jane austen mini biography

Jane Austen

(1775-1817)

Who Was Jane Austen?

While not widely known in her own time, Jane Austen's comic novels of love among the landed gentry gained popularity after 1869, and her reputation skyrocketed in the 20th century. Her novels, including Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility , are considered literary classics, bridging the gap between romance and realism.

The seventh child and second daughter of Cassandra and George Austen, Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, England. Austen's parents were well-respected community members. Her father served as the Oxford-educated rector for a nearby Anglican parish. The family was close and the children grew up in an environment that stressed learning and creative thinking. When Austen was young, she and her siblings were encouraged to read from their father's extensive library. The children also authored and put on plays and charades.

Over the span of her life, Austen would become especially close to her father and older sister, Cassandra. Indeed, she and Cassandra would one day collaborate on a published work.

To acquire a more formal education, Austen and Cassandra were sent to boarding schools during Austen's pre-adolescence. During this time, Austen and her sister caught typhus, with Austen nearly succumbing to the illness. After a short period of formal education cut short by financial constraints, they returned home and lived with the family from that time forward.

Literary Works

Ever fascinated by the world of stories, Austen began to write in bound notebooks. In the 1790s, during her adolescence, she started to craft her own novels and wrote Love and Freindship [sic], a parody of romantic fiction organized as a series of love letters. Using that framework, she unveiled her wit and dislike of sensibility, or romantic hysteria, a distinct perspective that would eventually characterize much of her later writing. The next year she wrote The History of England... , a 34-page parody of historical writing that included illustrations drawn by Cassandra. These notebooks, encompassing the novels as well as short stories, poems and plays, are now referred to as Austen's Juvenilia .

Austen spent much of her early adulthood helping run the family home, playing piano, attending church, and socializing with neighbors. Her nights and weekends often involved cotillions, and as a result, she became an accomplished dancer. On other evenings, she would choose a novel from the shelf and read it aloud to her family, occasionally one she had written herself. She continued to write, developing her style in more ambitious works such as Lady Susan , another epistolary story about a manipulative woman who uses her sexuality, intelligence and charm to have her way with others. Austen also started to write some of her future major works, the first called Elinor and Marianne , another story told as a series of letters, which would eventually be published as Sense and Sensibility . She began drafts of First Impressions , which would later be published as Pride and Prejudice , and Susan , later published as Northanger Abbey by Jane's brother, Henry, following Austen's death.

In 1801, Austen moved to Bath with her father, mother and Cassandra. Then, in 1805, her father died after a short illness. As a result, the family was thrust into financial straits; the three women moved from place to place, skipping between the homes of various family members to rented flats. It was not until 1809 that they were able to settle into a stable living situation at Austen's brother Edward's cottage in Chawton.

Now in her 30s, Austen started to anonymously publish her works. In the period spanning 1811-16, she pseudonymously published Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice (a work she referred to as her "darling child," which also received critical acclaim), Mansfield Park and Emma .

In 1816, at the age of 41, Austen started to become ill with what some say might have been Addison's disease. She made impressive efforts to continue working at a normal pace, editing older works as well as starting a new novel called The Brothers , which would be published after her death as Sanditon . Another novel, Persuasion , would also be published posthumously. At some point, Austen's condition deteriorated to such a degree that she ceased writing. She died on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

While Austen received some accolades for her works while still alive, with her first three novels garnering critical attention and increasing financial reward, it was not until after her death that her brother Henry revealed to the public that she was an author.

Today, Austen is considered one of the greatest writers in English history, both by academics and the general public. In 2002, as part of a BBC poll, the British public voted her No. 70 on a list of "100 Most Famous Britons of All Time." Austen's transformation from little-known to internationally renowned author began in the 1920s, when scholars began to recognize her works as masterpieces, thus increasing her general popularity. The Janeites, a Jane Austen fan club, eventually began to take on wider significance, similar to the Trekkie phenomenon that characterizes fans of the Star Trek franchise. The popularity of her work is also evident in the many film and TV adaptations of Emma , Mansfield Park , Pride and Prejudice , and Sense and Sensibility , as well as the TV series and film Clueless , which was based on Emma .

Austen was in the worldwide news in 2007, when author David Lassman submitted to several publishing houses a few of her manuscripts with slight revisions under a different name, and they were routinely rejected. He chronicled the experience in an article titled "Rejecting Jane," a fitting tribute to an author who could appreciate humor and wit.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Jane Austen
• Birth Year: 1775
• Birth date: December 16, 1775
• Birth City: Steventon, Hampshire, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Jane Austen was a Georgian era author, best known for her social commentary in novels including 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Emma.'
• Fiction and Poetry
• Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
• Death Year: 1817
• Death date: July 18, 1817
• Death City: Winchester, Hampshire, England
• Death Country: United Kingdom

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Jane Austen Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/writer/jane-austen
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 6, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
• I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
• There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

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Jane Austen: a guide to her life, books and death – plus 8 fascinating facts

Jane Austen (1775–1817) is one of the most recognised names in English literature. Her six major novels – Pride and Prejudice ; Sense and Sensibility ; Persuasion ; Mansfield Park ; Northanger Abbey and Emma – are considered classics today, renowned for their portrayal of English middle-class life in the early 19th century

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How much do you know about the life of Jane Austen? Writing for HistoryExtra , Helen Amy shares eight lesser-known facts about the famous novelist, and reveals how Jane came close to finding her own 'Mr Darcy'...

Jane Austen, a parson's daughter who grew up in quiet rural Hampshire in the 18th century, is one of England's most acclaimed novelists. She originally started writing to amuse herself and to entertain her family, who enjoyed reading aloud to each other. Although Jane’s books sold steadily during her lifetime, it was not until the Victorian period that she was recognised as a great author. By the 20th century her reputation had reached cult status and today a thriving commercial industry has grown out of her fame – a fact that would probably have astonished and amused Jane.

Who was Jane Austen?

But did you know…

Jane Austen’s life was saved by her cousin

In 1783 Jane’s parents, the Revd George Austen and his wife Cassandra, decided to send Jane’s sister, also called Cassandra, to Oxford with her cousin Jane Cooper, to be tutored by a Mrs Ann Cawley. This was probably to reduce Mrs Austen’s workload, for as well as caring for five boys of her own she had to look after several boys who lived at the rectory while being tutored by her husband.

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Jane, then aged seven, was devoted to her sister and would not be separated from her, so she went to Oxford as well. A few months later Mrs Cawley moved house to Southampton, taking the young girls with her. While there Cassandra and Jane became very ill with what was then called “putrid sore throat” – probably diphtheria [a potentially fatal contagious bacterial infection that mainly affects the nose and throat].

Jane was so ill that she nearly died, but Mrs Cawley, for some inexplicable reason, made no attempt to alert her parents. The young Jane Cooper took it upon herself to write and inform her aunt that Jane’s life was in danger. Without delay Mrs Austen and her sister Mrs Cooper set off for Southampton to rescue their daughters, taking with them a herbal remedy that would supposedly cure the infection.

The Austen sisters recovered under their mother’s care at home but tragically Mrs Cooper caught the infection and died soon afterwards at her home in Bath. The three girls never returned to Mrs Cawley.

Without her cousin’s timely intervention Jane Austen would almost certainly have died and the world would have been deprived of her outstanding talent.

• Listen | Historian and broadcaster Lucy Worsley shares her thoughts on Jane Austen

Jane Austen had a little-known brother

The first biography of Jane Austen, which was written by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh in 1869, gives the impression that she had only five brothers: James, Edward, Henry, Frank and Charles. There were, however, six sons in the Austen family – George was the second child of Revd Austen and his wife. He was also largely omitted from family memoirs.

George, who was born in 1766, suffered from epilepsy and learning difficulties and was probably deaf too. For this reason he did not live with his family – he was instead looked after by a family who lived in the village of Monk Sherborne, not far from Steventon Rectory where Jane was born and where she grew up.

The Austens made financial provision for George and visited him regularly, but he was not truly part of their lives. Apart from a few early letters that mention George and reveal his parents’ concern for him, he was not mentioned in later correspondence or in any of Jane’s letters.

The Austens clearly cared about George and they perhaps felt that he would better receive the attention he needed living quietly with another family than in the overcrowded rectory, which was also home to several of Revd Austen’s pupils.

