Jane Austen: the life of a Regency literary icon

Summary

Podcast Summary: You're Dead To Me – "Jane Austen: The Life of a Regency Literary Icon"

Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Dr. Lucy Worsley (historian, author) & Sally Phillips (comedian, actor)
Date: October 10, 2025

Episode Overview

In celebration of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, Greg Jenner, historian Dr. Lucy Worsley, and comedian Sally Phillips explore the life, context, and legacy of the renowned Regency author. With characteristic You’re Dead To Me charm, the trio blend historical analysis, witty banter, and vivid anecdotes, unpacking the real stories behind Austen’s beloved novels—and the complex, often underappreciated woman who wrote them.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

Jane Austen’s Background and Family

• Social Station: Austen’s family belonged to the “pseudo-gentry”—aspiring to landed gentry status but lacking the land itself. “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.” – Lucy [05:45]
• Family Life: Jane was one of eight siblings (six brothers, one sister Cassandra). Her father, the “handsome proctor” George Austen, ran a boys’ school out of their Hampshire home—creating a rambunctious domestic environment. “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.” – Lucy [06:46]
• Upbringing & Education: Jane and Cassandra’s education was informal—some brief boarding school, reading in their father’s library, and immersion in “trashy magazines, ghost stories, romances, pirates, that sort of thing.” – Lucy [13:01]

Early Writing and Family Comedy

• Austen began writing as a child, producing comedic plays and stories (“juvenilia”) for her family. These early works brimmed with satire and irreverence—far from the restrained image often associated with her.
• “There’s quite a lot of violence and people going mad and running amok. One of my favorite stories is ‘The Beautiful Cassandra’… she elopes with a bonnet that she steals from the hat shop.” – Lucy [14:31]
• Sally draws parallels to female comedic tradition: “She’s also the sort of grandmother of a particular strain of female comedy… you sort of trace the line from her through E.M. Delafield, Helen Fielding, and then even on to Fleabag.” [03:19]

The Career as a Novelist

• First Novels: By her mid-twenties, Austen had drafted what became “Sense and Sensibility,” “Pride and Prejudice,” and “Northanger Abbey,” though publishing took many years. Her works underwent multiple revisions and name changes. [16:08]
• Themes: Her novels repeatedly address women’s insecure economical position, the marriage market, good character vs. social constraints, and the tension between passion and practicality. “Women who don’t have enough money to live the lives to which they aspire… That’s a theme that'll continue through most of her work.” – Lucy [17:39]
• Resonance Today: Sally notes their modern feel: “There’s something about Austen that engages… How do I try to be the best version of who I am? How can I try and be an honorable person? Can I try and be an Elizabeth?” [18:14]
• Limited Agency in Publishing: As a woman of her class, Austen couldn’t publicly claim authorship or negotiate her own publishing deals initially—her books appeared under “A Lady,” and through male intermediaries. [24:29]
• Financial Realities: She was paid poorly (‘Northanger Abbey’ sold for a mere £10), and all her books in her lifetime were published anonymously. [22:50–23:26]

Dissecting the Novels

• Sense and Sensibility: Originally titled “Eleanor and Marianne,” written in epistolary form, explores sensibility vs. sense.
• Pride and Prejudice: Known for Lizzie Bennet, whom Austen called “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” [20:00]
  • The heroine’s outspokenness was radical for its time, and the novel’s initial rejection by publishers is viewed as a historical blunder.
• Northanger Abbey: Parodies Gothic fiction, originally titled “Susan.” Not published until after Austen’s death. “There’s this famous scene where she opens a spooky chest and she finds in it… a laundry list.” – Lucy [25:47]
• Mansfield Park: Engages subtly with the subject of transatlantic slavery and moral corruption.
• Emma: Austen’s own favorite, focused on a flawed and sometimes unlikable heroine. “When Jane Austen was writing this character, she says, I'm writing a character now who nobody else will like apart from me.” – Lucy [41:11]
• Persuasion and Sanditon: “Persuasion” is often seen as autumnal and mature, with themes of second chances; “Sanditon” remained unfinished due to Austen’s illness.

Key Anecdotes and Memorable Moments

The Comedy of Names and Love

• Austen was briefly engaged to Harris Big Wither (whose name drew much laughter), but broke it off after one night. “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.” – Lucy [29:45–30:11]
• Family supported her choices both in remaining single and pursuing authorship—a remarkable circumstance for a woman of that era. [32:53]

Burnt Letters & Private Life

• Many letters, particularly from Austen’s time in Bath, were destroyed by sister Cassandra—likely to protect Jane’s sharp and sometimes caustic wit. “I think it’s because they contained horrible, rude, hurtful jokes… you wouldn’t necessarily want the person she’s being funny about to read that letter.” – Lucy [37:13]
• Memorable quote (sample): “Poor Mrs. Hall’s lost her baby owing to a fright, I suppose. She happened unawares to look at her husband.” [37:40]

The Austen Legacy and Historical Context

Austen and her Time

• Despite writing during eras of major political and social upheaval (French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Industrial Revolution), Austen’s novels focus on domestic life—but not naively. She subtly references the wider world (e.g., the flogging of a soldier in “Pride and Prejudice,” family connections to the navy, and transatlantic slavery in “Mansfield Park”) [46:00].
• “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 [46:54]

