Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen was born in Seventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775. She was the seventh child of rector George Austen and his wife Cassandra. Jane and her elder sister Cassandra, with whom she had a close relationship, received a basic education for five years and then continued to educate themselves through ample reading in their father’s extensive library, as well as learning painting and piano. Jane began to write at the youthful age of 12. In this period, she developed numerous early works. Between 1795 and 1799, she began the initial versions of her novels which were published more than a decade later after a number of revisions. Her contemporaries described the young Jane as an avid dancer and theater lover. While having a few suitors, she didn’t seem to be particularly interested in marriage, remaining single like Cassandra. When their father died in 1805, the sisters and their mother became financially dependent on Jane’s brothers. They moved repeatedly between Bath, London, Clifton, Warwickshire and Southampton, and briefly stayed with various relatives. In 1809, the three women finally settled in Chawton village, Hampshire, where they lived in a large cottage. Stability reawakened Jane’s creative forces. She prepared Sense and Sensibility (1811) as well as Pride and Prejudice (1813) for publication. In 1814, she released Mansfield Park, followed by Emma in 1816. At this point, Austen was a widely-read, albeit anonymous, author. She died at 41 on July 18, 1817, possibly of Addison’s disease, the cause of which is unknown and which was untreatable at the time. Her novels Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818. Only then did Jane’s brother Henry make the authorship of all six works publicly known.