Timeline of Jane Austen
Encyclopedia
Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

 (1775–1817) lived her entire life as part of a family located socially and economically on the lower fringes of the English gentry
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....

. The Rev. George Austen and Cassandra Leigh, Jane Austen's parents, lived in Steventon, Hampshire
Steventon, Hampshire
Steventon is a rural village with a population of about 250 in north Hampshire, England. Situated 7 miles south-west of the town of Basingstoke, between the villages of Overton, Oakley and North Waltham, it is close to Junction 7 of the M3....

, where Rev. Austen was the rector of the Anglican
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 parish from 1765 until 1801. Jane Austen's immediate family was large and close-knit. She had six brothers—James, George, Charles
Charles Austen
Rear Admiral Sir Charles John Austen CB was an officer in the Royal Navy. He served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and beyond, eventually rising to the rank of rear-admiral.-Family and early life:...

, Francis
Francis Austen
Sir Francis William Austen, GCB was a British officer who spent most of his long life on active duty in the Royal Navy, rising to the position of Admiral of the Fleet.-Background:...

, Henry, and Edward—and a beloved older sister, Cassandra
Cassandra Austen
Cassandra Elizabeth Austen was an amateur English watercolourist and the elder sister of Jane Austen.-Childhood:...

. Austen's brother Edward was adopted by Thomas and Elizabeth Knight and eventually inherited their estates at Godmersham
Godmersham
Godmersham is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is located on the Great Stour river where it cuts through the North Downs...

, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, and Chawton
Chawton
Chawton is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 1.6 miles southwest of Alton, just south of the A31 which runs between Farnham and Winchester. The village is famous as the home of Jane Austen for the last eight years of her life...

, Hampshire. In 1801, Rev. Austen retired from the ministry and moved his family to Bath, Somerset. He died in 1805 and for the next four years, Jane, Cassandra, and their mother lived first in rented quarters and then in Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

 where they shared a house with Frank Austen's family. During these unsettled years, they spent much time visiting various branches of the family. In 1809, Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved permanently into a large "cottage" in Chawton village that was part of Edward's nearby estate. Austen lived at Chawton until she moved to Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...

 for medical treatment shortly before her death in 1817.
Throughout their adult lives, Jane and Cassandra were close to their cousin, Eliza de Feuillide, and to neighbors Mary and Martha Lloyd. Mary became the second wife of Austen's brother James, and Martha lived with the Austen family (beginning shortly after Rev. Austen's death in 1805) and married Austen's brother Frank late in life. Jane and Cassandra were also friends for many years with three sisters, Alethea, Elizabeth and Catherine Bigg, who lived at Manydown Park. Anne Brydges Lefroy, wife of Rev. George Lefroy, "became Jane Austen's best-loved and admired mentor, the person she would always run to for advice and encouragement" after the Lefroys moved to nearby Ashe in 1783. Her death in a riding accident in 1804 left Jane grief-stricken.

Austen met, danced with, and perhaps fell in love with Thomas Lefroy
Thomas Langlois Lefroy
Thomas Langlois Lefroy was an Irish-Huguenot politician and judge. He served as an MP for the constituency of Dublin University 1830–1841, Privy Councillor of Ireland 1835–1869 and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland 1852–1866....

 during the Christmas holidays in 1795. However, Lefroy departed to begin his law studies in January 1796 and he and Jane never saw each other again. Samuel Blackall, a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

, and a friend of Mrs. Anne Lefroy, was seriously interested in marrying Austen in 1797. Austen family tradition holds that Jane and an unnamed young clergyman fell in love while the Austen family visited the seaside at Sidmouth in the summer of 1801. Cassandra is said to have approved of this young man, but he died unexpectedly several months later, before he and Jane could be together again. Austen received her only proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, brother of her friends Alethea, Elizabeth and Catherine Bigg, while visiting them at their home in December 1802. Austen at first accepted the proposal, then realized she had made a mistake and withdrew her acceptance the next day. Austen biographer Park Honan suggests that Jane may have received a proposal of marriage from Edward Bridges, a brother of Edward Austen's wife Elizabeth, in 1805, but biographer Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin is an English biographer and journalist. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge.She was literary editor of the New Statesman and of the Sunday Times, and has written several noted biographies...

 dismisses this claim.

Jane Austen was primarily educated at home by her father and older brothers and through her own reading. Her apprenticeship as a writer lasted from her teenage years until she was about thirty-five years old. During this period, she wrote three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1815, with the release of Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811, is a British romance novel by Jane Austen, her first published work under the pseudonym, "A Lady." Jane Austen is considered a pioneer of the romance genre of novels, and for the realism portrayed in her novels, is one the most widely read writers in...

(1811), Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...

(1813), Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park (novel)
Mansfield Park is a novel by Jane Austen, written at Chawton Cottage between 1812 and 1814. It was published in July 1814 by Thomas Egerton, who published Jane Austen's two earlier novels, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice...

(1814), and Emma
Emma
Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively 'comedy of manners' among...

(1815), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, though she had previously made a start on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. According to Cassandra Austen's Memorandum, Susan was written approximately during 1798–99...

(originally written in 1798–1799 and revised later) and Persuasion
Persuasion (novel)
Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year ....

, both published after her death in 1817, and began a third (eventually titled Sanditon
Sanditon
Sanditon , also known as Sand and Sandition is an unfinished novel by the British novelist Jane Austen.-Background:In Sanditon, Austen explored her interest in the verbal construction of a society by means of a town – and a set of families – that is still in the process of being formed...

), but died before it could be completed. A product of 18th-century literary traditions, Austen's works were influenced most by those of renowned writer and critic Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

 and novelists Frances Burney and Maria Edgeworth
Maria Edgeworth
Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe...

. She considered poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

 a rival. Family theatricals, which included plays by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...

 and other 18th-century dramatists, shaped Austen's writing from an early age. William Cowper
William Cowper
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry...

's poetry was a favourite as were the novels of Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...

. Austen's engagement with sensibility
Sensibility
Sensibility refers to an acute perception of or responsiveness toward something, such as the emotions of another. This concept emerged in eighteenth-century Britain, and was closely associated with studies of sense perception as the means through which knowledge is gathered...

 illustrates her debt to sentimental writers such as Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...

.
Map of places Jane Austen lived () or visited ()

(Each dot is wikilinked to the article for that place)


Austen published all of her novels in the Regency
English Regency
The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father....

 period, during which King George III was declared permanently insane and his son was appointed as Prince Regent
Prince Regent
A prince regent is a prince who rules a monarchy as regent instead of a monarch, e.g., due to the Sovereign's incapacity or absence ....

. Throughout most of Austen's adult life, Britain was at war with revolutionary France
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

. Fearing the spread of revolution and violence to Britain, the government tried to repress political radicals
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...

 by suspending habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...

and passing the Seditious Meetings Act
Seditious Meetings Act 1795
The Seditious Meetings Act 1795, approved by the British Parliament in November 1795, was the second of the well known "Two Acts" , the other being the Treason Act 1795. Its purpose was to restrict the size of public meetings to fifty persons...

 and the Treasonable Practices Act
Treasonable Practices Act
The Treason Act 1795 was one of the Two Acts introduced by the British government in the wake of the stoning of King George III on his way to open Parliament in 1795, the other being the Seditious Meetings Act 1795...

, known as the "Gagging Acts". Many reformers still held out hope for change in Britain during the 1790s, but by the first two decades of the 19th century, the French Revolutionary Wars
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...

 and the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 had exhausted the country and a deep conservative reaction had set in. While Austen's novels rarely explicitly touch on these events, she herself was personally affected by them, as two of her brothers served in the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. When Napoleon was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 in 1815, Britain rejoiced. However, economic hardships in the 1810s increased the income disparity in the country and class conflict rose as the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

 began.

1760s

Year Austen Literary history Political history
1764
  • 26 April – Marriage of Rev. George Austen, rector of Steventon parish, and Cassandra Leigh
1765
  • 13 February – James Austen (Jane's brother) born at Deane, Hampshire
    Deane, Hampshire
    Deane is a village and civil parish in the county of Hampshire, England. Its name appears in the name of the borough in which it is placed, Basingstoke and Deane.-Governance:...

  • Publication of William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

    's collected works edited by Samuel Johnson
    Samuel Johnson
    Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

  • Publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto
    The Castle of Otranto
    The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel, initiating a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th century and early 19th century...

    , widely considered the first Gothic novel
  • Publication of the final ten volumes of L'Encyclopédie
    Encyclopédie
    Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert...

     (begun 1751)
  • March – Riots erupt in American colonies after the British parliament levies the stamp tax
    Stamp Act 1765
    The Stamp Act 1765 was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp...

  • 1766
  • 26 August – George Austen (Jane's brother) born at Deane
  • Publication of Oliver Goldsmith
    Oliver Goldsmith
    Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...

    's novel The Vicar of Wakefield
    The Vicar of Wakefield
    The Vicar of Wakefield is a novel by Irish author Oliver Goldsmith. It was written in 1761 and 1762, and published in 1766, and was one of the most popular and widely read 18th-century novels among Victorians...