The Woman Behind the Books

• Austen wrote many of her late works in a busy family drawing room, hiding manuscripts when interrupted—a reflection of both practical constraint and social expectation. [49:06–50:53]
• “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.” – Lucy (Nuance Window) [49:06]
• Austen’s status as a “feminist” restated: “She wouldn’t have recognised herself as such, but… she was a feminist.” – Lucy [Nuance Window, 50:53]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Austen’s wit: “She is hilarious. And she's also the sort of grandmother of a particular strain of female comedy…” – Sally [03:19]
• On education & reading: “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…” – Lucy [11:16]
• On women in publishing: “It is so rubbish that women are expected to marry for money. So kind of in secret, she was… writing the books that would blow the locks off the doors…” – Lucy [Nuance Window, 49:06]
• On missed historical drama: “Critics have accused her of writing small books in a big time.” – Greg [45:13]
• Why she resonates today: “Human character is also a work of art… how do I try to be the best version of who I am?” – Sally [18:14]
• Nuance about her feminism: “She’s such a rich artist, you can see what you want to see… Or you can make the case, like I do, that she… was a feminist.” – Lucy [Nuance Window, 50:53]
• On the burnt letters: “I think it’s because they contained horrible, rude, hurtful jokes… you wouldn’t want the person she’s being funny about to read that letter.” – Lucy [37:13]

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Segment Timestamps

• Introductions / Guest Bios: [02:11–03:53]
• Austen’s Family & Early Life: [05:20–09:45]
• Early Writing & Juvenilia: [13:28–16:31]
• First Novels and Themes: [16:08–18:11]
• Why Austen Endures: [18:14–19:31]
• Publishing as a Woman: [23:26–24:46]
• Key Novels Explored (Sense, Pride, Northanger): [16:08–26:45]
• Austen’s Personal Life & Engagements: [27:55–31:39]
• Move to Bath & Family Support: [33:17–35:51]
• Burning of Letters & Family Dynamics: [36:12–38:09]
• Financial & Professional Details: [38:20–39:27]
• Mansfield Park, Emma, and Later Works: [39:33–42:53]
• Illness & Final Works (Persuasion, Sanditon): [43:06–44:54]
• Legacy & Historical Context: [46:00–47:14]
• Nuance Window—Austen as Radical & Feminist: [49:06–50:53]
• Quiz (What Do You Know Now): [52:01–55:29]

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Conclusion & Takeaways

The episode compellingly debunks the myth of Austen as a demure spinster, revealing a sharp, modern, and deeply funny woman whose novels were products of both keen observation and hard-fought ambition. Her legacy as a literary icon is rooted as much in her personal courage and social critique as in her immortal characters and comedic genius. Austen’s wit, resilience, and cultural relevance shine throughout—cementing her status as, in Lucy’s words, “an important human being,” not just a beloved writer.

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For Further Listening:

• You’re Dead To Me episodes on Agatha Christie, Fairy Tales, and Georgian Courtship.
• BBC’s “Jane Austen at Home” with Dr. Lucy Worsley.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[B]

That may have been too much feeling. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings variant by Libby Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts. Hello, Greg here. Just a reminder before we get going that episodes of youf're Dead to Me are released on Fridays, wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. First on BBC Sounds. 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 podcast, 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.

[C]

Hello. Thank you for having me.

[B]

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.

[D]

Hello, Greg. Thank you for having me back.

[B]

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

[D]

It's lovely to be here.

[B]

I. 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.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. Bridget Jones's Diary is basically Pride. And 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.

[B]

Oh, no.

[D]

So, I mean, she is. When I read the books, I do absolutely love them. A bit like Virginia Woolf. I was a bit frightened of her as well. But when you read them. I absolutely love them. Absolutely love them when I've read them. A second to none. She's hilarious. She is. 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.

[B]

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

[D]

I was. And that was fascinating. So as 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 daughter safe in quite an expensive stately home with high walls.

[B]

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

[D]

I think it's the best Austin adaptation that's ever been. Greg.

[B]

So what do you. 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 Johnson 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?

[D]

I don't know much. 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.

[B]

Okay, so sort of middle class.

[D]

I don't know what that is. Is that middle class? Not aristocrats, anyway? Not aristocrats, but they had some wealthy relations.

[B]

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

[C]

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.

[D]

Like desperate longing for servants.

[B]

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

[C]

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

[B]

Right.

[C]

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.

[D]

Oh, okay.

[B]

This is George, is it?

[C]

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

[B]

Yeah, and we'll get to that later because it's got a charming name. So we'll come to that later. But let's talk about the siblings, because you said lots of boys running around. The boys are brothers. Jane has many siblings.

[C]

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, but they did.

[D]

Run this school with other people, other.

[C]

Boys living there as well. Yes. 10, 12 male pupils in the. Living with.

[D]

Living in the house.

[C]

Oh, really?

[B]

A lot of kids running around.

[D]

So they had 18. She was living with 18 boys, her and Cassandra.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[D]

It's hardly surprising she didn't marry.

[B]

So the mother was Cassandra. And the sister also Cassandra. So Jane's sister is called Cassandra, named after the mother, is that right? Yes, they're in Steventon and Dean. That's the two. Steventon and Dean.

[C]

These are small villages in rural Hampshire, which is a super rural county today. We think Range Rovers and country houses. But then there were real sort of travel difficulties. The roads around Steventon were considered to be particularly bad, particularly muddy. So it was quite remote actually in a way that doesn't, it doesn't seem today.

[B]

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

[D]

Oh, so Proctor sounds like he's like.

[C]

It was from when he was studying at 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.

[B]

Oh really?

[D]

Leonine. He's Michael Heseltine basically.

[B]

That's an image, isn't it? So he's tall, he's quite slim, he's got this sort of famous hair, he's got lovely hazel eyes. He's a, he's a hot priest. You mentioned fleabag Sally, here's our hot priest for the episode. So early life, fairly quiet and uneventful. Apart from the 18 boys running around trashing everything.

[D]

I mean, strong stench of urine.

[B]

Lucy, tell us more about the childhood of Jane. You know what, what, how was she raised and where was she spending her time?