George died at Monk Sherborne on 17 January 1838 at the age of 71. He lies in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of All Saints Church.

• What did Jane Austen really look like?

Jane Austen was partial to a Bath bun

Jane became fond of Bath buns (or ‘bunns’) while staying, and later living, in Bath. These large, rich cakes, which were similar to French brioche bread, were served warm and soaked in butter. The Austen family ate theirs for breakfast (traditionally 10am in the Georgian period), with tea or coffee. Some bakeries, including the famous Sally Lunn’s Bakery in North Parade, delivered these buns to their customers warmed and ready to eat.

• Flummery and Bath Olivers: how to make 5 different foods from Jane Austen's England

Jane, who seems to have had a sweet tooth, also liked sponge cake – in a letter to her sister in June 1808 she wrote: “You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me”.

There are many references to food and meals in Jane’s letters. She clearly enjoyed her food but she also took an interest in it because she helped her mother and sister to run the Austen household on a tight budget. Jane noted the cost of food items, which rose and fell during the years that England was at war with France, and she collected recipes for the servants to try.

Jane had a seaside romance

All her heroines fell in love with and married their perfect man, but Jane Austen was not so lucky herself – she received only one known offer of marriage. This unexpected proposal came from Harris Bigg Wither, the brother of her friends Elizabeth, Catherine and Alethea, who was heir to a considerable estate. At first Jane accepted this tempting offer but soon changed her mind because she knew she would not be happy if she married a man she did not love.

Many years after Jane’s death her sister, Cassandra, revealed that Jane had enjoyed a brief holiday romance while staying in Devon in the summer of 1802. The identity of the man concerned is not known, but it is believed that he was a clergyman. The girls’ nephew James Edward wrote that Cassandra thought this man “worthy to possess and likely to win her sister’s love”.

• Why didn't Jane Austen marry?

When they parted he expressed his intention to see Jane again, and Cassandra was in no doubt that he intended to propose to her. Sadly, though, they did not meet again because the unidentified man died suddenly not long afterwards, and Jane remained unmarried for the rest of her life.

If Jane had married the man she met in Devon and become a mother, the demands on her time would probably have made it very difficult for her to continue writing, meaning her last three novels might never have been written.

When did Jane first start writing?

Jane austen was renowned for her manual dexterity.

According to her nephew, Jane Austen was “successful in everything she attempted with her fingers”. All girls of her class were taught to sew by their mothers, and Jane’s needlework was exquisite. Jane, who was usually very modest, was proud of her skill with the sewing needle. In a letter to her sister written in September 1796 from her brother’s home, Jane wrote: “We are very busy making Edward’s shirts and I am proud to say that I am the neatest worker of the party”.

Jane was particularly good at folding and sealing letters, which was a useful skill in the days before ready-made envelopes. Her nephew recorded that “her paper was sure to take the right folds, her sealing wax to drop into the right place”.

• Read more | Jane Austen’s tips for “health and happiness”

Much to the delight of her nephews and nieces, Jane excelled at the game bilbocatch. A bilbocatch comprised a wooden handle with a pierced ball attached by a string. The player tossed up the ball and tried to catch it in a cup on the top of the handle. She was known to have caught the ball more than 100 times in succession, until her arm ached. When she needed to rest her eyes after reading or writing for long periods, she often played bilbocatch; how many times might she have caught the ball during the writing of the 55 chapters of Emma (1815), her longest novel?

Jane Austen’s bilbocatch can today be seen at the Jane Austen's House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire.

Jane Austen thought of her novels as children

In letters to her sister, Jane described Pride and Prejudice (1813) as her “darling child” and wrote “I am never too busy to think of S & S ( Sense and Sensibility ). I can no more forget it than a mother can forget her sucking child”.

This is an interesting analogy because, like pregnancy and childbirth, the creation of her novels was a long and laborious process. Pride and Prejudice , for example, was a long time in the making – she started the first draft in October 1796 but the book wasn’t published until January 1813. The (unread) manuscript was rejected by the first publisher to whom it was sent.

In regarding her novels as her children Jane may also have been acknowledging that if she had followed the traditional path of women of her class and become a wife and mother she would probably not have written them.

Her letters contain no indication that she regretted not having children but, if she did, at least she had the compensation of her many nephews and nieces, to whom she was a devoted and much-loved aunt.

• Read more | Jane Austen’s fiction: an accurate portrayal of life in Georgian England?

Emma was dedicated to the Prince Regent, even though Jane Austen hated him

Jane once recorded in a letter that she hated the Prince Regent because of the unkind way he was said to treat his estranged wife, Caroline, such as restricting her access to their daughter. So why did she dedicate Emma to him?

In the autumn of 1815 Jane nursed her brother Henry when he was dangerously ill. One of the doctors who attended him at his home in London was the Prince Regent’s physician. When he realised that his patient’s sister was the author of Pride and Prejudice the physician informed her that the prince was a great admirer of her novels and kept a set in every one of his residences. Much to Jane’s dismay the physician then informed the prince that she was in London, and the prince instructed his librarian, James Clarke, to invite her to Carlton House, his London home, to show her the library and his other apartments.

During her visit Mr Clarke told Jane that he had been instructed by the Prince Regent to say that she was at liberty to dedicate any forthcoming novels to him. At first Jane was not inclined to do so, until she was advised, probably by her brother Henry, to regard the invitation as a command. Reluctantly, therefore, Jane asked her publisher to dedicate Emma , then being prepared for publication, to him.

How did Jane Austen die?

There is no mention on jane austen’s gravestone that she was an author.

Jane is today known as such a famous author that she is to feature on the next £10 note, but there is no indication at all on her gravestone in Winchester Cathedral that she was a writer. Her grieving family did not consider it worth recording on the stone, and Jane was buried in the cathedral only because she died nearby and it is believed that her clergyman brother obtained special permission from the Dean.

Jane’s reputation grew slowly after her death at the age of 41. Her nephew, in his biography, wrote: “Her reward was not to be the quick return of the cornfield, but the slow growth of the tree which is to endure to another generation”.

Even in the middle of the 19th century, when Jane’s fame and popularity as an author were increasing rapidly, one of the vergers of Winchester Cathedral was mystified by the large number of people seeking out her grave. “Was there anything special about this lady?” he asked.

A brass memorial tablet, which mentions Jane’s writing, was placed on the wall near her grave in 1872. It was purchased with the profits of her nephew’s biography of her, which he wrote to satisfy the growing curiosity about her life and work. There was such a demand for it that a second, extended, edition was soon published. This was to be the first of countless biographies and books about one of England’s best-loved novelists.

Helen Amy is the author of The Jane Austen Files: A Complete Anthology of Letters & Family Recollections (Amberley Publishing, 2015) and Jane Austen: In Her Own Words and The Words of Those Who Knew Her (Amberley Publishing, 2014)

This article was first published by HistoryExtra in March 2016

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Jane Austen: A brief biography

Jane Austen was born at the Rectory in Steventon , a village in north-east Hampshire, on 16th December 1775.

She was the seventh child and second daughter of the rector, the Revd George Austen, and his wife Cassandra (née Leigh). Of her brothers, two were clergymen, one inherited rich estates in Kent and Hampshire from a distant cousin and the two youngest became Admirals in the Royal Navy; her only sister, like Jane herself, never married.

Steventon Rectory was Jane Austen’s home for the first 25 years of her life. From here she travelled to Kent to stay with her brother Edward in his mansion at Godmersham Park near Canterbury, and she also had some shorter holidays in Bath , where her aunt and uncle lived. During the 1790s she wrote the first drafts of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey; her trips to Kent and Bath gave her the local colour for the settings of these last two books.

In 1801 the Revd George Austen retired, and he and his wife, with their two daughters Jane and Cassandra, left Steventon and settled in Bath.

The Austens rented No. 4 Sydney Place from 1801-1804, and then stayed for a few months at No. 3 Green Park Buildings East, where Mr. Austen died in 1805. While the Austens were based in Bath, they went on holidays to seaside resorts in the West Country, including Lyme Regis in Dorset – this gave Jane the background for Persuasion.

