HistoryExtra https://www.historyextra.com/people/jane-austen Fri, 23 Oct 2026 10:57:29 GMT en hourly 1 Pompeii wasn’t destroyed when you think it was https://www.historyextra.com/membership/pompeii-wasnt-destroyed-when-you-think-it-was-video/ Fri, 23 Oct 2026 09:54:32 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/pompeii-wasnt-destroyed-when-you-think-it-was-video/ For centuries, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried Pompeii has most regularly been dated to 24 August AD 79. But a growing collection of archaeological clues suggests the disaster may actually have struck months later. HistoryExtra's Kev Lochun investigates the evidence How do pomegranates help to unlock a 2,000-year-old mystery? Here's how they illuminate whether we've got one of the most basic facts about the destruction of Pompeii wrong.
For centuries, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried Pompeii has most regularly been dated to 24 August AD 79. But a growing collection of archaeological clues – from mysterious graffiti and Roman coins to woollen clothing, grapes and even pomegranates – suggests the disaster may actually have struck months later.
So when did Vesuvius really erupt? *HistoryExtra'*s Kev Lochun, with expertise from Dr Jess Venner, investigates the evidence behind one of ancient Rome’s most enduring mysteries – and asks whether a 2,000-year-old assumption needs to be rewritten.
You can watch Kev's full podcast series, four episodes on the mysteries of Pompeii with Dr Jess Venner.
View Green Video on the source website]]> I tried on THE dress from Pride and Prejudice. Here's how it felt https://www.historyextra.com/membership/i-tried-on-the-dress-from-pride-and-prejudice-video/ Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:30:05 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/i-tried-on-the-dress-from-pride-and-prejudice-video/ HistoryExtra's Lauren Good visits the costume house Cosprop in London, one of the world’s leading costumiers for the film, television and theatre industries, to try on some very special garments What's it like to wear some of the most iconic dresses from period drama?
HistoryExtra's Lauren Good visits the costume house Cosprop in London, one of the world’s leading costumiers for the film, television and theatre industries, to try on some very special garments.
Dressed by women's specialist costumier Clara Drumez, Lauren hears the techniques and tricks behind your favourite period drama costumes, and how they're used to bring Austen's work and Regency-era history to life on screen.
Cosprop is currently holding an exhibition, Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop, at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, where you can see for yourself the most iconic costumes they've created. It runs until 16 January 2027.
View Green Video on the source website]]> Jane Austen: The final years of a literary genius https://www.historyextra.com/membership/jane-austens-series-episode-four-podcast/ Tue, 09 Jun 2026 07:00:17 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/jane-austens-series-episode-four-podcast/ Dr Lizzie Rogers chronicles the final chapters of Austen’s life and story, and examines her enormous continuing influence What does Austen’s later writing tell us about her changing ideas? And what factors contributed to her death?
In this fourth and final episode of our series chronicling the novelist’s life and work, Dr Lizzie Rogers charts the last part of Austen’s story, and her enormous continuing influence.
Watch now or listen below:
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Want to go further into the world of Jane Austen and her literary creations? HistoryExtra's Lauren Good rounds up some essential reading, listening and viewing from the HistoryExtra and BBC History Magazine archive to deepen your understanding of Austen's life, her work and the Regency era in which she wrote. Go beyond the podcast.
]]> How Jane Austen's Hampshire cottage sparked her greatest novels https://www.historyextra.com/membership/jane-austens-series-episode-three-podcast/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 23:00:19 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/jane-austens-series-episode-three-podcast/ Dr Lizzie Rogers explores Jane Austen's life at Chawton House, a cottage in rural Hampshire, where the author experienced one of the most fruitful episodes of her writing career It was at Chawton House, a cottage in rural Hampshire, that Jane Austen experienced one of the most fruitful episodes of her writing career.
In this third instalment of our four-part series charting the novelist's life and work, Dr Lizzie Rogers tells Lauren Good about this creative flourishing, and explores the popular works that Austen published during the period.
Watch now or listen below:
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Want to go further into the world of Jane Austen and her literary creations? HistoryExtra's Lauren Good rounds up some essential reading, listening and viewing from the HistoryExtra and BBC History Magazine archive to deepen your understanding of Austen's life, her work and the Regency era in which she wrote. Go beyond the podcast.
]]> “I am to flirt my last”: Jane Austen’s twenties https://www.historyextra.com/membership/jane-austens-series-episode-two-podcast/ Tue, 26 May 2026 07:00:15 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/jane-austens-series-episode-two-podcast/ In the second episode of a four-part series on Austen's life and writing, Dr Lizzie Rogers and Lauren Good chart the author’s tumultuous twenties We might assume that Jane Austen led a quiet existence, writing dramatic plots instead of experiencing them herself – but that presumption is far from the truth. In this second episode of our four-part series on Austen's life and writing, Dr Lizzie Rogers and Lauren Good chart the author’s tumultuous twenties, an eventful period of her life during which she faced everything from a fleeting romance to sudden loss.