[C]

Well, her mother, as was quite normal in the 18th century, sent the babies away to be wet nursed by another woman. A woman who was the wife of the person who ran the Austens farm. Okay, to us that sounds a bit weird, but you can imagine with all of those children to look after, she needed to spread the load. And I think it's probably fair to say that this was a Georgian view of child rearing from which we could possibly learn. The idea that children are brought up by the wider community, domestic staff, by extended family, by aunts. And you'll notice in Jane Austen's novels that the.

[D]

It works out very well for Jacob Rees Mogg. That's all.

[C]

Yes, point taken. But you'll notice in Jane Austen's novels that the, the good mothers are not necessarily the biological mothers. They're people like the aunts and the older female friends.

[B]

It's a sort of agricultural childhood which I wouldn't necessarily have expected of, of Jane Austen. 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.

[C]

And, you know, she had to do actual work. We know that. She had to help out in the dairy when they were shorthanded.

[B]

Right.

[C]

She knows quite a lot about cooking and that sort of thing. Yes. It's not all balls and tea parties.

[B]

I mean. Sally, can you guess what the farm was called? It's a charming name for a farm. What would you call your farm?

[D]

What did that. What was on the farm?

[B]

Dairy cows.

[D]

Dairy cows? I don't know. Moo House. Sorry, it's early in the morning. I can't think of anything. Barley something or other.

[B]

I like Moo House. It was called Moo Park. It was called Cheese Down. Cheese Down.

[D]

Cheese Down. Well, I wasn't far off, actually.

[B]

I think you were quite good. Cheese Down's quite charming, isn't it?

[C]

I feel that you're both slightly in danger of Disneyfying Austen's.

[B]

Yeah, maybe we are.

[C]

Which is the danger of seeing all the feature films where everything is made rather beautiful and the sun's shining and there's lovely rolling countryside.

[B]

Yeah, Buchonic.

[C]

It was a bit more nitty gritty. Harder working ordinary rural life than.

[B]

No, fair enough.

[C]

Than the name suggests.

[B]

Okay, so Cheesedown, Moo House. And what else do we imagine in terms of her education? Sally?

[D]

I have no idea where the girls went to school. I imagine you had governesses, so if they were running a. I wonder if she was allowed to take part in the schooling with the 12 spare boys or not. Was she allowed to join in with the boys? Or did she have her own governess? Or did she have no education?

[C]

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 unmanageable. 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. Particularly, they went to a school called the Abbey School in Reading. That's kind of still there. Ye. Yes. They spent a bit of time there and it was run by a lady who'd been on the stage and.

[B]

Oh, no.

[C]

Yes, yes. And it seems like there was sort of theatrical atmosphere there. That perhaps is one of the ways in which Jane got interested in the stage and performance and plays and acting, 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 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.

[D]

What was a trashy magazine in 1820? When are we talking? Is this 1830? 1820?

[C]

No, no, no, back in the. Back in the 1780s.

[D]

Oh, so her first books were 18?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, it took her ages to get published. Yeah, she was writing them and then there were decades of being in the wilderness trying to get a book, trying.

[D]

To get it published.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

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

[C]

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

[B]

In due course, the fact that her father, the hot priest, allowed her into his library. That's quite rare for this show. Quite often we've got 12 year olds being married off, so at least we've got a progressive father who's allowing his daughter to be educated. So I'm taking that as a win, sir. Jane started writing when she was 12. Sally, when did you find out you were funny?

[D]

I think people were laughing at me now. I used to write a lot of funny. I mean, about that age I started writing stupid.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Poems and things to make 11 or.

[B]

12 that sort of age.

[D]

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

[C]

This is the same.

[D]

This is it, yeah. I'm identical to Jane Austen.

[B]

You are the Jane Austen of your era?

[D]

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

[B]

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

[C]

They put on plays in the barn at Steventon.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

So tell us more about some of these spoofs, then. Are they, you know, what genre are they in? Are they family spoofs? Is she taking the Mick out of the teacher like Sally was? Are they, Is it in jokes or is it sort of broader genre parody?

[C]

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. One of my favorite stories is called the Beautiful Cassandra, and Cassandra is 16 years old and her mother runs a hat shop. And one day Cassandra elopes. Who does she elope with? Is it a bewitching young gentleman? No, it's not. She elopes with a bonnet that she steals from the hat shop. And they go off into London and Cassandra goes to the pastry cook's where she devours six ice creams. Then when she's asked to pay, she says, I'm not paying. She knocks down the pastry cook and she walks away and she just runs amok in London for seven hours. And eventually she comes home again and her mother says, where have you been? Welcome home. And Cassandra is nestled to her mother's bosom. And the story ends with her saying, cassandra smiled and whispered to herself, this was a day well spent.

[B]

That's amazing. My favorite of the Austen films is Love and Friendship, and she wrote that at 15.

[C]

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

[B]

It's a novella, isn't it? It's very short. So at 15 she's already got herself. She's written something that is going to stand the test of time, which is extraordina. Let's move on to the novels. When, you know, if Love and Friendship is a novella, which is a sort of short novel, when do we get our first, you know, one of the classic six novels that people have probably read.

[C]

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. They were described in her lifetime as gradual productions because they were produced so gradually. There would be many, many drafts and refinements.

[B]

Oh, really?

[C]

It's extraordinary to think that the bones of Pride and Prejudice were down there on the page when she was about 21.

[D]

Is that 1811 or when is that.

[C]

When she was born in 1776. So 75. 75, thank you. It being birthday year. Don't come to me for any date, obviously.

[B]

So Sense and Sensibility is the first of those novels that she starts on. That's. That's.

[C]

Yes. It was originally called Eleanor and Marianne and it was originally 1800s.

[D]

I'm bad at maths, but I think that's right, yeah. She'd written the first three.

[B]

The first by 1805, I think.

[C]

Yes. By the time they moved to Bath, then. Then they were all written. And 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.

[D]

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

[C]

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.

[B]

Yes. Okay. So Sense and Sensibility is the first novel that she begins work on. Tell us about the themes.

[C]

We got the sensible one and the passionate one. It's about that sort of dichotomy. It was a big contemporary discussion between the passion and the romance of life versus doing things sensibly and in an orderly fashion. And what it picks up immediately is the theme of women who don't have enough money to live the lives to which they aspire because it's about disinheritance. The family have been chucked out of their home, they've got nowhere to live. They've got very little upon which to live. And right there, that's a theme that'll continue through most of her work.

[B]

Sally, why do you think Austen still resonates so much now in the 21st century?

[D]

These themes, something like Pride and Prejudice and Sense Sensibility, is calling out good. So I believe human character is also a work of art. And I think it's up to us to make the best of our characters. And there's something about Austen that engages with that as a proposal for life. You know, how do I try to be the best version of who I am? How can I try and be a, you know, an honorable person? Can I try and be an Elizabeth? And I think that's what appeals, really. I don't think it's the I want, you know, Nether. Was it called Netherfield Hall? Netherfield, Ms. Bingley. What's his place called? Yeah, exactly. The big. The big house.

[B]

You don't want the country state, you just want yet to live a good life.

[C]

Yes, but the way in which they do test their characters is coming up against the rules of their world, which are weighted against them as women. And that's what I think is still true.

[D]

Do you? I mean, I think it is, yeah. I suppose it is slightly weighted against us, but really definitely not the same Extent. But you think that we not, to the same extent, identify with it because we still know that we are being prevented. We are not given full access or treated equally.

[C]

I think that if Jane Austen were alive today, she'd find the world disappointingly recognizable.

[B]

That's an interesting point. Let's turn on to Pride and Prejudice, because that's her most beloved novel. Yeah. It's a truth universally acknowledged. That's the one that's been filmed, I think the most. That is the one that people probably say is their favorite. I know, I know. Yours is not Pride and Prejudice, Lucy. Yours is Emma. But 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?

[C]

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

[D]

She loved Lizzie, didn't she?

[C]

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

[B]

Oh, really?

[C]

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

[B]

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

[D]

I thought, it's her brother.

[B]

Her brother does it. It's a different book. A 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.

[C]

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 fact, but he got a pretty sharp refusal. No, thanks.

[B]

Oh, God. Imagine being that guy turned down Pride and Prejudice. That's like turning down the Beatles, isn't it? Or, you know, not casting Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady. It's an absolute blunder. So Austen's third novel was written in her early 20s, that is Northanger Abbey, which has got a fantastic gothic title. Northanger.

[C]

It's sort of.

[D]

Yes, exactly.

[B]

You can feel the kind of. The moon is dark and the clouds are coming in and the owl is hooting. Do you know what it was originally called, Sally?

[C]

What was it called?

[D]

I don't know.

[B]

It was called Sozen.

[D]

Sozen.

[B]

Susan. Susan. I mean, it's just Susan. Susan. It's just Susan. Susan. Susan. It's a lovely name, but it's the sort of thing that a man would shout, you know, at a wedding when his wife is dancing a bit drunk. You know, the cousin's wedding. It just doesn't come up with Gothic. It's not got enough.

[D]

No. It was our sort of go to name in Smack the Pony for an ordinary person.

[B]

Susan was.

[D]

Yeah, we did a video game fighter. So there was Vixen Bitch Warrior Fights Susan. Susan driving, Stopping off at M s for a sandwich on the way.

[B]

So Lucy, Susan is the original title. And then Jane thinks, hang on, this isn't. That's not going to sell well.

[C]

There was a fashion for novels with a woman's name as the title, like Camilla, so she was fitting it into.

[B]

A kind of Pamela and all sorts of sort of traditional ones. Yeah, okay. But she does. She changes the title. 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.

[C]

It was her first novel that was successful in that a publisher actually bought it for £10.

[B]

10 ka ching.

[D]

What is that in today's money?

[B]

£10.

[C]

Not a lot. 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.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So not a king's ransom.

[B]

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

[C]

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

[B]

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

[C]

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.

[B]

Wow. 1817.

[D]

1817, yeah.

[B]

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

[C]

Yes, but it's a dirty business. It's A dirty business. To be a lady. To be. 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 or had her dad or her brother do it for her. It was only later on, once she got more confident, that she would go in and do the deal herself. Okay, she did get to that point.

[B]

But she never published as Jane Austen.

[C]

When she was alive. Her name wasn't on the COVID of her books.

[D]

By a lady.

[B]

A lady.

[D]

By a lady.

[B]

I suppose a lady Austin. I mean, there is a tiny hint there, isn't there?

[C]

Maybe once they got the. The books were sold basically by publishing an ad in the newspaper. And once they got the ad wrong and it came out as by lady A. Ah. And this was great, because people thought, oh, it's by an aristocrat. This is. This is good for sales.

[B]

Oh, of course, yes. Because immediately, the moment you say lady A, people are thinking, duchess, Countess, lady. Was that. Yeah, exactly.

[C]

Very Bridgerton.

[B]

That's nice. Northanger Abbey. I tend to read it as quite funny, which I think maybe I'm wrong, but it's a sort of a. It's about a young woman who. Who's read too many Gothic novels and then it sort of goes to visit her boyfriend's dad and he's. She thinks he's a baddie and there's a sort of. There's a hysteria to it. That's quite funny.

