"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of wife."
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Her childhood and Her education
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Stevenson rectory. On April 1776, she was christened. During one year, she was nursed and brought up by a woman who called Elizabeth Littlewood. Eight years later, according to family tradition, Jane and her sister Cassandra (who was born in 1739) was send to Oxford to be educated. In the year, they moved to Southampton with their teacher. After catching the typhus, the two girls were educated at home. They were send to school only in 1785. Over there, they learned spelling, French, needlework, music, drama and dancing. One year later, the Austen took back their daughters to home because of lack of money. Jane learned thought reading books. Her father, George Austen, provided access her to a large and varied library. Perhaps as early as 1787, Austen began to write poems, stories, and plays for her own and her family's amusement.
Jane Austen wrote her Juvenilia from 1787 to 1793 (include many humorous parodies of the literature of the day). Earlier versions of the novels eventually published as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey were all begun and worked on from 1795 to 1799.
Her adulthood 
She continued to live at her parents' home, carrying out those activitiesnormal for women of her age and social standing (likepracticed the pianoforte). Austen family stayed to Steventon until 1801. After, she moved to Bath with her family. During the years in Bath, the family went to the sea-side every summer and while the family were staying somewhere on the coast.
When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a nephew of neighbours, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796.Lefroy and Austen would have been introduced at a ball and it is clear from Austen's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together. Lefroy family intervened and sent him away at the end of January. Jane Austen never saw him again.
During the period between 1793 and 1795, Austen wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, usually described as her most ambitious and sophisticated early work. In 1803 Jane Austen actually sold Susan (laterNorthanger Abbey) to a publisher. However, the publisher chose not to publish it. In December 1802, Austen received her only proposal of marriage. Harris Bigg-Wither, who was six years younger than herself, asked to Jane to get married, and she accepted, though she did not love him. However, the next day she thought better of it, realised she had made a mistake and withdrew her acceptance. In January 1805 her father died.
In 1806 they moved from Bath , first to Clifton, and then to Southampton . They shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. A large part of this time they spent visiting various branches of the family.
In 1809 Jane Austen, her mother and her sister Cassandra moved to Chawton . In Chawton, the life was quieter. The Austen did not socialise with the neighbouring gentry and entertained only when family visited. She resumed her literary activities and revised Sense and Sensibility, which was accepted in late 1810 or early 1811 by a publisher. The book was a success and provided her with some financial and psychological independence. She had already started work on Mansfield Park and worked on it during 1813. Then, Pride and Prejudicewas published, a revision of First Impressions, in January 1813. In May 1814, Mansfield Park appeared and she had already started work on Emma. Austen learned that the Prince Regent admired her novels and in November 1815, the Prince Regent's librarian invited Austen to visit the Prince's London residence.
Her death
Early in 1816, Jane Austen began to feel unwell. She ignored her illness at first and continued to work and to participate in the usual round of family activities. On May 24 she was moved to Winchester for medical treatment. In early 1817 she started work on another novel, Sanditon and completed twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817. She died there on Friday, July 18th 1817, aged 41. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral on July 24th 1817. The epitaph composed by her brother James praises Austen's personal qualities, expresses hope for her salvation but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer.