4 Forgotten Female Authors Who Inspired Jane Austen

Since its 1813 publication, Pride and Prejudice has left a lasting mark on literature, inspiring works ranging from Georgette Heyer’s 1935 novel Regency Buck to Julia Quinn’s bestseller Bridgerton. While later writers borrowed Jane Austen’s spirited heroines and lively social worlds, Austen herself drew inspiration from the female authors of the late 18th century. In fact, one of her most famous titles was lifted straight from a literary hero: Frances Burney, who had coined the phrase “pride and prejudice” decades before Austen was first published.

Just as your bookshelf might be stacked with Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, theirs were filled with the wordsmiths who came before them. While authors like Samuel Richardson and William Shakespeare are often cited as Austen’s influences, plenty of forgotten female writers were tucked alongside them on her early reading list. From sparkling social comedies to romantic dramas of Regency life, Austen drew on the works of women who had long mastered wit, sentiment, and social insight. Though many of these predecessors, like Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Hannah More, lived in different times, their stories helped shape the novels that would make Austen a household name. Here are some of the greatest female novelists from Austen’s era you should be bookmarking.

1. Frances Burney
2. Maria Edgeworth 
3. Charlotte Smith
4. Elizabeth Inchbald

Frances Burney

​Growing up in a literary household, Frances Burney, later known as Madame d’Arblay, was immersed in books from an early age and began writing as a child. Though she destroyed her first novel at 15, Burney eventually embraced her talent, anonymously publishing her debut novel, Evelina, in 1778. Groundbreaking for its female protagonist, witty social satire, and critique of male-dominated values, Evelina was an immediate success. Burney soon revealed herself as the author, and a few years later, she published her second novel, Cecilia (1782), which included the phrase “pride and prejudice.”

Austen’s later novel of the same name was no coincidence: Burney was one of her favorite authors, and she even subscribed to Burney’s Camilla ahead of its release in 1795. Like Austen, Burney wrote courtship-focused novels that followed young women as they navigated love and societal expectations, mixing witty social observation with sharp insight into human behavior. Over her career, Burney went on to write four novels, eight plays, and extensive diaries, earning recognition as one of the most influential female authors of her time.

Maria Edgeworth 

While you may not know her today, Maria Edgeworth was once more famous and commercially successful than many of her contemporaries, including Jane Austen. Born in England and raised in Ireland after 1782, she helped her father manage the family estate, an experience that shaped her keen observations of class, family, and domestic life in her novels. Edgeworth’s early works, such as Castle Rackrent (1800) and Belinda (1801), explored social and political conventions, even daring to address topics like interracial marriage in Belinda. Her writing blended humor with sharp insight into human behavior. Many of her novels were set in Ireland, capturing its hardships and lively spirit, while others examined the dilemmas of the English gentry.

Edgeworth’s work caught Austen’s eye—Belinda is cited in Northanger Abbey (1817) as exemplary for its wit and insight into human nature. Austen wrote to her niece in 1814, praising only "Miss Edgeworth's, yours, and my own" novels, reflecting her admiration for them. Austen learned from Edgeworth’s lively heroines, social acumen, and witty reflections. Edgeworth, in turn, read Mansfield Park soon after publication, calling it "like real life and very entertaining."

Charlotte Smith

Although Charlotte Smith’s work is often overshadowed by that of her successor Jane Austen, the poet and novelist’s emotionally rich, socially aware fiction left a lasting impression on the young Austen. Smith’s Emmeline (1788) was a sentimental, Gothic novel that highlighted the unfairness of 18th-century marriage and property laws—a story Austen drew on while writing her juvenilia, a collection of short, often farcical early works created to entertain her family.

Smith’s novels continued to shape Austen’s mature fiction, inspiring parallels in characters and themes. Marianne Dashwood of Sense and Sensibility (1811) mirrors Smith’s Celestina, both suffering emotionally at the hands of unreliable men, while Fanny Price of Mansfield Park (1814) echoes Smith’s Ethelinde—vulnerable, displaced, and tested by society. Smith often explored topics such as financial instability and unhappy marriages, drawing on her own turbulent life, and some scholars even note echoes of her in the impoverished Mrs. Smith of Austen's Persuasion (1817). With her mix of sentiment, social critique, and attention to the challenges women faced, Smith helped shape the literary landscape Austen would later navigate, leaving her signature mark on the theme of domestic comfort that defines many of Austen’s happy endings.

Elizabeth Inchbald

Elizabeth Inchbald was a late 18th-century novelist and playwright known for her sharp wit and socially aware storytelling. Her most famous work, Lovers’ Vows (1798), was a London stage success that tackled provocative themes like seduction, illegitimacy, and class hypocrisy, often portraying lower-class characters as more morally grounded than their aristocratic counterparts.

Austen knew the play well: in her 1814 novel Mansfield Park, the Bertram family’s decision to stage Lovers’ Vows sparks flirtations and blurred boundaries, with the rehearsals both intensifying the novel’s romantic tensions and exposing the rigid social codes of Regency England. Inchbald’s ability to pair compelling drama with pointed social critique—also evident in novels like A Simple Story (1791)—helped pave the way for the keen social observation Austen would later make her own.

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