In 1775, Jane Austen was born at the rectory in Steventon, Hampshire, daughter to the Rev. George Austen (1731–1805) and his wife Cassandra (née Leigh) (1739–1827). As an unmarried woman financially and socially dependant upon her parents, she remained in Steventon for the majority of her life. Her brothers James and Henry followed in the path of their father and joined the clergy, while Francis and Charles both pursued naval careers. Additionally, she had a sister, Cassandra, with whom she maintained a close relationship throughout her life. The abundant correspondence between the sisters provides historians with the greatest insight to Austen's past. The only undisputed portrait of Jane Austen is a somewhat rudimentary coloured sketch done by Cassandra, which currently resides in the National Portrait Gallery, London. In 1783, she was educated briefly by a relative in Oxford, then in Southampton, and finally in 1785–1786 attended the Reading Ladies boarding school in the Abbey gatehouse in Reading,
Berkshire. This uncommonnly advanced level of education may have contributed to her early proclivity towards writing, and she began her first novel in 1789.
Austen's life was not nearly as eventful as that of her characters. In 1801 the family moved to socially esteemed city of Bath, which provides the setting for many of her novels.In 1802 Austen received a marriage proposal from a wealthy but "big and awkward" man named Harris Bigg-Wither, who was six years her junior. Such a marriage would have "established" her social standing and freed her from some of the constraints and dependency then associated with the role of a spinster. Such considerations influenced her to initially accept his offer, only to refuse him the following day. It seems clear that she did not love him. Such events may have inspired segments of one of her greatest novels, Pride and Prejudice. After the death of her father in 1805, Austen, her sister, and her mother lived in Southampton with her brother Frank and his family for several years until moving to Chawton in 1809. Here her wealthy brother Edward had an estate with a cottage, where he allowed his mother and sisters to live. This home is now open to the public and serves as a popular site for tourists and literary pilgrims alike.
Austen continued to live a quiet life with her family. In 1816, she began to suffer from ill-health. It is now thought she may have suffered from Addison's disease, the cause of which was then unknown. Her condition became increasingly unstable, and in 1817 she died at the age of forty one and was buried in Winchester cathedral.
wikipedia.org
Full online text of Jane Austen's
Emma -
Lady Susan -
Love and Freindship -
Mansfield Park -
Northanger Abbey -
Persuasion -
Pride and Prejudice -
Sense and Sensibility -
can be seen at:
Project Gutenberg.
