(by 2 people)
Jane Austen was born the seventh of eight children on December 16, 1775, to George and Cassandra Austen. Her family's social situation is reflected in her books - the Austen's were respectable, but poor.
Austen began writing in her early teens, and was still working on Sandition when she died. Although her books, including Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park, are now known throughout the world, it was not always so. Austen kept her writing a secret from all but close family, and was published anonymously. She was recognized as an author after the release of Pride and Prejudice in 1813.
She was never married, and after her father's death lived with her mother and sister until she succumbed to Addison's disease in 1817.
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For more extensive biographical information refer to the links list further down on this page.
What's your Fave?
which austen novel is YOUR favorite?
"It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;-- it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.." ~ Sense and Sensibility Novels
in chronological order
- Sense and Sensibility
(published 1811)
- Pride and Prejudice
- Mansfield Park
- Emma
- Northanger Abbey
- Persuasion
Shorter Works
- Lady Susan
- The Watsons
- Sanditon
Young Writings
- The Three Sisters
- Love and Freindship
- The History of England
- Catharine, or the Bower
- The Beautifull Cassandra
"If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out." ~ Mansfield Park Linkage
- Jane Austen Centre (Bath, UK)
- Website of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, which is a permanent exhibit about Austen's life, writing and experiences.
- The Republic of Pemberley
- A haven for Austen addicts
- A Chronology of Austen's Writing Life
- Just what it sounds like - a detailed chronological list of Austen's writing and where they fit into her life.
- JASNA
- The Jane Austen Society of North America.
- JASA
- The Jane Austen Society of Australia - includes extensive biography, links, and chronology.
- Wikipedia - Jane Austen
- Wikipedia's bio on Jane Austen, and list of works.
Austen on Amazon
Pride and Prejudice (Oxford World's Classics)
Amazon Price: $7.95 (as of 12/03/2008) 
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen (Six Volume Set)
Amazon Price: $110.25 (as of 12/03/2008)
Mansfield Park (Penguin Classics)
Amazon Price: $8.00 (as of 12/03/2008)
Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics)
Amazon Price: $7.00 (as of 12/03/2008)
Emma (Bantam Classics)
Amazon Price: $4.95 (as of 12/03/2008)
Biographies
A Memoir of Jane Austen: And Other Family Recollections (Oxford World's Classics)
Amazon Price: (as of 12/03/2008)
Jane Austen (Penguin Lives)
Amazon Price: (as of 12/03/2008)
Jane Austen's Letters
Amazon Price: $19.79 (as of 12/03/2008)
Jane Austen For Dummies (For Dummies)
Amazon Price: $13.59 (as of 12/03/2008)
Jane Austen: A Life
Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 12/03/2008)
Movies
films based on the works of jane austen
Sense & Sensibility (Special Edition)
Amazon Price: $8.49 (as of 12/03/2008)
Jane Austen Collection (Sense & Sensibility / Emma / Persuasion / Mansfield Park / Pride & Prejudice / Northanger Abbey)
Amazon Price: $32.99 (as of 12/03/2008)
Emma (A&E, 1997)
Amazon Price: $10.99 (as of 12/03/2008)
Pride and Prejudice - The Special Edition (A&E, 1996)
Amazon Price: $14.99 (as of 12/03/2008)
Mansfield Park (BBC, 1986)
Amazon Price: $10.99 (as of 12/03/2008)
Austen Audio Books
Pride and Prejudice
Amazon Price: $25.05 (as of 12/03/2008)
Persuasion (Complete Classics)
Amazon Price: $31.67 (as of 12/03/2008)
Emma
Amazon Price: $25.05 (as of 12/03/2008)
Sense And Sensibility
Amazon Price: $25.05 (as of 12/03/2008)
Northanger Abbey (Naxos AudioBooks)
Amazon Price: $31.67 (as of 12/03/2008)
"Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us." ~ Pride and Prejudice 
