Jane Austen (Radio Edit)

Summary

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You're Dead to Me – Jane Austen (Radio Edit)

Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Dr. Lucy Worsley (historian & author), Sally Phillips (actor, writer, comedian)
Podcast: BBC Radio 4
Date: December 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

This special episode of "You're Dead to Me" celebrates 250 years since the birth of Jane Austen, England’s beloved novelist and satirical observer of Georgian society. Host Greg Jenner journeys through Austen's life, her six classic novels, and her legacy with historian Dr. Lucy Worsley and comedian Sally Phillips. The show blends in-depth historical commentary with witty banter and modern resonances.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jane Austen’s Family, Social Standing, and Upbringing

• Middle-Class, Not Aristocratic: Jane was born into the "pseudo-gentry"—families who aspired to the landed gentry class but didn’t quite have the means ([05:21]).
  • Quote: "You want to belong to the landed gentry, but you don't actually have any land. So there's quite a lot of make do and mend and keeping up appearances at this level in society." – Lucy Worsley [05:21]
• Family Life: Grew up among six brothers and her beloved sister, Cassandra. Her father was a rural rector who also ran a boys' school and a farm to support the family ([06:11]).
• Practical Childhood: Jane helped out in farm and dairy work—her life wasn’t just balls and tea parties ([07:10]).

2. Austen’s Education and Early Writing

• Progressive Father: Encouraged Jane and Cassandra to read widely (including “trash”), but kept classical education out of reach to preserve marriage prospects ([07:33]).
• Schooling: Experienced sporadic boarding school education, limited mainly by family finances ([07:33]).
• Early Creativity: Jane began writing by age 12, crafting spoofs and energetic parodies for her large family, much like Sally Phillips did in her own youth ([09:06]).
  • Memorable Parallel: "I started writing little plays for the family… Getting my brothers to dress up as things." – Sally Phillips [09:11]

3. The Novels – Process and Evolution

• Drafting the Classics: By 25, Austen had already drafted versions of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey, with her early works featuring more violence and wild behavior ([10:10]).
• Innovative Style: Early drafts often took the form of epistolary novels, but Austen refined her narratives over many years ([10:34]).
• Modern Heroines: Lizzie Bennet, in particular, was considered bold and ahead of her time ([11:19]).
  • Quote: "Lizzie, as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." – Paraphrased from Austen via Lucy Worsley [11:19]

4. Publishing Struggles and Gender Barriers

• Publishing Anonymously: Jane’s works were published as "By a Lady"—reflecting gendered propriety of the era ([14:28]).
  • Quote: "It is possible there are role models like Frances Burney, but often they had to present themselves as doing it because their husband had died or because their children were starving. You needed a really strong motive to do it." – Lucy Worsley [13:57]
• Financial Realities: First payment for Northanger Abbey (£10) was meager; she received even less security than a governess ([13:08]).
• Missed Royalties: Sold the copyright of Pride and Prejudice, losing out on major future earnings ([19:54]).
  • "One of the biggest novels of all time… she just got paid once and that's it." – Greg Jenner [19:59]

5. The Engagement That Wasn’t

• Mr. Harris Big Wither: Jane accepted and then declined a marriage proposal within 24 hours—her independence trumped security ([16:04]).
  • Comic Moment: "Mr. Big Wither… just doesn't work, does it?" – Greg Jenner & Sally Phillips riffing on the name [16:09-16:13]
• Link to Authorship: The timing of breaking off the engagement coincided with her first book deal, hinting at hopes of making a living independently ([17:44]).
  • Quote: "It seems to me psychologically sound that she thought, maybe I can make my living in another way." – Lucy Worsley [17:50]

6. Bath and Later Years

• Mixed Feelings on Bath: Austen’s move to Bath in 1801 was likely motivated by the marriage market, though her feelings about the city remain debated ([18:16]).
• Shift to Poverty & Return to Hampshire: Following her father’s death, Austen, her mother, and Cassandra lived as “poor relations,” dependent on her brothers, before moving to Chawton thanks to her brother Edward’s generosity ([19:20-19:28]).

