Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire -- J.K. Rowling

Jane Austen is my favourite author -- E.M. Forster

The technique of [Jane Austen's novels] is beyond praise.... Her mastery of the art she chose, or that chose her, is complete -- Elizabeth Bowen

The wit of Jane Austen has for partner the perfection of her taste -- Virginia Woolf

I am a great admirer of Jane Austen -- Alexander McCall Smith

Jane Austen was born in Steventon rectory on 16 December 1775. Her family later moved to Bath, then to Southampton and finally to Chawton in Hampshire. She began writing Pride and Prejudice when she was twenty-two years old. It was originally called First Impressions and was initially rejected by the publishers and only published in 1813 after much revision. She published four of her novels in her lifetime, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Jane Austen died on 18th July 1817. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were both published posthumously in 1818.

Francesca Segal is an award-winning writer and journalist. Her first novel, The Innocents, won the 2012 Costa First Novel Award, the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the 2013 Sami Rohr Prize, and a Betty Trask Award. Her most recent novel, The Awkward Age (‘smart, soulful and compelling’, Nick Hornby) was published in 2017.