Biography of Jane Austen
Born on December 16th, 1775, in the little town of Steventon in Hampshire, England, Jane Austen was the 7th of 8 children. Her sister Cassandra and she were the only daughters though, and therefore were very close. Jane's parents were Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Austen. Her father was a vicar who worked at a small parish there in Steventon.
Considered by some to be one of the greatest authors in history, Jane Austen was mostly taught by her father and her brothers. (Though she did attend school at an early age for a little while when Cassandra went to school.) In order to entertain themselves, since they didn't have television or video games in the early 19th century, the family performed plays, and Jane often wrote stories for them to perform. Because of such an encouragement to write for fun, she wrote many "juvenilia" (a literary work written in an author's youth) such as Love and Freindship (note the misspelling), and A History of England by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian, around the age of 14.
She wrote many novels that she did not complete, as do many authors, when they either loose their creative thinking or loose interest in a story. She produced the beginnings of what were to become Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abby.
In 1801 she moved to Bath because her father decided to retire there. She detested the idea because she was loosing everything that she knew and loved in Steventon. (Was this perhaps the reason why Anne Elliot in Persuasion disliked Bath, and why Bath is mentioned in several of her books?)
Jane's father died in 1805, and this was a devastating blow to Jane, Cassandra, and her mother, because they now had severe financial troubles. Therefore Austen's brothers had to help them with housing and other necessities.
On a holiday, Jane received her first and only proposal for marriage, by a not so handsome but wealthy man named Harris Bigg-Wither, and Jane accepted. The next morning though, she changed her mind and declined the offer.
They then moved to a town called Southampton to live with her brother Frank, who was involved with the British Navy. (Is this a reason why Frank Wentworth was a captain in the navy, and why Persuasion had a large basis on the British Navy?)
In July 1809, they moved to her brother's Chawton estate, that was small but fine for the Austens, and Jane was to stay there for the rest of her life. This is where she wrote or revised the majority of her books. She revised Sense and Sensibility to publish it in 1811, then revised Pride and Prejudice to be published in 1814, and after, Mansfield Park in 1814.
Emma was published in 1816. The books Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published in 1818, after her death on July 18th, 1817. It is believed that she contracted Addison's disease, a lack of steroids that affects the kidneys. It had no cure during her time, and so she sadly died at the age of 41 years young.
It is interesting to note that during her lifetime, any books that were published by her simply had the author named as "By a Lady."
Jane Austen had a short life, with not much extravagance but perhaps it included loving people, which should always matter most. It is extremely sad to think that her life was cut short by a disease that is completely curable today, and you must wonder what she would have created if she had been allowed to live a long and full life.