  • 1767
  • 7 October – Edward Austen (Jane's brother) born at Deane
  • Publication of Laurence Sterne
    Laurence Sterne
    Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...

    's novel A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
    A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
    A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a novel by the Irish-born English author Laurence Sterne, written and first published in 1768, as Sterne was facing death. In 1765, Sterne travelled through France and Italy as far south as Naples, and after returning determined to describe his...

    (pictured)
  • James Cook
    James Cook
    Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

     voyages to Australia and New Zealand
    First voyage of James Cook
    The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771...

     (1768–1771)
  • 1768
  • July–August – Austen family moves to Steventon, Hampshire
    Steventon, Hampshire
    Steventon is a rural village with a population of about 250 in north Hampshire, England. Situated 7 miles south-west of the town of Basingstoke, between the villages of Overton, Oakley and North Waltham, it is close to Junction 7 of the M3....

  • 1769
  • David Garrick
    David Garrick
    David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...

    's Shakespeare Jubilee
    Shakespeare Jubilee
    The Shakespeare Jubilee was staged in Stratford-upon-Avon between 5-7 September 1769. The jubilee was organised by the actor and theatre manager David Garrick to celebrate the jubilee of the birth of William Shakespeare. It had a major impact on the rising tide of bardolatry that led to Shakespeare...

     celebration at Stratford-on-Avon

  • 1770s

    Year Austen Literary history Political history
    1770
    • Publication of Goldsmith's poem The Deserted Village
    • Publication of Part I of Goethe's play Faust
      Goethe's Faust
      Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts: and . Although written as a closet drama, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages...

  • January – Frederick, Lord North becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain (1770–1782)
  • 1771
  • 8 June – Henry-Thomas Austen (Jane's brother) born at Steventon
  • Publication of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica
    Encyclopædia Britannica
    The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

    completed (begun 1768)
  • Richard Arkwright
    Richard Arkwright
    Sir Richard Arkwright , was an Englishman who, although the patents were eventually overturned, is often credited for inventing the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. He also patented a carding engine that could convert raw cotton into yarn...

     opens the first cotton mill
    Cotton mill
    A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....

     in Cromford
    Cromford
    Cromford is a village, two miles to the south of Matlock in the Derbyshire Dales district in Derbyshire, England. It is principally known for its historical connection with Richard Arkwright, and the Cromford Mill which he built here in 1771...

    , Derbyshire
    Derbyshire
    Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

    , England
  • 1772
  • Publication of final volumes of plates of L'Encyclopedie (begun 1751)
  • 22 June – Slavery
    Slavery
    Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

     is effectively outlawed
    Somersett's Case
    R v Knowles, ex parte Somersett 20 State Tr 1 is a famous judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772 which held that slavery was unsupported by law in England and Wales...

     in England
  • 1773
  • 9 January – Cassandra Elizabeth Austen
    Cassandra Austen
    Cassandra Elizabeth Austen was an amateur English watercolourist and the elder sister of Jane Austen.-Childhood:...

     (Austen's sister) born at Steventon
  • 23 March – Rev. Austen becomes rector of Deane parish in addition to Steventon
  • Pupils live at Steventon from 1773 to 1796
  • 16 December – American colonists protest against British policies by dumping tea into Boston Harbour
    Boston Tea Party
    The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies...

  • 1774
  • 23 April – Francis-William (Frank) Austen
    Francis Austen
    Sir Francis William Austen, GCB was a British officer who spent most of his long life on active duty in the Royal Navy, rising to the position of Admiral of the Fleet.-Background:...

     (Jane's brother) born at Steventon
  • Publication of Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther
    The Sorrows of Young Werther
    The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787...

  • May – Louis XVI (pictured) ascends to the throne of France
  • Warren Hastings
    Warren Hastings
    Warren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...

     becomes the first Governor-General of India
  • 1775
  • 16 December – Jane Austen
    Jane Austen
    Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

     born at Steventon
  • Publication of Samuel Johnson
    Samuel Johnson
    Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

    's travel narrative A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
    A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
    A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland is a travel narrative by Samuel Johnson about an eighty-three day journey through Scotland, in particular the islands of the Hebrides, in the late summer and autumn of 1773...

  • 18 April – American War of Independence begins with the Battle of Lexington
    Battles of Lexington and Concord
    The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy , and Cambridge, near Boston...

     (1775–1783)
  • 1776
  • Publication of Adam Smith
    Adam Smith
    Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

    's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
    The Wealth of Nations
    An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith...

  • 1778
  • Publication of Frances Burney's novel Evelina
    Evelina
    Evelina or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World is a novel written by English author Frances Burney and first published in 1778...

  • Publication of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

    's Reveries of a Solitary Walker
    Reveries of a Solitary Walker
    Reveries of a Solitary Walker is an unfinished book by Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, written between 1776 and 1778. It was the last of a number of works composed toward the end of his life which were deeply autobiographical in nature...

  • 1779
  • 23 June – Charles John Austen (Jane's brother) born at Steventon
  • 3 July – James Austen matriculates at St. John's College, Oxford
  • Publication of Johnson's
    Samuel Johnson
    Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

     (pictured) biographies Lives of the Poets (1779–1781)

  • 1780s

    Year Austen Literary history Political history
    1780
    • Publication of The Education of Humanity by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
      Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
      Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...

  • 2–11 June – Gordon Riots
    Gordon Riots
    The Gordon Riots of 1780 were an anti-Catholic protest against the Papists Act 1778.The Popery Act 1698 had imposed a number of penalties and disabilities on Roman Catholics in England; the 1778 act eliminated some of these. An initial peaceful protest led on to widespread rioting and looting and...

     in London, protesting the Catholic Relief Act
    Papists Act 1778
    The Papists Act 1778 is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain and was the first Act for Catholic Relief. Later in 1778 It was also enacted by the Irish parliament....

  • 1781
  • Publication of Schiller's
    Friedrich Schiller
    Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...

     drama The Robbers
  • Publication of Immanuel Kant
    Immanuel Kant
    Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

    's philosophical treatise Critique of Pure Reason
    Critique of Pure Reason
    The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is considered one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Also referred to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement...

  • 19 October – Franco-American force defeats the British at the Battle of Yorktown
    Siege of Yorktown
    The Siege of Yorktown, Battle of Yorktown, or Surrender of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by a combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis...

    , effectively ending the fighting in America during War of Independence
  • 1782
  • December – First amateur theatrical production at Steventon – Matilda
  • Publication of Frances Burney's (pictured) novel Cecilia
    Cecilia (novel)
    Cecilia, subtitled Memoirs of an Heiress, is a novel by Frances Burney, set in 1779 and published in 1782.-Background:Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress was published in July 1782...

  • Posthumous publication of the first part of Rousseau's
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

     autobiographical Confessions
    Confessions (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
    Confessions is an autobiographical book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In modern times, it is often published with the title The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in order to distinguish it from St. Augustine of Hippo's Confessions...

  • Publication of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
    Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
    Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos was a French novelist, official and army general, best known for writing the epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses ....

    's novel Les Liaisons dangereuses
    Les Liaisons dangereuses
    Les Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782....

  • 1783
  • Edward Austen adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Knight of Godmersham
    Godmersham
    Godmersham is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is located on the Great Stour river where it cuts through the North Downs...

    , Kent
    Kent
    Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

  • Spring – Jane Austen, Cassandra Austen, and Jane Cooper sent to live with Mrs. Cawley in Oxford
    Oxford
    The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

     to be educated
  • Summer – Mrs. Cawley moves to Southampton
    Southampton
    Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

     and the girls fall ill
  • 3 September – Treaty of Versailles
    Treaty of Paris (1783)
    The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on the one hand and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of...

     signed, formally ending the American War of Independence
  • December – William Pitt
    William Pitt the Younger
    William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

     becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain
  • 1784
  • Amateur theatricals at Steventon continue – The Rivals
    The Rivals
    The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...

  • Pitt's India Act
    Pitt's India Act
    The East India Company Act 1784, also known as Pitt's India Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain intended to address the shortcomings of the Regulating Act of 1773 by bringing the East India Company's rule in India under the control of the British Government...

     gives the British Crown (rather than officers of the East India Company) the power to guide Indian politics
  • 1785
  • Spring – Austen and Cassandra attend Abbey School, Reading, Berkshire
    Reading, Berkshire
    Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

  • Publication of William Cowper
    William Cowper
    William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry...

    's (pictured) poem The Task
    The Task (poem)
    The Task: A Poem, in Six Books is a poem in 6000 lines of blank verse by William Cowper, usually seen as his supreme achievement. Its six books are called "The Sofa", "The Timepiece", "The Garden", "The Winter Evening", "The Winter Morning Walk" and "The Winter Walk at Noon"...

  • 1786
  • Edward Austen takes the Grand Tour
    Grand Tour
    The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

     of the Continent
    Continental Europe
    Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....

