The most significant events in the history of books on the 16th of December
1775: Jane Austen is born. As well as Pride and Prejudice and the five other full-length novels she completed, Austen also wrote a number of other interesting works of fiction (and non-fiction, of a sort): she wrote a History of England while she was still a teenager. In 1791, in her sixteenth year, Austen penned a jocular ‘History of England’ as a parody of the schoolbooks on history she had encountered in her (largely home-schooled) education. The tone is wry and ironic throughout – an early sign of the trademark irony that is found in her mature work.