Jane Austen (December  16, 1775 – July 18, 1817) was the seventh of eight children born to George and Cassandra Austen. Both parents were members of lower ranks of the landed gentry. Her father was the rector of Anglican parishes in Steventon, Hampshire.  She was educated by her father and brothers, and her family was supportive of her artistic ambitions.  In her early twenties she began publishing novels of romantic fiction set among the landed gentry that focus on relationships and marriage as the only path available for women to achieve economic security and social standing. Although the plots of her books are quite comic, she is unsparing in her depiction of the people and the manners of the times and finds abundant opportunities for satire and trenchant social commentary.

Jane Austen was relatively unknown in her lifetime. Although she published four popular novels in rapid succession between 1811 and 1815, they were published anonymously and she had few reviews and little recognition.  Her nephew published A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 that introduced her to a broader audience, and by the middle of the 20th century she was recognized by academia as one of the great English writers. Her focus on the realities of the lives of women in the late 18th and early 19th centuries gained even greater currency with the advent of feminism and women’s studies.  Her work has a large and ardent fan base that results in her works consistently ranking among the top best selling and most highly regarded classics in all literature.