" and higher. With these changes, Google can add new system functionality through Play Services and update apps without having to distribute an upgrade to the operating system itself. As a result, Android 4.2 and 4.3 "Jelly Bean" contained relatively fewer user-facing changes, focusing more on minor changes and platform improvements.


title: Google Play

text: In April 2016, Google announced the Google Play Awards, described as "a way to recognize our incredible developer community and highlight some of the best apps and games". The awards showcase five nominees across ten award categories, and the apps are featured in a dedicated section of Google Play. Google stated that "Nominees were selected by a panel of experts on the Google Play team based on criteria emphasizing app quality, innovation, and having a launch or major update in the last 12 months", with the winners announced in May.


title: Google Play

text: On March 6, 2017, five years after Google Play's launch, Google released lists of the best-selling apps, games, movies, music, and books over the past five years.


title: Google Play

text: In June 2017, Google introduced "Android Excellence", a new editorial program to highlight the apps deemed the highest quality by the Google Play editors.


title: Google Play

text: In 2020, Google Play awarded Disney+ as the top app of the year for users in the US, and SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off taking the honors in the gaming category.


title: Google Play

text: Google places some restrictions on the types of apps that can be published, in particular not allowing sexually explicit content, child endangerment, violence, bullying & harassment, hate speech, gambling, illegal activities, and requiring precautions for user-generated content.