Jane Austen’s Regency Years

In the years following her death in 1817, Jane Austen’s family carefully curated her biography to portray her as a talented inventor of characters who lived in a quiet, enclosed world. Her brother Henry wrote in the preface to the posthumously published novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion that hers was ‘a life of usefulness, literature and religion… not by any means a life of event… She drew from nature; but, whatever may have been surmised to the contrary, never from individuals.’ This demure image was further reinforced by Jane’s sister Cassandra, who destroyed the greater part of the letters she received from Jane, so that nothing controversial she wrote would escape to a wider audience.

The public image created by her family does not quite tell the whole story, however. Jane Austen loved nothing more than to talk about others, and she often does so with acerbic wit. With a keen eye for detail, she is an observer of people in a time of great change, both at home and abroad. 

This talk will examine the novels of Jane Austen through the lens of the Regency era in which they were written, noting the impact of world events upon her work. It will also show just how much the people she knew and the experiences she went through became inseparably intertwined with her writing. 

Emma Hughes (‘The Lady Time Traveller’) is a Costumed Interpreter based in Cornwall, delivering education sessions, presentations and tours in historic clothing. Specialising in Tudor and Stuart, Victorian and World War II history.

Image credit: Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.

Jane Austen’s Regency Years

Thursday 6th November 6.00pm - 7:00pm

Cost: £5

A £1 Poly Fund payment is added to each ticket sold. A 50p booking fee is also applied per ticket for online and telephone transactions.