Jane Austen was born in 1775 in Hampshire, England. She began writing at a young age and published her first novels, including Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, in the early 1800s. Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Elizabeth Bennet and her relationships and was an instant success. Austen wrote five other novels and was gaining recognition as a brilliant satirist of the middle class when she died of an unknown illness in 1817 at the age of 41.

1. Student:
Coordinating teacher:

2.  She was born on 16 December 1775 in the
village of Steventon in Hampshire.
 She was the sixth of the eight children of a
clergyman, Reverend George Austen.
 She began to write as a teenager.
 In 1801 the family moved to Bath.
 After the death of Jane's father in 1805 Jane,
her sister Cassandra and their mother moved
several times eventually settling in Chawton,
near Steventon.

3.  As a young woman Jane enjoyed dancing (an
activity which features frequently in her novels)
and she attended balls in many of the great
houses of the neighbourhood.
 She loved the country, enjoyed long country
walks, and had many Hampshire friends.
 After her father's death in 1805, his widow and
daughters also suffered financial difficulties and
were forced to rely on the charity of the Austen
sons.
 It was also at this time that, Jane fell in love,
and when the young man died, she was deeply
upset. Later she accepted a proposal of marriage
from Harris Bigg-Wither, a wealthy landowner
and brother to some of her closest friends, but
she changed her mind the next morning and was
greatly upset by the whole episode.

4.  At the age of 14 she wrote her first novel, Love
and Friendship and then A History of England
by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant
Historian.
 In her early twenties Jane Austen wrote the
novels that were later to be re-worked and
published as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and
Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. She also
began a novel called The Watsons which was
never completed.

5.  Mansfield Park
 Pride and Prejudice
 Sense and Sensibility
 Emma
 Persuasion

7.  Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen,
first published in 1813. The story follows the
main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals
with issues of manners, upbringing, morality,
education, and marriage in the society of the
landed gentry of early 19th-century England.
Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a
country gentleman living near the fictional town
of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London.

8.  Though the story is set at the turn of the 19th
century, it retains a fascination for modern
readers, continuing near the top of lists of "most
loved books" such as The Big Read. It has become
one of the most popular novels in English
literature and receives considerable attention
from literary scholars. Modern interest in the
book has resulted in a number of dramatic
adaptations and an abundance of novels and
stories imitating Austen's memorable characters
or themes. To date, the book has sold some
20 million copies worldwide.

9.  "A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever
heard of.“
 "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man
is in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a
wife.“
 "It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman
should ever refuse an offer of marriage.“
 "One cannot be always laughing at a man without now
and then stumbling on something witty.“

10.  "Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor.
Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.“
 "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.“
 "Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness
destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!"

12.  This is a
photography of a
coat worn by Jane
Austen.
 It gives an idea of
the type of clothes
worn by young
ladies of the time.

13.  In 1816, Jane began to suffer
from ill-health, probably due
to Addison's disease. She
travelled to Winchester to
receive treatment, and died
there on 18 July 1817. Two
more novels, 'Persuasion'
and 'Northanger Abbey' were
published posthumously and
a final novel was left
incomplete.

14. “The person, be it gentleman
or lady, who has not pleasure
in a good novel, must be
intolerably stupid.”
-- Jane Austen