HistoryExtra https://www.historyextra.com/author/lizzierogers Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:01:03 GMT en hourly 1 Sex, slavery and royal scandal: how Jane Austen's novels exposed a darker side of Georgian Britain https://www.historyextra.com/membership/sex-slavery-and-royal-scandal-how-jane-austens-novels-exposed-a-darker-side-of-georgian-britain/ Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:00:46 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/sex-slavery-and-royal-scandal-how-jane-austens-novels-exposed-a-darker-side-of-georgian-britain/ The author's books depict an evocative slice of early 19th-century life, but many aspects of the Regency era are only hinted at in her novels, as Lizzie Rogers reveals Ever felt like you could be Elizabeth Bennet? You’re not alone. Entering Jane Austen’s world can feel like an immersive experience. Reading her books (or watching television or film adaptations, or the many spin-offs and lookalikes), it’s easy to believe that somehow we’ve really got to know her England – and, by extension, the people who lived in it.
That feeling is encapsulated in the 2008 ITV series Lost in Austen, which follows the adventures of 21st-century heroine Amanda Price. Stepping through a portal into the world of Pride and Prejudice, Price (played by Jemima Rooper) finds herself in the bosom of the Bennet family, messing up episodes in the novel, trying – with varying degrees of success – to fix them and, inevitably, falling in love with Mr Darcy (Elliot Cowan). Her opening voiceover declares that “I’ve read [Pride and Prejudice] so many times now the words just say themselves in my head and it’s like a window opening. It’s like I’m actually there – it’s become a place I know so intimately… I can see that world, I can touch it.”
This is far from a new sentiment. In March 1826, after reading Pride and Prejudice for the third time, the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott wrote in his journal that Austen “had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with… the exquisite touch which renders ordinary common-place things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment... What a pity such a gifted creature died so early.”
Her undeniable talent for character study is one of the key reasons why Austen’s work resonates so loudly across the world. Creative retellings of her novels show how the themes, characters and plotlines easily transcend their bounds of Regency England and fit well in other countries, other cultures and other times, with new representations amending the ages, social class and genders of characters. In the 250 years since Austen’s birth, her work has morphed into a behemoth that we simultaneously modernise and have made emblematic of life in late 18th and early 19th-century England.
Obscuring obsession
Thanks to her gift for evoking that era, its environment and inhabitants, it’s easy to envision ourselves inside her world. We feel able to enter it through the plots of her novels and their adaptations for stage and screen, as well as the extension of her unfinished novel Sanditon, fleshed out vividly in the ITV series running from 2019. But there is a danger that we conflate her writing too fully with the history of the time, obscuring swathes of this period through our obsession. The picture we receive is one that’s been enhanced by layers of interpretation, adaptation and the historical distance between us and the source material. The effect of them all together is “to make us read novels that aren’t actually there”, argued Helena Kelly in her 2016 book Jane Austen: The Secret Radical, echoing the views of other Austen scholars. Because Austen’s work feels so modern and accessible, we miss wider perspectives that are alluded to through her clever study of the world around her – but also, importantly, many that she simply could not give us and did not have to.
One person cannot capture every aspect of life in their era, nor act as the singular voice of a generation. No matter how brilliant or important the writer in question is, they cannot speak to the experience of everybody. Yes, Jane Austen was a genius, through whose pen the novel was changed forever. She defied her circumstances in life – being a woman with very little money – to become one of the world’s best-loved authors, thanks solely to her immense talent. And she does open a window into this period of history from which we can learn so much – but her work, and the questions it raises, invites us to widen our gaze. Our knowledge of both her and the time in which she lived is only enriched by expanding our understanding by exploring the work of other writers and figures that populated her world, opening our eyes to that diverse, fast-changing and momentous era.
Fascinated by the intelligent satire of Austen’s novels, we might look at the art of William Hogarth. Though he died in 1764, more than a decade before the author’s birth, many of his images of 18th-century London highlight the blight of corruption and the terrible conditions endured by Britain’s urban poor well into the 19th century. His famous prints Gin Lane and Beer Street (1751) could be seen as demonising the drinking habits of the working class. But his work does at least feature ordinary folk as more than just background elements. A portrait of his own servants from the early 1750s, for instance, presents distinct faces and personalities.
Hogarth’s father spent time in debtors’ prison, a place more often associated with the Victorian work of Charles Dickens, and many other figures from the Georgian period also found themselves inmates. The actress and writer Mary Robinson (c1757–1800), who later became famous for her portrayal of Perdita in A Winter’s Tale (and for her brief affair with the Prince of Wales), lived with her profligate husband in debtors’ prison for several months from 1775; while there, she became the family breadwinner by publishing her poetry.
- Read more | Beyond the podcast: Jane Austen
Robinson’s memoirs, prepared from 1798 and published the year after her death, charted a life beset with immense ups and downs. They give us an insight into her youth and first marriage (“I considered chastity as the brightest ornament that could embellish the female mind,” she writes) and trace the struggles that continued to beset her into her later years. In fact, much of the preparations for those memoirs was done on envelopes because she couldn’t afford to buy fresh paper.
Crime and poverty
To continue our trip into the murkier corners of London during this period, consider the business dealings, crime and poverty prevalent in lower-class areas of the city. One publication that illustrates this side of urban life was Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, a salacious bestseller published annually from 1757 to 1794 that detailed names and talents of dozens of sex workers. It was interrogated by Hallie Rubenhold in her 2005 book The Covent Garden Ladies, which itself inspired the television series Harlots (2017–19). These aspects of London are hinted at in Pride and Prejudice, in the form of the poverty and depravity that Mrs Bennet fears will be the fate of her daughter Lydia after she runs away to the capital with George Wickham.
