Jane Austen (Steventon, 1775-Winchester, 1817). British novelist. Seventh daughter of a family of eight brothers, her father personally took care of his education. In 1801, the Austen moved to Bath and then to Chawton, a town in Hampshire, where the writer wrote most of her novels. Peaceful, serene and balanced is his way of writing, and he describes with subtle irony the atmosphere of the rural upper class of southern England. The interest of his works lies in the different psychological nuances of his characters, and in the description, with a good deal of criticism, of the social environment in which he places his protagonists, which is none other than his own, that of the bourgeoisie well-off