Portal:South East England/Selected biography/4

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist. Her biting social commentary and masterful use of both free indirect discourse and irony eventually made Austen one of the most influential and revered novelists of the early nineteenth century.

In 1775, Jane Austen was born at a rectory in Steventon, Hampshire. In 1783, she was educated briefly by a relative in Oxford, then in Southampton, and finally in 1785–1786 attended the Reading Ladies boarding school in the Abbey gatehouse in Reading, Berkshire.

After the death of her father in 1805, Austen, her sister and her mother lived in Southampton with her brother Frank and his family for several years before moving to Chawton in 1809. In May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be closer to her doctor.