Sullivan, Margaret C.

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Hampshire, England. She was the seventh of eight children born to the Rev. George Austen and his wife, the former Cassandra Leigh. Austen received little formal education; her formal education ended by the age of nine, and she was brought home to be taught by her father, her mother, and her elder brothers. Austen began writing as a young teen, producing short tales full of rollicking humor that mocked the literary productions of the day. She began her serious adult writing in 1795 with a novel in letters that she called Elinor and Marianne (later r...