The following text comes mostly from my recollection of the tidbits I have read about Jane Austen since I fell in love with her writing. It has been augmented with a few dates, just to add the feeling of reality, but if you research hard enough, you may be able to prove me wrong on some points. I don’t really care; just trust that the following gives an accurate flavor of the life of Jane Austen, the greatest author of all time (much better than that nasty, back-stabbing Bronte).

Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire England in 1775. She was the seventh of eight children born to the Reverend George Austen, rector of Steventon. She was schooled at home by her father, who instilled in her a love of reading and an appreciation for great writers. She began writing at the age of 11 or 12, writing parodies of popular novels at that time.

Jane had a happy childhood. Her siblings were intelligent and possessed the same whit and humor that Austen displays in her writing. Though her family was not rich, she was invited to parties and thus exposed to the kind of money and upper social classes she often writes about in her novels.

At the age of 25 Austen’s parents decided to move to Bath, and Jane and her beloved sister Cassandra were forced to leave their childhood home. Life in Bath was not bad, but, if Austen had any contempt toward the wealthy, it was probably born in Bath.

After the death of her father in 1805, Austen moved to Southhampton with her mother and sister. A few years later they moved into a cottage in Chawton Hampshire, and that is where Jane spent the rest of her life.

Writing
Austen’s first two novels, Elinor and Marianne (1796) and First Impressions (1797), were written at her childhood home in Steventon, but were not published. In 1803, her third novel, Northanger Abby, was sold to a publisher who inexplicably never published it.

After the final move, to Chawton Hampshire, Jane wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. After revising her earlier works, Elinor and Marianne was published as Sense and Sensibility in 1811, and two years later First Impressions was published as Pride and Prejudice.

Mansfield Park was published in 1814, followed by Emma in 1816. Interestingly, none of these books carried the name of the author, they just said, “by a lady.”

On July 18, 1817, at the age of 40, Jane Austen died. Her final unpublished books, Persuasion and Northanger Abby (which Austen had earlier bought back from the publisher), were published by her brother Henry in 1818. These were the first books that carried the name of the author.

Regrets
It is this author’s regret that Jane Austen never married. As I read Pride and Prejudice, or Emma, I want to think that Jane experienced that same lasting love and joy sometime during her life.

Jane probably did fall in love once, with Tom Lefoy, a friend of the family in Jane’s youth. But Tom was the brightest of his siblings and was expected to marry rich. Therefore, in 1796, he was sent away to Ireland to become a barrister. In writings from later in his life, he admits, “I once loved Jane Austen.” Jane most likely returned his affection.

Another friend of the family proposed to Jane one evening in 1802, while she was visiting his family’s home. Jane accepted, but changed her mind and broke the engagement the next morning.

Anything more we might learn about Jane’s experience with romance is lost forever. After Jane’s death, her older sister, Cassandra, burned many of Jane’s letters that she deemed too personal in nature.

When discussing the writing and life of Jane Austen, another unfortunate loss must be noted. There are no original manuscripts of any of Jane’s novels. As if that is not bad enough, all of Jane's letters to her brother Henry were destroyed, for no apparent reason, by his daughter after his death. On top of all that, we are not exactly sure what she looked like, because she never had a professional portrait made.

Jane Austen apparently never had an enduring romance like the characters in her book. But I believe the world is a better place because of her writing. If ever a woman looks at her husband and says, “Now I can call you my Mr. Knightley!” –if ever a man looks at his wife and says, “Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth!” there is little added to the huge debt we owe to Jane Austen.