Austen left formal school at 9

Jane Austen was unhappy in the city of Bath, but it inspired some of her books

In 1801, Austen's father retired and abruptly moved the family from Steventon to Bath. Austen loathed her new home, but she used it as the setting for pieces of her novels "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey." "The scandals and shallowness of the city fueled her cynicism and wit; nothing escaped her scathing pen," an exhibition on Austen from the Bath Preservation Trust explained.

View a timeline of Jane Austen's life

Austen was born in 1775 and died in 1817. In that time, she wrote six novels that have gone on to become some of the most celebrated in the English language. This timeline allows you to see the events that shaped her writing, from her informal education at a young age to the illness that eventually took her life.

Jane Austen by the numbers

This feature from the Guardian takes a unique approach to Austen's literature, breaking her life, work, and fandom down into data. The slide deck includes comparative analyses of character employment, net worth, and age. Below is a breakdown of Austen's unexpected posthumous rise to fame.

Jane Austen's books were published anonymously during her life

In 19th-century England, novel-writing was considered unseemly, especially for women. Considering that, Austen's father and brother dealt directly with Jane's publishers. The author's name, meanwhile, was not attached to her books: "Sense and Sensibility," her first published novel, was simply labeled as being "By a Lady."

Austen grew up as a member of the 'pseudo-gentry'

Her family grew up near the upper crust of society, but was never fully of it; at times, the family struggled to make ends meet. Austen scholar Dr. Lizzie Rogers said this made her part of the "pseudo-gentry," a contemporary term naming a respected group that still fell short of the aristocratic "landed-gentry." Rogers believes that perspective informed the writer's novels, which often dealt with social conventions.

Jane Austen's novels are set in late Georgian, Regency-era England

Historians call the period from 1811 to 1820 England's Regency era, named after George Augustus Frederick, who was prince regent from 1811 (and would later become King George IV). While Austen is often considered a romance novelist, some scholars argue her novels also raise questions about societal norms around class and gender.

'Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.'

- Legendary author Jane Austen (1775 -1817)

Abigail Adams received no formal schooling, but educated herself through reading

Despite receiving no formal education—standard for women of her era—Adams became well-read, largely through self-directed reading and extensive correspondence with leading political thinkers of her time, such as Thomas Jefferson and Mercy Otis Warren.

Exploring the work of Frances Burney, one of Jane Austen's main influences

Jane Austen is often credited with pioneering the narrative technique of "free indirect discourse," in which a narrator embodies a character's style without using the first-person perspective. But this essay argues Burney is the real innovator and that Austen, a fan of Burney's, continued using the technique to more acclaim.

Whitman left school at 11 to help his family

The poet's family was poor and moved several times during his childhood. At 11, his father removed Whitman from school so he could work to support the family.

When Dickens was 12, his father was imprisoned for debt

John Dickens was imprisoned at Marshalsea Debtors' Prison in London for failing to pay his debts. The experience forced the young Charles to leave school to help provide for his family. It also eventually informed his fiction, which often called for social reform, including the abolition of debtors' prisons.

George Washington had a limited formal education, leaving school at 15

A few years after his father died in 1743, Washington's schooling ended. He soon began working as a land surveyor in Virginia. He later assumed management of Mount Vernon at age 22 and became the estate's master at age 29.

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton founded New York City's first private orphanage

Schuyler Hamilton, Alexander's wife for 24 years, continued telling his story after his death. She devoted decades to her own work—cofounding New York's first private orphanage, leading charitable fundraising, and becoming a prominent advocate for education and social welfare in the early republic.

Massachusetts passed the first compulsory education law as early as 1642

The legislation required families to instruct children in religious and colonial law. By 1852, Massachusetts mandated that all children ages 8 to 14 attend school. By 1918, every state had a similar law.

Shakespeare's father was a professional ale taster

The Bard's dad was Stratford-upon-Avon's official "conner," the title reserved for those who tested the strength and quality of locally brewed ale. The job was not as easy as it might sound: He was expected to see if the ale had spoiled, meaning he sometimes had to drink bad beer.

At the age of seven, Grace Hopper dismantled alarm clocks

Foreshadowing a career in computers, Hopper exhibited a curiosity for gadgets at a young age and took apart seven clocks, determined to understand how they worked. Despite having a dollhouse, Hopper built an elevator for it and showed a greater interest in building toy furniture than playing with dolls.

The Wright brothers' sister hyped their work, and was the only one to attend college

Katharine Wright became the de facto household caretaker after their mother, Susan, died, when Katharine was 15. After graduating from Oberlin, Katharine took over household duties so her father and brothers could work. She promoted their work in the US and abroad.

Even medieval teachers sometimes complained about their students

Although it's tempting to assume that the youngest generation has gone astray, it's important to remember that older generations throughout history have been annoyed, and even dismayed, by the behavior of the youth. Look no further than this collection of medieval teachers complaining about their students, including one father who complains that his son prefers "license to restraint and play to work and strumming a guitar while the others are at their studies."

Private schools are free to experiment with teaching styles

Because they’re not beholden to national curricula, private school teachers can use different pedagogical approaches, like Harkness, which was developed at New Hampshire’s Phillips Exeter Academy. The method brings students to a large round oval table and encourages them to lead the lesson through inquiry.

She sells seashells by the seashore or, more accurately, she sells dinosaur fossils along the Jurassic Coast

Now known as the mother of paleontology, Mary Anning was 12 years old in 1811 when her seashore scrounging uncovered an ichthyosaur fossil, the first complete one known to the London scientific community at the time. She spent the rest of her life contributing to a field that didn’t care to welcome her. This article details her life and work.

Anne Frank's father, Otto, speaks to the BBC

The 13-year-old Jewish girl Anne Frank has inspired millions with her optimistic diaries amid Nazi oppression in the Netherlands. In 1976, her father—the sole survivor among Anne's immediate family—showed the world the original copy of one of Anne's three diaries in this BBC interview. Hear why Otto decided to publish the diaries and how that decision changed his life.

Stephen Hawking's children's books help make science fun and accessible for kids

Stephen Hawking co-wrote "George’s Secret Key to the Universe" with his daughter, Lucy, to introduce young readers to big questions about the cosmos. In the first book, the protagonist rides a comet and discovers that black holes aren’t black.

Europe’s first universities emerged from medieval church school

The modern university can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when schools in Italy, France, and England initially trained clergy before expanding to include lay students. By the 10th and 11th centuries, they taught law, medicine, and theology across Europe.

Nine Black students were arrested in 1961 for refusing to stop reading at a segregated Mississippi library

Public libraries across the South were segregated by law, with Black residents directed to separate, underfunded facilities. When nine Tougaloo College students sat down to read at the whites-only Jackson Municipal Library, they were arrested. Their act helped the NAACP push for the desegregation of public spaces in Jackson.

Individuals typically spend less time with others as they get older

At younger ages, we spend much of our time with parents, siblings, and friends. Eventually, our lifestyle changes to include work, a spouse, and children of our own. In later life, children often move out, and spouses unfortunately pass away, leading to more time spent alone.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.