7. Later Writings & Posthumous Success

• Major Works in Order: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (published posthumously).
• Themes of Class and Morality: Mansfield Park features "possible critique of transatlantic slavery,” with Fanny Price confronting the family’s wealth source ([20:35]).
• Final Novels and Legacy: Austen’s health declined while writing Persuasion and Sanditon (unfinished). She died at the age of 41, leaving her estate to Cassandra ([22:06]).

8. Small Books in Big Times

• Subtle Engagement with History: Though critiqued for focusing on "small" domestic matters, Austen’s fiction subtly incorporates the social, political, and economic upheavals of her era (Napoleonic wars, class shifts, abolition) ([23:06]).
  • Quote: "If you look for the details of the great changes of her time, they're there. They're just done in a feminine, domestic way." – Lucy Worsley [23:06]
• Example: In Pride and Prejudice, the offhand comment about witnessing a soldier being flogged is a window into unseen historical turbulence ([24:02]).

9. The Nuance Window: Reconsidering Jane Austen

• Reputation Versus Reality: Family and society painted Austen as a harmless "little old lady," but she was a quietly subversive figure who used her "wobbly little table" to critique women's economic dependence ([24:37]).
  • Quote: "She was, in fact writing the books that would blow the locks off the doors that were keeping women like her trapped in this subordinate position in society and in their families." – Lucy Worsley [25:10]
• Interpretation Is Open: Austen can be seen as comedian, social conservative, or feminist, depending on the reader ([26:10]).

10. Austen’s Characters Live On

• Anecdote: Austen searched London’s galleries for portraits of her characters—highlighting her deep engagement and the vividness of her creations ([26:26]).
  • Quote: "The idea that she's… telling Cassandra, I haven't been able to find a portrait of Lizzie, and I'm sure that's because Mr. Darcy is so proud of her…" – Sally Phillips [26:36]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Bridget Jones's Diary is basically the first novel [of Austen]. I think Helen just took the plot of Pride and Prejudice and took her characters from the newspaper columns and put them into that structure." – Sally Phillips [02:39]
• "To do it as a member of the pseudo gentry was just completely socially inappropriate. So that's why she used pseudonyms…" – Lucy Worsley [13:57]
• "It's so rubbish that women are expected to marry for money… she was, in fact writing the books that would blow the locks off the doors that were keeping women like her trapped…” – Lucy Worsley [24:37–25:10]
• "Winston Churchill said Jane Austen's books got him through the Second World War." – Sally Phillips [24:10]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Jane Austen’s family and class: [04:57]–[06:11]
• Jane’s education and early writing: [07:26]–[09:31]
• The first novels/drafts: [10:10]–[10:53]
• Pride and Prejudice and Lizzie Bennet: [11:01]–[12:14]
• Publishing under constraints: [13:03]–[14:28]
• Marriage plot and personal happiness: [14:50]–[15:43]
• The Harris Big Wither proposal: [15:48]–[17:59]
• Bath years and post-Bath Chawton life: [18:04]–[19:28]
• Publication order of novels and financial issues: [19:31]–[21:03]
• Slavery and Mansfield Park: [20:35]–[21:22]
• Sanditon and Jane’s final days: [21:39]–[22:15]
• Austen and contemporary history: [23:06]–[24:02]
• Nuance Window – Lucy Worsley’s summation: [24:37]–[26:26]

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Tone and Dynamic

Witty, lively, and sharp—Greg and his guests joyfully balance fact and fun. Sally’s comedic interjections (especially about “Mr. Big Wither”) lighten the mood, while Lucy’s expertise ensures depth and nuance. References to adaptations, cultural legacy, and the challenges women faced give the episode contemporary relevance.

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For Further Listening

• Fairy Tales episode with Sally Phillips
• Agatha Christie episode with Dr. Lucy Worsley
• Georgian courtship with Carrie Had Lloyd

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This episode is a brisk, heartfelt, and deeply engaging portrait of Jane Austen’s life and work—perfect for lifelong fans and new readers alike.

Transcript

[A]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

[B]

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes.