     (1786–90)
  • April – Francis Austen enters the Royal Naval Academy
    Royal Naval Academy
    The Royal Naval Academy was established at Portsmouth Dockyard as a facility to train officers for the Royal Navy. The founders' intentions were to provide an alternative means to recruit officers and to provide standardised training, education and admission.-Training:In 1773, a shore side...

     at Portsmouth
    Portsmouth
    Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

  • November – James Austen travels to the Continent
  • December – Austen and Cassandra leave Abbey School
  • Publication of Robert Burns
    Robert Burns
    Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

    's Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect
  • December – Shays' Rebellion
    Shays' Rebellion
    Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War....

     in the United States (December 1786 – January 1787)
  • Beginning of impeachment proceedings
    Impeachment of Warren Hastings
    The Impeachment of Warren Hastings was a failed attempt to impeach the former Governor-General of India Warren Hastings in the Parliament of Great Britain between 1788 and 1795. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta particularly relating to mismanagement and personal...

     in British Parliament brought by Edmund Burke
    Edmund Burke
    Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

     against Warren Hastings
    Warren Hastings
    Warren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...

    , Governor-General of India
  • 1787
  • Austen begins writing juvenilia (pictured)
  • Autumn – James Austen returns from the Continent
  • December – Amateur theatricals at Steventon continue – The Wonder
  • 13 May – First fleet of convicts
    History of Australia (1788-1850)
    The history of Australia from 1788–1850 covers the early colonies period of Australia's history, from the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Sydney to establish the penal colony of New South Wales in 1788 to the European exploration of the continent and establishment of other colonies...

     sails to penal colony in Australia from Britain
  • 22 May – Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is formed in Britain
  • 1788
  • January – Amateur theatricals continue at Steventon – The Chances
  • March – Amateur theatrical continue at Steventon – Tom Thumb
  • 1 July – Henry Austen matriculates at St. John's College, Oxford
  • Summer – Mr. and Mrs. Austen take Jane and Cassandra to Kent
    Kent
    Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

     and London
  • 23 December – Francis Austen leaves the Royal Naval Academy and sails to the East Indies
    East Indies
    East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...

  • Winter – Amateur theatricals continue at Steventon – The Sultan and High Life Below Stairs
  • 1 January – First edition of The Times
    The Times
    The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

    is published
  • Publication of Charlotte Smith's
    Charlotte Turner Smith
    Charlotte Turner Smith was an English Romantic poet and novelist. She initiated a revival of the English sonnet, helped establish the conventions of Gothic fiction, and wrote political novels of sensibility....

     (pictured) novel Emmeline
    Emmeline
    Emmeline, The Orphan of the Castle is the first novel published by English writer Charlotte Turner Smith. A Cinderella story in which the heroine stands outside the traditional economic structures of English society and ends up wealthy and happy, the novel is a fantasy...

  • November – Beginning of the Regency Crisis, caused by George III's madness
    Porphyria
    Porphyrias are a group of inherited or acquired disorders of certain enzymes in the heme bio-synthetic pathway . They are broadly classified as acute porphyrias and cutaneous porphyrias, based on the site of the overproduction and accumulation of the porphyrins...

  • 1789
  • Publication of the first issue of James Austen's periodical The Loiterer; issued weekly until March 1790
  • 29 April – Publication of former slave Olaudah Equiano
    Olaudah Equiano
    Olaudah Equiano also known as Gustavus Vassa, was a prominent African involved in the British movement towards the abolition of the slave trade. His autobiography depicted the horrors of slavery and helped influence British lawmakers to abolish the slave trade through the Slave Trade Act of 1807...

    's autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
    The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
    The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, first published in 1789, is the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano.-Plot introduction:...

  • Publication of William Blake
    William Blake
    William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

    's poems Songs of Innocence
  • Posthumous publication of the second part of Rousseau's
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

     autobiographical Confessions
    Confessions (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
    Confessions is an autobiographical book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In modern times, it is often published with the title The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in order to distinguish it from St. Augustine of Hippo's Confessions...

  • 14 July – Storming of the Bastille
    Storming of the Bastille
    The storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris on the morning of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. While the prison only contained seven inmates at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint...

     in Paris (pictured)
  • 26 August – The French Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
    Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
    The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is a fundamental document of the French Revolution, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid...

  • 5–6 October – "October days
    The March on Versailles
    The Women's March on Versailles, also known as The October March, The October Days, or simply The March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were...

    "; Parisian women, unable to buy bread, march to Versailles and bring the royal family back to Paris
  • December – End of the Regency Crisis (George III recovers)

  • 1790s

    Year Austen Literary history Political history
    1790
    • James Austen takes up residence as curate
      Curate
      A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...

       of Overton, Hampshire
      Overton, Hampshire
      Overton is a village and parish in Hampshire, England located west of the town of Basingstoke, and east of Andover and Whitchurch. The village of Quidhampton lies to the north of the village. The River Test rises 1 km to the east near the hamlet of Ashe....

    • Autumn – Edward Austen returns to England from Grand Tour
  • 1 November – Publication of Edmund Burke
    Edmund Burke
    Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

    's Reflections on the Revolution in France
    Reflections on the Revolution in France
    Reflections on the Revolution in France , by Edmund Burke, is one of the best-known intellectual attacks against the French Revolution...

  • Parliament withdraws motions for the repeal of the Test
    Test Act
    The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists...

     and Corporation Acts
    Corporation Act 1661
    The Corporation Act of 1661 is an Act of the Parliament of England . It belongs to the general category of test acts, designed for the express purpose of restricting public offices in England to members of the Church of England....

  • 1791
  • Charles Austen enters the Royal Naval Academy
  • 15 September – James Austen becomes vicar of Sherborne St John
    Sherborne St John
    Sherborne St John is a village and civil parish near Basingstoke in the English county of Hampshire.-History:The village was named in the Domesday book as Sireburne. It became Shireburna , Schyreburne and Shirebourne Decani, Shireburn St...

    , Hampshire
  • 27 December – Edward Austen marries Elizabeth Bridges; they move to Rowling House, Edward's residence in Kent
  • February–March – Publication of Part I of Thomas Paine
    Thomas Paine
    Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...

    's pamphlet Rights of Man
    Rights of Man
    Rights of Man , a book by Thomas Paine, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights, and their national interests. Using these points as a base it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in...

  • Publication of Elizabeth Inchbald
    Elizabeth Inchbald
    Elizabeth Inchbald was an English novelist, actress, and dramatist.- Life :Born on 15 October 1753 at Standingfield, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, Elizabeth was the eighth of the nine children of John Simpson , a farmer, and his wife Mary, née Rushbrook. The family, like several others in the...

    's novel A Simple Story
    A Simple Story (novel)
    A Simple Story is a romance novel by English author and actress, Elizabeth Inchbald. Published in early 1791 as an early example of a "novel of passion", it was very successful and became widely read in England and abroad. It went into a second edition in March 1791. It is still popular today.The...

  • Publication of James Boswell
    James Boswell
    James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....

    's biography Life of Johnson
    Life of Johnson
    The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. is a biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson written by James Boswell. It is regarded as an important stage in the development of the modern genre of biography; many have claimed it as the greatest biography written in English...

  • Publication of Ann Radcliffe
    Ann Radcliffe
    Anne Radcliffe was an English author, and considered the pioneer of the gothic novel . Her style is romantic in its vivid descriptions of landscapes, and long travel scenes, yet the Gothic element is obvious through her use of the supernatural...

    's novel The Romance of the Forest
    The Romance of the Forest
    The Romance of the Forest is a Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe that was first published in 1791. It combines an air of mystery and suspense with an examination of the tension between hedonism and morality. The novel was her first major, popular success, going through four editions in its first three...

  • Publication of Smith's
    Charlotte Turner Smith
    Charlotte Turner Smith was an English Romantic poet and novelist. She initiated a revival of the English sonnet, helped establish the conventions of Gothic fiction, and wrote political novels of sensibility....

     novel Celestina
    Celestina (novel)
    Celestina is an eighteenth-century English novel and poet Charlotte Turner Smith’s third novel. Published in 1791 by Thomas Cadell, the novel tells the story of an adopted orphan who discovers the secret of her parentage and marries the man she loves...

  • 19 April – The British parliament
    British House of Commons
    The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

     rejects William Wilberforce
    William Wilberforce
    William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...

    's bill to abolish the slave trade
  • 14–17 July – Priestley Riots
    Priestley Riots
    The Priestley Riots took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets were religious Dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley...

    ; rioting aimed at religious Dissenters
    English Dissenters
    English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....

     in Birmingham
    Birmingham
    Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

  • August – 100,000 slaves and ex-slaves revolt against planters and the local government
    Haitian Revolution
    The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...

     in French-controlled San Domingo, the wealthiest colony of the West Indies and main source of sugar and coffee in Europe
  • 1792
  • 27 March – James Austen marries Anne Mathew; they move to the parsonage in Deane
  • October – Jane and Cassandra Austen visit the Lloyds at Ibthorpe House, near Hurstbourne Tarrant
    Hurstbourne Tarrant
    Hurstbourne Tarrant is a village in Hampshire, England. It lies to the north of the county in the Test Valley.The Tarrant part of the name originates from 1226, when the village was given to the Cistercian Tarrant nunnery....

    , Hampshire
  • Winter? – Cassandra Austen engaged to Rev. Tom Fowle
  • Publication of Robert Bage's
    Robert Bage (novelist)
    Robert Bage was an English businessman and novelist.Born in Darley Abbey, near Derby, Bage was the son of a paper-maker and was himself a papier. For a time he lived in Elford, Staffordshire...

     novel Man As He Is
  • Publication of Hannah More
    Hannah More
    Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical...

    's pamphlet Village Politics
  • Publication of Smith's
    Charlotte Turner Smith
    Charlotte Turner Smith was an English Romantic poet and novelist. She initiated a revival of the English sonnet, helped establish the conventions of Gothic fiction, and wrote political novels of sensibility....

     novel Desmond
    Desmond (novel)
    Desmond is a novel by Charlotte Turner Smith. The novel focuses on politics during the French Revolution....

  • 7 March – Sierra Leone
    Sierra Leone
    Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

     is established under British rule as a home for former slaves
  • 10 August – Attack on the Tuileries Palace
    10th of August (French Revolution)
    On 10 August 1792, during the French Revolution, revolutionary Fédéré militias — with the backing of a new municipal government of Paris that came to be known as the "insurrectionary" Paris Commune and ultimately supported by the National Guard — besieged the Tuileries palace. King Louis XVI and...

     leads to the deposition of Louis XVI
    The Legislative Assembly and the fall of the French monarchy
    The French Revolution was a period in the history of France covering the years 1789 to 1799, in which republicans overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church perforce underwent radical restructuring...

     and the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly
  • 2–6 September – "September Massacres
    September Massacres
    The September Massacres were a wave of mob violence which overtook Paris in late summer 1792, during the French Revolution. By the time it had subsided, half the prison population of Paris had been executed: some 1,200 trapped prisoners, including many women and young boys...

    "; 12,000 political prisoners murdered in France
  • 21 September – Newly-elected National Convention abolishes the monarchy
    National Convention
    During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...

     and officially declares France a Republic
  • 1793
  • ? – Austen begins to write, then sets aside, Sir Charles Grandison or the happy Man, a comedy in 6 acts
  • 23 January – Edward Austen's first child, Fanny, born
  • Spring – Henry Austen becomes a lieutenant
    Lieutenant
    A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

     in the Oxfordshire Militia
  • 15 April – James Austen's first child, Anna, is born
  • 3 June – Jane Austen writes last item of juvenilia
  • Winter – Francis Austen returns home from the Far East
  • December – Jane and Cassandra Austen visit Butler-Harrison cousins in Southampton
  • 14 February – Publication of William Godwin
    William Godwin
    William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

    's treatise Political Justice
    Political Justice
    Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Modern Morals and Manners outlines the political philosophy of the 18th-century philosopher William Godwin....

  • Publication of Smith's
    Charlotte Turner Smith
    Charlotte Turner Smith was an English Romantic poet and novelist. She initiated a revival of the English sonnet, helped establish the conventions of Gothic fiction, and wrote political novels of sensibility....

     novel The Old Manor House
  • 21 January – Execution of Louis XVI
  • 1 February – France declares war on England
  • 11 March – Civil war erupts in France with the revolt in the Vendée
    Revolt in the Vendée
    The War in the Vendée was a Royalist rebellion and counterrevolution in the Vendée region of France during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately south of the Loire River in western France. The uprising was closely tied to the Chouannerie, which took place in...

  • July – Beginning of the Reign of Terror
    Reign of Terror
    The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...

     in France
  • 16 October – Execution of Marie Antoinette
    Marie Antoinette
    Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....

     (pictured)
  • 1794
  • 22 February – Eliza de Feuillide's husband is guillotine
    Guillotine
    The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...

    d in Paris
  • Midsummer – Jane and Cassandra Austen visit the Leighs at Adlestrop
    Adlestrop
    Adlestrop is a village and civil parish in the English county of Gloucestershire. It is known as Tedestrop in the Domesday Book.The civil parish also includes the village of Daylesford...

    , Gloucestershire
    Gloucestershire
    Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

  • August? – Jane and Cassandra Austen visit Edward and Elizabeth Austen at Rowling
  • September – Charles Austen leaves the Royal Naval Academy and goes to sea
  • Autumn? – Austen possibly writes Lady Susan
    Lady Susan
    Lady Susan is a short epistolary novel by Jane Austen, possibly written in 1794 but not published until 1871.-Synopsis:This epistolary novel, an early complete work that the author never submitted for publication, describes the schemes of the main character—the widowed Lady Susan—as she seeks a new...

  • 28 May – Publication of Godwin's
    William Godwin
    William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

     novel Caleb Williams
  • Publication of Blake's
    William Blake
    William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

     poems Songs of Experience
  • Publication of Radcliffe's
    Ann Radcliffe
    Anne Radcliffe was an English author, and considered the pioneer of the gothic novel . Her style is romantic in its vivid descriptions of landscapes, and long travel scenes, yet the Gothic element is obvious through her use of the supernatural...

     novel The Mysteries of Udolpho
    The Mysteries of Udolpho
    The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, was published in four volumes on 8 May 1794 by G. G. and J. Robinson of London. The firm paid her £500 for the manuscript. The contract is housed at the University of Virginia Library. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho follows...

  • 4 February – France abolishes slavery in its colonies
  • 7 May – The writ
    Writ
    In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court...

     of habeas corpus
    Habeas corpus
    is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...

    is suspended in Britain
  • Late July – Robespierre is executed and the Reign of Terror ends
  • November – British radicals
    Radicalism (historical)
    The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...

     are acquitted at the 1794 Treason Trials
    1794 Treason Trials
    The 1794 Treason Trials, arranged by the administration of William Pitt, were intended to cripple the British radical movement of the 1790s. Over thirty radicals were initially arrested; three were tried for high treason: Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke and John Thelwall...

  • 1795
  • Austen probably writes Elinor and Marianne
  • 3 May – Death of Anne Mathew (James' wife) at Deane; infant Anna sent to live at Steventon rectory
  • Autumn – Rev. Tom Fowle joins William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven
    William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven (1770-1825)
    Major-General William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven was a British soldier.Craven was the eldest son of William Craven, 6th Baron Craven, and succeeded his father as seventh Baron Craven in 1791. He served in the Army and achieved the rank of major-general...

    , as his private chaplain for the West Indian campaign
  • December–January 1796 – Austen's flirtation with Tom Lefroy on his visit to Ashe rectory
  • Hannah More
    Hannah More
    Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical...

     (pictured) begins publishing the Cheap Repository Tracts
    Cheap Repository Tracts
    The Cheap Repository Tracts was a series of around 120 political and religious tracts published between March 1795 and December 1797, for sale or distribution to literate poor people, as an alternative to the ‘corrupt and vicious little books and ballads which have been hung out of windows in the...

    to counteract radical publications
  • 29 October – On the way to parliament, George III is attacked by a hungry mob
  • 18 December – Seditious Meetings Act
    Seditious Meetings Act 1795
    The Seditious Meetings Act 1795, approved by the British Parliament in November 1795, was the second of the well known "Two Acts" , the other being the Treason Act 1795. Its purpose was to restrict the size of public meetings to fifty persons...

     and Treasonable Practices Act
    Treasonable Practices Act
    The Treason Act 1795 was one of the Two Acts introduced by the British government in the wake of the stoning of King George III on his way to open Parliament in 1795, the other being the Seditious Meetings Act 1795...

     passed (also known as the "Two Acts" or the "Gagging Acts")
  • The Famine Year
  • 1796
  • January – Tom Lefroy (pictured) leaves Ashe for London
  • January – Tom Fowle sails for the West Indies
  • April – Jane and Cassandra Austen visit the Coopers at Harpsden
    Harpsden
    Harpsden is a village and civil parish just south of Henley-on-Thames in South Oxfordshire.-History:Remains of a Roman villa have been found about southwest of the village....

    , Oxfordshire
    Oxfordshire
    Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

  • Summer? – James Austen courts Eliza de Feuillide
  • August – Edward and Francis Austen take Jane to Rowling via London; she returns to Steventon in late September or early October
  • October – Austen begins writing First Impressions (Pride and Prejudice
    Pride and Prejudice
    Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...

    )
  • November – James Austen engaged to Mary Lloyd
  • Publication of Bage's
    Robert Bage (novelist)
    Robert Bage was an English businessman and novelist.Born in Darley Abbey, near Derby, Bage was the son of a paper-maker and was himself a papier. For a time he lived in Elford, Staffordshire...

     novel Hermsprong
    Hermsprong or Man as he is not
    Hermsprong: or, Man As He Is Not is a 1796 philosophical novel by Robert Bage. It is the main work for which Bage is remembered and was his last novel. He had previously published a novel entitled Man As He Is....