Jane fell ill in 1816 – possibly with Addison’s Disease – and in the summer of 1817 her family took her to Winchester for medical treatment. However, the doctor could do nothing for her, and she died peacefully on 18th July 1817 at their lodgings in No. 8 College Street. She was buried a few days later in the north aisle of Winchester Cathedral.

Jane’s novels reflect the world of the English country gentry of the period, as she herself had experienced it. Due to the timeless appeal of her amusing plots, and the wit and irony of her style, her works have never been out of print since they were first published, and are frequently adapted for stage, screen and television. Jane Austen is now one of the best-known and best-loved authors in the English-speaking world.

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In her novels, Jane Austen fashions the quintessential picture of Regency England, the period from 1811–1820 in which Prince George served as Prince Regent to his father King George III. Bouts of insanity, now believed to have been caused by an illness and made worse by physicians and virtual imprisonment, made George III incapable of ruling, leading to the regency of his son and heir apparent, George, later to become King George IV on his father’s death. This era, dominated by the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the Industrial Revolution, juxtaposed world-changing political events and technological innovations with the ostentatious, consciously fashionable world of the Prince Regent and the aristocracy bound by strict rules of social behavior. The aristocracy viewed manners, living according to society’s strictures, as indicative of belonging to the coterie in a time when being ostracized by society was considered a fate worse than death. The title of Jane Austen’s first published novel,  Sense and Sensibility , suggests an age influenced by 18th-century rationalism and 19th-century Romanticism.

Jane Austen  spent her childhood in the village of Steventon, where her father was the rector and her family active in village social life. The seventh of eight children, Jane was particularly close to her only sister Cassandra throughout her life. Although she began writing in childhood, her first novel was not published until 1811. Austen apparently fell in love with a young man, Tom LeFroy, who visited the neighborhood for a time, but whose family sent for him to return home to Ireland when they became aware of his interest in Austen, the daughter of a poor, low-ranking clergyman. Her sister Cassandra was engaged to a man who died while on business in the Caribbean, and neither sister ever married.

Jane Austen’s home in Chawton.

After her father’s retirement, Austen moved with her family to Bath, a setting used in her novels. When her father died, the Austen sisters and their mother were financially dependent on Austen’s brothers. They lived for a time in Southampton with her brother Frank, a naval officer, and his wife and spent a good bit of their time traveling from relative to relative, a situation not uncommon for widows and spinsters in the early 19th century. Finally another brother, Edward, offered his mother and sisters the use of a house on his estate in  Chawton . While living here Austen published four novels:

• Sense and Sensibility  1811
• Pride and Prejudice  1813
• Mansfield Park  1814
• Emma  1816

Two novels were published posthumously:

• Northanger Abbey  1818
• Persuasion  1818

When Austen’s health began to fail, Cassandra moved with her to nearby Winchester, a larger city where medical help would be available. Austen died soon after the move and was buried in Winchester Cathedral.

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• The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Jane Austen .  Project Gutenberg .
• Emma .  Project Gutenberg .
• Mansfield Park .  Project Gutenberg .
• Northanger Abbey .  Project Gutenberg .
• Penn State’s Electronic Classics Series Jane Austen Page .
• Persuasion .  Project Gutenberg .
• Pride and Prejudice .  Project Gutenberg .
• Sense and Sensibility .  Project Gutenberg .

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen’s works are  novels of manners , novels that portray and assess the values, customs, and behavior of a particular social stratum at a specific time in history. Indeed, one of the typical criticisms of Austen’s work is that her focus is an especially small segment of Regency society, the lower rung of landed gentry to which her own family belonged.

An early version of  Pride and Prejudice  was titled  First Impressions , referring to the first impressions Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy have of each other. Although the same concept applies in the published title, the first impressions are named and set the tone for the novel.

The Characters

Although the Bennets, on the surface, seem ruled by the mores of their society, the story proves that most of the family ill fit the expectations society would have for them. Mr. Bennet cares too little for society and too much for scholarly pursuits, preferring to simply withdraw from the societal pressures that are his wife’s obsession. Although he is an immensely likable character, he lacks the leadership that might have averted some the family’s difficulties. Mrs. Bennet, on the other hand, is so concerned with appearances and making what society would deem appropriate arrangements for her daughters’ futures that she becomes almost a caricature of a society mother. Yet she apparently is much more aware of the reality of the family’s financial situation than Mr. Bennet.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh shares Mrs. Bennet’s esteem for society’s rules, but their characters are quite different, Lady Catherine a stereotype of the society matron and Mrs. Bennet of the foolish, pushy woman unable to see her own inappropriate behavior. Elizabeth and Lydia, too, could be seen as similar in their disregard for society’s conventions and yet with opposite results. Even Wickham cannot be seen as a totally evil character as his childhood circumstances may give him a sympathetic slant, especially to modern readers.

Key Takeaways

• Jane Austen’s  Pride and Prejudice  is a novel of manners focused on the life of lower ranking gentry in a small English village.
• Pride and Prejudice  portrays characters caught between the expectations of their society and their personal desires.
• Some characters in  Pride and Prejudice  appear to deal with realistic dilemmas while others seems to be stereotypes of Regency society; none, however, are one dimensional as all characters realistically possess virtues and flaws.
• How would the women of the Bennet family fit into Mary Wollstonecraft’s description of women in the late 18th, early 19th centuries?
• What expectations of society color the initial relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy? Do these expectations become more or less important as their relationship progresses? Explain how the title applies to their relationship at the beginning and throughout the novel.
• Compare and contrast the match of Jane and Bingley and that of Elizabeth and Darcy. Is one match more appropriate than the other? Why or why not?
• Elizabeth and Lydia both, in different ways, flaunt the expectations of society in their behavior and make marriages that society would deem inappropriate, yet readers (and most of the other characters) thoroughly approve of one and disapprove of the other. Why?
• How would you describe Elizabeth’s reaction to and feelings about Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins?
• Analyze each of the major characters in the novel, making a list of assets and flaws.
• How accurate would you consider Austen’s portrayal of this segment of society?
• What circumstances in Jane Austen’s life might be seen as parallel with life in the novel?

General Information and Biography

• Biography: Life (1775–1817) and Family .  A Celebration of Women Writers . Mary Mark Ockerbloom, Editor.
• Jane Austen . Harold Child. rpt. from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume XII. The Romantic Revival.  Bartleby.com .
• Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts . University of Oxford and King’s College London. digital images of Austen’s manuscripts
• Jane Austen’s House Museum .
• Lady Susan .  Project Gutenberg .
• Jane Austen’s Bath . Literary Landscapes. British Library.
• Jane Austen’s Early Works . Virtual Books. British Library.
• Jane Austen . Dr. Carol Lowe, McLennan Community College.

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an influential English writer who lived from 1775 to 1817. Despite her relatively short life, she made a significant impact on literature with her novels, which explored the themes of love, marriage, and social class. Austen's personal life and her works are often intertwined, as she drew inspiration from her own experiences and observations of the society in which she lived.

Born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, Jane Austen was the seventh child of Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Austen. She grew up in a close-knit family that valued education and literature. Austen's father encouraged her and her siblings to read extensively, and he provided them with a rich collection of books. These early influences fostered Austen's love for storytelling and shaped her future career as a writer.

Austen's personal life was marked by a strong bond with her family, particularly her sister Cassandra. The two sisters shared a deep connection and were constant companions throughout their lives. Their relationship is reflected in the numerous letters they exchanged, which provide valuable insights into Austen's personal thoughts and experiences.

In terms of her writing, Austen's works are known for their keen observations of human nature and their portrayal of social class and gender dynamics. Her novels often revolve around the lives of young women in the English gentry, exploring their struggles to find love, happiness, and financial security in a society driven by social status and propriety.

Austen's first novel, "Sense and Sensibility," was published in 1811 under the pseudonym "A Lady." It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, and their romantic entanglements. The novel was well-received, establishing Austen as a talented writer with a unique voice.

In 1813, Austen published "Pride and Prejudice," which is arguably her most famous and beloved work. The novel follows the spirited Elizabeth Bennet as she navigates the intricacies of social norms and expectations, ultimately finding love with the enigmatic Mr. Darcy. "Pride and Prejudice" is celebrated for its wit, social commentary, and memorable characters.