[A]

Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Ferry unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company Affiliates excludes Massachusetts. Hello and welcome to youo're Dead to me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are donning our bonnets, seeking an eligible bachelor and promenading back to Georgian England to learn all about literary icon Jane Austen for her 250th anniversary year. Happy birthday, Jane. And to help us explore her life with Pride but no Prejudice, we have two very special guests in History Corner. She's a historian, curator, author and broadcaster. She's the host of the fantastic BBC Sounds historical true crime podcasts, Lady Killers and Lady Swindlers. She's the presenter of many wonderful BBC TV documentaries. She's the author of many best selling books, including lucky for us, Jane Austen at Home. And you'll remember her from our episode about another literary giant, AGATHA Christie, it's Dr. Lucy Worsley. Welcome, Lucy.

[B]

Hello. Thank you for having me.

[A]

Delighted to have you back. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award winning actor, writer, sketch comedian and presenter. You will know her from all of the things, including the beloved Smack the Pony, Miranda Green Wing taskmaster. I'm Alan Partridge. Veep. And of course the Bridget Jones movie franchise, which is basically Pride and Prejudice. And you'll definitely remember her from our episode about fairy tales, it's only Sally Phillips. Welcome back to the show, Sally.

[C]

Hello, Greg. Thank you for having me back.

[A]

Delighted to have you back, Sally. It's lovely to have you back in.

[C]

It's lovely to be here.

[A]

I mean, you're in a BBC sitcom called Austin, different spelling. It's a lovely show, but it is not an adaptation. No, but you, you were in Pride and Prejudice. Sort of. Because Bridget Jones's Diary is Pride and Prejudice.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Bridget Jones's Diary is basically the first novel is exactly the plot. I think Helen just took the plot of Pride and Prejudice and took her characters from the newspaper columns and Put them into that structure. But that's what you always get told to do by movie executives. So they say there are books written about it, that all rom coms have to be Pride and Prejudice. And consequently, I have developed a slight fear and phobia of Jane Austen.

[A]

Oh, no.

[C]

So, I mean, she is. When I read the books, I do absolutely love them. And she's also the sort of grandmother of a particular strain of female comedy that you sort of trace the line from her through E.M. delafield, Helen Fielding, and then even on to Fleabag. I think this kind of ironic, interesting female protagonist.

[A]

And you also, of course, were in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

[C]

I was, and that was fascinating. So I was Mrs. Bennet in Pride Prejudice and Zombies. Yeah, it was interesting to play Mrs. Bennet in that context because if there's a zombie apocalypse, you genuinely do want to keep your daughters safe in quite an expensive stately home with high walls.

[A]

It's a lovely film. It's not necessarily a family friendly film.

[C]

I think it's the best Austen adaptation there's ever been, Greg.

[A]

So whaddya know? This is the so what do you know? Where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And no guessing needed, it's Jane Austen. You know who she is. All six of her classic novels have been adapted for the screen multiple times. Maybe you swooned over a wet Colin Firth in BBC's Pride and Prejudice, or you sighed over Keira Knightley and the famous Matthew McFadden hand flex. Perhaps you melted over Alan Rickman and Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility. Or rooted for Anya Taylor Joy in Emma or Dakota John in Persuasion. Or did you giggle? And my personal fave love and friendship with the brilliantly funny Kate Beckinsale. And of course, Jane Austen's life has also been dramatized in films like Becoming Jane and the recent BBC TV series Ms. Austen. But was Austen's life anything like her novels? And how soon is too soon to break off an engagement? Let's find out. Sally, I'll start with you. See what the levels are. What sort of family. What sort of family and class position do you think baby Jane was born into?

[C]

I know her parents ran a school for boys, so she was surrounded with boys. So what does that make? Well, teachers or like parson kind of level.

[A]

Okay, so sort of middle class.

[C]

I don't know what that is. Is that middle class? Yeah, middle class. It's not aristocrats, anyway. Not aristocrats, but they had some Wealthy relations.

[A]

I think that's a pretty good summary. Lucy was Jane Austen, ostentatiously wealthy at birth.

[B]

Well, she belonged to this level in society that's called the pseudo gentry. I love this term. It means that you want to belong to the landed gentry, but you don't actually have any land. So there's quite a lot of make do and mend and keeping up appearances at this level in society.

[C]

Like desperate longing for servants.

[A]

Yes. Oh, it's this very. Carriages, sort of high synth bouquets. It's very.

[B]

Yes, there's a bit of that going on.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And her dad was a rector, as you say, so he had money from a parish, but it was a rural parish, which didn't give him enough money to live in the style of a gentleman, which is what he wanted. So he had side hustles. He ran a school.

