Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born in 1775 (16th December), as the seventh of eight children, the second of two daughters of the reverend George Austen, who was rector of Steveton, which is a small town in Hampshire (England). Jane was a voracious reader and have read the plays, poetry, essays of five hounded years of English literature, all this despite receiving less than two years of formal education. And she was quite a fan of the new type of literature in that time: the novel.
When her father retired in 1801, both her and her sister were unmarried, so they moved together with their parents to Bath, where they lived till reverend’s death in 1805. After that they moved away, and lived for three years at Southampton to then move in one of the older brother’s estate, located Chawton. This is the place that saw the beginning of Jane’s novel writing, in fact here she publishes: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815); before a severe illness made her seek medical attention in Winchester, where she also died on 18th July 1817., at age of forty-one. Her two remaining novels; Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously by one of her brothers in 1817 and her apprentice work, Lady Susan, was published in 1871 by her nephew.

Her most famous novel, and probably the most loved one even today is Pride and Prejudice, and she is one of the most read authors in the last few hundred years.