Profiles in Classic Literature Jane Austen ( 1775–1817), who remains immensely popular today, was an English novelist whose keen observations of society, wit, and mastery of free indirect discourse helped shape modern literary realism. She died at age 41. Literary Works Born in Steventon, Hampshire, she grew up in a close-knit family that encouraged her writing from an early age. Austen’s novels— Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park , Emma , Northanger