[A]

This is George. Is it George?

[B]

Mr. George Austen. And they also ran a farm.

[A]

Let's talk about the siblings, because you said lots of boys running around. The boys are brothers. Jane has many siblings.

[B]

She's got six brothers. Imagine that. And a sister. And it seems like part of the reason that she became a writer was to make jokes to entertain them all. There's a lot of children to be occupied in this life.

[A]

So the mother was Cassandra. So Jane's sister is called Cassandra, named after the mother, is that right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And the father, George, had a bit of a reputation, sadly. He was known as the handsome proctor.

[C]

Oh. So Proctor sounds like he's like.

[B]

It was from when he was studying a college. A proctor is a sort of university position. And he had. He was famous for his lovely hair. When he got older, he had this lovely head of white, silky hair.

[C]

Leonine. He's Michael Heseltine, basically.

[A]

Lucy, tell us more about the childhood of Jane. It's a sort of agricultural childhood. We imagine her with quill in hand, but actually she's growing up on a farm. She's more likely shovel in hand, sort of scooping up manure.

[B]

And, you know, she had to do actual work. We know that. She had to help out in the dairy when they were shorthanded. She knows quite a lot about cooking and that sort of thing. Yes. It's not all balls and tea parties.

[A]

What else do we imagine in terms of her education, Sally?

[C]

I have no idea whether girls went to school. I imagine you had governesses. Did she have her own governess or did she have no education?

[B]

It's interesting, this whole question. Her dad was quite progressive and he would let Jane and her sister read all of the books in the house, which included all sorts of trash. But he didn't let them study Latin and Greek with the male pupils for the very good reason that that would prevent them from ever getting married, because once you could speak Latin and Greek, you were unmarriageable. But sometimes the girls were sent away for short periods at boarding school. This was never a great success. They had to leave the school because there wasn't enough money to pay the bill. And the schools that they went to were quite informal. And they did have lessons in girlish things like history and needlework and drawing and music and dancing. And they also would read trashy magazines together. It's been suggested that Jane got her sort of interest in writing not from the serious tomes by Fielding and Richardson and so on in her father's library, but perhaps just as much by reading the trashy magazines that the girls shared in the dormitory at the abbey school.

[C]

So, 1790s, 1780, she's in boarding school. And what is a trashy magazine, then?

[B]

Ghost stories, romances, pirates, that sort of thing. The sort of thing that Jane's own novels would be the complete antidote to in due course.

[A]

So Jane started writing when she was 12. Sally, when did you find out you were funny?

[C]

I think people were laughing at me about that age. I started writing stupid poems and things to make.

[A]

So 11 or 12, that sort of age.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I suppose I started writing little plays for the family.

[B]

This is amazing. This is it.

[C]

Yeah. I'm identical to Jane Austen.

[A]

You are the Jane Austen of your era?

[C]

I wish, I wish, I wish. But, yes, I started doing that plays for the parents and friends, Getting my brothers to dress up as things, dressing up in mother's old clothes and putting football socks on our hands and pretending to be Cats and doing Aladdin and.

[A]

I mean, that's almost exactly the Jane Austen story, isn't it? Yeah.

[B]

They put on plays in the barn at Steventon. Wow.

[A]

So tell us more about some of these spoofs, then. Are they. Is it in jokes or is it sort of broader genre parody?

[B]

The thing that I find so attractive about her juvenilia, her early short stories, is just how badly people behave in them. There's quite a lot of violence and people going mad and running amok.

[A]

My favorite of the Austen films is Love and Friendship. And she wrote that at 15?

[B]

Yes. It's not like one of the standard six novels because it's an early novella.

[A]

It's a novella, isn't it? It's very short. When did we get our first one of the classic six novels that people have probably read?

[B]

Well, while she was still living at Steventon. So by the time she was 25, she'd already drafted the first three, the ones that would end up as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. But they were described in her lifetime as gradual productions because they were produced so gradually. There would be many, many drafts and refinements.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

It's extraordinary to think that the bones of Pride and Prejudice were down there on the page. When she was about 21, the one that would become known as Sense and Sensibility. You can see what a journey it went on because it was originally written in the form of letters between Eleanor and Marianne. It was an epistullary novel.

