Jane Austen was an English novelist, whose brilliantly witty, elegantly structured satirical fiction marks the transition in English literature from 18th century neo-classicism to 19th century romanticism.

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at the rectory in the village of Steventon in Hampshire. The seventh of eight children of the Reverend George Austen and his wife, Cassandra Leigh-Austen, she was educated mainly at home and only once briefly attended boarding school. She had a happy childhood with her siblings and the other boys who lodged with the family while being tutored by Mr. Austen. From her older sister, Cassandra, she was inseparable. For amusement the children wrote and performed plays and charades, and even as a little girl Jane was encouraged to write. Reading the books in her father's extensive library provided material for the short satirical sketches she wrote as a girl. Growing up, the Austen children lived in an environment of open learning, creativity and dialogue. The Austen children would all grow within this close-knit family with Jane herself forming an exceptional bond with her father.

At the age of 14 she wrote her first novel, Love and Friendship and then A History of England by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian, together with other very amusing juvenilia. In her early twenties Jane Austen wrote the novels that were later to be re-worked and published as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. She also began a novel called The Watsons which was never completed.

As a young woman Jane enjoyed dancing (an activity which features frequently in her novels) and she attended balls in many of the great houses of the neighborhood. She loved the country, enjoyed long walks, and had many Hampshire friends. It therefore came as a considerable shock when her parents suddenly announced in 1801, when Jane was 27, that the family would be moving away to Bath. Mr. Austen gave the Steventon living to his son James and retired to Bath with his wife and two daughters. The next four years were difficult ones for Jane Austen as she disliked the confines of a busy town and missed her Steventon life. During this time her writing ceased.

Once, while on holiday, Jane fell in love, but when the young man died she was deeply upset. Later she accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, a wealthy landowner and brother to some of her closest friends, but she changed her mind the next morning. In a letter to her niece some years later, Jane makes a pivotal comment that is a summary of many of her stories - her advice to the niece is simply not to wed if the affection is not there. This revelation is a shining insight into the mind of Ms. Austen, seemingly taken out of the very pages of one of her novels, where her heroines did not to marry for money or power, but for love.

After the death of Mr. Austen in 1805 the Austen ladies suffered acutely from financial woes and were forced to rely on the Austen brothers for support. They moved several times, settling for a spell in Southampton to share the home of Jane's naval brother Frank and his wife Mary. There were occasional visits to London, where Jane stayed with her favorite brother Henry, at that time a prosperous banker, and where she enjoyed visits to the theatre and art exhibitions while Henry acted as her agent in efforts to have her novels published.

In July 1809 her brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a permanent home on his Chawton estate, allowing the Austen ladies to move back to their beloved Hampshire countryside. It was a small but comfortable house, with a pretty garden, and most importantly it provided the settled home which Jane Austen, now 33, needed in order to write. The seven and a half years that she lived in this house were a period of intense productivity. First she revised Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, managing with Henry’s help to have them published in 1811 and 1813 respectively. Mansfield Park came out in 1814, followed by Emma in 1816, all four published “By A Lady.”

She completed Persuasion and Northanger Abbey soon thereafter, and began work on Sandition, but sadly would not live to see the final two novels published. Her health rapidly declined from what is believed to have been Addison’s Disease, a tubercular disease of the kidneys. By May 1817 she was so ill that she and Cassandra rented rooms in Winchester to be near Jane’s physician. Tragically there was no cure and Jane Austen died in her sister's arms in the early hours of July 18, 1817. She was 41 years old.

Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published in 1818, Henry revealing the author’s name in a beautifully written foreword. Jane Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral.