Born at Steenton in 1775, the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman, Jane Austen was the youngest of seven children. She lived a quiet life, moving to Bath, Southampton, Chawton and eventually to Winchester where she died unmarried in 1817 at the age of forty-two. It is to her elder sister Cassandra that most of her surviving letters are written, and through them we discover the intimate world of the English gentry. They are at times both candid and wickedly indiscreet, detailing the joys and sorrows of her large family, providing us with an insight into the life of one of England's great novelists.