[C]

Was that quite common at the time? That's what Dracula, isn't it?

[B]

It was a well known format, but, well, it limits you, doesn't it? It limits what can happen, really, if you've got to write to somebody else to describe it.

[A]

Yes. Let's turn on to Pride and Prejudice because that's her most beloved novel. Yeah. It's a truth universally acknowledged. Can we talk about Pride and Prejudice, how Jane created it and how did she feel about it? Was she proud of it? Was it her favorite book?

[B]

Was it her favorite book? I'm not sure that we know that.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But it's.

[C]

She loved Lizzie, didn't she?

[B]

Yes, she was very proud of her. Lizzie, calling her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print. But in the world at the Georgians, Lizzie was actually a bit in your face. To us, she seems recognisably modern in some of her attitudes, but it was quite shocking at the time. This was definitely a sort of a bold move to make such a sparkling, feisty heroine. And there's also some very snobby people in it, like Mr. Darcy and Lady Catherine de Burgh. And I think part of the background of this is that one of Jane's brothers had been adopted by richer relatives and he'd actually gone into the proper landed gentry.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

And when Jane went to visit him in his new home, in his new luxury lifestyle, she felt a bit like an outsider.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

And being an outsider is definitely part of Lizzie Bennet's sort of core, isn't it?

[A]

Pride and Prejudice was offered to a publisher, not by Jane, but by her father.

[C]

I thought, it's her brother.

[A]

Her brother does a different book. Her brother, her father. He's sort of the proxy here. So Jane wasn't even allowed to go to the publishing meeting and say, I've written this book, it's the dad.

[B]

We don't even know if Jane knew that he'd sent it off to the publisher. Yeah, we don't know that for a while. But he got a pretty sharp refusal. No, thanks.

[A]

Oh, God. Imagine being that guy. Turned down Pride and Prejudice. So Austen's third novel was written in her early 20s. That is Northanger Abbey, which has got a fantastic gothic title. Northanger. You can feel the kind of the moon is dark and the clouds are coming in and the owl is hooting. It's not her best known novel, but it was her first success in terms of publishing. It's her technical debut in terms of how the publishing world saw her.

[B]

It was her first novel that was successful in that a publisher actually bought it for ten pounds.

[C]

Ten pounds? What is that in today's money?

[A]

Ten pounds?

[B]

No, it was not a lot. She. The only money that she had at that time was £20 a year pocket money that her dad gave her. And if she had been a governess, she'd have earned £35 a year. Right, so not a king's ransom.

[A]

So it's sort of three months salary, maybe it's a bit of money, yes.

[B]

And it's the first money she'd ever earned.

[A]

Sure. But this is 1798. 99, that she wrote it. But it doesn't come out then.

[B]

For ages. For ages. Northanger Abbey was written in 1798-99, but it wasn't published until after her death in 1817 in a double volume. With persuasion in her life, her brothers.

[A]

Her father are doing the negotiations for her. Why is this? Lucy, women have been writing novels for decades by this point.

[B]

Yes, but it's a dirty business. It's a dirty business to be a lady. To be a. Literally, to be a lady novelist. And it is possible there are role models like Frances Burney, but often they had to present themselves as doing it because their husband had died or because their children were starving. You needed a really strong motive to do it. To do it as a member of the pseudo gentry was just completely socially inappropriate. So that's why she used pseudonyms to correspond with her publishers.

[A]

But she never published as Jane Austen.

[B]

When she was alive. Her name wasn't on the COVID of her books, it was by a lady.

[C]

A lady by a lady.

[A]

Jane Austen, by this point, had written a few things. The thing that's a constant with Jane Austen always ends with a happy ending. Does that mean she was drawing on happiness in her own Life. Or is that just simply the form that you had to do as a novelist?

[B]

You've got to define happiness, all right.

[A]

Because, you know, marriage. Marriage at the end.