[C]

Oh, yes. I think it's great. It's satirizing Gothic fiction, basically. So you get all of the things that happen in Gothic fiction, like a spooky mansion, an e. Villainous chap who might do something terrible to you, and then there's just baphos the whole time when she realizes that the spooky mansion's actually really clean and comfortable. There's this famous scene where she opens a spooky chest and she finds in it our laundry list.

[B]

Dun, dun, dun.

[C]

But there is this kind of serious point to it, which is that bad people exist in the real world. They do exist in this. What's supposed to be, to read as the very familiar world of Bath society in the marriage market. And there is real danger there for the hero.

[B]

So she's sort of fearing that her boyfriend's dad is sort of the evil villain, but, you know, maybe. Maybe he is a bit. He is.

[C]

He's a genuinely bad man.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You don't want to hang around with.

[B]

Him, but he's not a Gothic villain.

[C]

He's not a Gothic villain. He's an everyday villain.

[B]

He's a man.

[D]

Is the heroine of that called Susan, or called. I think she's called Catherine.

[C]

She ends up being called Catherine. And what I love about Catherine, and this is one of Jane Austen's innovations, is that Catherine is so ordinary. She's even got some slightly greasy hair. And in Jane Austen's novels, ordinary girls start to feature as heroines because she takes. She takes the world of fiction and she mashes it up with the world of reality so everyone can start to see themselves in these stories.

[B]

Fabulous. Jane Austen, by this point, had written a few things. The thing that's a constant with Jane Austen, you know, when Ostentatious do their live shows, it 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?

[C]

As a novelist, you've got to define happiness.

[B]

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

[C]

Yes, exactly. In the. 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. She turned down many proposals.

[B]

That's right. So we've got. The first is an Irishman, Tom Lefroy.

[C]

Well, he never actually proposes, does the tasty Tom Lefroy? He was a young law student from Dublin and Jane danced with him at quite a few balls. And then the reason that we think that there's a proposal on the card is because Jane writes a letter to her sister saying, I'm really looking forward tonight. I think it's going to happen. I think he's going to make me an offer. And then in the next letter, she says, oh, no. When you read this, it will all be over.

[B]

Oh.

[C]

And you think, oh, her heart's been broken. But I think what Jane's actually doing in that letter to her sister is yet again spoofing contemporary romantic fiction. That's all very mushy. And it's about a heroine getting her heart broken. So I'm not convinced that Tom Lefroy did break Jane Holiday fling. Perhaps he was just fodder for comedy, I think.

[B]

Aren't we all? Speak for yourself. All right, so she didn't marry, but she did nearly marry Sally. Do you know this story?

[D]

No.

[B]

All right. There was an engagement. Lucy. The. The gentleman in question, 1802, in sweeps, the wonderfully named Mr. Harris Big Wither.

[C]

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.

[D]

It's hilarious. Harris Big with Mr. Harris Big Wither. That was never going to work.

[B]

No. Can you imagine?

[D]

The marriage, the wedding night, disappointment of.

[B]

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

[D]

So tell me about Mr. Harris Big Wither.

[B]

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

[D]

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

[B]

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

[C]

She was visiting his sisters, who were good friends of her.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

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.

[B]

I mean, come on.

[D]

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

[C]

No.

[D]

How did she talk about it?

[C]

It was a big. It was a 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. In the 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.

[D]

So what did she say about it?

[C]

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

[B]

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

[D]

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

[B]

Just can't do it. Sally, would you ever have turned down someone because their surname was so silly?

[D]

No, I think I could have got over Big with her. I think so, yeah. I might not have changed my name. Sally Big with her.

[C]

I mean, I'm in comedy.

[D]

You know what that would be? I would sell out for the rest of my life. Yeah.

[C]

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

[D]

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.

[C]

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. And the woman who he did eventually marry gave him 10 children. So if Jane had become Mrs. Harris big wither, there would have been no writing career. She would definitely have been producing babies, not books.

[B]

Baby Big Withers everywhere, just Baby Big Withers.

[D]

And are there any descendants of Mr. Big Wither?

[B]

There must be. We must track them down.

[D]

If you are related to Mr. Harris big wither, please get in touch.

[B]

Look what you could have won.

[C]

Mr. Harris Big Wither went on to have 10 children and five of them were daughters who never married. And I think that's because they looked at their mum married to their dad and thought, oh, I'm not going there.

[B]

A very big wither was not withered.

[D]

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

[B]

Yes, she's a classy lady.

[A]

At the BBC we go further, so you see clearer. Through frontline reporting, global stories and local insights, we bring you closer to the world's news as it happens. And it starts with a subscription to BBC.com giving you unlimited articles and videos, ad free podcasts and the BBC News channel streaming live 24. 7. Subscribe to trusted independent journalism from the BBC. Find out [e-mail] join.

[B]

So the interesting thing for me, I think, is that Jane had a supportive family. She makes this big decision and her father goes along with it, her brother goes along with it, her sister goes along with it. Everyone goes okay. And they're great fans and advocates of her work and, you know, she's allowed to make that decision. Extraordinary. Let's talk about her 20s, her late 20s, her early 30s. The family does move to Bath, which I think you alluded to. Sally in 1801, Bath has been dining.

[D]

Out on that ever since. But is it or is it not true that she hated Bath?

[C]

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

[B]

Really.

[C]

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

[D]

And is that sponsored by Bath tourism?

[B]

I mean, in Bath we see influences in persuasion and Northanger Abbey. There are, you know, architectural and sort of societal links, we think, to those novels.

[C]

There's sooty rain. She talks about the glaring white stone in Bath, so the weather of the place can't even be right. And clearly in Northanger Abbey it's this kind of obstacle course full of pitfalls for the young.

[B]

So 1805, her father, the hot priest, lovely George, they're in.

