Austen, Jane

The English author Jane Austen was born in in Steventon, Hampshire as the second last of seven children. Her father was a well-to-do vicar with literary interests, and his daughter learned to read and write with his help. Jane Austen and her favorite sister Cassandra attended a girls' school in Berkshire in 1785-86 and, after her return home, Austen started her first literary production of comic essays and short stories, which were written and read to the family. She compiled these works into three volumes, which were never published during her lifetime. Also her literarily interested brother James contributed to an artistic home environment by staging amateur theatre plays with siblings, cousins, and friends. As her brothers formed families elsewhere, Austen's social frames of reference widened and she got new material for her stories.