Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 in Steventon, England. She was the 2nd youngest of 8 children; 6 boys and 2 girls. Her family was comfortable “landed gentry”, the type of people most written about in her novels. She was mostly educated at home other than a one-year stay in a boarding school with her sister. Jane Austen never married.

Jane Austen published 6 novels in her short life. The most popular of her novels with the public of the time was Mansfield Park, published in 1814. It sold more copies in her lifetime than any others. Her other novels include Sense and Sensibility (which is the most autobiographical of all her novels) published in 1811. Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park and Emma (1815) soon followed. Two of her novels were published posthumously in 1817; Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.

Jane Austen became ill with Addison’s Disease in early 1817. She died on July 18, 1817 and was buried at Winchester Cathedral. She remains one of the world’s most popular writers today.

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