[D]

They're in Hampshire. Until 1805.

[B]

They are. They're in. No, they've moved to bath.

[C]

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.

[B]

That's the marriage market.

[C]

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, Right. 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, 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.

[B]

And this is Chawton.

[D]

What is the house? Have I confused this with one of her books? Is there not a house where they go to stay with a cousin who owns a big house and he thinks if they're sitting tenants, he's likely to get it he does get it and then kicks them out.

[C]

Oh, I think you're talking about the Stony Abbey business. She did have lots of rich relatives, kind of in the fringes of her family.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

And she would go and see, stay with them for years. She would get her meals there. And there was lots of hanging around and hoping that somebody who was really rich would give a legacy. But the trouble is that the, the mother and the two sisters, they're just so low down the pecking order that they never get anything. It's amazing that Edward, this rich brother, who's got a fortune, doesn't do anything better sooner for his destitute female relations.

[B]

Amen. So for the period between 1801 and 1804, we know very little about Austen's life because after her death, her sister Cassandra burned her letters. So something in those letters has been destroyed by a protective sister. And Sally, what, what scandal do you think might have been in those letters? I mean, we don't know what's in them, so feel free to go crazy with your imagination.

[D]

Yeah, maybe it's some love affair. But I thought she burnt them after she died.

[C]

She died.

[D]

She burnt them. So she burnt some of them.

[B]

Yeah, but from that period, does Cassandra.

[D]

Think she's going to get married and she doesn't want her husband reading? Maybe it's Cassandra's responses she's trying to hide. Well, maybe of all the, all the love affairs, because Cassandra was more sort of open to the boys in the boarding school, wasn't she, than Jane, as far as I know.

[B]

Is that right?

[D]

Have I made that up?

[C]

Cassandra to get engaged herself to Tom. Yeah. And then he died.

[D]

Different Tom. He died because he didn't have any money, so he went, joined the Navy.

[C]

This is very good. He went to sea as a chaplain and then he died of disease. He died of disease in the Caribbean?

[B]

Yeah. We don't know what's in those letters. And it's such a specific period, such an interesting three year period with the letters are burned and you think, what is she protecting?

[D]

So where is Tom at this point? Cassandra's dead, Fidanzata. Already dead.

[B]

So, Lucy, have you got any guesses on why that three year period is censored later?

[C]

I'm pretty confident why Cassandra burnt the letters.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[C]

I think it's because they contained horrible, rude, hurtful jokes. You can see even in the letters that survive, she's very funny. But you wouldn't necessarily want the person she's being funny about to read that letter. I'll give you an example. A lady in the neighborhood has a miscarriage. Mrs. Hall. And Jane writes to Cassandra. Poor Mrs. Hall's lost her baby owing to a fright, I suppose. She happened unawares to look at her husband.

[B]

Oh, that's. I mean, that's. That's. That's. Yeah, okay.

[C]

It's funny, but it's in very poor taste.

[B]

Really poor taste. That's a really sharp.

[C]

Yeah, okay.

[B]

So you think perhaps they're a member of the family?

[D]

It's private sister chat.

[B]

Private DMs.

[D]

Private sister chat.

[B]

And we're just gonna go in there, we're gonna nuke those. History doesn't know.

[C]

What had she said about their mother? What had she said about the mean brothers? I'm pretty sure that's why Cassandra destroyed them.

[B]

Okay. 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. Lucy.

[C]

Yes. 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.

[B]

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

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

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

[C]

Emma was published.

[B]

Oh, is Emma published? Okay.

[C]

And so was.

[B]

But not under her name.

[C]

No, not under her name.

[B]

So always a lady.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But her brother, which brother is this, was always quite happy to sort of say, my sister is a lady. She wrote that one.

[C]

She had this slightly racy brother, Henry, who was involved in a bank scandal and who acted as her literary agent for her.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And he was a bit of a blabber mouth and he started showing off about his clever sister. And so the secret but gradually got out.

[B]

Is that pride or is that him just sort of using it to pick up chicks?

[C]

I think it was pride. I think that he. I got a soft spot for Henry.

[B]

Okay, all right. Okay, fair enough. And so you know by this point, Jane is now just a professional writer. That is her job. That is what she's doing with her life. She's not marrying. She's turned down the big wither. Book writing, Sally, book writing. She's committed to her art. Do you know the next novel?

[D]

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

[B]

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

[C]

Yes, again, it seems like it's the brother Edward, who gets adopted by the rich folk. Something of that situation's coming out in the story. 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.

[B]

The Bertram family have made their money.

[C]

In the New World, and, yes, they have a plantation.

[B]

Yeah. It's very distasteful.

[C]

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.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

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.

[B]

Yeah, you're right. That's that kind of. That's the moral middle classes, isn't it? Sort of saying, you've made your money in the most unethical way possible. So we have Emma then, published in 1815. That's your favourite novel of the. Of the six, Lucy. That's the Battle of Waterloo. It's a big year for British history and French history. It's about a rich young woman who's playing matchmaker. And Emma is not a likable heroine for some people. I mean, you like her.

[C]

That's why I like her. She is dislikable. She's very full of herself. When Jane Austen was writing this character, she says, I'm writing a character now who nobody else will like apart from me.

[B]

Sally, where do you stand on the Emma debate?

[D]

I like Emma. I like leading ladies with flaws.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I think it's important and. Yes, exactly. So I really like Emma. And you love the way she feels shame. So when she shames Ms. Bates. Is it Miss Bates she shames at the picnic? She issues the guests at the picnic with a challenge. You have to say something witty and then something or one witty thing or three dull things. Ms. Bates says, oh, well, you know, I'll say all the dull things at once. She said, no, but you must limit yourself to three at a time. And I. I sort of get how that could accidentally come out of your mouth in front of a crowd.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I mean, I've been on stage and Said I was marched off stage by the late, great Sean Locke once.