Strength in diversity
Sanditon introduces Austen’s only black character: Miss Lambe, an heiress from the West Indies. During the 18th century, it is estimated there were more than 20,000 black Britons – a significant number, in a British population that had exceeded 10 million by 1801. To explore the lives of some of these people, read Gretchen Gerzina’s Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History (2022) and Mary L Shannon’s biography Billy Waters Is Dancing (2024). The latter gives a voice to a black sailor in Regency Britain whose presence as a street performer was so famed across London that his name became legendary, his life shaped by those who aimed to profit from his talent. Living from around the 1770s until 1823, Waters’ life maps closely onto Austen’s, and highlights the complex intersection of race and disability during this period.
Mansfield Park, Austen’s third and perhaps most divisive novel, makes clear the links between slavery, the country house and aristocratic wealth. The titular house is built on a fortune sustained by plantations worked by enslaved people in Antigua, and its name may come from Lord Mansfield, whose judicial decisions enabled the advancement towards the abolition of slavery.
Austen’s favourite poet was William Cowper, whose work fervently supported antislavery campaigns. But there were also first-person accounts of the experiences of black people in Britain in that period.
The letters of Ignatius Sancho, born into slavery on an Atlantic ship in 1729 and brought to England at two years old, were published in 1782, after his death. One of them – written to John Wingrave, a London bookseller, in 1778 – contains a stinging rebuke of Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. “I am sorry to observe that the practice of your country (which as a resident I love – and for its freedom, and for the many blessings I enjoy in it, shall ever have my warmest wishes – prayers – and blessings;) I say, it is with reluctance that I must observe your country’s conduct has been uniformly wicked in the East – West Indies – and even on the coast of Guinea.”
Olaudah Equiano was another high profile supporter of the British abolitionist movement whose writings shone a light on the iniquities of the slave trade. His Interesting Narrative autobiography – telling the story of his enslavement in Africa, arrival in Britain as a young man and life after purchasing his freedom in 1766 – was hugely popular when it was published in 1789.
The enslaved female poet Phillis Wheatley revealed in verse her desire for intellectual fulfilment. Travelling to London from Boston with her enslavers, she was able to publish Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1773 – believed to be the first set of poems published by an African American. Such writings enable us to understand experiences of black people during the era, reminding us of the often-forgotten diversity of England at this time.
In this vein, the second season of Bridgerton (2022) highlighted – albeit through a fictionalised lens – the experiences of south Asian people in Britain. During Jane Austen’s lifetime, the British empire was in rapid ascendency, fuelled by commerce, trade and the ruthless actions of the East India Company. The author’s own cousin, Eliza Hancock – who later married Jane’s brother Henry – grew up in India as the daughter of a British surgeon to the East India Company.
Long-lost sister
William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair, which was set during the Regency period though published in 1848, highlights through the character of Jos Sedley the wealth that could be accumulated by young people capitalising on travelling to India. Historian Durba Ghosh has noted that Thackeray had a long-lost (and possibly mixed-heritage) sister, Amelia – also known as Sarah Redfield – in India, and explored the stories of many south Asian women, demonstrating the strong connections between Britain and India at the time.
Thackeray’s dramatic novel is more specifically set during the Napoleonic Wars, hinted at in Austen’s work through the regular presence of a militia or naval characters, though this inclusion is often overlooked as a reflection of the lived experience of constant war and unrest. Two of Austen’s brothers were in the navy and one was in a militia regiment, while her cousin Eliza lost her first husband, the Comte de Feuillide, to the guillotine. The absence of peace and a sense of perpetual uncertainty were harrowing facts of life. This tumult extended to Britain’s shores as violence broke out over questions of religion and parliamentary representation.
Through the late 18th and early 19th century, villages, towns and cities grew rapidly while at the same time the voices of ordinary people were not heard. Burgeoning industry created a new class of wealthy people, while also fostering extremely testing working conditions for the labouring poor. We tend to think of these subjects as uniquely endemic to the Victorian period, taking centre stage in the writing of Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, but the boom in industry was firmly rooted in Austen’s lifetime. For instance, Lancashire’s cotton industry was in full swing by the late 18th century, with some 20,000 apprentices working in cotton mills in 1800.
Textile magnate Robert Peel (1750–1830), long-term MP for Tamworth and father of the future prime minister of the same name, began campaigning and introducing legislation on child labour in the early years of the 19th century. Spending time in London, Bath and Southampton, Jane Austen would have been offered significant insights into the growth of industry and urban overcrowding. We celebrate Austen’s novels for the questions she raises about the position of women in society, a subject that preoccupied many of her contemporaries. Early feminist writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft argued fervently for the recognition of women as rational creatures who deserved rights accordingly in a world that granted them few, if any. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects she wrote: “One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from books written on this subject by men, who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers.”
Wollstonecraft’s words caused a sensation – and when, after her premature death in 1797, her husband, William Godwin published her biography, so did the story of her life. She lived frequently outside the bounds of accepted social propriety – a point that enables us to delve deeper into the world of reputation, of making spaces to safely subvert societal expectations and legal doctrine, and of understanding how relationships, freedom and restriction truly worked in practice.
The third season of Sanditon (2023) presented a slow-burn romance between two gay men, Arthur Parker and Lord Harry Montrose – the storyline breathing a small piece of fictional life into the rich LGBTQ+ history of this period. A visible real-life example can be found in the cottage named Plas Newydd in Llangollen, Wales where from 1780 the couple Sarah Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler created a sanctuary for queer happiness. They became famous within their own lifetimes, visited by Sir Walter Scott and given a royal pension by George III upon the intercession of Queen Charlotte.
We cannot – and should not expect to – learn everything about the history of the Regency period from the pages of Jane Austen’s novels. But as fans, readers and historians, we are indebted to her for providing a gateway into this tumultuous period, into which new research is being undertaken all the time, shining light on previously unheard voices and hidden faces. It is all these lived experiences that weave a rich tapestry, helping us to better know the period in which Jane Austen lived – one that indelibly shaped her and the masterpieces she left behind.
