and then because of the many children they had who increased the size of the extended family (Bush 16-17). In 1801, Jane's father gave up his parish and moved to Bath. Jane and the members of the family who were still living at home moved as well. Jane remained in Bath from 1801 to 1806, and it was during this period that ills beset the family--her mother had a serious illness and her father died. Austen paid visits to relatives in the country and to seaside resorts in Dorset and Devon (Bush 20-21).
Little was known by the world at large of Austen during her life or for many years after. She named her brother Henry as her literary executor, and he published two novels she had left in manuscript--Northanger Abbey and Persuasion--and included a short biographical sketch in these works, which was the first the world heard of Jane Austen. This material was included again in 1833 in a complete edition of her novels, which was also the only edition published during the first 64 years after her death. As her reputation grew, though, so did interest in her life, though the family was largely silent about her. Because of this, a number of erroneous details were popularly assumed to be true (Austen-Leigh 2-3).
The Austen home would be considered bookish, and so Jane was exposed to the novels of Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, and Oliver Goldsmith, among others. The sisters, Cassandra and Jane, learned more from their father and brothers than from formal schooling, but around 1792, the two sisters went away from home for tutoring at Oxford and Southampton and later to the Abbey School at Reading. Jane then continued her education at home, reading Shakespeare, English history, contemporary fiction, and the poets and moralists of the eighteenth century. In 1780-1790, Jane may have helped her brothers Henry and James with the production of their Oxford literary periodical, The Loiterer (Grey 279). This publica...