For the Love of Jane

Two hundred and fifty years ago on December 16th 1775, Jane Austen was born in Steventon, a small village in Hampshire about 15 miles south east of Highclere. With six brothers and one sister it must have been a noisy busy household, full of books, games outside in the garden, drama and family antics. Their father was a rector and money was always in short supply, but their mother was well connected and spent much of her life trying to gain the help of her wealthier relatives as her own circumstances became increasingly straightened 

Letters recount that the Austen family frequently entertained themselves by reading aloud to one another or by creating short theatrical performances. Jane was often the one writing the scenes, she also wrote poetry and from the age of 12 began to write short stories. 

 Living much of her life in rural villages, she wrote a small number of novels but each one has been read and reread, made into films again and again or read on the  radio. They are still much loved and never out of print. Whilst her time was framed by the gruesome stories and politics of the French revolution as well as the fear of the Napoleonic Wars, her books focus on the everyday life and characters whose experiences and emotions are familiar to all of us today. 

Jane Austen was a great writer, with a hilarious turn of phrase, a sharp wit and a wonderful satirist. One of her strengths is her detailed observance and how she captures the tone of her characters, like a skilled painter who with a few deft strokes outlines the person in front but leaves the observer or reader to create the entire portrait. Her characters misjudge people based on appearances, or are embarrassed by their parents, or are unkind to others who don’t deserve it and offer only kindness in return. Her heroines flirt and often fall for unsuitable men before eventually finding better partners. Her heroines may be expected to paint or play the piano but do not always enjoy it or do it very well. 

In addition, all her novels have a very strong sense of place with so much minute description that you can easily picture each house, village and town. In the novel Emma, Highbury becomes a real village as you read, in Persuasion Lyme Regis comes to life as does Mr Darcy’s Pemberley in Pride & Prejudice. There are nevertheless references to the outside world ranging from how well landowners look after their estate workers, to comments on the navy and life at sea. 

When her father retired, Jane Austen moved with her family to Bath, but, five years later her father died and to her relief, they moved back to Hampshire - her heart lay in the rural life of her childhood although her sojourn in Bath provided her with material for Northanger Abbey or Persuasion for example. 

After her father had died, the family finances were particularly precarious. Luckily, one of her brothers (Edward Knight Austen) was adopted by some wealthy  cousins and he was thus able to offer some help to his sisters. Jane, her sister Cassandra along with their mother were able to move to a cottage in Chawton where she completed three novels before she sadly died far too young at the age of 41.

She both wrote and revised her novels sitting at a tiny writing desk which you can still see in the corner of the sitting room there in Chawton. The house also has other treasures on display: personal letters and first editions of her novels as well as items of jewellery. The rooms have been carefully restored to invoke a real impression of the details of her daily life: where she walked and took gentle strolls in the shrubberies and where she practised the piano. As her nephew later wrote, the house had a hornbeam hedge and it “shut out the Winchester road, which skirted the whole length of the little domain. Trees were planted each side to form a shrubbery walk, carried round the enclosure, which gave sufficient space for ladies’ exercise.” The garden is smaller today but still charming. (So worth a visit and brilliantly curated by Lizzie Dunford and her team)

Like many fans of Jane Austen, one of my favourites is Pride and Prejudice and one of the first editions belonged to her brother Edward Knight. Jane mentioned this copy in a letter to Cassandra:

‘I want to tell you that I have got my own darling Child from London; – on Wednesday I received one Copy, send down by Falknor, with three lines from Henry to say that he had given another to Charles”.

She loved writing – each book a precious child to be cherished and polished, written in tiny, meticulous handwriting. Like others I can only be grateful that her family understood, cherished and valued her novels as a legacy for all of us today.