Austen's other major novels include "Mansfield Park" (1814), "Emma" (1815), "Northanger Abbey" (posthumously published in 1818), and "Persuasion" (posthumously published in 1818). Each of these works explores themes of love, marriage, and societal conventions, but they also offer unique perspectives and narratives.

Despite her literary success, Austen led a relatively quiet and uneventful life. She never married and lived with her family for the majority of her adult years. It is believed that she had a few romantic interests throughout her life, but none resulted in marriage. Some speculate that Austen's own experiences with love and courtship influenced the themes she explored in her novels.

Tragically, Austen's writing career was cut short by her untimely death at the age of 41. She passed away on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, Hampshire, due to an unknown illness, which is now widely believed to have been Addison's disease or Hodgkin's lymphoma. Austen's works, however, continued to gain recognition and popularity in the years following her death.

Jane Austen

• Born December 16 , 1775 · Steventon, Hampshire, England, UK
• Died July 18 , 1817 · Winchester, Hampshire, England, UK (Addison's disease)
• Height 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
• Jane Austen was born on December 16th, 1775, to the local rector, Rev. George Austen (1731-1805), and Cassandra Leigh (1739-1827). She was the seventh of eight children. She had one older sister, Cassandra. In 1783 she went to Southampton to be taught by a relative, Mrs. Cawley, but was brought home due to a local outbreak of disease. Two years later she attended the Abbey Boarding School in Reading, reportedly wanting to follow her sister Cassandra, until 1786. Jane was mostly educated at home, where she learned how to play the piano, draw and write creatively. She read frequently and later came to enjoy social events such as parties, dances and balls. She disliked the busy life of towns and preferred the country life, where she took to taking long walks. In 1801 Jane, her parents and sister moved to Bath, a year after her father's retirement, and the family frequented the coast. While on one of those coastal holidays she met a young man, but the resulting romantic involvement ended tragically when he died. It is believed by many astute Austen fans that her novel, "Persuasion", was inspired by this incident. Following her father's passing in January of 1805--which left his widow and daughters with financial problems--the family moved several times until finally settling into a small house, in Chawton, Hampshire, owned by her brother Edward, which is reminiscent of "Sense and Sensibility". It was in this house that she wrote most of her works. In March of 1817 her health began to decline and she was forced to abandon her work on "Sanditon", which she never completed. It turned out that she had Addisons disease. In April she wrote out her will and then on May 24th moved with Cassandra to Winchester, to be near her physician. It was in Winchester she died, in the arms of her sister, on Friday, 18 July 1817, at the age of only 41. She was buried the 24th of July at Winchester Cathedral. Jane never married. During her formative years, Jane wrote plays and poems. At 14 she wrote her first novel, "Love and Freindship [sic]" and other juvenilia. Her first (unsuccessful) submission to a publisher, however, was in 1797 titled "First Impressions" (later "Pride and Prejudice"). In 1803 "Susan" (later "Northanger Abbey") was actually sold to a publisher for a mere £10 but was not published until 14 years later, posthumously. Her first accepted work was in 1811 titled "Sense and Sensibility", which was published anonymously as were all books published during her lifetime. She revised "First Impressions" and published it entitled "Pride and Prejudice" in 1813. "Mansfield Park" was published in 1814, followed by "Emma" in 1816, the same year she completed "Persuasion" and began "Sanditon", which was ultimately left unfinished. Both "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey" were published in 1818, after her death. - IMDb Mini Biography By: CindyH
• Parents George Austen Cassandra Austen
• Her books have never been out of print since they were first published.
• The film Clueless (1995) is based on her novel "Emma".
• Her brother Edward's descendant married the daughter of Louis Mountbatten (aka Lord Mountbatten; assassinated in 1979 by the IRA), who in turn was a descendant of Queen Victoria .
• Seventh generation aunt (through her brother Edward) of actress Anna Chancellor , who appeared in Jane's favored romance Pride and Prejudice (1995) mini-series and who also narrates the documentary The Real Jane Austen (2002) .
• Between 1900 and 1975, there were more than 60 radio, television and stage productions of Austen novels. The first film adaptation was of "Pride and Prejudice" in 1940, although there had been a television version two years previously.
• If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient--at others, so bewildered and so weak--and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are to be sure a miracle every way--but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting, do seem peculiarly past finding out.
• [her last words, when asked by her sister Cassandra if there was anything she wanted] Nothing, but death.
• [when asked why her heroines always flawed] Pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked.
• One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
• It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

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Jane Austen Biography

It is said that Jane Austen lived a quiet life. Only a few of her manuscripts remain in existence and the majority of her correspondence was either burned or heavily edited by her sister, Cassandra, shortly before she died. As a result, the details that are known about her are rare and inconsistent. What can be surmised through remaining letters and personal acquaintances is that she was a woman of stature, humor and keen intelligence. Family remembrances of Austen portray her in a kind, almost saintly light, but critics who have studied her books and the remnants of her letters believe she was sharper than her family wished the public to think.

Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire on December 16, 1775 and grew up in a tight-knit family. She was the seventh of eight children, with six brothers and one sister. Her parents, George Austen and Cassandra Leigh, were married in 1764. Her father was an orphan but with the help of a rich uncle he attended school and was ordained by the Church of England. Subsequently, he was elevated enough in social standing to provide Cassandra a worthy match whose family was of a considerably higher social status. In 1765, they moved to Steventon, a village in north Hampshire, about 60 miles southwest of London, where her father was appointed rector.

Like their father, two of Austen’s older brothers, James and Henry, were ordained and spent most of their lives in the Church of England. Of all her brothers, Austen was closest to Henry; he served as her agent, and then after her death, as her biographer. George, the second oldest son, was born mentally deficient and spent the majority of his life in institutions. The third son, Edward, was adopted by their father’s wealthy cousin, Thomas Knight, and eventually inherited the Knight estate in Chawton, where Austen would later complete most of her novels. Cassandra, Austen’s only sister, was born in 1773. Austen and Cassandra were close friends and companions throughout their entire lives. It is through the remaining letters to Cassandra that biographers are able to piece Austen’s life together. The two youngest Austen boys, Francis and Charles, both served in the Navy as highly decorated admirals.

When Austen was 7, she and Cassandra were sent to Oxford to attend school but sometime later the girls came down with typhus and were brought back to Steventon. When Austen was 9 they attended the Abbey School in Reading. Shortly after enrolling however, the girls were withdrawn, because their father could no longer afford tuition. Though this completed their formal schooling, the girls continued their education at home, with the help of their brothers and father.

The Austens often read aloud to one another. This evolved into short theatrical performances that Austen had a hand in composing. The Austen family plays were performed in their barn and were attended by family members and a few close neighbors. By the age of 12, Austen was writing for herself as well as for her family. She wrote poems and several parodies of the dramatic fiction that was popular at the time, such as History of England and Love and Freindship [sic]. She then compiled and titled them: Volume the First , Volume the Second and Volume the Third .

Austen is said to have looked like her brother Henry, with bright hazel eyes and curly hair, over which she always wore a cap. She won the attention of a young Irish gentleman named Tom Lefroy. Unfortunately, Lefroy was in a position that required him to marry into money. He later married an heiress and became a prominent political figure in Ireland.

In 1795, when she was 20, Austen entered a productive phase and created what was later referred to as her “First Trilogy.” Prompted by increasing social engagements and flirtations, she began writing Elinor and Marianne , a novel in letters, which would eventually be reworked and retitled Sense and Sensibility . The following year, she wrote First Impressions , which was rejected by a publisher in 1797. It was the first version of Pride and Prejudice . She began another novel in 1798, titled Susan , which evolved into Northanger Abbey .

The Austens lived happily in Steventon until 1801, when her father suddenly announced he was moving the family to Bath. Austen was unhappy with the news. At the time, Bath was a resort town for the nearly wealthy with many gossips and social climbers. As they traveled that summer, however, she fell in love with a young clergyman who promised to meet them at the end of their journey. Several months later he fell ill and died.