[B]

Yes, exactly. In the stories, the marriage plot unfolds. There's always a happy ending in that she gets together with the heroine, gets together with the hero and lives a comfortable life. There's also an element of happiness and completion in the fact that the heroine gets somewhere to live. Because all of them have, nearly all of them have some kind of problem with their home. They've been chucked out of it. They've got no money, they've got no financial security. And it's just not clear whether Jane herself was, as generations have believed her, to be, disappointed in love. I mean, because she was a spinster and because she died a spinster, people have thought, oh, well, she must have been, you know, kind of sad and dried up and lonely and screwed up. But she actually made decisions actively not to marry.

[A]

Alright, so she didn't marry, but she did nearly marry Sally. Do you know this story?

[C]

No.

[A]

All right. There was an engagement, Lucy. The. The gentleman in question, 1802, in sweeps.

[B]

The wonderfully named Mr. Harris Big Wither. I know it's not. I know it's not funny to laugh at people's names, but that is. That is a bit of a funny name.

[C]

It's hilarious.

[A]

Harris Big wither.

[C]

Mr. Harris Big with was never going to work.

[A]

No. Can you imagine?

[C]

The marriage, the wedding night, disappointment of.

[A]

Mr. Big Wither and the front cover of Pride and Prejudice, you know, written by Jane Big Wither. It just doesn't work, does it? Come on.

[C]

So tell me about Mr. Harris Big Wither.

[A]

Well, I mean, what is there to say, Lucy? It's a brief fling, let's put it that way. In fact, do you want to.

[C]

Is he in Bath? Is she in Bath by 1802?

[A]

Not quite yet. In Bath, I don't think.

[B]

She was visiting his sisters who were good friends of her, and he proposed and she said yes. And he came with a mansion and a fortune. They lived in this lovely house called Many down park, his family did. And she said yes until the next morning when she broke it off. She just couldn't go through with it. He was six years younger than her. He was quite physically unimpressive. And of course he had a silly name.

[A]

I mean, come on.

[C]

And did she acknowledge to Cassandra that she just couldn't be called Mrs. Wiggle?

[B]

No. How did she talk about was a big tr. Drama. It was a big drama because the stakes were so high because as well as Jane getting a home for the rest of her life and a fortune. Exactly. Her sister Cassandra can come and stay. Exactly. And she was really good friends with his sisters. There was so much going for it, except for the man himself.

[C]

So what did she say about it?

[B]

She didn't say anything. No, no, there was just a.

[A]

She just broke it off. She just. The 24 hour cooling off period. She just went, Yep.

[C]

No, sorry, sorry, no, just can't do it.

[A]

Just can't do it.

[B]

But I think there's not an accident in the timing of this because the night she breaks off the engagement, just before that she'd made her first book deal.

[C]

I think she had the hope of, I can. I will be able to support myself. I'm not going to need to be Mrs. Big with her.

[B]

I do think that there's no actual linked evidence for it, but it seems to me psychologically sound that she thought, maybe I can make my living in another way.

[C]

So it's a hinge moment. And she never speaks of it again. How very discreet of her.

[A]

Yes, she's a classy lady. Let's talk about her 20s, her late 20s, her early 30s. The family does move to Bath in 1801.

[C]

Bath has been dining out on that ever since. But is it or is it not true that she hated Bath?

[B]

There's quite a lot of evidence that you can build up to suggest that, no, she had a terrible time there. Really.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. There's another school of thought which is that she loved it. The evidence is kind of hints and allusions to.

[C]

And is that sponsored by bath tourism?

[B]

In 1801, her father decides to move the family to Bath, basically because he knows he needs to get husbands for his daughters. There's nothing for them to live on after he's dying.

[A]

That's the marriage market.

[B]

That's the marriage market. And Jane is not really into this husband hunting thing and is no good at it. And then when he dies, the family begin. So this is Jane, her sister and her mum. They start a new life as poor relations. They've got no money. They have to live on handouts from Jane's brothers. One of the brothers says, I've got a plan. I've just got married, I'm a naval captain. I'm going to be away at sea. I'll rent a house for my mother, my sisters and my wife in Southampton. It turns out that Frank's new wife didn't want to live with her mother in law.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And this sort of fell apart as a plan and they couldn't afford the rent. And then Jane's other brother, Edward, the one who got adopted by the rich people.

[A]

Ah, yes.

[B]

He comes up with a better plan because he owns a house back in Hampshire and he lets his mother and sisters live there without any rent for the rest of them.

[A]

And this is Chawton. This is Church.

