Jane Austen- Never Forgotten

Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire in England on 16th December 1775. From the age of 11 or maybe earlier she used to write poems and short stories for her own and her family's entertainment. She had 6 brothers and a sister. Novels written by her include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815)

Northanger Abbey (1818, published posthumously), Persuasion (1818, published posthumously), Lady Susan (1871, published posthumously). There were some unfinished fiction novels including The Watsons (1804), Sanditon (1817), and other works.

She compiled copies of her early works written between 1787 and 1783 into three bound notebooks known as the Juvenilia. She wrote a satirical novel in letters knows as Love and Friendship at the age of 14 in 1790. Next year she wrote a 34-page manuscript called The History of England which included 13 watercolour miniatures by her sister, Cassandra.

Not long after Love and Friendship, Austen decided to write for profit that is to become a professional writer.

Between 1793 and 1795 (aged eighteen to twenty) Austen wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, usually described as her most aspiring and worldly early work. After finishing Lady Susan, Jane began her first full-length novel, Elinor and Marianne. The novel was published anonymously in 1811 as Sense and Sensibility. She began a second novel, First Impressions later published as Pride and Prejudice, in 1796. The initial draft was ready by August 1797. Austen used to read her work aloud to her family as she was working on. The first attempt to publish one of her novels was made by her father. In November 1797, her dad, George Austen wrote to Thomas Cadell, an established publisher in London, to ask if he would consider publishing First Impressions. He returned the letter, marking it "Declined by Return of Post".

After completing First Impressions, from November 1797 until mid-1798, she returned to Elinor and Marianne and revised it heavily; she eliminated the epistolary form of third-person narration and produced something close to Sense and Sensibility. During the middle of 1798, after finishing emendation of Elinor and Marianne, she began writing a third novel with the working title Susan, later named Northanger Abbey, a satire on the popular Gothic novel. She completed it about a year later.

In 1800 George Austen unexpectedly decided to move from Steventon to Bath. Jane was shocked with the moving and leaving the only home she ever knew. Due to her this state of mind, her writing started to lack productivity during the time she was living in Bath. She started a new novel, The Watsons but then abandoned it. The productivity was not like that of in 1795-1799. It is often said that she was unhappy in Bath, which caused her to lose interest in writing, but it is just as possible that because of her social life in Bath she was prevented from spending time writing novels.

When her father suddenly died, Jane, Cassandra, and their mother got into a dangerous financial situation. Edward, James, Henry, and Francis Austen (known as Frank) pledged to help their mother and sisters by contributing annually to support. For the next four years, they were spending part of the time in rented quarters in Bath before leaving the city in June 1805 for a family visit to Steventon and Godmersham. They moved for the autumn months to the new seaside resort of Worthing, on the Sussex coast, where they stayed at Stanford Cottage. It was here that Jane is thought to have written her fair copy of Lady Susan and added its "Conclusion". In 1806 they moved to Southampton, where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. On 5 April 1809, about three months before the family's move to Chawton, Jane wrote an angry letter to Richard Crosby, offering him a new edition of Susan to

secure the immediate publication of the novel, and requesting the come back of the initial therefore she may notice another publisher. Crosby replied that he had not in agreement to publish the book by any specific time, or in the least which Jane Austen might repurchase the manuscript for the £10 he had paid her and find another publisher. She did not have the resources to buy the copyright back at that time but was able to purchase it in 1816.

Austen died on 18 July 1817 at the age of 41 in Winchester, England. After her death, Cassandra, Henry Austen, and Murray decided to publish Persuasion and Northanger Abbey as a set. Henry Austen gave a Biographical Note which for the first time ever stated his sister as the author of the novels. Sales were good for a year with only 321 copies remaining unsold till the end of 1818. Richard Bentley in 1832 purchased the remaining copyrights to all of her novels, and over the following winter published five illustrated volumes as part of his Standard Novels series. In October 1833, the first collected edition of her works was released by Richard. Since then, her novels have been continuously printed.