  • Publication of Mary Hays
    Mary Hays
    Mary Hays was an English novelist and feminist.- Early years :Mary Hays was born in Southwark, London on Oct. 13, 1759. Almost nothing is known of her first 17 years. In 1779 she fell in love with John Eccles who lived on Gainsford Street, where she also lived. Their parents opposed the match but...

    's novel Memoirs of Emma Courtney
    Memoirs of Emma Courtney
    Memoirs of Emma Courtney is an epistolary novel by Mary Hays, first published in 1796. The novel is partly autobiographical and based on the author's own unrequited love for William Frend . Mary Hay's relationship with William Godwin is reflected through her eponymous heroine's philosophical...

  • Publication of Burney's novel Camilla
    Camilla (Burney novel)
    Camilla, subtitled A Picture of Youth, is a novel by Frances Burney, first published in 1796. Camilla deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people: Camilla Tyrold and her sisters, the sweet tempered Lavinia and the deformed, but extremely kind, Eugenia, and their cousin, the...

  • Publication of Matthew Lewis's novel The Monk
    The Monk
    The Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796. It was written before the author turned 20, in the space of 10 weeks.-Characters:...

  • Publication of Madame de Staël's essay De l'Influence des passions
  • December – Failed French landing
    French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1796
    The French Revolutionary Wars continued from 1795, with the French in an increasingly strong position as members of the First Coalition made separate peaces. Austria and Great Britain were the main remaining members of the coalition...

     at Bantry Bay
    Bantry Bay
    Bantry Bay is a bay located in County Cork, southwest Ireland. The bay runs approximately from northeast to southwest into the Atlantic Ocean. It is approximately 3-to-4 km wide at the head and wide at the entrance....

    , West Cork, Ireland
  • Failure of peace negotiations
    French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1796
    The French Revolutionary Wars continued from 1795, with the French in an increasingly strong position as members of the First Coalition made separate peaces. Austria and Great Britain were the main remaining members of the coalition...

     between Britain and France
  • 1797
  • 17 January – James Austen marries Mary Lloyd
  • January – Anna returns to live at Deane
  • February – Tom Fowle dies of fever in San Domingo and is buried at sea
  • August – Austen finishes First Impressions
  • 1 November – Revd. Austen unsuccessfully offers First Impressions to Thomas Cadell, London publisher
  • November – Austen begins to revise Elinor and Marianne, which eventually becomes Sense and Sensibility
    Sense and Sensibility
    Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811, is a British romance novel by Jane Austen, her first published work under the pseudonym, "A Lady." Jane Austen is considered a pioneer of the romance genre of novels, and for the realism portrayed in her novels, is one the most widely read writers in...

  • November – Mrs. Austen, Jane, and Cassandra visit the Leigh-Perrots in Bath
  • November – Edward Austen and family move from Rowling to Godmersham Park, near Godmersham
    Godmersham
    Godmersham is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is located on the Great Stour river where it cuts through the North Downs...

    , Kent
    Kent
    Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

  • Winter – Rev. Samuel Blackall visits Ashe; mild courtship of Jane Austen
  • 31 December – Henry Austen marries Eliza de Feuillide
  • 20 November – Publication of the first issue of the government-sponsored journal, the Anti-Jacobin Review
    Anti-Jacobin Review
    The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, or, Monthly Political and Literary Censor , a conservative British political periodical, was founded by John Gifford [pseud. of John Richards Green] after the demise of William Gifford's The Anti-Jacobin, or, Weekly Examiner...

  • Publication of Radcliffe's novel The Italian
    The Italian (novel)
    The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents is a Gothic novel written by the English author Ann Radcliffe. It is the last book Radcliffe published during her lifetime...

  • February – Bank of England
    Bank of England
    The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...

     suspends cash payments
  • April–June – Naval mutinies
    Spithead and Nore mutinies
    The Spithead and Nore mutinies were two major mutinies by sailors of the Royal Navy in 1797. There were also discontent and minor incidents on ships in other locations in the same year. They were not violent insurrections, being more in the nature of strikes, demanding better pay and conditions...

     occur at Spithead
    Spithead
    Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds, except those from the southeast...

     and the Nore
    Nore
    The Nore is a sandbank at the mouth of the Thames Estuary, England. It marks the point where the River Thames meets the North Sea, roughly halfway between Havengore Creek in Essex and Warden Point in Kent....

  • Failure of French landing
    French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1797
    The French Revolutionary Wars continued from 1796, with France fighting the First Coalition.On 14 February, British admiral Jervis met and defeated a Spanish fleet off Portugal at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. This prevented the Spanish fleet from rendezvousing with the French, removing a threat...

     in Wales
  • 1798
  • August – Mr. and Mrs. Austen, Jane, and Cassandra visit Godmersham
  • August – Austen possibly begins writing Susan (which eventually becomes Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, though she had previously made a start on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. According to Cassandra Austen's Memorandum, Susan was written approximately during 1798–99...

    )
  • 9 August – Lady Williams (Jane Cooper) killed in a road accident
  • 24 October – Austen and her parents leave Godmersham and return to Steventon
  • October–November – Mrs. Austen ill
  • 17 November – James Austen's son, James-Edward, born
  • June – Publication of Thomas Robert Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population
    An Essay on the Principle of Population
    The book An Essay on the Principle of Population was first published anonymously in 1798 through J. Johnson . The author was soon identified as The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus. While it was not the first book on population, it has been acknowledged as the most influential work of its era...

  • Publication of William Wordsworth
    William Wordsworth
    William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

     and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

    's poems Lyrical Ballads
    Lyrical Ballads
    Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature...

  • Publication of Smith's
    Charlotte Turner Smith
    Charlotte Turner Smith was an English Romantic poet and novelist. She initiated a revival of the English sonnet, helped establish the conventions of Gothic fiction, and wrote political novels of sensibility....

     novel The Young Philosopher
  • 26 May – Society of United Irishmen rebel against British rule in Ireland
  • August–September – French landing in Ireland
    French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1798
    1798 was a relatively quiet period in the French Revolutionary Wars. The major continental powers in the First coalition had made peace with France, leaving France dominant in Europe with only a slow naval war with Great Britain to worry about...

  • 1 August – Horatio Nelson's victory over Napoleon's fleet at the Battle of the Nile
    Battle of the Nile
    The Battle of the Nile was a major naval battle fought between British and French fleets at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt from 1–3 August 1798...

     (pictured)
  • 1799
  • February – Jane Austen possibly visits the Lloyds at Ibthorpe
    Ibthorpe
    Ibthorpe is a village in Hampshire, England....

  • March – Cassandra returns to Steventon from Godmersham
  • 17 May–June – Mrs. Austen and Jane arrive in Bath, with Edward and Elizabeth
  • End of June – Austen probably finishes Susan (Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, though she had previously made a start on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. According to Cassandra Austen's Memorandum, Susan was written approximately during 1798–99...

    )
  • Late summer – The Austens pay a round of visits to the Leighs at Adlestrop, the Coopers at Harpsden, and the Cookes at Great Bookham
    Great Bookham
    -Today:The village has a high street, located in Great Bookham, which is, as its name suggests, the larger of the two villages. It has two butchers, a family run fishmongers and two traditional greengrocers...

  • 14 August – Austen's aunt, Mrs. Leigh Perrot, charged with theft and committed to Ilchester
    Ilchester
    Ilchester is a village and civil parish, situated on the River Yeo or Ivel, five miles north of Yeovil, in the English county of Somerset. The parish, which includes the village of Sock Dennis and the old parish of Northover, has a population of 2,021...

     Gaol
  • Publication of More's
    Hannah More
    Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical...

     Strictures on the Modern System of Education
  • Publication of Jane West
    Jane West
    Jane West [née Iliffe] , who published as "Prudentia Homespun" and "Mrs. West," was an English novelist, poet, playwright, and writer of conduct literature and educational tracts.- Life :...

    's novel A Tale of the Times
  • Religious Tract Society
    Religious Tract Society
    The Religious Tract Society, founded 1799, 56 Paternoster Row and 65 St. Paul's Chuchyard, was the original name of a major British publisher of Christian literature intended initially for evangelism, and including literature aimed at children, women, and the poor.The RTS is also notable for being...

     formed in Britain
  • 9 November – 18 Brumaire
    18 Brumaire
    The coup of 18 Brumaire was the coup d'état by which General Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the French Directory, replacing it with the French Consulate...

    ; Napoleon overthrows the Directory
    French Directory
    The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...

     and becomes First Consul of France

  • 1800s

    Year Austen Literary history Political history
    1800
    • 29 March – Mrs. Leigh Perrot tried at Taunton
      Taunton
      Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....

       and acquitted
    • October – Edward Austen visits Steventon and takes Cassandra back to Godmersham with him via Chawton
      Chawton
      Chawton is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 1.6 miles southwest of Alton, just south of the A31 which runs between Farnham and Winchester. The village is famous as the home of Jane Austen for the last eight years of her life...

       and London
    • End of November–mid-December – Jane Austen visits the Lloyds at Ibthorpe
    • December – Revd. Austen decides to retire and move to Bath
    • ? – Austen revises and completes Sir Charles Grandison
  • Publication of Maria Edgeworth
    Maria Edgeworth
    Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe...

