考研英语中曾出现过人物传记（biography），如2017年的新题型是英国作家狄更斯的传记，本文介绍的是另一位英国作家，简奥斯汀，她是小说《傲慢与偏见》《理智与情感》《爱玛》的作者。
Sense and Sensibility：《理智与情感》。这个书名能让我们记住两个词sense和sensibility，sensibility从词形上看可能与sense有关，但其实际语义是sense的对立面。
The seventh child and second daughter of Cassandra and George Austen, Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, England. Austen's parents were well-respected community members. The family was close and the children grew up in an environment that stressed learning and creative thinking. When Austen was young, she and her siblings were encouraged to read from their father's extensive library. The children also authored and put on plays.
简·奥斯汀是卡桑德拉和乔治·奥斯汀的第七个孩子，也是他们的第二个女儿。简·奥斯汀于1775年12月16日出生在英格兰汉普郡的史蒂文顿。奥斯汀的父母是备受尊敬的社区成员。这个家庭关系密切，孩子们在一个强调学习和创造性思维的环境中长大。当奥斯汀很小的时候，她和兄弟姐姐们就被鼓励去父亲藏书丰富的书房读书。他们还创作和表演戏剧。
To acquire a more formal education, Austen and her older sister Cassandra were sent to boarding schools during Austen's pre-adolescence. During this time, Austen and her sister caught spotted fever, with Austen nearly death. After a short period of formal education cut short by financial constraints, they returned home and lived with the family from that time forward.
为了获得更正规的教育，奥斯汀和她的姐姐卡桑德拉在奥斯汀青春期前被送到寄宿学校。在这段时间里，奥斯汀和她的姐姐染上了斑疹热，奥斯汀险些丧命。由于经济拮据，他们在接受了一段短暂的正规教育后，回到了家里，从此与家人生活在一起。
Ever fascinated by the world of stories, Austen began to write in bound notebooks. In the 1790s, during her adolescence, she started to craft her own novels and wrote Love and Freindship, a romantic fiction organized as a series of love letters. Using that framework, she unveiled her wit and dislike of sensibility, a distinct perspective that would eventually characterize much of her later writing. The next year she wrote The History of England, a 34-page historical writing that included illustrations drawn by Cassandra. These notebooks, encompassing the novels as well as short stories, poems and plays, are now referred to as Austen's Juvenilia.
由于对故事的世界十分着迷，奥斯汀开始在活页笔记本上写作。18世纪90年代，在她的青春期，她开始创作自己的小说《爱情与友情》，一部由一系列情书组成的浪漫小说。利用这个框架，她展现了自己的智慧和对感性的厌恶，这一独特的视角最终成为了她后来大部分作品的特点。第二年，她写了《英格兰史》，这是一部34页的历史著作，其中包括卡桑德拉绘制的插图。这些笔记，包括小说，短篇故事，诗歌和戏剧，现在被称为奥斯汀的少年小说。
Austen spent much of her early adulthood helping run the family home, playing piano, attending church, and socializing with neighbors. On evenings, she would choose a novel from the shelf and read it aloud to her family, occasionally one she had written herself. She continued to write, developing her style in more ambitious works such as Lady Susan, a story about a manipulative woman who uses her sexuality, intelligence and charm to have her way with others. Austen also started to write some of her future major works, the first called Elinor and Marianne, another story told as a series of letters, which would eventually be published as Sense and Sensibility. She began drafts of First Impressions, which would later be published as Pride and Prejudice, and Susan, later published as Northanger Abbey by Jane's brother, Henry, following Austen's death.
奥斯汀成年后的大部分时间都在帮忙打理家务、弹钢琴、去教堂做礼拜、与邻居交往。晚上，她会从书架上挑选一本小说，大声朗读给家人听，偶尔也会读一本自己写的。她继续写作，在更多雄心勃勃的作品中发展自己的风格，例如《苏珊小姐》，讲述一个善于操纵别人的女人，利用她的身体、智慧和魅力来达到自己的目的。奥斯汀也开始写她未来的一些重要作品，第一部叫做《埃莉诺和玛丽安》，另一部以书信形式讲述的故事，最终命名为《理智与情感》出版。她开始起草《第一印象》，这本书后来被命名为《傲慢与偏见》，还有《苏珊》，在奥斯汀死后由她的弟弟亨利出版，命名为《诺桑觉修道院》。
In 1801, Austen moved to Bath with her father, mother and Cassandra. Then, in 1805, her father died after a short illness. As a result, the family was thrust into financial difficulties; the three women moved from place to place, skipping between the homes of various family members to rented flats. It was not until 1809 that they were able to settle into a stable living situation at Austen's brother Edward's cottage in Chawton.
1801年，奥斯汀和她的父母以及姐姐卡桑德拉搬到了巴思。后来，在1805年，父亲死于一场急病。结果，这个家庭陷入了经济困境；这三个女人从一个地方搬到另一个地方，在奥斯汀兄弟们的家之间穿梭，再到后来租房子住。直到1809年，他们才在奥斯汀哥哥爱德华位于查顿的小屋里安顿下来，开始了稳定的生活。
Now in her 30s, Austen started to anonymously publish her works. In the period spanning 1811-16, she pseudonymously published Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice (a work she referred to as her "darling child," which also received critical acclaim), Mansfield Park and Emma.
30多岁的奥斯汀开始匿名出版她的作品。1811年至1816年期间，她以笔名出版了《理智与情感》、《傲慢与偏见》(她称这部作品为自己的“宝贝孩子”，也受到了评论界的好评)、《曼斯菲尔德庄园》和《爱玛》。
In 1816, at the age of 41, Austen started to become ill with what some say might have been Addison's disease. She made impressive efforts to continue working at a normal pace, editing older works as well as starting a new novel called The Brothers, which would be published after her death as Sanditon. Another novel, Persuasion, would also be published posthumously. At some point, Austen's condition deteriorated to such a degree that she ceased writing. She died on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, Hampshire, England.
1816年，41岁的奥斯汀开始生病，有人说可能是阿狄森氏病。她做出了令人敬佩的努力，继续以正常的步伐工作，编辑旧的作品，并开始写作一本名为《兄弟》的新小说，这本小说将在她死后命名为《桑迪顿》出版。另一部小说《劝导》也在她死后出版。直到某一刻，奥斯汀的病情终于恶化到她无法再写作。她于1817年7月18日在英国汉普郡的温彻斯特去世。