Emma

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, in England. Her father, an Anglican clergyman, encouraged her literary pursuits from a young age and by her mid-twenties, Austen had drafted three novels. Following the success of Sense and Sensibility in 1811, she went on to publish Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1815). Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously in 1818. Despite her fondness for marriage plots–all six of her novels end in weddings–Austen never married, living with her mother and sister in the years leading up to her death. She died on July 18, 1817, in the city of Winchester. Over two centuries later, Austen’s novels remain beloved classics, and she is considered one of the foremost writers in English literary history. George Justice is Vice Provost for Advanced Studies and Dean of the Graduate School as well as Professor of English at the University of Missouri–Columbia. He is the author of The Manufacturers of Literature: Writing and the Literary Marketplace in Eighteenth-Century England as well as essays and reviews on books related to eighteenth-century literature and culture. He is editor, with Albert J. Rivero, of the scholarly journal The Eighteenth-Century Novel. He is co-editor of Women’s Writing and Circulation of Ideas: Manuscript Publication in English, 1550–1800.