    's novel Castle Rackrent
    Castle Rackrent
    Castle Rackrent, a short novel by Maria Edgeworth published in 1800, is often regarded as the first historical novel, the first regional novel in English, the first Anglo-Irish novel, the first Big House novel and the first saga novel....

  • Publication of Mary Robinson's
    Mary Robinson (poet)
    Mary Robinson was an English poet and novelist. During her lifetime she is known as 'the English Sappho'...

     (pictured) Lyrical Tales
  • Publication of Elizabeth Hamilton
    Elizabeth Hamilton
    Elizabeth Hamilton was a British essayist, poet, satirist and novelist. Born in Belfast to Charles Hamilton , a Scottish merchant, and his wife Katherine Mackay , she lived most of her life in Scotland, dying in Harrogate in England after a short illness.Her first literary efforts were directed in...

    's Memoirs of Modern Philosophers
    Memoirs of Modern Philosophers
    Memoirs of Modern Philosophers is a novel by British author Elizabeth Hamilton published in 1800. Responding to the Revolution Controversy of the 1790s and the debates about what roles women should occupy in English society, the novel contends that a poor education limits women's opportunities...

  • Food riots in Britain
  • Robert Owen
    Robert Owen
    Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...

     founds model factory at New Lanark
    New Lanark
    New Lanark is a village on the River Clyde, approximately 1.4 miles from Lanark, in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was founded in 1786 by David Dale, who built cotton mills and housing for the mill workers. Dale built the mills there to take advantage of the water power provided by the river...

  • 1801
  • January – Henry Austen resigns commission in Oxfordshire militia and sets up as a banker and army agent in London
  • End of January – Jane Austen visits the Bigg-Wither family at Manydown
  • February – Cassandra returns to Steventon from Godmersham via London
  • May – Austen family leaves Steventon and settles in Bath
  • May – Mrs. Austen and Jane travel to Bath via Ibthorpe, and stay with the Leigh-Perrots
  • May – James Austen and his family move to Steventon rectory
  • End of May – Austen family takes a West Country
    West Country
    The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...

     holiday, probably visiting Sidmouth
    Sidmouth
    Sidmouth is a small town on the English Channel coast in Devon, South West England. The town lies at the mouth of the River Sid in the East Devon district, south east of Exeter. It has a population of about 15,000, of whom 40% are over 65....

     and Colyton
    Colyton, Devon
    Colyton is a small town in Devon, England. It is located within the East Devon local authority area. It is 3 miles away from Seaton and 6 miles away from Axminster. Its population in 1991 was 2,783.-History:...

  • End of May – Jane Austen's West Country romance with a young clergyman may have occurred
  • September – Austen family visits Steventon and Ashe
  • 5 October – Austen family returns to Bath
  • Publication of Edgeworth's
    Maria Edgeworth
    Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe...

     novel Belinda
    Belinda (Edgeworth novel)
    Belinda is an 1801 novel by the Irish writer Maria Edgeworth. It was first published in three volumes by Joseph Johnson of London in 1801, and was later reprinted by Pandora Press in 1986...

  • Publication of Hamilton's
    Elizabeth Hamilton
    Elizabeth Hamilton was a British essayist, poet, satirist and novelist. Born in Belfast to Charles Hamilton , a Scottish merchant, and his wife Katherine Mackay , she lived most of her life in Scotland, dying in Harrogate in England after a short illness.Her first literary efforts were directed in...

     Letters on Education
  • 1 January – Act of Union
    Act of Union 1800
    The Acts of Union 1800 describe two complementary Acts, namely:* the Union with Ireland Act 1800 , an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, and...

     creates the United Kingdom
  • 1 October – Truce
    War of the Second Coalition
    The "Second Coalition" was the second attempt by European monarchs, led by the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria and the Russian Empire, to contain or eliminate Revolutionary France. They formed a new alliance and attempted to roll back France's previous military conquests...

     between Britain and France
  • 1802
  • April – James, Mary, and Anna visit the Austen family at Bath
  • Summer – Charles Austen joins the Austens for the holidays
  • 1 September – Jane and Cassandra Austen arrive at Steventon
  • 3 September – Charles takes Jane and Cassandra to Godmersham
  • 28 October – Charles brings his sisters back to Steventon
  • 25 November – Jane and Cassandra visit the Biggs family at Manydown
  • 2 December – Harris Bigg-Wither unexpectedly proposes marriage to Jane Austen; she accepts
  • 3 December – Austen rejects Bigg-Wither's proposal; she and Cassandra return to Steventon and leave at once for Bath
  • Winter – Austen revises Susan (Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, though she had previously made a start on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. According to Cassandra Austen's Memorandum, Susan was written approximately during 1798–99...

    )
  • Publication of Walter Scott
    Walter Scott
    Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

    's (pictured) collection of ballads Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border
  • Publication of West's
    Jane West
    Jane West [née Iliffe] , who published as "Prudentia Homespun" and "Mrs. West," was an English novelist, poet, playwright, and writer of conduct literature and educational tracts.- Life :...

     novel The Infidel Father
  • 27 March – Treaty of Amiens
    Treaty of Amiens
    The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 , by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace"...

     signed; 18-month break in wars with France
  • 1803
  • Spring – Austen sells copyright for Susan to Benjamin Crosby, a London publisher, for £10
  • 18 May – Henry and Eliza nearly trapped in France when Napoleon breaks the Peace of Amiens
  • Summer – Austen possibly visits Charmouth
    Charmouth
    Charmouth is a village at the mouth of the River Char in West Dorset, England, with a population of 1,687 according to the 2001 census.-The village:...

    , Up Lyme, and Pinny
  • July – Francis Austen stationed at Ramsgate
    Ramsgate
    Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main...

  • September–October – Rev. and Mrs. Austen, probably accompanied by Jane and Cassandra, stay at Godmersham
  • October – Jane and Cassandra visit Ashe
  • 24 October – Jane and Cassandra return to Bath
  • November – Austen family visits Lyme Regis
    Lyme Regis
    Lyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. The town lies in Lyme Bay, on the English Channel coast at the Dorset-Devon border...

  • 12 May – Peace of Amiens ends; war resumes with France
  • 1804
  • Jane Austen probably writes The Watsons
    The Watsons
    The Watsons is an unfinished novel by Jane Austen. She began writing it circa 1803 and probably abandoned it after her father's death in January 1805. It has five chapters, and is less than 18,000 words long.-Plot summary:...

  • Spring – Mrs. Austen seriously ill
  • Summer – Austens, with Henry and Eliza, visit Lyme Regis
  • 25 October – Austens return to Bath and move to 3 Green Park Buildings East
  • 16 December – Jane Austen's long-time friend, Mrs. Anne Lefroy of Ashe, killed in a riding accident
  • Publication of Edgeworth's
    Maria Edgeworth
    Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe...

     collection of stories Popular Tales
  • 18 May – Napoleon (pictured) crowns himself emperor
    First French Empire
    The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...

     of the French
  • 1805
  • 21 January – Rev. George Austen (Jane's father) dies suddenly in Bath
  • 25 March – Mrs. Austen and her daughters move to 25 Gay Street, Bath
  • June – Mrs. Austen, Jane, and Cassandra travel to Godmersham via Steventon, taking Anna with them
  • 18 June – James Austen's daughter, Caroline, born
  • Summer – Possible courtship of Jane Austen by Edward Bridges
  • Summer – Martha Lloyd joins the Austen household
  • 17 September–November – Jane and Cassandra travel to Worthing
    Worthing
    Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...

  • Publication of Edgeworth's
    Maria Edgeworth
    Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe...

     (pictured) The Modern Griselda
  • Publication of Amelia Opie
    Amelia Opie
    Amelia Opie, née Alderson , was an English author who published numerous novels in the Romantic Period of the early 19th century, through 1828.-Life and work:...

    's novel Adeline Mowbray
  • Publication of William Godwin
    William Godwin
    William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

    's novel Fleetwood
    Fleetwood (novel)
    William Godwin's third novel, Fleetwood is like his first two, an eponymous tale ....

  • 21 October – Nelson's fleet defeats combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar
    Battle of Trafalgar
    The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....

  • 1806
  • January – Mrs. Austen and her daughters visit Steventon
  • 29 January – Mrs. Austen returns to Bath and takes lodgings in Trim Street
  • February–mid-March – Jane and Cassandra visit the Biggs sisters at Manydown, returning to Bath via Steventon
  • 2 July – Mrs. Austen and her daughters finally leave Bath, and go via Clifton to Adlestrop
  • 24 July – Francis Austen marries Mary Gibson
  • 14 August–mid-October – Mrs. Austen and her daughters visit the Coopers at Hamstall Ridware
    Hamstall Ridware
    Hamstall Ridware is a village and civil parish in the district of Lichfield in Staffordshire, England. It is in the Trent Valley, and lies close to the villages of Hill Ridware, Mavesyn Ridware and Pipe Ridware...

