Jane Austen, was born in Steventon in 1775, the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman and was the seventh of eight children. The family lived a quiet life though move quite frequently; to Bath, Southampton, Chawton and eventually to Winchester where she died unmarried in 1817, at the age of forty-one.
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. In this production Jane is played by Fiona Shaw.
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