1775-1817
Novelist

Early Years. Jane Austen was born in 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England, where her father, George Austen, was a rector in the local parish church. As an Anglican clergyman, he earned a modest income. The rectory was home not only to George Austen, his wife, Cassandra, and their eight children, but also to pupils George Austen tutored to earn extra money. Jane Austen's education was informal, relatively brief, and no more rigorous than the schooling given to most girls of her time and social class. In 1782 she accompanied her older sister, Cassandra, and a cousin to study in the home of an aunt named Mrs. Ann Cawley, first in Oxford and then in Southampton. They remained with Mrs. Cawley until autumn 1783. In 1784 the sisters were sent to a girls' boarding school in Reading, which was similar to Mrs. Goddard's casual school in Austen's novel Emma...