Jane Austen, a parson's daughter who grew up in quiet, rural Hampshire in the eighteenth century, became a famous and much-loved English novelist. Drawing on a little-known family diary, family memoirs and letters, this book tells the story of Jane's life largely in her own words and those of people who knew her. It also traces her development as a novelist and the growth of her reputation and fame following her untimely death at the age of forty-one.