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3.1 Her childhood and early creative work
Jane Austen was born December 16th, 1775 at Steventon, Hampshire, England. She was the seventh child out of eight of the Reverend George Austen and his wife Cassandra. Her brothers were named James (1765-1819) , Frank (1774-1865) and Charles (1779-1852),her sister, Cassandra Elizabeth (1773-1845). Especially Frank and Charles, by becoming Admirals in the British navy, influenced Jane\'s novels Mansfield Park and Persuasion .
In 1785-1786 Jane and Cassandra went to the Abbey boarding school in Reading. This was Jane Austen\'s only education outside her family.
Jane Austen wrote her Juvenilia from 1787 to 1793.They include many humorous parodies of the literature of the day and are collected in three manuscript volumes. They were originally written for the amusement of her family, and most of the pieces are dedicated to one or another of her relatives or family friends.
Earlier versions of the novels Sense and Sensibility/ Elinor and Marianne, Pride and Prejudice/ First Impressions and Northanger Abbey/ Susan were all begun and worked on from 1795 to 1799
3.2 Early adulthood at Steventon and Bath
In late 1800 her father suddenly decided to retire to Bath, and the family moved there the next year.
In 1803 Jane Austen actually sold Northanger Abbey to a publisher, the publisher chose not to publish it. It was probably toward the end of the Bath years that Jane Austen began The Watsons, but this novel was abandoned in fragmentary form.
In January 1805 her father died. So they were largely dependent on support from the Austen brothers.
3.3 Maturity in Southampton and Chawton
In 1808 Jane moved with her mother and sister from Bath to Southampton.
In 1809 they moved to Chawton, where her brother Edward provided a small house on one of his estates. This was in Hampshire.
She resumed her literary activities soon after returning into Hampshire, and revised Sense and Sensibility which was accepted in late 1810 or early 1811 by a publisher, for publication at her own risk. It appeared in October 1811.
Encouraged by this success, Jane Austen turned to revising Pride and Prejudice. She sold it in November 1812, and was published in late January 1813. She had already started work on Mansfield Park by 1812, and worked on it during 1813.
In May 1814, appeared, Mansfield Park and was sold out in six months. During that time she had already started work on Emma, which appeared in December 1815 Emma, dedicated to the Prince Regent.
She had started on Persuasion in August 1815, and finished it in August 1816, although becoming increasingly unwell.
In early 1817 she started work on another novel, Sanditon, but had to give it up in March. On May 24 she was moved to Winchester for medical treatment. She died there on Friday, July 18th 1817, aged 41. Her cause of death was inexplicable, but it seems likely that it was Addison\'s disease. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral on July 24th 1817.
The novels Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were readied for the press by Henry Austen, and published posthumously at the end of 1817 in a combined edition of four volumes. ,
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