Jane Austen was born in 1775, one of seven children of Revd George Austen, the rector of Steventon, a little village in Hampshire. Her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, appeared in 1811. Her next novel Pride and Prejudice, which she described as her "own darling child" received highly favourable reviews, followed by Mansfield Park in 1814, then Emma in 1816. Jane Austen died in 1817 after a short illness and two more novels, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, were published posthumously.
