The English writer Jane Austen is among the world's most famous authors. She created such classics as Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775. Her father was the Vicar of Steventon and Jane was the seventh of eight children. After Jane wrote Pride & Prejudice, her father offered the book to a publisher in 1797 who turned it down without reading it.

Jane moved with her parents and Cassandra to Bath in 1801. Four years later, her father died. By 1807, she moved to Bargate, Southampton. In 1809, Mrs Austen, Cassandra, Jane and Martha Lloyd moved to Chawton, near Alton. Here they lived in the former bailiff' house on the Chawton estate that was left to Jane's brother Edward.

It was Jane's final home, where she lived with her mother and sister Cassandra until 1817. At Chawton Jane led a quiet life and focused on novel writing. Jane revised both Sense and Sensibility that was published in 1811, as well as Pride and Prejudice, which was published in 1813. Pride and Prejudice was an instant success. All Jane's novels that appeared during her lifetime were published anonymously, merely bearing the legend "By a Lady". Mansfield Park was published in 1814 and Emma in 1815. Persuasion was published until 1818, after her death. In early 1817 Jane began to write Sanditon, but she became ill and the book was never completed. She died on 18 July at the age of 41.