  • October – Austen family takes lodgings in Southampton
    Southampton
    Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

     with Francis Austen and Mary
  • Winter – Cassandra Austen visits Godmersham
  • 1807
  • March – Austen family moves into a house in Castle Square, Southampton
  • April – Henry brings Cassandra back to Southampton from Godmersham via London
  • 19 May – Charles Austen marries Fanny Palmer in Bermuda
  • September – Edward Austen arranges family gathering at Chawton Great House, followed by further family gathering in Southampton
  • Publication of William Wilberforce
    William Wilberforce
    William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...

    's (pictured) A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade
  • 25 March – Britain abolishes the slave trade
  • 1808
  • January–March – Jane and Cassandra stay at Steventon, Manydown, and with the Fowles at Kintbury
    Kintbury
    Kintbury is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England, between the towns of Newbury and Hungerford.-Amenities:In Kintbury there is the Church of England parish church of Saint Mary, Church of England primary school, post office, corner shop, and a butcher...

  • 15 May – Henry and Jane Austen at Steventon en route to London
  • 14 June – Jane Austen travels to Godmersham with James and Mary
  • 8 July – Austen returns to Southampton
  • 28 September – Cassandra travels to Godmersham
  • 10 October – Elizabeth Austen (Edward's wife) dies after eleventh childbirth
  • Publication of Scott's
    Walter Scott
    Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

     poem Marmion
  • Publication of Hamilton's
    Elizabeth Hamilton
    Elizabeth Hamilton was a British essayist, poet, satirist and novelist. Born in Belfast to Charles Hamilton , a Scottish merchant, and his wife Katherine Mackay , she lived most of her life in Scotland, dying in Harrogate in England after a short illness.Her first literary efforts were directed in...

     novel Cottagers of Glenburie
  • Publication of More's
    Hannah More
    Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical...

     novel Coelebs in Search of a Wife
    Coelebs in Search of a Wife
    Coelebs in Search of a Wife is a novel by the British Christian moralist Hannah More. It was followed by Coelebs Married in 1814....

  • 1809
  • February – Cassandra returns to Southampton
  • 5 April – Austen attempts unsuccessfully to pressure Crosby to publish Susan
  • 15 May – Mrs. Austen and her daughters begin visit to Godmersham
  • 7 July – Austen family and Martha Lloyd move to Chawton Cottage (pictured)
  • August – Jane Austen's interest in writing revives
  • October – Edward Austen and Fanny visit Chawton
  • Foundation of The Quarterly Review, the chief Tory periodical
  • Publication of Edgeworth's
    Maria Edgeworth
    Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe...

     story collection Tales of Fashionable Life (1809–1812)

  • 1810s

    Year Austen Literary history Political history
    1810
    • July–August – Jane Austen (pictured) and Cassandra visit Manydown and Steventon
    • November – Edward Austen and Fanny visit Chawton
    • Winter – Sense and Sensibility
      Sense and Sensibility
      Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811, is a British romance novel by Jane Austen, her first published work under the pseudonym, "A Lady." Jane Austen is considered a pioneer of the romance genre of novels, and for the realism portrayed in her novels, is one the most widely read writers in...

      accepted for publication by Thomas Egerton, London publisher
  • Publication of Scott's
    Walter Scott
    Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

     poem "Lady of the Lake
    The Lady of the Lake (poem)
    The Lady of the Lake is a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1810. Set in the Trossachs region of Scotland, it is composed of six cantos, each of which concerns the action of a single day...

    "
  • Publication of West's
    Jane West
    Jane West [née Iliffe] , who published as "Prudentia Homespun" and "Mrs. West," was an English novelist, poet, playwright, and writer of conduct literature and educational tracts.- Life :...

     novel The Refusal
  • October – George III recognized as insane
  • 1811
  • February – Jane Austen starts planning Mansfield Park
    Mansfield Park (novel)
    Mansfield Park is a novel by Jane Austen, written at Chawton Cottage between 1812 and 1814. It was published in July 1814 by Thomas Egerton, who published Jane Austen's two earlier novels, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice...

  • March – Austen stays with Henry in London
  • March – Austen corrects proofs of Sense and Sensibility
  • March – Cassandra visits Godmersham
  • August – Charles Austen and family return to England
  • 30 October – Sense and Sensibility published anonymously
  • November – Jane Austen visits James at Steventon
  • Winter? – Jane Austen begins revising First Impressions, later published as Pride and Prejudice
    Pride and Prejudice
    Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...

  • February – George, Prince of Wales
    George IV of the United Kingdom
    George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...

     becomes Prince Regent
    Prince Regent
    A prince regent is a prince who rules a monarchy as regent instead of a monarch, e.g., due to the Sovereign's incapacity or absence ....

  • Luddite
    Luddite
    The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...

    s protest industrialization in Britain (1811–1812)
  • 1812
  • April – Edward Austen and Fanny visit Chawton
  • 9–25 June – Mrs. Austen and Jane visit Steventon; Cassandra goes to Godmersham
  • 14 October – Edward Austen officially adopts "Knight" as surname
  • Autumn – Jane Austen sells copyright of Pride and Prejudice
    Pride and Prejudice
    Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...

    to Egerton for £110
  • Publication of Lord Byron's
    George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
    George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...

     poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...

    , Cantos I and II
  • Publication of Anna Laetitia Barbauld
    Anna Laetitia Barbauld
    Anna Laetitia Barbauld was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and children's author.A "woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career at a time when female professional writers were rare...

    's poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven
    Eighteen Hundred and Eleven
    Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: A Poem is a poem by Anna Laetitia Barbauld criticizing Britain's participation in the Napoleonic Wars....

  • Publication of West's
    Jane West
    Jane West [née Iliffe] , who published as "Prudentia Homespun" and "Mrs. West," was an English novelist, poet, playwright, and writer of conduct literature and educational tracts.- Life :...

     novel The Loyalists
  • June – Napoleon invades Russia
  • 18 June – United States declares war
    War of 1812
    The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

     on Great Britain
  • October–December – Napoleon's defeated army retreats from Russia (pictured)
  • 1813
  • 28 January – Pride and Prejudice
    Pride and Prejudice
    Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...

    published anonymously
  • 21 April – Edward Austen and family come to Chawton Great House and stay for four months
  • 22 April – Jane Austen goes to London to attend the dying Eliza de Feuillide
  • 25 April – Eliza dies
  • 1 May – Austen returns to Chawton
  • 19 May – Henry Austen takes Jane to London for a fortnight
  • July? – Austen finishes Mansfield Park
    Mansfield Park (novel)
    Mansfield Park is a novel by Jane Austen, written at Chawton Cottage between 1812 and 1814. It was published in July 1814 by Thomas Egerton, who published Jane Austen's two earlier novels, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice...

  • September – Edward Austen and Jane travel via London to Godmersham (her last visit there)
  • 13 November – Edward Austen takes Jane back to Chawton via London
  • November – Second editions of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility released
  • November – Mansfield Park probably accepted for publication
  • Publication of Byron's poems The Giaour
    The Giaour
    "The Giaour" is a poem by Lord Byron first published in 1813 and the first in the series of his Oriental romances. "The Giaour" proved to be a great success when published, consolidating Byron's reputation critically and commercially.-Background:...

    and The Bride of Abydos
    The Bride of Abydos
    The Bride of Abydos is a poem written by George Gordon, Lord Byron in AD 1813. One of his earlier works, The Bride of Abydos is considered to be one of his “Heroic Poems”, along with The Giaour, Lara, The Siege of Corinth, The Corsair, and Parisina...

    to great acclaim
  • May – Publication of Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

    's (pictured) poem Queen Mab
    Queen Mab (poem)
    Queen Mab; A Philosophical Poem; With Notes, published in 1813 in nine cantos with seventeen notes, was the first large poetic work written by Percy Bysshe Shelley , the English Romantic poet...

  • 1814
  • 21 January – Austen begins Emma
    Emma
    Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively 'comedy of manners' among...

  • 1 March – Henry Austen takes Jane to London
  • April – Jane Austen returns to Chawton via Streatham
    Streatham
    Streatham is a district in Surrey, England, located in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...

  • April – Edward Austen and family stay at Chawton Great House for two months
  • 9 May – Mansfield Park
    Mansfield Park (novel)
    Mansfield Park is a novel by Jane Austen, written at Chawton Cottage between 1812 and 1814. It was published in July 1814 by Thomas Egerton, who published Jane Austen's two earlier novels, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice...

    (pictured) published anonymously by Egerton
  • Midsummer – Austen visits the Cookes at Great Bookham
    Great Bookham
    -Today:The village has a high street, located in Great Bookham, which is, as its name suggests, the larger of the two villages. It has two butchers, a family run fishmongers and two traditional greengrocers...

