07.18
Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817 in Winchester, England. She was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. She was born on December 16, 1775 in Hampshire, England the daughter of Cassandra Leigh and the reverend George Austen. The Austen’s were a very close-knit family; Jane had six brothers and one sister. Young Jane was tutored at home and attended the Abbey School in Reading, Berkshire. Jane was inseparable from her older sister Cassandra. They sang and danced and attended balls together. When George retired around 1801, he moved his family to Bath where he died in 1805. Adjusting to the ensuing financial difficulties, Jane, Cassandra and their mother then moved to Southampton for a time before settling in a cottage on the estate of Edward Austen in the village of Chawton, Hampshire in 1809. Austen had missed Steventon life and now returning to the Hampshire countryside she wrote in earnest, revising and writing new works including Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1815). Possibly suffering from Addison’s disease, Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817. She was buried in the north aisle of the nave in Winchester Cathedral in Winchester, England.