Bath was difficult for Austen. She started but did not finish The Watsons and had a hard time adjusting to social demands. She accepted a marriage proposal from Harris Bigg-Wither, the son of an old family friend, but changed her mind the next day. A few years later, in 1805, her father died, leaving Jane, Cassandra and their mother without enough money to live comfortably. As a result, the Austen women relied on the hospitality of friends and family until they were permanently relocated to a cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, belonging to her brother Edward Austen-Knight. There, Austen began the most productive period of her life, publishing several books and completing her “Second Trilogy.”

Austen finished the final drafts of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice in 1811. They were published shortly after and she immediately set to work on Mansfield Park . In 1814, Mansfield Park was published and Emma was started. By this time, Austen was gaining some recognition for her writing, despite the fact that neither Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice were published under her name.

Austen began showing symptoms of illness while she worked on Persuasion , her last completed novel. It was published with Northanger Abbey after her death. Unknown at the time, Austen most likely suffered from Addison’s disease, whose symptoms include fever, back pain, nausea and irregular skin pigmentation. On her deathbed, when asked by her sister Cassandra if there was anything she required, she requested only “death itself.” She died at the age of 41 on July 18, 1817 with her sister at her side.

Jane Austen’s Enduring Popularity

When asked why Jane Austen’s works are so popular, Richard Jenkyns, author of A Fine Brush on Ivory: An Appreciation of Jane Austen and descendant of Austen’s older brother, said: “I don’t think it’s nostalgia for the past and all those empire-line dresses and britches tight on the thigh, all that sort of thing. I guess that she is popular because she is modern… I think her popularity is in her representing a world, in its most important aspects, that we know.”

Although living in a world that seems remote in time and place, Jane Austen’s characters have experiences and emotions that are familiar to us. They misjudge people based on appearances, they’re embarrassed by their parents, they flirt and they fall in love. Her characters face social restrictions that can be translated into any environment, from a California high school in Clueless to an interracial romance in Bride and Prejudice . The critical and commercial success of the numerous recent film and television adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels, including nine of Pride and Prejudice , testifies to her timeless and universal appeal. Yet they fail to fully capture the genius of her writing. She was a great writer, a sharp wit and a wonderful satirist.

Takeoffs of Austen’s work, such as Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Clueless , have been huge successes. A number of sequels to Pride and Prejudice have been written such as Lady Catherine’s Necklace by Joan Aiken; Mr. Darcy’s Daughters by Elizabeth Aston; and Pemberley: or Pride and Prejudice Continued by Emma Tennant. Other novels such as Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club and Kate Fenton’s Vanity and Vexation: A Novel of Pride and Prejudice have contemporary settings using Austen’s characters or plots.

In The Eye of the Story , Eudora Welty wrote that Austen’s novels withstand time because “they pertain not to the outside world but to the interior, to what goes on perpetually in the mind and heart.” Perhaps, for these reasons, Austen’s work continues to fascinate, entertain and inspire us.

• Tucker, George Holbert. Jane Austen the Woman . St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
• Laski, Marghanita. Jane Austen and Her World . Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975.
• “Jane Austen.” Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, Volume 3: Writers of the Romantic Period, 1789-1832 . Gale Research, 1992.

Content last updated: October 31, 2005

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Austen, Jane

Jane Austen was born on 16th December 1775 in the village of Steventon, near Basingstoke, Hampshire. Her father was a clergyman and served as the rector for the local Anglican parishes, and further enriched the family’s earnings through farming and tutoring a small number of pupils who, during their schooling, boarded at the Austen residence. Both of Jane’s parents were members of gentry families and, although they could by no means be considered wealthy, neither were they poverty-stricken and thus held their position and status fairly comfortably among the middle class. For the most part, Jane was educated at home by her father and elder brothers who actively encouraged her reading and writing from a young age. The family had a large library which no doubt proved a great source of inspiration to Jane’s literary imagination.

Jane and her sister Cassandra were educated mainly at home, and Jane’s relationship with her sister was possibly the closest and strongest that she would hold in life. Much of Austen’s writing explores the connection between sisters. As Austen grew up she continued to live at home and employed herself in activities typical to a woman of her age and class: assisting her mother with the supervision of servants, practising the pianoforte, and visiting neighbours and relatives.

Much of Austen’s life was spent at her family home in a sphere of appreciation for education and learning, so it is not surprising to learn that, from a young age, Austen began to compose various stories, novels and plays for her family’s entertainment. These early writings have since become known as ‘Juvenilia’ and it is in these that we catch the first glimpses of the biting social commentary and aristocratic observations that she would later become famed for.

When her father retired from the ministry in 1801, Jane moved with her family to Bath, but, when her father died in 1805, the family was left to rely heavily on her brother Edward for financial support, and so in 1809 Jane moved to Chawton with her mother and sister to reside in a small house offered to them on one of Edward’s estates. It was here that she had the majority of literary success, writing four of her greatest works Sense and Sensibility  (1811), Pride and Prejudice  (1813), Mansfield Park  (1814) and Emma  (1815). With the help of her brother Henry, her first novel was accepted to be published with publisher Thomas Egerton. However it must be noted that until reaching relative success with Pride and Prejudice   Austen’s novels were published anonymously under a pen name, as writing was not considered a suitable female profession at the time. Jane Austen began to suffer from ill health, probably Addison’s disease, in 1816. She travelled to Winchester to receive treatment and died there on 18th July 1817 when she was only 42 years old.

Both Persuasion  and Northanger Abbey  were published posthumously by Henry following Jane’s death at the end of 1817 and, with these works, he included a biographical notice which, for the first time, identified Jane as the author of the novels. Together they earned over £500, more money then Austen ever saw in her lifetime.

Nearly became engaged to Tom Lefroy

Jane began writing northanger abbey, jane and her family moved to bath, jane moved to chawton, sense and sensibility was published, pride and prejudice was published, mansfield park was published, emma was published, northanger abbey and persuasion were published posthumously, jane began writing persuasion, jane fell ill and her health deteriorated, jane austen died, the jane austen society was founded, the 200th anniversary of pride and prejudice, about the contributor.

Samantha Cartmel

Samantha Cartmel is a long-serving teacher of both GCSE and A Level English.

Sharpen your students’ senses in the run-up to the AS Level Eduqas exams with this cohesive exam prep pack! Apply understanding and perfect exam technique with key revision activities, essay-building tasks, exam-style questions, mark schemes and model answers – all specifically designed for the AS Level Eduqas Component 1 exam.

Ready-to-use, detailed study notes illuminating the profits and perils of persuasive speech in Jane Austen’s delicately written final finished work. Fantastically clear and comprehensive analysis allows students to reconcile the ‘marriage plot’ typical to Austen’s work alongside absorbing themes of responsibility, friendship and folly.

There are plenty of literary aspects to examine in Austen’s peerless novel of manners, and this wide-ranging resource allows students to explore them all. Special features include regular analysis of Austen’s use of humour, and summaries of literary devices in each chapter. The variety of tasks included and the differentiation advice make this creative and stimulating pack suitable for all.

One of Austen’s best-loved novels, Pride and Prejudice offers GCSE students an array of enchanting characters and a story full of intrigue and humour. Along with detailed analysis and student activities, features such as a contextual timeline, a ‘Why Read Austen?’ introduction, and commentary on narrative style make this resource an indispensable companion to the text.

Matchmaking, meddling and misguided – Austen worried that readers wouldn’t like her, but Emma Woodhouse’s impetuous decisions, determined matchmaking and eventual happy ending have delighted for generations. Ready-to-use, detailed study notes help students pick apart the comedic aspects of this surprisingly light-hearted coming-of-age story with detailed, comprehensive analysis.

Comprehensive notes interspersed with research links, practice essay questions, activities and discussion points. This guide has been written specifically for AQA B Lit Unit 3 and as such includes a wealth of information on linking Northanger Abbey with the Gothic genre.

Notes, activities and teaching ideas supporting the teacher to deliver imaginative lessons and helping students to read, understand and reflect on the novel.

• World Biography

Jane Austen Biography

Born: December 16, 1775 Steventon, England Died: July 18, 1817 Winchester, England English author, novelist, and writer

The English writer Jane Austen was one of the most important novelists of the nineteenth century. In her intense concentration on the thoughts and feelings of a limited number of characters, Jane Austen created as profound an understanding and as precise a vision of the potential of the human spirit as the art of fiction has ever achieved. Although her novels received favorable reviews, she was not celebrated as an author during her lifetime.