    , Surrey
  • August – Austen visits Henry in London
  • August – Francis Austen and family move into Chawton Great House and stay there for about two years
  • 3 September – Henry Austen takes Jane home to Chawton
  • 6 September – Charles's wife Fanny dies after childbirth
  • 25 November – Austen visits Henry in London
  • 5 December – Henry takes Jane back to Chawton
  • 25 December – Jane and Cassandra stay with Mrs. Heathcote and Miss Bigg in Winchester
    Winchester
    Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...

  • Publication of Walter Scott
    Walter Scott
    Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

    's novel Waverley
    Waverley (novel)
    Waverley is an 1814 historical novel by Sir Walter Scott. Initially published anonymously in 1814 as Scott's first venture into prose fiction, Waverley is often regarded as the first historical novel. It became so popular that Scott's later novels were advertised as being "by the author of...

  • Publication of Burney's novel The Wanderer
  • Publication of Edgeworth's
    Maria Edgeworth
    Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe...

     novel Patronage
    Patronage (novel)
    Patronage is a four volume fictional work by Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth and published in 1814. It is one of her later books, after such successes as Castle Rackrent , Belinda , Leonora and The Absentee in 1812, to name a few. The novel is a long and ambitious one which she began...

  • Publication of Byron's poem The Corsair
    The Corsair
    The Corsair was a semi-autobiographical tale in verse by Lord Byron in 1814 , which was extremely popular and influential in its day, selling ten thousand copies on its first day of sale...

    , instantly popular
  • Publication of Wordsworth's
    William Wordsworth
    William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

     poem The Excursion
    The Excursion
    The Excursion: Being a portion of The Recluse, a poem is a long poem by Romantic poet William Wordsworth and was first published in 1814 . It was intended to be the second part of The Recluse, an unfinished larger work that was also meant to include The Prelude, Wordsworth's other long poem, which...

  • Publication of Mary Martha Sherwood
    Mary Martha Sherwood
    Mary Martha Sherwood was a prolific and influential writer of children's literature in 19th-century Britain...

    's children's book The History of Little Henry and his Bearer
    The History of Little Henry and his Bearer
    The History of Little Henry and his Bearer was a popular children's book written by Mary Martha Sherwood. It was continuously in print for 70 years after its initial publication and was translated into French, German, Spanish, Hindustani , Chinese, Marathi , Tamil , and Sinhalese...

  • 6 April – Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba
  • 24 December – Treaty of Ghent
    Treaty of Ghent
    The Treaty of Ghent , signed on 24 December 1814, in Ghent , was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

     ends war between the United States and Britain
  • 1815
  • 2–16 January – Jane and Cassandra stay at Steventon; they also visit Ashe and Laverstoke
  • 29 March – Emma
    Emma
    Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively 'comedy of manners' among...

    finished
  • March or April? – Jane and Cassandra probably visit Henry in London
  • 8 August – Austen begins Persuasion
    Persuasion (novel)
    Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year ....

  • August – Austen possibly goes to London to negotiate publication of Emma, returning early in September
  • 4 October – Austen moves to London to nurse Henry
  • 13 November – Austen visits the Prince Regent's Library at Carlton House
    Carlton House
    Carlton House was a mansion in London, best known as the town residence of the Prince Regent for several decades from 1783. It faced the south side of Pall Mall, and its gardens abutted St. James's Park in the St James's district of London...

    ; receives invitation to dedicate a future work to him
  • 16 December – Austen returns to Chawton
  • End of December – Emma published by John Murray
    John Murray (publisher)
    John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...

    , dedicated to the Prince Regent
  • Publication of Scott's
    Walter Scott
    Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

     novel Guy Mannering
    Guy Mannering
    Guy Mannering or The Astrologer is a novel by Sir Walter Scott, published anonymously in 1815. According to an introduction that Scott wrote in 1829, he had originally intended to write a story of the supernatural, but changed his mind soon after starting...

  • March – Napoleon returns from Elba
    Elba
    Elba is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino. The largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba is also part of the National Park of the Tuscan Archipelago and the third largest island in Italy after Sicily and Sardinia...

  • May – Corn Laws
    Corn Laws
    The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...

     passed
  • 18 June – Duke of Wellington
    Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
    Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

     (pictured) defeats Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo
    Battle of Waterloo
    The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

  • Restoration of Louis XVIII in France
  • 20 November – Treaty of Paris
    Treaty of Paris (1814)
    The Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 May 1814, ended the war between France and the Sixth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars, following an armistice signed on 23 May between Charles, Count of Artois, and the allies...

    , officially ending Napoleonic wars
    Napoleonic Wars
    The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

  • 1816
  • Spring – Jane Austen begins to feel ill
  • Spring – Henry buys back manuscript of Susan
  • Spring – Austen revises Susan as Catharine, intending to publish it
  • 15 March – Henry's bank fails and he leaves London
  • 22 May – Jane and Cassandra go to Cheltenham
    Cheltenham
    Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...

     via Steventon
  • 15 June – Jane and Cassandra return to Chawton via Kintbury
    Kintbury
    Kintbury is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England, between the towns of Newbury and Hungerford.-Amenities:In Kintbury there is the Church of England parish church of Saint Mary, Church of England primary school, post office, corner shop, and a butcher...

  • 18 July – First draft of Persuasion
    Persuasion (novel)
    Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year ....

    finished
  • 6 August – Persuasion revised and finished
  • Second edition of Mansfield Park published by Murray
  • December – Henry is ordained and becomes curate
    Curate
    A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...

     of Chawton
  • Publication of Coleridge's
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

     poem "Christabel"
  • Publication of Coleridge's
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

     poem "Kubla Khan
    Kubla Khan
    Kubla Khan is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep in 1816...

    "
  • Publication of Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...

    , Canto III
  • Byron (pictured) leaves England because of personal troubles, never to return
  • April – Riots in East Anglia
    East Anglia
    East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

     and manufacturing districts in Britain
  • Elgin marbles
    Elgin Marbles
    The Parthenon Marbles, forming a part of the collection known as the Elgin Marbles , are a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures , inscriptions and architectural members that originally were part of the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis of Athens...

     exhibited in the British Museum
    British Museum
    The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

  • 1817
  • 27 January–18 March – Austen works on novel later published as Sanditon
    Sanditon
    Sanditon , also known as Sand and Sandition is an unfinished novel by the British novelist Jane Austen.-Background:In Sanditon, Austen explored her interest in the verbal construction of a society by means of a town – and a set of families – that is still in the process of being formed...

  • 18 March – Austen ceases work on Sanditon
  • 27 April – Austen makes her will
  • 24 May – Cassandra takes Jane to Winchester
    Winchester
    Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...

     for medical treatment
  • 18 July – Austen dies early in the morning
  • 24 July – Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral
    Winchester Cathedral
    Winchester Cathedral at Winchester in Hampshire is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe...

     (pictured)
  • End of December – Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, though she had previously made a start on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. According to Cassandra Austen's Memorandum, Susan was written approximately during 1798–99...

    and Persuasion
    Persuasion (novel)
    Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. She began it soon after she had finished Emma, completing it in August 1816. She died, aged 41, in 1817; Persuasion was published in December that year ....

    are published together by Murray along with Henry's "Biographical Notice of the Author"
  • Publication of Coleridge's
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

     Biographia Literaria
    Biographia Literaria
    Biographia Literaria, or in full Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of MY LITERARY LIFE and OPINIONS, is an autobiography in discourse by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which he published in 1817. The work is long and seemingly loosely structured, and although there are autobiographical...

  • Publication of Edgeworth's
    Maria Edgeworth
    Maria Edgeworth was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe...

     novels Ormond
    Ormond (novel)
    Ormond is a novel by Maria Edgeworth published in June 1817. It tells the story of Harry Ormond, a hero who rises from poverty to wealth. Set both in Ireland and France, the novel uses different places to represent different paths that Ormond might take and different political ideologies. Ireland...

    and Harrington
    Harrington (novel)
    Harrington is an 1817 novel by British novelist Maria Edgeworth. The novel was written in response to a letter from a Jewish-American reader who complained about Edgeworth's stereotypically anti-semitic portrayals of Jews in Castle Rackrent , Belinda , The Absentee , and her Moral Tales for children...

  • Publication of Byron's poem Manfred
    Manfred
    Manfred is a dramatic poem written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Romantic closet drama...

  • Publication of Godwin's
    William Godwin
    William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

     novel Mandeville
  • Publication of Scott's
    Walter Scott
    Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

     novel Rob Roy
    Rob Roy (novel)
    Rob Roy is a historical novel by Walter Scott. It is narrated by Frank Osbaldistone, the son of an English merchant who travels first to the North of England, and subsequently to the Scottish Highlands to collect a debt stolen from his father. On the way he encounters the larger-than-life title...


  • Further reading

    • Le Faye, Deirdre. A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family: 1700–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0521810647.
    The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
     
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