JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) could be thanked throughout the nineteenth century for a gallery of beautiful modern women who had the courage to behave as common sense dictated - whether it was Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice, Eleanor from Sense and Sensibility or Anna from the novel Anna Elliot. Her first published novel Rozum a cit (1811) still finds grateful readers, especially female readers, because the heroines are girls and women who have to come to terms with the harshness of life and find a balance between reason and feeling. Even after almost two centuries, Austen surprises with an unusual plot, gentle humor, great dialogues and warmth of feeling. She is therefore considered by many readers and critics to be the greatest author of English prose.