[B]

Oh, really?

[D]

For having made a joke. I won't say what it was because it shouldn't be repeated. A very funny but mean joke. And in my memory, Sean Locke sort of marched down onto the stage, got me by the collar, marched me outside. I was about 23, and it was up at the Edinburgh Festival and in the courtyard went, we don't do that. We don't say that. You know, if you're a good comic, you can make a joke about anything and so you don't make it at the end, expense of other people.

[B]

Interesting.

[D]

What a great man. A very, very important lesson.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

But I completely understand how that might happen. And then Mr. Knightley comes over and says, it was very poorly done or something. That was very poorly done, Emma. And she feels great, great shame.

[B]

Yeah. And.

[D]

But she grows. Yeah, she grows, but she's. She's alive to that.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[D]

She doesn't go, oh, what a pratt. She doesn't think, oh, what a prat Mr. Knightley is. The way people so often do now. They immediately go on the defensive if somebody points out, holds up a mirror. Yeah, I love her, too.

[B]

Yeah, that's very interesting. We need to talk about Persuasion and obviously Sanditon, because, sadly, Jane became very ill in 1815, 16, and she was writing Persuasion and she never finished Sanditon. Lucy.

[C]

Yes. A lot of people really love Persuasion because they sort of graduate to it. It's often described as having an autumnal quality, and that's because it's about having a second chance. The heroine thinks that she's never going to marry, but then her old love comes back. What's really devastating about it is that all of this happens to her at the age of 28.

[B]

Oh, my word.

[C]

That's the point at which you're totally on the shelf in Jane Austen's England. And then Sanditon, which never even gets finished. 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.

[B]

That's very sad. She does. I mean, she died in 18 July 1817. She was only 41. It's really, you know, it's really tragic. She was buried at Winchester Cathedral, which suggests a level of prestige.

[C]

It was because she had all of these clergyman relatives.

[B]

Oh, really?

[C]

She was pretty low down in lots of ways.

[B]

It wasn't the fame, it wasn't the books, it was the family.

[C]

It was the fact that she was kind of in the aristocracy of the Hampshire clergy.

[B]

I see. She's local royalty and she left everything to Cassandra.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

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

[C]

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

[B]

And then Henry got the copyright back for Northanger Abbey.

[C]

Yeah. And published it.

[B]

Okay. It's an extraordinary life, Sally. It's. It's tragic in some ways, but really interesting the way that the family became the kind of keepers of the flame afterwards.

[D]

Yes, yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I don't know what to say. Yes.

[B]

Sorry, I'm putting a lot of burden on you there.

[D]

I'm finding it hard, straight after the death to think of a joke immediately.

[B]

Well, you don't have to, but.

[D]

Yeah, no, it is. It is sad, isn't it? It is sad. But what amazing book.

[B]

I think that. I mean, you know, as a historian, the thing I'm. I'm. I mean, I love her writing. I love it because it's funny, you know, maybe that's because I love funny things. But what's important to sort of get across, I think, is you. One could view Austen stories as sort of genteel bonnet fests with no hint of violence. There's no. The jeopardy is about poverty, but there's no, like, you know, crime. There's no murder. There's no Gothic element to them. There's that. There's a parody of the Gothic. 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 Fair.

[C]

Well, I don't think it is. This is a traditional criticism and you can read them as sort of defences 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.

[B]

And her brother was in the navy.

[C]

Frank was in the navy. Charles was in the navy. Right.

[B]

Oh, two brothers. Okay.

[C]

Henry was temporarily in the. In the army.

[B]

So the Battle of Waterloo and the Battle of Trafalgar, these sort of landmark military naval moments of great jeopardy, where France, the mortal enemy, might invade. Her brothers are fighting these wars.

[C]

Yes. Frank was too late to turn up to the Battle of Trafalgar. That he was really cheesed off about going.

[B]

He was cheese down.

[D]

What was he doing?

[C]

He was doing something very important elsewhere. And I think that Nelson wrote an angry relationship. I think Nelson wrote him a letter saying, I'm so sorry you missed the battle, but you did good work anyway.

[B]

Oh, no, that's gutting, isn't it? At the millennium party, my friend was in the toilet at the countdown for the millennium. And so his great memory of the kind of the coming of the millennium was just flushing, flushing, looking for some toilet paper. And you've already alluded to allusions to slavery, you know, allusions to sort of threat. You know, we've got these slightly sinister. But we haven't necessarily got violence and turbulence in the story.

[C]

There were no battles happening. No battles essential or protests. I would argue not.

[B]

No, no.

[D]

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.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

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

[B]

Yeah, but there we go. So Jane Austen. I think we're all admirers of Jane Austen. It is a sad life in some ways in the. In that she. She died so young. But what an extraordinary work. And I'm quite pleased also that her family were there to support her and lift her up and. And Then celebrate her afterwards.

[C]

It's.

[B]

It's quite nice. She didn't have to battle against her loved ones and for our benefit.

[D]

I love her friendship with her sister.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[D]

I mean, that's all you need, really, is a really close friend to send mean messages about people who annoy you, too.

[B]

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. We have two minutes. Lucy, take it away.

[C]

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 light 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.

[D]

I love reading that. A letter she wrote to her sister, where she talks about going around the galleries in London looking for portraits of the characters and 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 a collector 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?

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And I love that they lived on with her.

[B]

So what do you know now? Well, it's time now for the Siv. What do you know now, this is our quickfire quiz for Sally to see how much.

[D]

She has so many notes, and I can't read. My handwriting is just awful.

