Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon in Hampshire. In 1783 Jane and her older sister Cassandra went briefly to be taught by Mrs Cawley, who lived first in Oxford and then Southampton. They were brought home from Southampton after the outbreak of an infectious disease, and in 1785 they went to the Abbey boarding school in Reading, returning home in 1786. This was their only education outside of the family. At the age of twelve she began writing poems, stories, and plays for her own and her family's amusement. Jane enjoyed social events, and her early letters tell of dances and parties. However there is little solid evidence of any serious courtship, apart from a mutual flirtation with an Irishman Thomas Lefroy, and an unsubstantiated story of a holiday romance with ‘a young man’, who told Jane, at the end of the holiday, that he would seek her out again. However, they heard a little time later that he had died. In 1801 when Jane’s father retired, the family moved to Bath, and then in 1806 to Southampton. Three years later, together with her sister and mother they moved to Chawton, near Alton and Winchester, where her brother Edward provided a small house on one of his estates. She remained there for the rest of her life until she died, possibly from Addison’s disease, on Friday 18 July 1817 aged 41.

Persuasion (1817) Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, 'Persuasion' is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension. New:   Paperback   DVD Used: Paperback	Pride and Prejudice (1813) Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners. New:   Paperback   DVD
Northanger Abbey (1817) Tells the story of a young girl, Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated world of Bath in the late 1790s. New:   Paperback   DVD Used: Paperback	Mansfield Park (1814) Mansfield Park is home to the wealthy Bertram family. Fanny Price, a 'poor relation' living with the Bertrams and conscious of her inferior status, dares to love their son Edmund... New:   Paperback   DVD Used: Paperback
Sense and Sensibility (1811) Sense and Sensibility is a delightful comedy of manners in which the sisters Elinor and Marianne represent these two qualities. New:   Paperback   DVD	Emma (1811) Emma is inordinately fond of match-making in the village of Highbury, yet oblivious of the question of whom she might marry. New:   Paperback   DVD Used: Paperback   Hardback

Miss Austen Regrets (2008) Absorbing drama based on the last years of Jane Austen's life. New:   DVD