Jane Austen

Who is Jane Austen?

Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the eighteenth century. Born in Steventon, Hampshire, she was one of eight children of a country clergyman and was educated largely at home. Her plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1815), while Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were both published posthumously in 1817-1818. Her use of irony, free indirect speech, and sharp social commentary have earned her a lasting place in English literature. Though she published anonymously during her lifetime and achieved only modest fame, her reputation grew dramatically in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and she is now regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language. She died in Winchester in 1817 and is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

Sources: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813 · Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life, 1997