]]> The Grand Tour: everything you wanted to know https://www.historyextra.com/membership/video-grand-tour-everything-lizzie-rogers/ Fri, 09 Aug 2024 15:13:06 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/video-grand-tour-everything-lizzie-rogers/ From classical sites to society scandals, Lizzie Rogers answers listener questions on the 18th-century travellers who visited continental Europe In the 18th century, countless British travellers set off to continental Europe in search of art, architecture... and a good time. But what were the must-see locations on the Grand Tour? How did people overcome the challenges of language, currency and uncomfortable mules? And what were the biggest scandals that shook fashionable Europe?
In this 'everything you wanted to know' episode, Lizzie Rogers takes Ellie Cawthorne on a whistle-stop journey through the history of the Grand Tour.
View Green Video on the source website]]> Did women have good friendships in the Regency era? https://www.historyextra.com/membership/female-friendships-regency-era/ Thu, 16 May 2024 07:30:57 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/female-friendships-regency-era/ From sisterly love to confidantes during time of romantic woe, Lizzie Rogers illuminates the power of female friendship in the Regency era… One of the most endearing parts of seeing the Regency on screen in period dramas like Bridgerton is not the romance, but the affectionate portrayal of female friendship.
Not only did these friendships provide humour and counsel during the simultaneously arduous and thrilling process of finding a husband – or living without one – but they could also support a vision of life that did not solely emphasise being a wife and mother, offering encouragement to each other in interests that ranged from writing, to travel, to artistry and more.
Romantic entanglements
If anything, close female friends were the only confidantes an elite young woman could have during the process of finding a husband. As a teenager, Princess Charlotte of Wales, daughter of the Prince Regent and Caroline of Brunswick, met a daughter of the future Viscount Keith, Margaret Mercer Elphinstone.
Mercer, as Charlotte called her, was eight years her senior, and would become the isolated heir to the throne’s closest friend and confidante, exchanging countless letters across the Princess’s lifetime. Charlotte’s life was a lonely one, caught between her warring parents, and her friendship with Mercer provided solace through difficult times.
Princess Charlotte spent much of her childhood and adolescence being ferried between the two households of her parents, who had hated each other since they first met. Even on Charlotte’s eighteenth birthday, she was forced to have two separate celebratory dinners at Carlton House and Blackheath, her father and mother’s homes respectively. Writing to and being with Mercer provided levity in the young Princess’s anxiety-inducing circumstances.
- On the podcast | Happily ever after? Love and marriage in Austen's era
This only deepened as Charlotte began to fall in love with various men who crossed her path. The Princess had an interesting love life, which was shaped not only by her own romantic sensibilities – she openly identified with Austen’s Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility – but also the competing ambitions of her parents, and the political factions around her.
After falling for a roguish Lieutenant Hesse as well as her own cousin George FitzClarence, Charlotte would begin to be courted by Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld after their first meeting in June 1814.
The trouble was, she was already meant to marry Prince William of Orange, and any passion she might have had for Leopold was dampened by his writing to Charlotte’s father to assure the Prince Regent that there was no romantic entanglement there, enraging Charlotte. To keep on the good side of the Princess, Leopold maintained contact with Mercer. After the incident with the letter to the Prince Regent, Mercer, like any good best friend, wrote to Leopold to let him know how much he had offended her dear Charlotte.
Mercer was privy to all of Charlotte’s fluctuating romantic feelings, a confidante throughout, and moreover, used her own abilities to write to Leopold without raising suspicion to mediate between the two. Leopold, tortured by his feelings for Charlotte, would appeal to Mercer, who, once she knew that Charlotte truly had feelings for Leopold, would encourage him on her best friend’s behalf.
The counsel of sisters
Rather than seeing each other as competition, letters between female friends tell of support and counsel, as well as commiseration and comedy. Jane Austen wrote to her closest friend, her sister Cassandra, of gossip and flirtations, with the earliest of her surviving letters joking about Jane’s flirtatious behaviour with Tom Lefroy at a ball in 1796.
As the only two women in a family of eight children, with the circumstances of their lives pushing them closer together as they aged – both remained unmarried and experienced instability in their living situations – Jane and Cassandra kept the close relationship throughout their lives that their father, Reverend George Austen, predicted at Jane’s birth: “We have now another girl, a present plaything for Cassy and a future companion.”
Not only did Cassandra repeatedly encourage Jane’s writing ambitions but, as teenagers, they put their burgeoning talents as writer and watercolourist to work. In 1791, they penned a history book together.
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Of course, this was no ordinary history book. Probably based upon the classic text for English historical education of the time, Oliver Goldsmith’s 1771 four volume The History of England from the Earliest Times to the Death of George II, the book was a complete parody, running from Henry IV to Charles I.
Jane wrote the amusing histories and attributed the book to “a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian”, and Cassandra added the charming and irreverent illustrations that communicated how the sisters felt about each monarch by how attractive their representations were.
These types of close friendships were not only supportive to professional ambition, but also grounding in difficult situations.
Providing professional solace
Again, personal writings reveal these situations to us. Queen Charlotte was highly focussed on the education of her children and took great care in appointing teachers that reflected some of the most important minds of the time. One such appointment was the noted intellectual Mary Hamilton as sub-governess to the royal children.
Hamilton had beauty as well as brains, and soon had to fight off the advances of several men at court whilst also trying to protect her position and respectability. These men included a young Prince of Wales, the future Regent and George IV, who pursued her with an uncomfortable persistence.
Amongst these uneasy circumstances, Hamilton befriended one of the Maids of Honour to the Queen, Charlotte Margaret Gunning, who arrived at court in 1779, three years before Hamilton left and then became a celebrated part of the Bluestocking circle.
Both women had experienced extensive educations as children, particularly in classical languages, and found relief in each other as they navigated what could often be quite dull activities at court as they tended to the royal family. Gunning’s letters to Hamilton name her “My very dear friend”, lamenting that she is always desperate for news of her, as “To hear of your Health and happiness always gives me unspeakable happiness”.
