A ten-pound bank note featuring a portrait of Jane Austen was unveiled by the Bank of England Tuesday on the 200th anniversary of the death of the famous British writer.
The new polymer plastic note will go into general circulation in September, the central bank said.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney unveiled the new note in a ceremony at Winchester Cathedral where Austen was buried in a tomb.
Jane Austen is only the second female, apart from Queen Elizabeth II, to be featured in a Bank of England note. The old five pound note featured social reformer Elizabeth Fry until she was replaced by war time prime minister Sir Winston Churchill.
The new 10-pound note shows Austen with plump cheeks and a calm expression in an image taken from a portrait which was commissioned after her death. Austen was just 41 years old when she died on July 18, 1871. She left a collection of novels as popular now as they were in Victorian England, with books such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility.
The five pound note was the first of Britain's plastic bank notes, with the Jane Austen ten pound note the second as part of a switch to more secure notes that are more resilient to counterfeiting.
As well as Austen's portrait, the new note features a line from her book, Pride and Prejudice, when one of the characters, Miss Bingley exclaims: "I declare after all there is no enjoyment but reading!"
Bank of England governor Mark Carney said Jane Austen certainly merits a place in the select group of historical figures to appear on British banknotes.
Austen fans from around the world, some in period costume, gathered at Winchester Cathedral to pay tribute to the writer on the 200th anniversary of her death, many of them laying flowers on her grave.
And in Basingstoke town center the world's first sculpture of Austen was unveiled Tuesday. The life-size statue was made in a local foundry, and sculpted by local artist Adam Roud.
Basingstoke MP Maria Miller said: "Jane Austen is one of the world's most important novelists and Basingstoke was her home."