Jane Austen at Home: A Biography

Product Information

I can say with some confidence that, after reading this book, you will never read Jane Austen’s works in quite the same way again. I also wonder if, like me, your mental picture of Jane Austen is a blend of the famous ‘portrait’ by her sister Cassandra and Anne Hathaway’s memorable portrayal in TV’s (historically inaccurate) ‘Becoming Jane’? If so, you must read this brilliant new work by Lucy Worsley. 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. As time passes books are published but illness descends and we are taken towards the tragic early demise of this great author. We see how fine a sister Cassandra is as well as some friends and family. The final chapter discusses the works of Jane after her death and what happened to the people and homes from within the story. There is also a interesting thread throughout that shows how the family tried to tweak/re-write history around Jane (for the better or at least so they thought). Although Mr George Austen (thirty-eight) and his wife Cassandra (twenty-nine) had only been married for four years, their household was not inconsiderable. It included Mrs Austen’s own mother, Mrs Jane Leigh, and the couple’s three boys: James (‘Jemmy’), George, and Edward (‘Neddy’), the latter less than one year old. There would also have been maids and manservants, of name and number unknown. They probably included Jane Leigh’s servant Mary Ellis.

JANE AUSTEN AT HOME | Kirkus Reviews

Jane lived a life surrounded by people, her letters which we are frequently quoted throughout the book tell us about all their comings and goings. Jane travelled quite a bit, she had firltations, she danced she went to the beach and met the prince Regent! She was also a very independent and intelligent woman, which I think this book showed us. Jane didn't want to settle and marry just anyone, Jane wanted to marry for love and only love. Finally, what annoyed me most consistently about this book was the way Worsley persists in "finding" Austen in her novels. She pushes the idea that Austen represented her views about life in this character or that; Austen's plots must reflect the emotion and characters of her life. I just don't buy it. I will swallow that she based Emma off of her two favorite nieces, but not that her writing represents some secret, deep feelings she couldn't otherwise express. E, come filo conduttore, la casa, un tema fondamentale nella vita e nelle opere di Jane Austen, che fu costretta a cambiarne molte nella sua vita, e che per questo fu ossessionata di trovarne una per le sue figlie letterarie. Lei, che sentì come "casa sua" solo due luoghi: la canonica di Steventon in cui nacque e il cottage di Chawton in cui andò ad abitare dal 1809 e che sancì la fine dell'incubo di essere sballottata da una parte all'altra dell'Inghilterra, tanto che, come dice Lucy Worsley: Jane Austen at Home is divided into four major sections, titled as acts in a play. I thought this a lovely touch by Ms. Worsley, reminding readers of the Austen family’s love of amateur theatricals. “Act One: A Sunny Morning at the Rectory” covers Austen’s early life at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire (1775-1801). During this period, Jane traveled to relatives’ homes and even lived away at boarding schools for several years. Nonetheless, Steventon remained her place of safety until her father’s retirement forced Mr. and Mrs. Austen, along with Cassandra and Jane, to move to Bath. The cottage at Chawton looks charming in this image painted by Jane’s niece Anna, but its proximity to a pond and a busy road made it less than perfect as a home.

On the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, historian Lucy Worsley leads us into the rooms from which our best-loved novelist quietly changed the world. He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. In 1764, the year George and Cassandra had married and moved to Hampshire, there had been great rains at Deane: ‘the Wells in the Parish rose to their Tops, and Fish were taken between the Parsonage Yard & the Road’.8 The other freak of nature to be seen in Georgian Deane was its enormous cabbages; a neighbour grew one ‘five feet in circumference in the solid part, and [which] weighs upwards of 32 lbs’.9 Meanwhile, down the lane in the neighbouring parish of Steventon, the high winds of February had blown down the church’s timber steeple.10 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.

Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley | Waterstones

And often Worsley used this BBC-type of tone that sounded both patronising and childish. Her attempts to engage the reader seemed a bit cheesy. Although I did— for the most part—find Lucy Worsley's prose to be compelling, I thought that many of her arguments were unconvincing and biased. A refreshingly unique perspective on Austen and her work and a beautifully nuanced exploration of gender, creativity, and domesticity.’ Amanda Foreman We can only suppose how perhaps the events of Jane’s own life are mirrored in her characters’ lives and the choices they make. Worsley draws numerous examples of where the events in the lives of Austen’s characters may be a rewriting of events in her own life. We can observe Jane’s dislike of her mother, but we do not come to understand why. When there is adequate information explaining underlying motives, the author speculates and explains step by step the conclusions she draws. I appreciate and feel comfortable with this methodology. What is known is presented. What is postulated is presented as such.

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.

Jane Austen Fabric Collection from Riley Blake, UK - Cotton Patch Jane Austen Fabric Collection from Riley Blake, UK - Cotton Patch

Still, I did find that when Worsley was merely writing about the Georgian era (the lifestyle and traditions of those of Austen's class). There were some interesting tidbits abut their customs and daily routines.Highly recommended for Janeites. Now pardon me, but I need to go watch "Pride and Prejudice" for the thousandth time. But parsonages very often had a higgledy-piggledy, piecemeal appearance, and Deane was the same. Their limited funds meant that clergymen could usually only afford to add the odd new room or window, rather than investing in major improvements. George Austen and his fellow clergymen did, however, often feel a moral responsibility to maintain their houses at their own expense, if they could, because they held their properties in trust for their successors. There were lots of surelys and no wonders, and a lot of rhetorical questions, which yeah, didn't really work. If anything they reminded of her presence. While Lucy Worsley is a fun and engaging TV presenter, her writing style is a bit dry. This reads like a traditional biography and not one of her TV shows, unfortunately. Having read extensively about Jane Austen's life and times, this biography wasn't exactly what I was looking for. What I really liked was the quotes from diaries and letters of Jane Austen's contemporaries to give a better sense of what was going on at the time and what other women's lives were like. I also liked learning more about the extended Austen family and the affair of Stoneleigh Abbey. Also new and interesting is the fates of the Austen family homes. Steventon Rectory, as Jane’s parents knew it, had a carriage drive, or ‘sweep’, at the front to bring in vehicles off the road, an important mark of gentility. There was a pond, and a ‘screen of Chestnuts & firs’. To the sunny south side of the house, behind a thatched mud wall, was ‘one of those old-fashioned gardens in which vegetables and flowers are combined’.38