Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was born in 1775 in Hampshire, the seventh of eight children. Austen received an informal education at home, developing a love for reading and writing. As a child and teenager, she wrote stories for her family’s amusement, as well as a novella, Lady Susan. Her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, appeared in 1811 and was soon followed by Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Despite her growing success, Austen published under the pseudonym ‘By a Lady’, and remained anonymous during her lifetime. After her death in 1817, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818.