Hamilton shared her own worries and instances of harassment from the men at court with Gunning in her letters, writing to her in 1779 of a man entering her royal apartment and the fear she had in the incident. For women who had to navigate situations in which they were the target of bad behaviour, and had to guard their own reputations with an unfair vigilance, the ability to divulge inner thoughts and feelings in confidence must have been a small but incredibly important mercy.
Supporting each other’s ambitions
The validation female friendship could provide not only in thoughts and feelings but in ambitions and professional desires, was crucial in supporting many of the important female thinkers, writers and artists during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Like Cassandra Austen encouraging her sister Jane’s novel writing, novelist Frances Burney was taken under the wing of some of the most important female intellectuals of the time.
In 1778, a young Burney anonymously published her first novel Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World. The novel would bring her to the attention of Hester Thrale, an important writer and patron in her own right, who invited Burney to her home at Streatham. This cemented Burney’s entrance into the world of the Bluestockings and important thinkers, with her spending large portions of time staying with Thrale.
Their friendship was such that when the so-called Queen of the Bluestockings, Elizabeth Montagu, would write to Thrale, Burney would always be remembered in the letters as she was with Thrale, as well as being called “truly lovely Frances Burney”. To have the respect, admiration and ultimately patronage of the older woman would have been an invaluable support to a young female writer, and Burney relished it.
However, this did not stop the two women from having altercations. After Thrale lost her first husband in 1781, she began to fall in love with Gabriel Piozzi, her children’s music teacher.
Burney, though an admirer of Piozzi as a musician, implored her not to marry him, begging her not to consider “so great an ascendance of passion over Reason”, as society would shun them: she added that her letter was “not written in enmity to Piozzi of whom I think ever highly, but who to me is nothing, while you are almost every thing.” Thrale would ignore this and go on to marry Piozzi in 1784, for which Burney, along with many of Thrale’s friends, would reject her.
- Read more | From Austen & Brontë to Woolf: literature’s forgotten female friendships
Thrale, now Hester Piozzi, and her husband, would leave England for the continent to travel, resulting in her 1789 book Observations and Reflections made in the course of a Journey through France, Italy and Germany.
Burney would write to her father in 1789 asking if he had read the book, and tell him of her and Queen Charlotte reading it – for, by this time, Burney had accepted a role as Keeper of the Robes at court. It seemed that Burney still supported the genius of her friend, even if she felt she had to reject her socially; they would later reconcile and Burney would be heartbroken at Thrale Piozzi’s death in 1821.
The finest balm of friendship
Rather than a source of stress, for many women in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Britain, their female friends provided levity from the pressures of everyday life. It is no wonder that Jane Austen wrote in her penultimate novel Northanger Abbey that “Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
If anything, friendship was the finest balm for many of the situations life brought Regency women.
]]> Slavery and abolition, with Dr Lizzie Rogers https://www.historyextra.com/membership/video-abolition-slavery/ Mon, 29 Jan 2024 10:53:32 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/video-abolition-slavery/ In her week four mini-lecture for the HistoryExtra Academy Regency course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores the late 18th-century campaign to end the trade in enslaved people View Green Video on the source website]]> Regency culture, with Dr Lizzie Rogers https://www.historyextra.com/membership/video-regency-culture/ Mon, 15 Jan 2024 15:23:51 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/video-regency-culture/ In the second mini-lecture of our HistoryExtra Academy Regency short course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores the literature, art and architecture of the Regency period… In the second mini-lecture of our HistoryExtra Academy Regency short course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores the literature, art and architecture of the Regency period, and how the Prince Regent became an important patron of the era's culture.
View Green Video on the source website
Explore more content from week two of our Regency course:
- Becoming Jane Austen – reading time 4 mins
- The Romantics: everything you wanted to know – listening time 39 mins
- Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the birth of a gothic monster – reading time 6 mins
- How to survive a Regency marriage – reading time 7 mins
- Visiting Brighton Royal Pavilion, the Prince Regent's decadent getaway – reading time 3 mins
Dr Lizzie Rogers is a historian of the 18th and early 19th centuries
]]> Everything you wanted to know about Jane Austen's England https://www.historyextra.com/membership/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-jane-austens-england/ Sun, 14 Jan 2024 21:50:57 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-jane-austens-england/ Dr Lizzie Rogers answers questions about the author and the social conventions of the world in which she lived and wrote What do we know about Jane Austen's life?
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775, the seventh of eight children born to Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen. The family lived in Hampshire, where George was a cleric, and Austen spent the first two to three decades of her life there. Although she and her sister, Cassandra, went to school for a while, most of their education took place at home. After her father retired in 1800, Austen spent some time in Bath, but after her father’s death in 1805 until 1809, she, her mother, sister, and their friend Martha Lloyd were forced to live off the kindness of relatives, since they had little income of their own.
In 1809, Austen’s brother, Edward, offered them a cottage in Chawton, Hampshire – now Jane Austen’s House Museum – and it was there that she edited a lot of her early writing, including early versions of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Austen started publishing her work in 1811, with Sense and Sensibility being her first novel, but all her works were published anonymously, initially as “By a Lady” and then as “the author of [previous book]”. Sadly, Jane’s health started to decline, and she died on 18 July 1817, in Winchester, at the age of 41; she was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
What was the Austen family’s position in Regency society?
Austen and her family were part of what is often referred to as the ‘pseudo- gentry’. While they had connections to wealthier families and established gentry, their own financial status was sometimes unstable. Austen’s brother Edward was adopted by a wealthy childless couple, the Knights, who owned the Chawton estate in Hampshire, and the two sisters didn’t have large marriage dowries, which were important during the Regency period. So, although the family wasn’t impoverished, money was occasionally a concern. But Austen enjoyed an artistically and culturally rich life, with access to her father’s extensive library of over 300 books, and she and her siblings were encouraged to read widely. Her early writings, known as her juvenilia, offer an interesting reflection of the society in which she mixed, with its expectations for women, concerns about financial stability, and the role of marriage as a tool for security.
