Did Jane Austen REALLY have AS?

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I haven't read any of the books yet, just seen the BBC movies on PBS's Masterpiece, but that was a bit of what I really liked about the stories...how their society was so much different from the one we have today. I found it incredibly interesting.

Sometimes I wonder if I'd have an easier time back then, where everything seems so much more proper and predictable...though I suppose maybe it just comes off that way in the films.

As a woman with AS I would like to mention my own keen interest in NT relationships.. they truly fascinate me! I am also very able to observe them with all their intricacies and repeat and remember what I have observed. It is true that generalising these experiences rationally takes practice but it is definitely possible. The key to success with AS is determination alongside a natural passion for learning so if Jane Austen had these then there is every possibility that she had Aspergers and was able to write about those who did not.
But also, whoever said that the relationships she writes about are NT relationships? At the risk of sounding geeky, there are many characters in her novels who to me did not appear to act in a neurotypical way in terms of their relationships.
It is funny, because whether or not Jane Austen had AS, I have often felt able to identify with her characters in an Aspergian way. I have also wondered in the past if her life choice of not marrying was somehow rooted in underlying AS as well as her passion for writing. I am not an expert, but these are things I observed and thought about before reading any theories or conversations on the matter on the internet.
And a little theory of my own... perhaps writing about relationships and creating imaginary worlds and situations (usually with a happy ending), was Jane Austen's way of making sense and gaining some control in a neurotypical world. It is the way in which I coped as a child.

Despite having Aspergers, I have managed to create an image of being naturally 'quick-witted, charismatic and social' even to those closest to me and successfully fooled many people; this is not a true image, it is a learnt one and not intuitive. I also pay for it in private with high levels of anxiety and self doubt. I have met others with Aspergers who have been able to create similar images.
A person with Aspergers is still able to 'pretend', and I see no reason why their writing of a novel would be similar to 'a biologist looking at a bunch of strangely behaving monkeys'. People with AS can still tell the difference between story writing and writing of an observation. We are not stupid, we are just cognitively different. Most importantly, we are able to learn the rules about what is seen as socially acceptable, even if it does take us longer and doesn't make much sense to us.

If I may interject. I am not a writer of anything even resembling Jane's caliber but I am a writer and one of my degrees is in history. Please be very suspicious of any modern adornments that people place on historical figures. There is a lot of displacement and personalization that goes on and even extant materials describing the figure are not always very accurate. Do a little research into the reality of Vlad Tepes IV (the inspiration of Dracula) to see what I am talking about. In my own works I have been approached by people who have read something into me, my characters, or my plots that simply wasn't there. The human mind is an incredible imagination machine and it can assemble all sorts of curious conclusions from otherwise banal details. I almost never write people I know into my fiction (unless it is something I have been commissioned to do) but it is amazing how many of my friends "know" that this character or that character is really them "in disguise." One earnest individual even tried to convince me that I was modeling a character on them subconsciously. I finally had to break down and show them the models that inspired that character's look and personality just to get them to leave me alone.

I am not saying she was or was not. I'm just saying don't read too much into things.

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Art, Writing, and Music]

No one knows.

Aids did exist in the time of Moses, it just hadn't spread from monkeys to humans yet.

I came to this site because I just read a passing mention in the New Yorker that Jane Austen might have been on the spectrum. Naturally I had to google it and here I am.
I have read all of Austen's works including her unfinished works, her diaries and letters. I did a short course on Austen from Oxford university. there was nothing there that suggested to me that she was neuro-atypical; however my idea of what is neuro-typical may be wrong too.
In fact Austen has a very sharp ear and eye for social intercourse - her genius is in describing a socio-economic situation perfectly. I feel the romantic aspect in Austen's writing has overshadowed her very sharp observations of society and the vagaries of people who navigate it. She herself had a rather uncompromising stand - opting to remain unmarried even though she was reasonable popular (letters etc.). She is fastidious and takes the high moral ground when there is a choice but I don't know if that adds up to being autistic. If you asked me I would say NO she could not have been.
However a magazine of the caliber of the New Yorker could not have allowed that reference without some verification. So it would be great if you could approach them for information. The article is in page 65 of the Jan 25 2016 issue and is under BOOKS "Seeing the Spectrum" A new history of autism by Steve Shapin. Good luck. I am interested to see what you discover.

I had never heard some think she might have had Asperger's.

Autism wasn't "invented". It existed long before it was identified/named.

Agreed, 100%!

So it wasn't AIDS yet, so AIDS didn't exist
It was SIDS, the ancestor of AIDS.