Biographical Summary
Born into a well-off middle class family, Jane Austen was able to have the privilege of experiencing the world of writing from an early age. Austen was born on December 16, 1775, becoming the seventh addition to the eight children family of Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen. Jane was born into a highly literate family; George was an Oxford-educated clergyman while Cassandra Leigh was an aristocratic woman. The family’s main form of enjoyment came from writing plays for each other. These plays were Austen’s first forays into writing, becoming the thematic precursors to her later works. While Austen’s brothers studied at formal schools, she and her sister, Cassandra, were educated largely at home. However,
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For example, the unfair schooling between her brothers and herself could’ve led to her strong stand on feminism and subtly advocating women’s rights in her novels. The termination of her courtship with Lefroy likewise could’ve led to her bitter opinions on common marriage based on wealth status. Her position on society based on earlier events in her life can be reflected in her first published novel in 1803, Northanger Abbey. Written at only age fifteen, Northanger Abbey showed how great of an impact the early encouragement of writing within the family was on Jane. Starting with her father’s sudden death in 1801 to multiple marriage plan failures in 1808, Austen settled in the countryside of Chawton, Kent and began to write again. The early 1800s also marked the opposition of Britain’s citizens at its country’s involvement in the French Revolution. In the midst of all criticism towards the government, Jane Austen took a sharp stand on women’s rights and politics in her later novels, like Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Sense and Sensibility (1811), Emma (1816), and Persuasion (1817). Weirdly enough, some of her works were published anonymously during her