Jane Austen (1775-1817) is considered by many scholars to be the
first great woman novelist. Born in Steventon, England, she later
moved to Bath and began to write for her own and her family's
amusement. Her novels, set in her own English countryside, depict
the daily lives of provincial middle-class families with wry
observation, a delicate irony, and a good-humored wit.
Alison Larkin was born in Washington, DC, adopted at six weeks old
by British parents, and raised in England and Africa. After
graduating from Royal Holloway College, London University, and the
Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, she became a playwright and
classical actress on the British stage. Then, at twenty-eight, she
found her birth mother, who was living in Bald Mountain, Tennessee.
The experience turned her into a stand-up comic. She was soon
headlining at the Comic Strip in New York and the Comedy Store in
Los Angeles, while maintaining her theatrical career. She also
spent three years under a studio development contract to star in
her own sitcom with ABC, CBS, and Jim Henson Productions. Her
unusually wide range of voices can be heard in cartoons and movies,
from work by James Cameron and Robert Altman to Pocahontas and The
Wonder Pets. The audiobook of The English American, narrated by
Alison, won an AudioFile Earphones Award. She has narrated over
thirty audi books and lives in the Berkshires, western
Massachusetts, with her husband and two children.
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