Happy Birthday to Jane Austen, the Inventor of the Rom-Com

Happy Birthday to Jane Austen, the Inventor of the Rom-Com

Jane Austen was born 250 years ago today, making her a few months older than American independence, 14 years older than the French Revolution, and 25 years older than the electric battery. Like many other English women of her era, she lived primarily in small towns in the countryside, and because she never married, she spent much of her time helping to care for her aging mother and doling out advice to her nieces. Yet unlike most of her peers, w…