Jane austen biography bbc
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Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)
A sketch of Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra ©Jane Austen was an English novelist whose books, set among the English middle and upper classes, are notable for their wit, social observation and insights into the lives of early 19th century women.
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire. She was one of eight children of a clergyman and grew up in a close-knit family. She began to write as a teenager. In 1801 the family moved to Bath. After the death of Jane's father in 1805 Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother moved several times eventually settling in Chawton, near Steventon.
Jane's brother Henry helped her negotiate with a publisher and 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. 'Mansfield Park' was published in 1814, then 'Emma' in 1816. 'Emma' was dedicated
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The racy side of Jane Austen
Features correspondent
To mark the bicentenary of the British author’s death, the British Library has brought together the three notebooks that survive from her early years. Fiona Macdonald takes a peek.
“Jane Austen’s earliest writings appear to have little in common with the restrained and realistic kultur portrayed in her adult novels,” writes Kathryn Sutherland, a professor of English at the University of Oxford. “By contrast, they are exuberantly expressionistic tales of sexual misdemeanour, of female drunkenness and violence.”
A different side to the British novelist can be seen in the three notebooks of her early writings that still survive. Thought to have been written when Austen was between the ages of 11 and 17, they contain stories, dramatic sketches and a spoof history. For the first time in 40 years, they’ve been brought together for a display at the British Library. They reveal a precocious talent –
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Jane Austen: Six things
It is 200 years since the death of Jane Austen and while the author is known as one of the world's greatest writers and has had her portrait unveiled on the new £10 note it was not always that way.
Historian Lucy Worsley, who has written a new biography of the novelist, tells us six significant things about the author.
She never got her due in her lifetime...
"I feel still a sense of injustice about the way she never got her due within her lifetime.
"Her names were not on the covers of her books, she published anonymously, she did not seek fame and fortune and she's buried in Winchester Cathedral under this grave that doesn't even mention her books.
"It still makes me so cross. I still feel the need to tell people about this and try to put that wrong right.
"It's brilliant the Times has published her obituary today 200 years later. Good for them.
"They didn't writ