[B]

Extensive notes. I'm counting 8, 9, 10. 10 pages.

[D]

10 pages with a drawing and drawings.

[B]

I think that's very obvious.

[D]

And the page before someone's written, baby.

[B]

That'S a previous episode. Don't worry.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

Okay. Are you feeling confident, Sal?

[D]

No.

[B]

Okay, ten questions. Here we go. Question one. How many brothers did Jane Austen have? Six.

[C]

She did.

[D]

She had six brothers and two became clerics, and two went into the navy and one went into the army.

[B]

Very good.

[C]

Oh, swat.

[B]

Yeah. Look at this.

[D]

I've been well taught. Look how good you are at teaching, the pair of you.

[B]

There you go.

[C]

Actually, one of them, Henry, was both soldier and clergyman.

[D]

What the double. It's the dream.

[B]

Question 2. What was the name of Jane's beloved sister, Cassandra?

[D]

Also the name of her mother?

[B]

It was. Absolutely. We haven't talked about her. I think you might need to get one in a minute because, you know, if you keep up this. This Tempo. Question 3. What nickname was given to Jane's supportive clergyman, Father George, relating to his attractiveness?

[D]

Oh, I'm thinking Hot Priest. But it wasn't Hot priest, was it?

[B]

That was my nickname for him.

[D]

Famous Hare.

[B]

Think of Famous hare.

[D]

Hot Priest George. Oh, I don't know.

[B]

He was the handsome proctor.

[D]

The handsome proctor?

[B]

Yes. The hot priest is what we called him. So I'll give you half a mark because I think we threw you off the scent there, handsome proctor. Question 4. Which of Austen's six novels was written first, initially as an epistolary novel?

[D]

I can't remember. I think it's Sense of Sensibility.

[B]

It is. Well done. Very good. Yes. And she rewrote it later on to take out the letters. Question 5. How long did Jane's engagement to Mr. Harris, big weather, last One day. Yeah. If that. I mean an evening in a morning, maybe. I don't know. Yeah, one day. Poor Harris.

[D]

He's obviously quite something in the sack. Right. Ten kids, you know.

[B]

She missed out. Question six. What name did Austen publish under pseudonymously?

[D]

A Lady.

[B]

A Lady. And occasionally.

[D]

That was a publishing error. It was Lady A Lady.

[B]

A.

[D]

Which was great for sales.

[B]

It was good for sales.

[D]

But her brother Henry was a blabbermouth and I can't remember what his job was, but he kept letting slip, so the secret was out before too long.

[B]

Question 7. What was the original title of Northange Abbey? A gothic parody.

[D]

Susan.

[A]

Susan.

[B]

I love it. It's great. Question 8. What happened to the letters Austen wrote between 1801 and 1804 to her sister Cassandra?

[D]

Cassandra burnt them, we think. I'm with Lucy on this. It's because it's. She was perhaps not as ladylike in what she wrote about friends and family.

[B]

Some messy DMs. Yeah, messy DMs.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Question nine. What was the name?

[D]

Her tweet? History.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that's it. We should have downloaded that, shouldn't we? If only. Question 9. What was the name of the Austin family farm that Jane grew up on?

[D]

Cheesedown.

[B]

Cheesedown. Isn't it nice?

[D]

Yeah, it's lovely.

[B]

I know I've overbequaloked it, but I just. I think it's lovely this for. I mean, I would say 9.5 out of 10, but I am going to give you a bonus point because you've been so good. So this is for ten and a half out of eleven, I think. What? Nine and a half out of ten. Steve's being. He's being a stickler.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Ten and a half out of eleven. This for ten and a half out of ten. Okay, Sally, I believe in you. What novel was Austen working on when she died?

[D]

Sanditon.

[B]

It was Sanditon, which was turned into a TV series if people want to watch it. Excellent. Sally Phillips. A perfect ten and a half out of ten. Amazing mathematical impossibility, but you found a way.

[D]

Thank you very much.

[B]

Well done, Sally. Thank you so much.

[D]

Thank you for teaching me all about Jane Austen.

[B]

Oh, well, we had a lovely time. I mean, you knew lots. And, Lucy, thank you so much as well for joining us, listeners. If you want more of Sally, check out our episode on fairy tales. It was an absolute treat. You invented your own fairy tale.

[D]

That was a. Yeah, that. You threw me with that, like make up a fairy tale.

[B]

And you did. And it was incredible. It was really, really good.

[D]

It lacked narrative structure.

[B]

No, no, there was plenty. It was a three act structure. It was great.

[D]

About a massive apple, I think it was.

[B]

So listen, Go listen to that because it's absolutely. 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 course we have the wonderful Dr. Lucy Worsley. Thank you so much, Lucy.

[C]

A pleasure. Thank you.

[B]

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

[D]

Thank you very, very much for having me.

[B]

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 go and rummage in the loft through my old teenage comedy sketches and fingers crossed they'll be as funny as love and friendship. But I suspect they're mostly just crap. Bye. Your Dead to me is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.

[C]

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

[B]

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

[C]

Can I sit you? I'm Gwen, by the way.

[D]

Liz.

[C]

Is she dangerous?

[B]

Lives are at stake here, Gwen.

[C]

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

[B]

Oh, my God, Liz.

[C]

That tree.

[B]

Look out.

[C]

Listen to the whole series right now. First on BBC Sounds. What on earth is your mummy up to?

[A]

At the BBC we go further so you see clearer. With a subscription to BBC.com, you get unlimited articles and videos, hundreds of ad free podcasts and the BBC News Channel streaming live 24. 7 from less than a dollar a week for your first year. Read, watch and listen to trusted independent journalism and storytelling. It all starts with a subscription to BBC.com. find out [e-mail] unlimited.