What can Austen’s work tell us about Regency attitudes towards marriage?
Marriage during the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a complex affair. Although marriage for love was becoming more common, many married for stability, and some, especially the upper classes, married to guard their fortunes and assets, and to strengthen political alliances. In Austen’s six published novels, she presents a variety of these concerns; we see romance, but it often comes with caveats. While I can’t claim to know the marriage patterns of everyone during this period, it’s safe to say that unions between different strata of the upper class – as with Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice – did happen, albeit with much consideration given to dowries, connections, and other factors. There were also several real-life cases of people marrying between completely different classes, including Emma Hamilton, who rose from humble beginnings to marry wealthy collector William Hamilton and then went on to have an affair with Lord Nelson. So, societal boundaries were fluid, depending on the right circumstances.
In Pride and Prejudice, Mrs Bennet claims Mr Darcy has an income of £10,000 a year. How aware were people of others’ wealth?
If we consider inflation alone, Mr Darcy’s wealth today would be around £1m a year. But if we look at it in terms of the assets that he owned, I’ve seen research suggesting that his wealth would be equivalent to about £12m annually, so it’s no wonder Mrs Bennet thinks that he would be a good catch for her daughters!
In general, I think people had a fair understanding of others’ wealth. They may not have known all the assets someone possessed, but would have had a good idea. As demonstrated by the period drama Bridgerton, for instance, we can see that wealth was often discussed through scandal sheets and gossip, which would have definitely played a part in public knowledge about an individual’s wealth, including the properties they claimed to own.
Furthermore, there were situations where people were thought to be wealthy, but were actually just managing their assets discreetly. We see this exemplified in Austen’s Persuasion, where Sir Walter Eliot, a spendthrift, has exhausted all his funds at Kellynch Hall, forcing him to rent it out. Yet he continues to rely on his status as a baronet to maintain appearances. It’s also important to note as well that a great deal of wealth was derived from land ownership at this time.
What would life have been like for the lower classes in this period?
Austen’s writing often features women in situations similar to her own – or those who are slightly more affluent – as these were the circles she was familiar with and operated within. In Mansfield Park, we get a brief glimpse of the lower classes through Fanny Price’s family, which is significantly less well-off than the wealthy Bertrams who adopt her. Portsmouth’s living conditions, particularly the Prices’ overcrowded house, are a stark contrast to Austen’s own environment. Similarly, in Emma, we meet Harriet Smith, a girl of uncertain parentage whose schooling is funded by a benefactor.
Although such glimpses are rare, they provide fascinating insights into the lives of the lower classes. And while such lives may have been more labour-intensive, there is no reason to suggest that they were any less fulfilling. In fact, women from these parts of society would have likely had more personal freedom and opportunities to earn their own income and engage in different professions. They would have also been less restricted by property-related constraints.
What were women’s rights like at this time?
Although Austen died just over a century before (some) British women got the vote in 1918, women’s rightswere already under discussion. During Austen’s own lifetime, we see the publication of influential works by Mary Wollstonecraft, including A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, the latter being published in 1787. And there was a surge of discourse about women’s rights during this period, which emerged from the intellectual era known as the Enlightenment, generally regarded as spanning the 18th century.
A growing number of thinkers began to contemplate women’s knowledge, their potential for learning, and their possible roles in society, and these discussions led to a variety of intriguing opinions, too numerous to encapsulate here. The crucial point, though, is the increased volume of writing focusing on women during this period. Many of these texts resonate with our contemporary understandings, which perhaps explains why figures like Wollstonecraft remain respected in the history of women’s writing. Her advocacy for equality, urging women to recognise and demand equal standing, is timeless. Mapping Jane Austen’s life against this historical backdrop makes her journey through these transformative 41 years all the more intriguing.
Were female writers accepted and respected?
I think it largely depended on the circles in which these individuals moved, but there were several very well respected female authors during this period. As I’ve mentioned earlier, Mary Wollstonecraft was one, but Austen herself was also a great admirer of the satirical novelist Frances Burney – we even find Austen’s name on the subscription list of one of Burney’s novels – and she was also a big fan of Ann Radcliffe, who helped pioneer the genre of Gothic fiction.
It’s also important to mention the ‘Bluestockings’ in this context – an 18th-century circle of female writers, artists and thinkers led by an aristocratic woman named Elizabeth Montagu. They received considerable acclaim, despite the inevitable controversy that sometimes surrounded women who led in such pursuits.
A testament to the recognition of the Bluestockings is a 1777 print by the English artist Richard Samuel, known as The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, which celebrates its nine female subjects for their intellectual prowess and gives us a surprisingly pleasant glimpse into contemporary attitudes towards women’s achievements during this period.
It’s been suggested that, in Persuasion, Anne Elliot’s negative opinion of Bath reflects Austen’s own views on the city. Is this the case?
Today, Bath is most commonly associated with the Romans – and Jane Austen. However, considering her lack of literary output during her time there, it’s clear that Austen’s stay in Bath was a period of highs and lows. Austen’s time in Bath followed 25 years of happiness in Steventon, and it was during her stay in the city that her father passed away. She likely had a complex relationship with the city, primarily because it was the backdrop for some of her life’s most significant sorrows and, as a creative individual, the marked decrease in her literary output whilstin Bath serves as a telling indicator of her state of mind.
What impact did Austen’s ill-health have on her writing?
Ill-health and consequent periods of confinement meant that Austen likely had ample time to write, and I believe – though this is merely speculation on my part – that her struggles with poor health might well have instilled in her a renewed sense of purpose and determination in her work.
