Austen, Jane
Austen, Jane ( 1775 – 1817 ),novelist, born in the rectory at Steventon, Hampshire, the sixth child in a family of seven. Her father, the Revd George Austen , was a cultivated man, comfortably prosperous, who taught Jane and encouraged her both in her reading and her writing. As a child and young woman she read widely, including, among novelists, Fielding , Sterne , Richardson , and F. Burney ; and among poets, Sir W. Scott , Cowper , and her particular favourite, Crabbe . Her life is notable for its lack of events; she did not marry, although she had several suitors, one of whom she accepted one evening, only to withdraw her acceptance the following morning. She lived in the midst of a lively and affectionate family, with occasional visits to Bath, London, Lyme, and her brothers' houses. Any references there may have been to private intimacies or griefs were excised from Jane's letters by her...
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