Family, education, and a love for writing

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, at Steventon, in the south of England, where her father served as a rector (preacher) for the rural community. She was the seventh of eight children in an affectionate and high-spirited family. As one of only two girls, Jane was very attached to her sister throughout her life. Because of the ignorance of the day, Jane's education was inadequate by today's standards. This coupled with Mr. Austen's meager salary kept Jane's formal training to a minimum. To supplement his income as a rector, Mr. Austen tutored young men. It is believed that Jane may have picked up Latin from staying close to home and listening in on these lessons. At the age of six she was writing verses. A two-year stay at a small boarding school trained Jane in needlework, dancing, French, drawing, and spelling, all training geared to produce marriageable young women. It was this social atmosphere and feminine identity that Jane so skillfully satirized (mocked) in her many works of fiction. She never married herself, but did receive at least one proposal and led an active and happy life, unmarked by dramatic incident and surrounded by her family.

Austen began writing as a young girl and by the age of fourteen had completed Love and Friendship. This early work, an amusing parody (imitation) of the overdramatic novels popular at that time, shows clear signs of her talent for humorous and satirical writing. Three volumes of her collected young writings were published more than a hundred years after her death.

Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen's first major novel was Sense and Sensibility, whose main characters are two sisters. The first draft was written in 1795 and was titled Elinor and Marianne. In 1797 Austen rewrote the novel and titled it Sense and Sensibility. After years of polishing, it was finally published in 1811.

As the original and final titles indicate, the novel contrasts the temperaments of the two sisters. Elinor governs her life by sense or reasonableness, while Marianne is ruled by sensibility or feeling. Although the plot favors the value of reason over that of emotion, the greatest emphasis is placed on the moral principles of human affairs and on the need for enlarged thought and feeling in response to it.

Pride and Prejudice

In 1796, when Austen was twenty-one years old, she wrote the novel First Impressions. The work was rewritten and published under the title Pride and Prejudice in 1813. It is her most popular and perhaps her greatest novel. It achieves this distinction by virtue of its perfection of form, which exactly balances and expresses its human content. As in Sense and Sensibility, the descriptive terms in the title are closely associated with the two main characters.

The form of the novel is dialectical—the opposition of ethical (conforming or not conforming to standards of conduct and moral reason) principles is expressed in the relations of believable characters. The resolution of the main plot with the marriage of the two opposites represents a reconciliation of conflicting moral extremes. The value of pride is affirmed when humanized by the wife's warm personality, and the value of prejudice is affirmed when associated with the husband's standards of traditional honor.

During 1797–1798 Austen wrote Northanger Abbey, which was published posthumously (after death). It is a fine satirical novel, making sport of the popular Gothic novel of terror, but it does not rank among her major works. In the following years she wrote The Watsons (1803 or later), which is a fragment of a novel similar in mood to her later Mansfield Park, and Lady Susan (1804 or later), a short novel in letters.

Mansfield Park

In 1811 Jane Austen began Mansfield Park, which was published in 1814. It is her most severe exercise in moral analysis and presents a conservative view of ethics, politics, and religion.

The novel traces the career of a Cinderella-like heroine, who is brought from a poor home to Mansfield Park, the country estate of her relative. She is raised with some of the comforts of her cousins, but her social rank is maintained at a lower level. Despite their strict upbringing, the cousins become involved in marital and extramarital tangles, which bring disasters and near-disasters on the family. But the heroine's upright character guides her through her own relationships with dignity—although sometimes with a chilling disdainfulness (open disapproval)—and leads to her triumph at the close of the novel. While some readers may not like the rather priggish (following rules of proper behavior to an extreme degree) heroine, the reader nonetheless develops a sympathetic understanding of her thoughts and emotions. The reader also learns to value her at least as highly as the more attractive, but less honest, members of Mansfield Park's wealthy family and social circle.

Shortly before Mansfield Park was published, Jane Austen began a new novel, Emma, and published it in 1816. Again the heroine does engage the reader's sympathy and understanding. Emma is a girl of high intelligence and vivid imagination who is also marked by egotism and a desire to dominate the lives of others. She exercises her powers of manipulation on a number of neighbors who are not able to resist her prying. Most of Emma's attempts to control her friends, however, do not have happy effects for her or for them. But influenced by an old boyfriend who is her superior in intelligence and maturity, she realizes how misguided many of her actions are. The novel ends with the decision of a warmer and less headstrong Emma to marry him. There is much evidence to support the argument of some critics that Emma is Austen's most brilliant novel.

Persuasion, begun in 1815 and published posthumously in 1818, is Jane Austen's last complete novel and is perhaps most directly expressive of her feelings about her own life. The heroine is a woman growing older with a sense that life has passed her by. Several years earlier she had fallen in love with a suitor but was parted from him because her class-conscious family insisted she make a more appropriate match. But she still loves him, and when he again enters her life, their love deepens and ends in marriage.

Austen's satirical treatment of social pretensions and worldly motives is perhaps at its keenest in this novel, especially in her presentation of Anne's family. The predominant tone of Persuasion, however, is not satirical but romantic. It is, in the end, the most uncomplicated love story that Jane Austen ever wrote and, to some tastes, the most beautiful.

The novel Sanditon was unfinished at her death on July 8, 1817. She died in Winchester, England, where she had gone to seek medical attention, and was buried there.

For More Information

Myer, Valerie Grosvenor. Jane Austen, Obstinate Heart: A Biography. New York: Arcade Pub., 1997.

Nokes, David. Jane Austen: A Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997.

Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: A Life. New York: Knopf, 1997.

Tyler, Natalie. The Friendly Jane Austen: A Well-Mannered Introduction to a Lady of Sense and Sensibility. New York: Viking, 1999.

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Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born on the 16th of December in 1775, in Stevenson, Hampshire, England. She was an intelligent daughter of George Austen, a famous cleric at one of the Anglican parishes. Her mother, Cassandra Leigh, was a wealthy lady. Jane’s grandfather was an Oxford-educated cleric. The children grew up in an environment that provided them with room for creative thinking and learning. Young Jane, being close to her father, learned many things from him. Moreover, George’s extensive library helped her polish her reading and analytical skills. Unfortunately, her father died in 1805, and her mother passed away in 1827.

Jane Austen, a great literary figure, belonged to a well-educated and influential family. She began to read and write at a very young age. Sharing a close relationship with her father, she learned the basic skills at home. To get a formal education, Jane, along with her sister, was sent to Oxford in 1783 to be educated by Miss Ann Cowley, where they stayed for a short time. Facing an acute illness, both siblings returned home and stayed with the family. Later, in 1875, Jane and her sister were sent to Reading Abbey Girls School , where they were exposed to needlework, dancing, French, music, and drama . Unfortunately, due to the financial strains, the sisters returned home in 1876. After her return, her father and brothers guided her in the educational field. The private theatre had always been an essential part for Austen as her friends and family staged a series of plays, including The Rivals by Richard Sheridan . Inspired with the literary efforts of her family and friends, she started writing herself at the age of eleven.

Jane led a successful life, and at the age of forty-one, her health began to decline. Despite facing illness, she made efforts to continue to write and edited older works as well as started a new piece called The Brothers, which published after her death under the title of Senditon. The world lost this precious gem on the 18 th of July in 1877 in Winchester, England.

Some Important Facts of Her Life

• Her transformation from little-known to internationally acclaimed writers started in the 1920s when critics reevaluated her literary pieces.
• She enjoyed unprecedented fame in her life, but she never got married.
• The popularity of her works speaks in many TV adaptations and films of Mansfield Park, Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Pride, and Prejudice

Writing Career

Jane Austen, a towering figure of the seventeenth century, started writing literary pieces at a very young. With the compositions of plays and short stories , she laid the foundation of her long literary career. At first, she wrote pieces for her own and her family’s amusements with the subjects of anarchic fantasies of female power or feminism and illicit behavior. Later, in 1970, she started writing novels and came up with Love and Friendship followed by The History of England, presenting the historical and romantic fiction . Using the framework of letter writing in these fictions, she unveiled her wit and disliked for romantic hysteria and sensibility, which remained evident in her other writings, too. Later, she produced an epistolary story , Lady Susan , presenting the life of a female who manipulates others using her sexuality and intelligence. Marked with the techniques of letter writing, her other major work, Elinor and Marianne, which was later drafted as Sense and Sensibility, appeared in 1811. She produced many masterpieces throughout her life including, Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park, and Emma.

