Jane Austen

Born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire, she was the daughter of the Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh. She grew up in a large, close-knit family and began writing when she was young, developing the keen eye for conversation, manners, and social tension that would define her work.

Her major novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and the posthumously published Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1817–1818). Although her books first appeared anonymously during her lifetime, their lively intelligence and precise portraits of the English gentry made them lasting classics.

In her later years she lived at Chawton, where she revised and completed much of her best-known work. She died on 18 July 1817 in Winchester at the age of 41 and was buried in Winchester Cathedral, but her reputation only grew after her death, making her one of the most widely read novelists in English.