Jane Austen
1775 – 1817
Jane Austen was born on December 16th, 1775. She had a public baptism several months later, on April 5th of 1776. Rather than being reared by her mother in her family home, Austen was sent to live with a nearby woman named Elizabeth Littlewood, who cared for her a year or more. According to the tradition of the family, Jane and her sister, Cassandra Austen, were sent to Oxford to be educated. Unfortunately, both girls came down with a case of typhus, leaving Jane near to death. Subsequently, she was sent back home to be educated until the age of three, when both she and Cassandra were once more sent away, this time to a boarding school. While there, they studied French, needlework, spelling, music, and dancing, all considered a necessity for a girl at the time. By December of 1786 when Jane was eleven, they returned home, as the Austens did not possess the necessary funds to send them both to school.