A sketch of Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra ©

Jane Austen famously stated that 'three or four families in a country village is the thing to work on,' and she remained steadfast in applying this trustworthy formula. The great strength of her novels is the social observations they contain: Austen employed a strong sense of irony in her critique of aristocratic disaffection and the pretensions of the nouveau riche. With a measured sardonic eye she was able to summarise social mores and the restraints suffered by women in Regency England.

Born in the village of Steventon, Hampshire, to a rector, she began to write as a teenager and her early work display a keen perception of the absurd. It was not until the family move to Bath that she started to write seriously using the spa town as a location.

She had the support of her brother Henry who helped negotiate with a publisher and the first novel, Sense and Sensibility, appeared in 1811. But it was Pride and Prejudice that Austen described as her 'own darling child' which received highly favourable reviews, including an anonymous one from Sir Walter Scott.

Mansfield Park followed in 1814, then Emma the next year. Emma is dedicated to the Prince Regent who was an admirer of her work.

With her career in full swing Austen was tragically diagnosed with Addisons disease and she died in 1817. Two more novels, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously and a final novel, Sanditon, was left incomplete.

Jane Austen's timeline.

• 1775  Jane Austen was born at Village of Steventon, England, to George and Cassandra Austen.
• 1785 - 1787 With her sister, Cassandra, Austen attends the Abbey School in Reading.
• 1790 - 93 Writes her juvenilia.
• 1795 - 98 Writes original versions f Northanger Abbey, Sense and sensibility, and Pride and Preduce.
• 1797 "First impressions" (original version of Pride and Prejudice) rejected by London Publisher.
• 1801 father retires and moves to Bath with his wife and daughters.
• 1803 Susan (original version of Northanger Abbey) is bought by a publisher but never issued.
• 1804 Austen begins, and quickly abandons, "The Watsons." 
• 1805 Death of father, George.
• 1808 Moves to Southampton with mother and sister.
• 1809 - 17 Lives with her mother and sister in a small house provided by her wealthy Brother Edward in the village of Chawton, in Southern England. Begins revising origin versions of Sense and sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.
• 1811 Sense and sensibility published.
• 1813 Pride and Prejudice published.
• 1814 Mansfield Park is published. Austen begins work on Emma.
• 1816 Completes persuasion. Emma is published and is dedicated to the Prince Regent (future George IV) at his request. Austen
•  1817 Composes the Fragment "Sandition"; abandons it because of incapacitating illness. Austen is moved to Winchester for medical care in May and dies there on 18 July. Buried in Winchester cathedral on 24 July.
• 1818 Northanger Abbey and Persuasion published jointly in a four volume edition, with a biographical preface of Austen by her brother Henry.