The Jane Austin Profile

Just a simple overview. These were obtained from public domains:

Lived only to age 41.
Her sister Cassandra was her closest friend. Both sisters died unmarried. She also had six brothers. All of her siblings outlived her.
Released her first novel Sense and Sensibility by age 37.
She released six subsequent novels about every one to four years until her death, and there were two more released posthumously, Northanger Abby and Persuation.

Females of that era did not make a lot of money writing, so she wrote out of the pure joy of the action and the need to express herself. 

She started one more novel before her death, Two Brothers (or Sandition-the name of a town-as was retitled by her family).
Her niece continued the novel, but she didn't finish it either. (See Jane Austen's Sanditon: A continuation, by Anna Austen Lefroy, ISBN 0-942506-04-9.)
Many other writers have continuations.

Her education included Oxford and boarding school. Jane nearly died during her school years of typhus. She studied at home for a while after the illness, and later she and her sister discontinued schooling when her family's funds were further depleated.
Her father was very supportive of Jane's and her other family member's artistic and intellectual explorations like writing. 
Her brother Henry, a banker, and later, an Anglican clergyman, was Jane's literary agent. He provided a wider view of society because he had a large social circle of merchants, artists and publishers.
Jane's financial circumstances most likely prevented a possible romantic interest, Tom Lefroy. Jane also nearly accepted one proposal from a family acquaintance who could help her entire family financially, but she realized she could not marry him without "Affection."  She later advised a niece that it was important to have this emotion in a marriage.
Jane other hardships were moving to Bath upon her father's retirement and then her father's death. She had difficulty adjusting to the move and to being uprooted. She didn't write as much during this time period.

Her financial hardships increased with her father's death. She, Cassandra and her mother traveled from relative to relative for subsistence.

Jane was able to produce four novels once her brother Edward was able to provide a stable financial setting for Jane, Cassandra and their mother in a quiet cottage on his estate in Chawton. The household's daily life probably included helping the poor  and teaching some boys and girls to read or write. 

Jane became very ill during a year of slow physical decline.  (See speculation of illness which range from recurrence of typhus, Addison's disease, cancer and even symptoms from unpasteurized milk.)

A great quote about Jane's romantic interest, Tom Lefroy, to her sister Cassandra: "I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together."

^ Qtd. in Le Faye, Family Record, 92.