Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, England, on the 16th of December 1775 - 250 years ago. She is considered one of the great writers of the English language. Her six novels explore, often through wit and ironic prose, the lives and loves of the English upper class, often highlighting societal hypocrisy and the search for genuine love against the grain of family and class expectations.

Virginia Woolf wrote - in praise of Austen's subtlety - that "of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness."

Unfortunately Austen died "just as she was beginning to feel confidence in her own success," as she is believed to have had Addison's disease. Nonetheless her writings, which are available free online, are now considered rivals to the likes of Dickens and Shakespeare.