[C]

He restored their lives.

[A]

So we do finally get sort of literary success for Jane. In 1811, Sense and Sensibility was published as the. A lady. A lady publishes it. It sells well. She retains the copyright. That's good, because she get royalties. Then 1813, Pride and Prejudice. She sells the copyright.

[B]

Yes, Lucy, really silly move. Terrible error. So it was the publisher, John Murray, who got all of the. All of the cash from what turned out to be a big smash hit.

[A]

So she just got paid once and that's it. No royalties ever. So one of the biggest novels of all time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ah, that's annoying. And then nothing published under her name until after her death.

[B]

Emma was published.

[A]

Oh, is Emma published?

[B]

Okay. And so was.

[A]

But not under her name.

[B]

No, not under her name.

[A]

So always a lady.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Book writing, Sally, book writing. She's committed to her art. Do you know the next novel?

[C]

So we've had Pride and Prejudice, Sense sensibility. Northanger Abbey is the next one. Persuasion.

[A]

No, It's Mansfield Park, 1814, again, about a poor relation, Fanny Price. He goes to live with a wealthier family. It feels familiar.

[B]

Lucy, I think people are really interested in this one now because of the possible critique of transatlantic slavery that's kind of hidden within it.

[A]

The Bertram family have made their money in the New World.

[B]

Yes. They have a plantation.

[A]

Yeah. It's very distasteful.

[B]

And the head of the family goes off and he visits this plantation and then he comes back again, and it's only poor little Fanny, who's shy as anything, who dares to ask him what's going on over there.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And there's this idea that Mansfield park, this big, grand house, is, in fact, corrupt. The people there are not good people. And like you were saying, it's Fanny who's the most humble character who actually has the sort of moral purity and self worth to clean the whole stable out, really, and make everybody behave better.

[A]

Yeah. So we have Emma then, published in 1815. That's your favourite novel of the. Of the six. Lucy, we need to talk about Persuasion. And. And obviously Sanditon, because, sadly, Jane became very ill in 1815. 16. And she was writing Persuasion and. And she never finished Sanditon. Lucy.

[B]

This is heartbreaking because it was. Jane really loved going on holiday to the seaside. This was considered to be a place of health and happiness for her and for all Georgians. And Sanditon is a seaside romance and she wrote it when she was really ill and in bed. And in the little fragment that survives, it's written in her sort of pencil and you can tell that she's ill, but she's clearly imagining a world where she's healthy and happy and by the sea. She's never going to get there.

[A]

It's very sad. She does. I mean, she died in 18 July 1817. She was only 41. And she left everything to Cassandra.

[B]

Yes, her sister.

[A]

Persuasion was published posthumously then 1817, straight. Just after her death, the book comes out.

[B]

Yes. Her family just flogged everything. They said. Okay, right, let's move on. Sell the copyrights. We'll take the £500.

[A]

And then Henry got the copyright back for Northanger Abbey.

[B]

Yeah. And published it.

[A]

Okay. So it's an extraordinary life, Sally. It's tragic in some ways.

[C]

It is sad, isn't it? It is sad, but what amazing books.

[A]

One could view Austen's stories as sort of genteel bonnet fests, but she's living through an era of tremendous historical turmoil. You've got the French Revolution, the anti Catholic Gordon riots, the Napoleonic wars, the Abolition of Slavery Act. We have the changing rising of the, you know, the classes, the industrial revolution. We have huge turbulence. Britain nearly goes into sort of revolution a couple of times. But critics have accused her of writing small books in a big time. Lucy.

[B]

Fair. Well, I don't think it is. This is a traditional criticism and you can read them as sort of defenses of the existing order because things get resolved at the end. And there's a lot of concern about who's going to act properly and look after the countryside and the community. But if you look for the details of the great changes of her time, they're there. They're just done in a feminine, domestic way. One example I like is that in Pride and Prejudice, the silly girls, Kitty and Lydia, they go into the town and they come home and they say, oh, we had a great day. We went to a hat shop and we saw a soldier being flogged. And then we had tea and they come home and they say this really shocking thing. They saw someone being flogged in the street of their local town and a soldier. But because they're silly girls, it's used to express their character. They're too Silly to see what's happening. So that's how the Napoleonic War is present in Jane Austen, in a subtle, feminine way.