It’s commonly believed that Austen had Addison’s disease [a rare disorder of the adrenal glands], a condition that is now considerably more treatable and manageable. Back then, however, without a proper diagnosis, her health challenges remained largely a mystery. This may have given her a heightened awareness of her aspirations and what she wanted to achieve, while at the same time making her conscious of her physical limitations.
Interestingly, we find instances of illness, often with a comedic twist, in her novels as well. The depiction of Mrs Bennet with her dramatic bouts of ill heath, nerves and hypochondria come to mind, suggesting that Austen managed to retain a sense of positivity despite her personal struggles.
Explore more content from week two of our Regency course:
Regency culture, with Dr Lizzie Rogers – watching time 12 mins Becoming Jane Austen – reading time 4 mins The Romantics: everything you wanted to know – listening time 39 mins Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the birth of a gothic monster – reading time 6 mins How to survive a Regency marriage – reading time 7 mins Visiting Brighton Royal Pavilion, the Prince Regent's decadent getaway – reading time 3 mins
]]> Royal enlightenment: the intellectual life of Queen Charlotte https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-intellectual-life-of-queen-charlotte/ Thu, 04 May 2023 07:24:31 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-intellectual-life-of-queen-charlotte/ Charlotte was not only a steadfast queen to King George III and a devoted mother to their many children, but she used her position to advocate for female education and the advancement of research. Following the release of the prequel Netflix series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, Lizzie Rogers explores the queen’s intellectual life… At the centre of the ton in the world of Regency era drama Bridgerton is Queen Charlotte. Dripping with diamonds and crowned with beautiful, elaborate wigs, surrounded by an entourage of ladies-in-waiting carrying the most well-bred of Pomeranians, the queen is acerbic and witty, yet emotionally layered.
The real Queen Charlotte was a woman of multiple facets. She employed her penchant for control both to direct the education of her children, and align herself with some of the biggest intellectual and cultural figures of the day – especially women. So celebrated was her position atop a visible circle of cultural and scholarly influence was celebrated so in 1781, almost two decades into her reign as Queen Consort, with this passage in The Ladies Poetical Magazine:
Happy England, were each female mind,
To science more, and less to pomp inclin’d,
If parents, by example, prudence taught,
and from their QUEEN the flame of virtue caught!
Skill’d in each art that serves to polish life,
Behold in HER a scientifick wife!
The impact of the Enlightenment
The 18th century saw a revolution in learning due to the intellectual movement of the Enlightenment. It was a time to encourage observation for oneself, the exchange of ideas through the world of letters and conversation, and, perhaps most pertinently, to enable the fashioning of a world of gentlemen and gentlewomen scholars.
Women – thanks to, amongst various authors, John Locke’s assertion that the mind was a tabula rasa, or blank slate – were no longer seen as inherently inferior to the intellectual worlds of men. Though this hardly meant that women were suddenly accepted in all areas as intellectual equals, it did open up avenues of scholarly culture in which women were recognised participants and producers, and not just for pursuing accomplishments in a bid to impress a future husband.
Richard Samuel’s 1776 group portrait The Nine Living Muses of Great Britain, for instance, depicted nine women prominent in the worlds of cultural conversation: the type of women that Queen Charlotte actively aligned herself with throughout her decades as queen. Many of them were part of the ‘Bluestocking circle’, presided over by ‘Queen of the Blues’ Elizabeth Montagu: a group of women and their male supporters who met and indulged in enlightened conversation and the sharing of intellectual ideas. Charlotte did much to patronise or connect herself with women in the circle who shared her own interests in female education.
Queen Charlotte’s early education
During Charlotte’s early years at the Palace of Mirow in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, her education was well-rounded. She worked with Madame de Grabow, a poet and gentlewoman, as well as botanist and theologian Gottlob Burchard Genzmer. She excelled in art and music lessons, studied Latin, French and Italian, and inculcated what would become a lifelong love of reading.
- Read more | Was the Regency era a good time to be a woman? The truth not seen in Bridgerton
In her personal notebooks, Charlotte would keep her own personal copies of texts and record her own reflections on her diverse interests in literature. It was such interests that formed one of the enduring bonds with her future husband King George III: true companions, both spouses had a fascination for art, music, and the sciences.
Queen Charlotte’s education of her children
Charlotte’s interest in education first became obvious at court when, the day after the birth of her son, the Prince of Wales, in August 1762, she appointed Lady Charlotte Finch as “Governess in Ordinary”. Finch, who would become so beloved to the royal family that she affectionately became known as Lady Cha, was the daughter of Lady Henrietta Fermor, a prominent collector and traveller, who had served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Caroline.
Lady Cha was known for her new and unique methods of teaching that focussed on learning through play. Charlotte herself became thoroughly involved, creating her own set of flashcards on European history with which to test her children.
Though Lady Cha oversaw the children’s education, from 1777 to 1782 the queen employed Mary Hamilton as sub-governess to the princesses. Hamilton was an incredibly well-connected woman in English intellectual society, who became a prominent member of the Bluestocking circle after she left royal employment.
Queen Charlotte’s relationship with the Bluestocking circle
Another member of the Bluestocking circle, who became a treasured friend of Queen Charlotte through their mutual love of botany, was Mary Delany. She was an incredibly accomplished artist who, after being widowed by her second husband Dr Patrick Delany in 1768, used paper to model beautiful and scientifically accurate depictions of flowers. Her flower mosaics included both their botanic and common names, as well as who donated the specimen she worked from.
Delany lived half her time at Bulstrode, the home of Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, Duchess of Portland, who was a prolific collector. It was at Bulstrode that the king and queen discovered Delany’s work when visiting Portland’s curious collections. Charlotte had furthered her own interests in botany, begun in childhood, whilst living at Kew Palace, where she had connected with the botanists Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander, and John Lightfoot. Banks sent Delany specimens from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. So treasured a friend was Delany to Charlotte that not only did she and the king commission a portrait of the artist from John Opie, but she would be depicted wearing a locket gifted to her by the queen. Said portrait hung in Charlotte’s bedchamber at Buckingham House.
