Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family in Steventon until they moved to Bath, when her father retired in 1801. After he died in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until May 1817, when she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There, she died on July 18, 1817. As a girl, Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were only published after much revision, with four novels published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815–16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, whose fragmentary draft survives.
