Jane Austen was born in Steventon rectory on 16 December 1775. Her family later moved to Bath
then to Southampton and finally to Chawton in Hampshire. She began writing Pride and Prejudice
when she was twenty-two years old. It was originally called First Impressions and was initially
rejected by the publishers and only published in 1813 after much revision. She published four
of her novels in her lifetime Sense and Sensibility (1811) Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Jane Austen died on 18th July 1817. Northanger Abbey and
Persuasion were both published posthumously in 1818. Andrew Motion has been a lecturer editor
of the Poetry Review Editorial Director of Chatto & Windus Poet Laureate co-founder the
Poetry Archive and was knighted for his services to literature in 2009. He is now Professor of
Creative Writing at Royal Holloway University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society
of Literature and lives in London. Leanne Shapton is an illustrator author and publisher based
in New York City. http: leanneshapton.com
