She lived her entire life as part of a large and close-knit family and was educated primarily by her father and older brothers. Before she was thirty-five, she wrote: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815), which earned her only moderate success. She would write two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published after her death in 1817, and began a third, eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.
secure social standing and economic security but her works are also concerned with moral issues.
During Jane's lifetime, her writing brought her little fame and only a few positive reviews, until the publication of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 which introduced her life and works to a wider public. By the 1940s, Austen was considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time, and many of her novels have ben made into popular movies.
Very little is known of Jane's personal life, however. Only some family letters remain (just 160 of 3,000) and her sister Cassandra (who painted the water colour of Jane above) censored those she retained. Other letters were destroyed by the heirs of Admiral Francis Austen, Jane's brother. Most of the biographical material produced for fifty years after Austen's death was written by her relatives and reflects the family's biases in favour of "good quiet Aunt Jane".
