Austen’s family influenced her life and help shaped who she was. Her eldest brother, James was ten years her senior. He studied the ministry and took over his father’s position after he retired. Little is known about her second brother George. Austen’s third brother, Edward, was adopted by Thomas and Catherine Knight and raised as their heir. Henry, Austen’s fourth and favorite among her brothers, served as an officer in the militia, worked as a banker, went through bankruptcy, and finally ended up a curate. Austen’s fifth brother, Francis, and baby brother, Charles, both became naval officers and later, admirals. Cassandra, Austen’s only sister, was her best friend and most trustworthy confidante (www.pemberley.com 3; Austen

Jane Austen is considered not only one of the most famous authors during the romantic period, but also one of the most celebrated of women authors. She has given us such great literary work such as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park. Austen may not have led the most interesting life, but it was hers and she used the influences in her life to bring us the memorable characters from her novels. Not bad for someone who only wrote six novels.

Growing up the Austen family enjoyed putting on plays at Stevenson rectory and more elaborate productions were put on when Elizabeth would come to visit. This may explain Jane’s distaste for armature theatrics in her novel Mansfield Park, written twenty years later (www.pemberley.com). The productions were not the only thing from her childhood mentioned in her novels. The types of characters with whom she populated her novels were largely based on her family members. Austen adopted many family names for her characters and referred by name to the ships upon which her brothers served. The economic and social status of the Austen family resembled, for a time, the world of many a main characters in her novels-comfortably well off and among the best social circles in the vicinity (Austen 1).

"The novel is also the most obtrusively moral, and the least ironic, in the Austen canon. Several moral themes are inescapable: responsibility, self-knowledge, humility, education, to name only a few. Austen’s decision to emphasize "good sense" has also made Mansfield Park the most controversial of her novels. Many of the most insights; the response of many other readers can be summed up in the title of Kingley Amis’s well-known essay on the novel, "What Became of Jane Austen?" Whatever the verdict, most readers will find that ii test and extends their powers of judgment."

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