Queen Charlotte’s collections
It was at Buckingham House that Charlotte could engage with the pervasive culture of collecting during the eighteenth century. After George III transferred the house to her in 1775, she held court there, hung the Raphael cartoons (now at the V&A Museum) in her saloon, and also built her own Cabinet of Curiosity. Unfortunately, no inventory remains, though parts of the collection are in the records of the sales that occurred after her death; these show that she had cabinets for natural history specimens amongst other things.
Charlotte’s love of collecting is perhaps not surprising: not only did Delany record the king and queen’s fascination with the Duchess of Portland’s collections at Bulstrode, but also amongst her ladies-in-waiting was one Elizabeth Percy, first Duchess of Northumberland. Her own collections grew to fill the first-floor apartments at her London home, Northumberland House, and she regularly travelled to Europe in search of items to expand what she called her “musaeum”. Northumberland wrote of spending much time with the queen in her own diaries, in particular attending to Charlotte whilst she practiced music.
Yet Charlotte’s interest was not always in isolation from her husband: Frances Burney, later appointed as Keeper of the Robes, commented on the loving nature of the royal couple’s co-dependent relationship, mentioning that they enjoyed conversation with each other. They were both fascinated by the world of astronomy, Charlotte’s interest recognised by a watch she gifted to the President of the Royal Society.
A catalogue remains of the queen’s own scientific and philosophical instruments, showing that she, alongside George, supported practical engagement in scientific pursuits from the examining the planets and stars to optics and anatomy, amongst other areas.
Queen Charlotte’s love of reading
Above all else, Charlotte’s love of reading never abated. This can be seen in her appointment of the novelist Frances Burney, one of Jane Austen’s favourite authors. In practice, her role as Keeper of the Robes meant she would be an informal partner in conversation – a hallmark of Enlightenment culture – which excited the queen no end. However, Burney, at the age of 34 and still unmarried, had accepted the role with some reluctance and soon became frustrated by the restrictions of the role, leaving her little time to put her own pen to paper.
While Burney requested to be dismissed in 1790, she left a lasting impression on Charlotte in various ways. The queen had copies of all of Burney’s work, and her parting recommendation of the work of Ellis Cornelia Knight for the princesses to read was not only taken up, but Charlotte later employed Knight as a companion from 1805 to 1813, going so far to give her a key to her library.
- On the podcast | Bridgerton: ripping up the rulebook on Regency romance
Perhaps one of Charlotte’s crowning intellectual achievements was developing a personal library of books at Frogmore House of around 4,500 items. The house lease was purchased by the Queen in 1792 with the intention that she would use it as a retreat alongside her daughters: all of whom at this point were unmarried. Charlotte, though extensive in her patronage of women and interest in their education, was reluctant to relinquish her control on the lives of women around her, so she ensured her daughters would not marry young.
At Frogmore, the princesses painted, drew, practiced needlework, with Princess Elizabeth decorating the Cross Gallery there with cut-paper silhouettes and paintings of flower garlands. Her entry into the world of botanical collage was possibly supported by Mary Delany, to whom the king gave a pension and a house at Windsor after the death of the Duchess of Portland.
The princesses were accomplished and cultured, and Charlotte continued to craft a work of learning and conversation that blended the royal palaces with the circles of eighteenth and early 19th-century intellectual culture. While some of the queen’s connections soured with her exertion of control, but many remained friends for life, such as Delany.
Charlotte was incredibly aware of the opportunities her role provided in accessing the best of enlightened culture and conversation, thoroughly enjoying the spoils of an intellectual life of curiosity alongside the management of her family.
]]> Jane Austen’s England: everything you wanted to know https://www.historyextra.com/membership/jane-austens-england-everything-you-wanted-to-know-podcast-lizzie-rogers/ Sun, 15 Jan 2023 09:09:17 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/jane-austens-england-everything-you-wanted-to-know-podcast-lizzie-rogers/ From her relationship with royals to Regency attitudes towards female writers, Lizzie Rogers answers listener questions on the world in which Jane Austen wrote What was society’s attitude towards female writers in Regency England? How far did class affect the hopes of young couples looking to be wed? And did people really spend all day gossiping about grand fortunes, illustrious estates and ruinous affairs? Speaking with Lauren Good, Dr Lizzie Rogers answers listener questions on Jane Austen’s England – from the delights of a Regency ball to the flourishing ideal of marrying for love.
]]> “The essence and spirit of Austen’s work are fundamentally changed”: a historian’s review of Persuasion https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/persuasion-netflix-movie-review/ Thu, 21 Jul 2022 09:05:03 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/persuasion-netflix-movie-review/ Netflix’s 2022 adaptation of Jane Austen’s final completed novel is out – and it’s not a traditional take on the Regency romance. Dr Lizzie Rogers, a historian specialising in the 18th century, explores an adaptation that subverts expectations Audiences have waited in half agony, half hope for Netflix and director Carrie Cracknell’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel, Persuasion, which was published after the author’s death in 1817.
It is one of the least adapted of Austen’s works, yet contains her most mature heroine, Anne Elliot, and arguably her most mature subject matter: that of lost love and confidence in one’s own choices.
Who is persuaded in Persuasion?
These two themes immediately dominate the opening scenes of Persuasion. Actor Dakota Johnson plays Anne Elliot, who declares that she was once almost married, but that she allowed herself to be persuaded into rejecting her lover due to his lack of rank and riches.
Now, eight years later, Anne tells us – by breaking the fourth wall – that she is single and thriving, against a Bridget Jones-esque montage of drinking wine, crying in the bath and lying face down on her bed.
Was Anne Elliot real?
Anne Elliot was not someone Jane Austen knew, nor is she a representation of the author herself. Nonetheless there are remarkable parallels between Persuasion's heronine and one real-life figure ain Regency England...
What is the plot of Persuasion?
