Jane Austen (1775–1817)

From the Jane Austen Society of North America: Jane Austen, one of England’s foremost novelists, was never publicly acknowledged as a writer during her lifetime. Born at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire, the 7th child of a country clergyman and his wife, she was primarily educated at home, benefiting from her father’s extensive library and the schoolroom atmosphere created by Mr. Austen’s live-in pupils. Her closest friend was her only sister, Cassandra, almost three years her senior.

Though Austen lived a quiet life, she had unusual access to the greater world, primarily through her brothers. On extended visits to Godmersham, her brother Edward’s estate in Kent, Austen and her sister took part in the privileged life of the landed gentry, which is reflected in all her fiction. In 1811, at the age of 35, she published Sense and Sensibility, which identified the author only as "a Lady." Pride and Prejudice followed in 1813, Mansfield Park in 1814, and Emma in 1815. Jane Austen died at age 41 and was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Interestingly, her gravestone, which is visited by hundreds of admirers each year, does not even mention that she was an author.

While a number of works on this page are modern works only partly based on the classic works of Jane Austen, the Jane Austen listed as (co-)author is the same Jane Austen and therefore the author page should not be split. (However, Jane Austen's role should be author, editor, etc of the work, not a subject or reference of the work.)

Please be careful when combining editions of Austen's complete novels - some editions contain 7 novels, others 8. Still others add various novels that were not completed.