[C]

I find it fascinating. Lucy was telling me just before we started recording, that Winston Churchill said Jane Austen's books got him through the Second World War.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, there's a deep comfort and optimism, isn't there?

[A]

Yeah. The Nuance window. Time now for the Nuance Window. This is where Sally and I sit quietly and sip tea in the drawing room for two minutes while Lucy sits at the pianoforte to serenade us with something we need to know about Jane Austen. My stopwatch is ready. You have two minutes. It's Lucy. Take it away.

[B]

A lot of people have got the idea that Jane Austen was some kind of little old lady living in a cottage in the countryside, producing masterpieces kind of by accident. And this is what her family want us to think, because it was socially inappropriate for her to be this kind of ambitious, professionally successful female writer. And when she was writing, she didn't have a proper study. She'd write on this wobbly little table in the corner of the drawing room, which had a squeaky door. And she would never get this fixed, because when the door squeaked, she would know to hide away her paper and to get on with whatever it was that her family wanted her to do. So here, kind of in secret, she was producing her late great books, Emma and Mansfield park and Persuasion. And to me, these are books with a really serious message, which is that it is so rubbish that women are expected to marry for money. So kind of in secret, she was, in fact writing the books that would blow the locks off the doors that were keeping women like her trapped in this subordinate position in society and in their families. And that is why I think she's not just an important writer, but also because of the risks she took to become a writer, an important human being. I must say, this is my interpretation. And the great thing about Jane Austen is that she's such a rich artist, you can see what you want to see. You can make the case that she's a brilliant comedian. You can make the case that she's defending the social order and she's all about doing the conventional right thing. Or you can make the case, like I do, that she wouldn't have recognised herself as such, but that she was a feminist.

[C]

I loved reading that. She. A letter she wrote to her sister where she talks about going round the galleries in London looking for portraits of the characters in Pride and Prejudice. That, to me, is just so. Because that's sort of what I do. Preparing a part. I collect a load of. Collect a life and an image and, you know, smells and all of that. But the idea that she's. These characters live on. They live on for us, but they live on for her, too. And she's telling Cassandra, I haven't been able to find a portrait of Lizzie, and I'm sure that's because Mr. Darcy is so proud of her, he wouldn't want her portrait up in public. But I found Jane, the very image of Jane wearing a yellow dress, which confirms to me that yellow was Jane's favorite color. It's just fascinating to me that when you do something good, they do carry. These characters do live on and they do live on with you, you know?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And I love that they lived on with her.

[A]

Listeners, if you want more of Sally, check our episode on Fairy Tales. It was an absolute treat. For more literary geniuses with Dr. Lucy, seek out our episode on Agatha Christie, another formidable, brilliant writer. And if you long for Regency romance, come dating with us on our episode about Georgian courtship with lovely Carrie Had Lloyd. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with your friends. Subscribe to youo're Dead to me on BBC Sounds in the UK to hear new episodes 28 days earlier than any other podcast app. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner, we have the wonderful Dr. Lucy Worsley. Thank you so much, Lucy.

[B]

A pleasure. Thank you.

[A]

And in Comedy Corner, we have the sensational Sally Phillips. Thank you, Sally.

[C]

Thank you very, very much for having me.

[A]

And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we dust off another favourite from the Library of History. But for now, I'm off to Rummage and the Loft through my old teenage comedy sketches in the hope that they're as funny as love and friendship. But let's be honest, they won't be. Bye. Your dead to me is a BBC studios production for BBC radio 4.

[B]

Two months ago, I was just an ordinary mum from BBC Radio 4 as part of Limelight. This is Mother Cover. Our system has identified you as a candidate for a position.

[A]

See this woman here in the photo? She attends a mother and baby group at the Town Hall.

[C]

Can I sit you?

[B]

I'm Gwen, by the way.

[C]

Liz.

[B]

Is she dangerous?

[A]

Lives are at stake here, Gwen.

[B]

What do you mean lives? Gwen, what are you doing? I want out. I want out now.

[C]

Oh, my goodness, that tree. Look out.

[B]

Listen to the whole series right now. First on BBC Sounds.

[A]

What on earth is your mummy the at too. Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eye walls are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.