The story opens as Anne’s family – led by her vain father Walter Elliot (played by Richard E Grant) who believes his title gives him undue distinction and an excuse to overspend – must vacate the family seat at Kellynch Hall so that they might rent it out to pay their debts.
Anne is biting in her commentary of her family, her voice emerging as a cross between the Anne Elliot of the novel and the satirical narration of Jane Austen herself.
Alarm is raised as it is revealed the tenants are to be Admiral and Mrs Croft, who is the sister of Captain Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis): none other than Anne’s lost love. Worse still, the dashing captain is coming to visit.
The nature of marriage
Unlike any previous adaptation – because, as with any Austen, there is not only the original source material to follow but the precedent of every previous treatment on screen – it seems that many of the major characters in the film know of the significance of what passed between Anne and Wentworth.
The result is increased exposition, and while this changes the expected story, it also allows for a more pointed discussion of the transactional nature of marriage amongst the upper classes during this period and the wide awareness of its purpose.
- Read more | How to succeed in Regency courtship
In Austen’s England, your position determined your marriage prospects; Wentworth was a poor sailor, Anne the middle daughter of a baronet. Whilst marrying for love was becoming increasingly common during the Regency period, securing family fortunes, property and lineage was still an important consideration, especially with a family as in dire a financial situation as the Elliots.
Anne is soon thrown into Wentworth’s path as she takes up residence with her younger sister Mary (Mia McKenna-Bruce) at the neighbouring Uppercross estate. It’s here that Anne inhabits the role of maiden aunt – a role Austen herself knew only too well – as a support to her two young and vibrant sisters-in-law, one of whom, Louisa, soon catches the eye of Wentworth.
- Read more | The real reason Jane Austen never married
How Persuasion subverts Regency norms
It is from here where things begin to subtly, but with larger ramifications, diverge from the novel. For their part, Anne and Wentworth are given fleeting scenes alone in which they discuss their previous relationship and their status as “exes”. There are fewer of the lingering looks that have become the hallmark of not only Austen adaptations, but Regency romances more broadly.
Taking a creative approach that offers a fresh take on the genre is important, and the moment Anne shows a bundle of sheet music and explains it to be a “playlist” Wentworth once made her is a fun example of that. Yet reducing the intense gazes between characters and replacing it with conversation has the problem that it feels too modern.
Though the Regency era was an age of scandal, with the elite in particular pushing boundaries, Austen’s heroines and heroes follow the bounds of propriety in which their virtue was unquestionable. Regularly being alone, long enough to have a frank and impassioned discussion about a previous attachment – as occurs in this adaptation of Persuasion, for instance in the sunset scene at Lyme Regis – or dancing too many dances together at a ball (more than two in a row was considered suspect), was careless and implicated each party negatively.
As hope for a reconciliation between Anne and Wentworth accelerates, we’re introduced to Anne’s cousin, Mr William Elliot (Henry Golding), the heir to her father’s land and title, and a man who will stoop low to get them. In the film, he has to reveal his own duplicitous nature, as his foil in the novel – Anne’s schoolfriend Mrs Smith – is omitted from the film plot.
He succeeds in being charming enough that Anne might consider him, but not so smooth that he does not thwart the coming together of the couple who have waited eight years for it to happen.
The significance of Wentworth’s letter
In Regency reality, a man was not even supposed to send a private letter to a woman he was not related to, unless it was a concrete marriage proposal – which makes the few times this happens in Austen’s writing, including Wentworth’s revelatory note to Anne at the climax of Persuasion, all the more exciting.
Here is one of the core differences between the film and its source material: the passion and longing between the two characters in the novel is heightened because they cannot have the space to discuss it; in Cracknell’s film, this is somewhat lost amongst the additions to the plot. As a consequence, the happy ending loses some of its euphoric magnitude.
- Read more | 10 tips for surviving a Georgian marriage
Persuasion captures Austen’s England, but not Austen herself
The costumes and settings are beautifully shot and take us right back to Regency Bath and Lyme Regis, where the second half of the film takes place. Both are locales that Austen knew well.
Persuasion is often thought of as a very personal novel for its author, as somebody who didn’t marry but did have her own romances, and who had strong family connections to the navy through her brothers Francis and Charles.
Though the broad strokes of Cracknell’s Persuasion are aligned with that in the novel, the essence and spirit of Austen’s work are fundamentally changed. The characters, not the watching audience, are the ones entirely aware of what is unfolding, losing the sense of lost hope that permeates much of the novel: we are unsure how to root for the Anne and Wentworth shown on screen, despite Anne’s commentary.
- Read more | Jane Austen’s tips for “health and happiness”
Adjustments to the pace, insertion of additional scenes and, perhaps most of all, the introdcution of 21st-century language (“exes”, “self-care”, and the exclamation “Love me, you idiot!” are a few standout examples) into the world of the early-19th century undo much of the feeling of the novel.
What this adaptation does do is make clear the resonance of Austen’s storytelling for modern audiences. The romance and character tropes are presented as those that could easily fit into the modern age, despite existing within a fictional romantic world set some 200 years ago. The execution is jarring, but the message that Austen is as relevant as ever is a comforting one.
Explore more Regency dramas
- Bridgerton: the real history explained
- Your guide to Sanditon, Jane Austen’s last unfinished work
- What was on Mr. Malcolm’s List? The real history behind the Regency romance
Is Persuasion too modern?
It is difficult to adapt Austen. Entering the pantheon of Regency romance comes with weighty expectation, but when that romance originated with the pen of Jane Austen, it ascends to a different level of scrutiny and is bound to elicit conversation with any approach taken.
This 2022 version of Persuasion looked to offer a fresh and sumptuous treatment that would underscore Anne Elliot’s importance two centuries after she first appeared in print, yet, in transforming a few too many things, it veers off course. Dakota Johnson shines, but not as the Anne Elliot audiences may have wanted.
For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians and ranked by you, history TV and film to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week
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