Jane Austen stands among the most influential figures of world literature. With the help of her unique style , she beautifully portrayed her ideas in her literary pieces. Her distinctive literary style relies mainly on a blend of parody , free indirect speech, irony , and presentation of literary realism . Jane used burlesque and parody in her writings to critique the portrayal of women in the 18 th century. Her pieces are far from the world of imagination as she focused on presenting the ordinary people realistically. Moreover, her ironic style presents a keen insight into the English culture. Concerning characterization , she focused on the conversation allow the characters to develop themselves. The recurring themes in most of her literary pieces are cultural, identity, love, marriage, and pride.

Jane Austen’s Influence on Future Literature

Jane Austen, with her unique abilities, left a profound impact on global literature, and even after 200 hundred years of her demise, she continues to win love for her biting approach on diverse tangles of this passion.  Her witty ideas, along with distinct literary qualities, won applause from the audience , critics, and other fellow writers. Her impact resonates strongly inside as well as outside England. Her masterpieces provided the principles for the writers of succeeding generations. She successfully documented her ideas about marriage, power, and love in her writings that even today, writers try to imitate her unique style, considering her a beacon for writing prose .

Some Important Works of Jane Austen

• Best Novels: She was an outstanding writer, some of her best novels, which include Emma, Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park, Persuasion , and Northanger Abbey.
• Other Works: Besides novels, she also tried her hands on shorter and non-fiction too. Some of them include Plan of Novel , Juvenilia- Volume the First, Juvenilia- V0lume the Second, Juvenilia- Volume the Third, Letters, and Poems .

Famous Quotes

• “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.” ( Pride and Prejudice )
• “There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison.” ( Persuasion )
• A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.” ( Northanger Abbey)
• Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.” ( Mansfield Park)

Related posts:

• Literary Writing Style of Jane Austen
• Jane Eyre Characters
• Jane Eyre Quotes
• Jane Eyre Themes
• Pride and Prejudice Characters
• Pride and Prejudice Quotes
• Pride and Prejudice

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Jane Austen Timeline

Life and times, stepping through the life of jane austen offers the reader a unique look at the woman behind the books, her life showcasing as many trials as one of own characters..

A Timeline of Jane Austen’s Life and Works

16 December 1775 Jane Austen is born at Steventon Rectory, in Hampshire. She is the daughter of Rev. and Mrs Austen, and the seventh of eight children. She has six brothers and a sister.

1783 – 1786 Jane goes to school in Oxford, Southampton and Reading with her sister Cassandra; in 1783 she falls ill with typhus fever and nearly dies.

1787 – 1794 Jane writes her teenage writings, including Love and Friendship (1790), Lesley Castle (1792) and Lady Susan (1794).

1795 Jane writes Elinor and Marianne , an early version of Sense and Sensibility

Dec 1795 – Jan 1796 Tom Lefroy, a young lawyer, visits his relatives in Ashe, near Steventon. Jane and Tom dance and flirt.

1796 – 1797 Jane writes First Impressions (later revised and published as Pride and Prejudice ). Her father offers it to a publisher but it is rejected.

1798 – 1799 Jane writes Susan (later published as Northanger Abbey ).

1801 On Rev. Austen’s retirement, Jane and her father, mother and Cassandra leave Steventon and move to lodgings in Bath.

2 December 1802 Jane accepts an offer of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, the rich brother of her friends, but the next day she changes her mind and declines the proposal.

1803 Acting on her brother Henry’s instructions, Susan is sold by his lawyer William Seymour, to a publisher for £10, but not published.

c.1804 Jane begins writing The Watsons but does not finish it.

21 January 1805 Rev. Austen dies suddenly and is buried in Bath. Jane and Cassandra, with their mother, are left poor and dependent on their brothers for support.

1806 Jane and Cassandra, with their mother and friend Martha Lloyd, move to Southampton to live with their brother Frank and his wife.

7 July 1809 Jane and Cassandra move to Chawton with their mother and Martha Lloyd. Chawton Cottage is offered to them, rent-free, by their elder brother Edward, who inherited estates in Chawton, Steventon (Hampshire) and Godmersham (Kent) from rich relatives.

1811 Sense and Sensibility is published. Jane’s name does not appear on the book – instead it says ‘by a Lady’.

1813 Pride and Prejudice is published, ‘by the author of Sense and Sensibility ’.

1814 Mansfield Park is published. Jane begins writing Emma .

1816 Emma is published (December 1815); Jane dedicates it to the Prince Regent.

1816 Jane’s brother Henry succeeds in buying back the unpublished manuscript of Susan for £10.

1815 – 1816 Jane writes The Elliots (later published as Persuasion ). In 1816 she becomes ill but continues to write.

January 1817 Jane begins The Brothers (later published as Sanditon ), but she only completes the first twelve chapters.

April 1817 Jane’s illness confines her to bed. On 27 April she writes a short will, leaving nearly everything to her ‘dearest Sister Cassandra’.

24 May 1817 Jane leaves Chawton and moves with Cassandra to Winchester, for medical treatment.

18 July 1817 Jane dies at her lodgings in Winchester, aged 41 years old. On 24 July she is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

December 1817 Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are published. For the first time, Jane Austen is identified as the author.

1869 Jane’s first biography, A Memoir of Jane Austen , written by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, is published.

1925 Sanditon is published under the title Fragment of a Novel .

1949 Jane Austen’s House opens to the public.

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Jane Austen facts for kids

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist . She wrote many books of romantic fiction about the gentry . Her works made her one of the most famous and beloved writers in English literature . She is one of the great masters of the English novel.

Austen's works criticized sentimental novels in the late 18th century, and are part of the change to nineteenth-century realism . She wrote about typical people in everyday life. This gave the English novel its first distinctly modern character. Austen's stories are often comic , but they also show how women depended on marriage for social standing and economic security. Her works are also about moral problems.

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon, near Basingstoke . Educated mostly by her father and older brothers, and also by her own reading , she lived with her family at Steventon. They moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After he died in 1805, she moved around with her mother. In 1809, they settled in Chawton , near Alton, Hampshire . In May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor . She died there on 18 July 1817.

Jane Austen was very modest about her own genius . She once famously described her work as "the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory , on which I work with so fine a brush , as produces little effect after much labor ". When she was a girl she wrote stories. Her works were printed only after much revision . Only four of her novels were printed while she was alive. They were Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion , were printed in 1817 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen. Persuasion was written shortly before her death. She also wrote two earlier works, Lady Susan , and an unfinished novel, The Watsons . She had been working on a new novel, Sanditon , but she died before she could finish it. She is now a well known great writer.

Early life and education

Early writings, related pages, images for kids.

Biographical facts about Jane Austen are "famously scarce" (few). Only a few letters remain (it is estimated that only 160 out of Austen's 3,000 letters survive). Her sister Cassandra (to whom most of the letters were written) burned "the greater part" of the ones she kept. The letters she did not destroy she censored . Other letters were destroyed by the heirs of Admiral Francis Austen, Jane's brother. Most of the biographies written about her for 50 years after she died was by her relatives, who often described her as "good quiet Aunt Jane". Scholars have not been able to find much information after that.

Austen's parents, George Austen (1731–1805), and his wife, Cassandra (1739–1827), were both part of the gentry . Cassandra was a part of the important Leigh family. George Austen, however, was of a lower class of society. He had first met Cassandra at Oxford, while she was meeting her uncle Theophilus. George and Cassandra married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath .

Austen had a large family. She had six brothers—James (1765–1819), George (1766–1838), Edward (1767–1852), Henry Thomas (1771–1850), Francis William (Frank) (1774–1865), Charles John (1779–1852)—and one sister, Cassandra Elizabeth (1773–1845), who died without marrying. Jane deeply loved Cassandra, and they were both best friends. Of her brothers, Austen was most close to Henry, who helped spread and influence her writing. "Oh, what a Henry!" she once wrote. George was almost ten years older than Jane. He suffered from fits and was not able to develop normally. His father wrote of him, "We have this comfort, he cannot be a bad or a wicked child". He may also have been deaf and mute. Jane knew sign language (she mentioned talking "with my fingers" in a letter) and could have communicated with him. Charles and Frank served in the navy . Edward was adopted by his fourth cousin, Thomas Knight. He became "Edward Knight" instead of Edward Austen in 1812.

Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon rectory. She was christened at home and then, as the Book of Common Prayer directs, brought to church for the baptism to be certified in public on 5 April 1776. A few months after she was born, her mother hired a woman named Elizabeth Littlewood to nurse her. Littlewood took care of Austen for about a year. According to family tradition , Jane and Cassandra were sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs. Ann Crawley in 1783. They moved with her to Southampton later in the year. Both girls caught typhus and Jane almost died. After that, Austen was educated at home until she went to boarding school with Cassandra early in 1785. She learned some French , spelling , needlework , dancing , music , and probably drama . In the winter of 1786, Jane and Cassandra went back home.

Austen also learned much by reading books. Her father and brothers helped choose the books she read. George Austen seemed to have let his daughters read the books in his large library freely. He also allowed Austen's experiments in writing, and gave her costly paper and other writing materials.

Jane Austen and her family also enjoyed acting out plays privately. Most of the plays were comedies . This might have been a way for Austen's comedic and satirical talents to develop.

Perhaps from as early as 1787, Austen began writing poems , short stories, and plays for fun. Austen later put together "fair copies" of 29 of these early works into three notebooks. They are now called the Juvenilia . It has pieces which were first written down between 1787 and 1793. Jane Austen had arranged her writing during this time into three volumes, namely Volume the First , Volume the Second and Volume the Third . There is some proof that Austen continued to work on these pieces later in life. Her nephew and niece, James Edward and Anna Austen, may have made further additions to her work in around 1814. In these works were included Love and Freindship [ sic ] which was completed in 1790 and Lesley Castle which was completed in 1792. In Love and Freindship , she laughed at popular sentimental novels. She also wrote The History of England , which had 13 watercolour pictures by her sister Cassandra inside it.

Jane Austen started to feel increasingly unwell during 1816, which was the year when her novel 'Persuasion' was published. On 24 May 1817, she moved to Winchester in search for a cure to her illness. She died on 18 July 1817, aged 41. Although there is no conclusive evidence to prove the cause of her death, it seems likely that it was Addison's disease that killed her. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral on 24 July 1817.

• Reception history of Jane Austen
• Austen, Jane. Catharine and Other Writings . Ed. Margaret Anne Doody and Douglas Murray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN : 0-19-282823-1.
• Austen, Jane. The History of England . Ed. David Starkey. Icon Books, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. ISBN : 0-06-135195-4.
• Le Faye, Deirdre, ed. Jane Austen's Letters . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN : 0-19-283297-2.

Biographies

• Austen, Henry Thomas. "Biographical Notice of the Author". Northanger Abbey and Persuasion . London: John Murray, 1817.
• Austen-Leigh, James Edward. A Memoir of Jane Austen . 1926. Ed. R. W. Chapman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
• Austen-Leigh, William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh. Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters, A Family Record . London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1913.
• Fergus, Jan. Jane Austen: A Literary Life . London: Macmillan, 1991. ISBN : 0-333-44701-8.
• Honan, Park. Jane Austen: A Life . New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. ISBN : 0-312-01451-1.
• Le Faye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: A Family Record . Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN : 0-521-53417-8.
• Nokes, David. Jane Austen: A Life . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN : 0-520-21606-7.
• Tomalin, Claire. Jane Austen: A Life . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. ISBN : 0-679-44628-1.

Essay collections

• Alexander, Christine and Juliet McMaster, eds. The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN : 0-521-81293-3.
• Copeland, Edward and Juliet McMaster, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN : 0-521-49867-8.
• Grey, J. David, ed. The Jane Austen Companion . New York: Macmillan, 1986. ISBN : 0025455400.
• Lynch, Deidre, ed. Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN : 0-691-05005-8.
• Southam, B. C., ed. Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1812–1870 . Vol. 1. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968. ISBN : 0-7100-2942-X.
• Southam, B. C., ed. Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1870–1940 . Vol. 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. ISBN : 0-7102-0189-3.
• Todd, Janet, ed. Jane Austen in Context . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN : 0-521-82644-6.
• Watt, Ian, ed. Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963. ISBN : 9780130537515.

Monographs and articles

• Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction . London: Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN : 0-19-506160-8.
• Butler, Marilyn. Jane Austen and the War of Ideas . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN : 0-19-812968-8.
• Byrne, Paula. Jane Austen and the Theatre. London and New York: Continuum, 2002. ISBN : 978-1-84725-047-6.
• Collins, Irene. Jane Austen and the Clergy . London: The Hambledon Press, 1994. ISBN : 1-85285-114-7.
• Devlin, D.D. Jane Austen and Education . London: Macmillan, 1975. ISBN : 0064916758.
• Duckworth, Alistair M. The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971. ISBN : 0-8018-1269-0.
• Fergus, Jan. Jane Austen and the Didactic Novel . Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1983. ISBN : 0-389-20228-2.
• Ferguson, Moira. " Mansfield Park , Slavery, Colonialism, and Gender". Oxford Literary Review 13 (1991): 118–39.
• Galperin, William. The Historical Austen . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. ISBN : 0-8122-3687-4.
• Gay, Penny. Jane Austen and the Theatre . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN : 0-521-65213-8.
• Gubar, Susan and Sandra Gilbert. The Madwoman in the Attic: the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination . 1979. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. ISBN : 0-300-02596-3.
• Harding, D.W., "Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen". Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays . Ed. Ian Watt. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
• Jenkyns, Richard. A Fine Brush on Ivory: An Appreciation of Jane Austen . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN : 0199276617.
• Johnson, Claudia L. Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. ISBN : 0-226-40139-1.
• Kirkham, Margaret. Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction . Brighton: Harvester, 1983. ISBN : 0-7108-0468-7.
• Koppel, Gene. The Religious Dimension in Jane Austen's Novels . Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1988.
• Lascelles, Mary. Jane Austen and Her Art . Original publication 1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.
• Leavis, F.R. The Great Tradition: George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad . London: Chatto & Windus, 1960.
• Litz, A. Walton. Jane Austen: A Study of Her Development . New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
• Lynch, Deidre. The Economy of Character . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN : 0-226-49820-4.
• MacDonagh, Oliver. Jane Austen: Real and Imagined Worlds . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. ISBN : 0-300-05084-4.
• Miller, D. A. Jane Austen, or The Secret of Style . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN : 0-691-12387-X.
• Mudrick, Marvin. Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952.
• Page, Norman. The Language of Jane Austen . Oxford: Blackwell, 1972. ISBN : 0-631-08280-8.
• Poovey, Mary. The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN : 0-226-67528-9.
• Raven, James. The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN : 0-300-12261-6.
• Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism . New York: Vintage Books, 1993. ISBN : 0-679-75054-1.
• Todd, Janet. The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN : 978-0-521-67469-0.
• Waldron, Mary. Jane Austen and the Fiction of Her Time . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN : 0-521-00388-1.
• Wiltshire, John. Recreating Jane Austen . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN : 0-521-00282-6.
• Wiltshire, John. Jane Austen and the Body: The Picture of Health . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN : 0-521-41476-8.

Online works

Steventon Church, as depicted in A Memoir of Jane Austen

Steventon rectory, as depicted in A Memoir of Jane Austen , was in a valley and surrounded by meadows.

Thomas Langlois Lefroy, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, by W. H. Mote (1855); in old age, Lefroy admitted that he had been in love with Austen: "It was boyish love."

Austen's house, 4 Sydney Place, Bath, Somerset

Austen was a regular visitor to her brother Edward's home, Godmersham Park in Kent , between 1798 and 1813. The house is regarded as an influence on her works.

Watercolour of Jane Austen by her sister, Cassandra , 1804.

Cottage in Chawton , Hampshire where Austen lived during her last eight years of life, now Jane Austen's House Museum

First edition title page from Sense and Sensibility , Austen's first published novel (1811)

8 College Street in Winchester where Austen lived her last days and died.

Austen commemoration on the wall of Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey , London

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