Jane Austen
Jane Austen was very modest about her own genius. She once famously described her work as "the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory, on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labor". When she was a girl she wrote stories. Her works were printed only after much revision. Only four of her novels were printed while she was alive. They were Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were printed in 1817 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen. Persuasion was written shortly before her death. She also wrote two earlier works, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. She had been working on a new novel, Sanditon, but she died before she could finish it. She is now a well known great writer.