Jane Austen and Europe in Her Lifetime: A Chronology

Late 1700s

  • Fueled by steam, the Industrial Revolution begins in Britain and spreads throughout Western Europe and North America.

1775

  • Jane Austen is born on December 16 in the village of Steventon, Hampshire, England.

1776

  • The U.S. declares independence from Great Britain.

1782

  • James Watt patents the double-acting steam engine.

1785

  • The first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later renamed The Times, is published in London.

1787-93

  • Jane Austen writes her Juvenilia.

1787

  • The first ship of convicts leaves Britain to establish a penal colony in Botany Bay, Australia.

1789

  • The French Revolution begins.

1792

  • Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
  • William Murdock invents gas lighting.

1793

  • Marie Antoinette is guillotined.

1796

  • Edward Jenner introduces the smallpox vaccine.

1797

  • The Bank of England issues the first one pound note.

1799

  • Napoleon Bonaparte seizes power in France.

1801

  • Britain and Ireland are joined as the United Kingdom.
  • Joseph Marie Jacquard develops an automatic loom capable of weaving intricate patterns by means of punched cards.

1803

  • Britain enters the Napoleonic Wars.

1804

  • The world population reaches 1 billion.
  • Richard Trevithick builds the first steam powered locomotive to run on rails.
  • Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of France.

1805

  • Napoleon’s planned invasion of England is defeated when Lord Nelson defeats the combined French and Spanish fleet at Trafalgar.
  • Britain remains the world’s leading naval power until the 20th century.

1807

  • The slave trade is abolished within the British Empire.
  • Robert Fulton builds the first commercially successful steamboat.

1811

  • Sense and Sensibility is published.
  • The British Parliament appoints George, Prince of Wales, Regent when his father, King George III, is declared insane.
  • English workers riot, destroying machinery which they hold responsible for their unemployment and low wages.

1813

  • Pride and Prejudice is published.

1814

  • Mansfield Park is published.

1815

  • Emma is published.
  • Napoleon is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.

1817

  • Jane Austen dies in Winchester, Hampshire, England, leaving Sanditon unfinished.
  • Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are published posthumously.

Source

  • Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Edited with an introduction and notes by Vivien Jones, with the original Penguin Classic Introduction by Tony Tanner. Penguin Books, 2003.

Content last updated: October 31, 2005

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