Jane Austen

Abstract

Jane Austen led a reserved and quiet life, but she was a woman of remarkably sharp intellect, and a keen observer of human nature. She was born into a clerical family: her father was Rector of Steventon, Hampshire. The farthest afield she went in the first twenty-five years of her uneventful life, was on quiet journeys made to London, or to resorts such as Bath or Lyme, or to her brothers’ houses. She did, however, live in a number of different places. In 1801 she moved to Bath; from there, in 1806, to Southampton; and, in 1809, back to Hampshire, to Chawton. She died in Winchester while she was staying in lodgings.