Jane Austen grew up in a middle-class household in rural England. Although her formal education was brief, she was impressed at an early age with the importance of reading and began writing in her teenage years. Her first published novel,
Sense and Sensibility (1811), was largely self-financed, and, like her second novel,
Pride and Prejudice (1813), published anonymously. Both novels were expansions of her youthful writings, and their depictions of the class-consciousness and social rituals attendant on courtship and marriage were drawn partly from the personal experiences of Austen and her family. The publication of
Mansfield Park (1814),
Emma (1815), and
Persuasion (1818) enhanced her reputation as a leading writer on social manners, class and gender dynamics, and the distinctions between city and country life.
Northanger Abbey, her witty satire of the sensation novel, which she had completed in 1803, was published shortly after her death.
