The World of Jane Austen and Pride and
Prejudice
| 1775 | The American Revolution begins in April. Jane Austen is born on December 16 in the Parsonage House in Steventon, Hampshire, England, the seventh of eight children (two girls and six boys). |
| 1778 | Frances (Fanny) Burney publishes Evelina, a seminal work in the development of the novel of manners. |
| 1781 | German philosopher Immanuel Kant publishes his Critique of Pure Reason. |
| 1782 | The American Revolution ends. Fanny Burney’s novel Cecilia is published. |
| 1783 | Cassandra and Jane Austen begin their formal education in Southampton, followed by study in Reading. |
| 1788 | King George III of England suffers his first bout of mental illness, leaving the country in a state of uncertainty and anxiety. George Gordon, Lord Byron, is born. |
| 1789 | George III recuperates. The French Revolution begins. William Blake’s Songs of Innocence is published. |
| 1791 | American political philosopher Thomas Paine publishes the first part of The Rights of Man. |
| 1792 | Percy Bysshe Shelley is born. Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. |
| 1793 | A shock wave passes though Europe with the execution of King Louis XVI of France and, some months later, his wife, Marie-Antoinette; the Reign of Terror begins. England declares war on France. Two of Austen’s brothers, Francis (1774-1865) and Charles (1779- 1852), serve in the Royal Navy, but life in the countryside of Steventon remains relatively tranquil. |
| 1795 | Austen begins her first novel, “Elinor and Marianne,” written as letters (the fragments of this early work are now lost); she will later revise the material to become the novel Sense and Sensibility. John Keats is born. |
| 1796-1797 | Austen authors a second novel, “First Impressions,” which was never published; it will later become Pride and Prejudice. |
| 1798 | Poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth publish The Lyrical Ballads. |
| 1801 | Jane’s father, the Reverend George Austen, retires, and with the Napoleonic Wars looming in the background of British consciousness, he and his wife and two daughters leave the quiet country life of Steventon for the bustling, fashionable town of Bath. Many of the characters and depictions of society in Jane Austen’s subsequent novels are shaped by her experiences in Bath. |
| 1803 | Austen receives her first publication offer for her novel “Susan,” but the manuscript is subsequently returned by the publisher; it will later be revised and released as Northanger Abbey. The United States buys Louisiana from France. Ralph Waldo Emerson is born. |
| 1804 | Napoleon crowns himself emperor of France. Spain declares war on Britain. |
| 1805 | Jane’s father dies. Jane and her mother and sister subsequently move to Southampton. Sir Walter Scott publishes his Lay of the Last Minstrel. |
| 1809 | After several years of traveling and short-term stays in various towns, the Austen women settle in Chawton Cottage in Hampshire; in the parlor of this house Austen quietly composes her most famous works. Charles Darwin and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, are born. |
| 1811 | Austen begins Mansfield Park in February. In November Sense and Sensibility, the romantic misadventures of two sisters, is published with the notation “By a Lady”; all of Austen’s subsequent novels are also brought out anonymously. George III is declared insane, and the morally corrupt Prince of Wales (the future King George IV) becomes regent. |
| 1812 | Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm and the first parts of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold are published. The United States declares war on Great Britain. |
| 1813 | Pride and Prejudice is published; it describes the conflict between the high-spirited daughter of a country gentleman and a wealthy landowner. Napoleon is exiled to Elba, and the Bourbons are restored to power. |
| 1814 | Mansfield Park is published; it is the story of the difficult though ultimately rewarded life of a poor relation who lives in the house of her wealthy uncle. |
| 1815 | Austen’s comic novel Emma is published, centering on the heroine’s misguided attempts at matchmaking. Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo. Charlotte Brontë is born. |
| 1817 | Austen begins the satiric novel Sanditon, but abandons it because of declining health. She dies on July 18 in Winchester and is buried in Winchester Cathedral. |
| 1818 | Northanger Abbey, a social satire with overtones of (parodied) terror, and Persuasion, about a reawakened love, are published under Austen’s brother Henry’s supervision. |