Jane Austen at Home: A Biography

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Worsley's cleverly implements certain sections of Austen's own letters to corroborate with her image of this author. At times her suppositions and speculations regarding Austen's character and motivation are made to seem as facts. Unlike other historians and biographers, who often misconstrued Austen's personality and life, Worsley seems to imply at a personal connection to her subject, one that makes her into one few capable to discerning the truth about Austen. Curiously enough Worsley reveals that: “I was once a pupil at the Abbey School myself, and Jane Austen was our most famous ex-student”. This book is a superb telling of 18th century society and life - Jane's life - through her homes and it is ably done with passion and care that brings our subject and her family in to being. We read of early life at home in Hampshire and how the family lived together but with financial challenges that saw her mother and (especially) father try their best for the children. Lucy Worsley succeeds in presenting a three dimensional Jane Austen in this fascinating biography. She shows how the Austen family tried to sanitise the picture which was presented to the world after Jane's death but the evidence is still there if you choose to look for it. By reference to previous biographies, primary sources, the novels themselves and the juvenilia the author pieces together a very much more robust picture - warts and all.

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I was completely unprepared for how much I would love this biography of Jane Austen. For some reason, I expected it to get bogged down in too much detail or for it to be too academic. She does touch on some academic disputes in some areas but only enough to pique my interest. George Austen worked nearly as hard as his admirable uncle, and ended up with a cosy nook as a Fellow at an Oxford College. But when he met Cassandra and decided to marry, he was forced to give up his fellowship. It was a position intended only for single men. A refreshingly unique perspective on Austen and her work and a beautifully nuanced exploration of gender, creativity, and domesticity.' Amanda Foreman A new biography focusing on the domestic life of Jane Austen by historian and curator Lucy Worsley. Lucy Worsley takes into consideration the most recent scholarship on Austen and draws conclusions from examining private papers to attempt to flesh out the mere facts known about Jane Austen's life. This is a meticulously researched bio of Jane Austen, warts and all. We follow Jane and her family from home to home, including schools, visits, vacations, assemblies, even occasional Inns. This is a book by a Janeite for Janeites. There were some points where I was reading about cousins and neighbors and wondering 'wait where is Jane in all this again?'Worsley’s style of writing is clear, entertaining and easy to read, I flew through the book. The information that is presented is very well researched and gives a real idea of who Austen really was and what she looked like. What Austen looked like is hard to determine, but Worsley presents a clear image that is oddly familiar. Austen becomes a “modern” woman with a temper and a want of independence. The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. But there were also other ways for a Georgian clergyman to supplement his income. As the Austens travelled into Steventon in 1768, the land and the fields around them were going to be just as important as the house. Steventon parish was three miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide.25 The living included the Rectory itself, and ‘glebe’ lands of three acres that were to be farmed specifically for the maintenance of the parish priest. In Steventon, the former common fields of the village had been ‘inclosed’ and made into private farms. This meant that George wouldn’t have to go through the arduous business of collecting his tithes in kind from each individual family. He would just take 10 per cent in money from the profits of his farmer neighbours. The fact that he collected his tithes directly, rather than via a landowner, was what made Mr Austen a rector rather than a plain parson. But the business of the tithes did mean that his fortunes were still very closely tied to those of the land.

Jane Austen’s Stuff, and What We Learn From It

mystrangereading Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A very interesting look at Jane Austen and her family's life. It was clearly very well researched, and I appreciate how as it followed her life it paralleled the books she wrote. Biographies are difficult for me to get through, but I found this one to be engaging enough to keep me curious and reading!Jane would go with her rich and self-indulgent uncle to drink the waters at Bath’s Pump Room. He kept the whole Austen family on tenterhooks about what he’d do with his money. This is my kind of history: carefully researched but so vivid that you are convinced Lucy Worsley was actually there at the party - or the parsonage.' Antonia Fraser The story of the Austens at Steventon Rectory really begins in the late summer of 1768, when a wagon heavily loaded with household goods made its way through the Hampshire lanes from nearby Deane to the village of Steventon. Its members had no notion that so many historians and biographers would scrutinise this ordinary event in the life of an ordinary family. My biggest issue with this book was how she inserted quotes from the novels as though the character's dialogue was proof of the historical fact she was claiming about Jane. I know her books mirrored her life (hello, I'm a mega fan), but I don't think we can assume that there is enough mirrored to quote characters from novels as proof of the author's opinion. Both Worsley and Austin zoom in on the lives of British middle- and upper-class women. Men are discussed in relation to their controlling influence upon women. Feminism is not a new phenomenon! Women were writing and having their voices heard even before the turn of the 19th century.