Watch now or listen below:
View Green Video on the source website
Want to go further into the world of Jane Austen and her literary creations? HistoryExtra's Lauren Good rounds up some essential reading, listening and viewing from the HistoryExtra and BBC History Magazine archive to deepen your understanding of Austen's life, her work and the Regency era in which she wrote. Go beyond the podcast.
]]> Becoming Jane Austen | The early life of a literary legend https://www.historyextra.com/membership/becoming-jane-austen-podcast-lizzie-rogers/ Tue, 19 May 2026 07:00:14 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/becoming-jane-austen-podcast-lizzie-rogers/ In this first episode of our four-part series on Jane Austen's life and work, Dr Lizzie Rogers and Lauren Good step back into the influential Regency novelist's formative years, and explore her earliest writings that show how she began to find her voice. What inspired the daughter of a rural reverend to write about eligible bachelors and drunken misadventure? In this first episode of our four-part series on Jane Austen's life and work, Dr Lizzie Rogers and Lauren Good step back into the influential Regency novelist’s formative years, and explore her earliest writings that show how she began to find her voice.
Watch now or listen below:
View Green Video on the source website
Want to go further into the world of Jane Austen and her literary creations? HistoryExtra's Lauren Good rounds up some essential reading, listening and viewing from the HistoryExtra and BBC History Magazine archive to deepen your understanding of Austen's life, her work and the Regency era in which she wrote. Go beyond the podcast.
]]> Famous last words: what did Winston Churchill, Walt Disney and Marie Antoinette say on their deathbeds? https://www.historyextra.com/membership/famous-last-words-what-did-winston-churchill-walt-disney-and-marie-antoinette-say-on-their-deathbeds/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 12:30:45 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/famous-last-words-what-did-winston-churchill-walt-disney-and-marie-antoinette-say-on-their-deathbeds/ The parting comments of some of history's most famous figures have been recorded for posterity. Here, Jonny Wilkes reveals a selection of the most noteworthy examples – from dying presidents to condemned prisoners
1. “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go”
Oscar Wilde
The Irish author and playwright – best known for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) – is an enduring source of witty, pithy adages, such as “I can resist everything except temptation” and “always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much”. Oscar Wilde kept that unique brand of humour until the end: on his deathbed, in a Paris hotel room, he reportedly quipped about the dingy wallpaper. Evidently, the wallpaper won the duel, since 46-year-old Wilde passed away of meningitis shortly afterwards, on 30 November 1900.
2. “I’m bored with it all”
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill suffered his eighth stroke on 15 January 1965, after a decade and a half of failing health. All the cigars, booze and rich meals had caught up with him. He had been the prime minister who led Britain through the Second World War with impassioned oratory and declarations of “We shall never surrender”, but, if his last words are anything to go by, his battle was fought. With his son-in-law Christopher Soames by his side, Churchill muttered, “I’m bored with it all,” before slipping into a coma. Nine days later, on 24 January, he died at the age of 90.
3. “What the devil do you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune!”
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Having described music as “the language of the heart”, the French composer and music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau was a major force of the Baroque period of the 18th century, and remained active until his dying day, 12 September 1764. Indeed, the last contribution he made to music was a critique of the quality of religious singing being performed in his room. Perhaps he was already hearing the choirs of angels, and so earthly melodies no longer enthralled him the way that they had during his long career.
4. “Nothing, only ‘love one another’”
William Henry Seward
The death of Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state was also intended on that fateful night in 1865. At the same time that the US president was shot, one of John Wilkes Booth’s fellow conspirators stabbed Seward in the neck and face multiple times. In a bizarre twist of fortune, it was a splint on his jaw, the result of a stagecoach accident several days earlier, that saved his life. His death actually came on 10 October 1872. Sensing the end, his family gathered around and asked if he had any last things to say. His response was simply to “love one another”.
5. “Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose”
Marie Antoinette
King Louis XVI lost his head in the French Revolution and his queen, Marie Antoinette, would follow him to the guillotine. She had become so hated among her people as the epitome of extravagance (that said, she never uttered “let them eat cake”) that all efforts were made to make her execution as humiliating as possible.
On 16 October 1793, she was forced to dress in front of her guards, had her hair chopped off and hands bound behind her back, and was taken through the streets on the back of a cart, jeered all the way. Yet Antoinette maintained her composure, even apologising politely when she accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot.
6. “One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes”
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock is rightly celebrated as one of the most important filmmakers in the history of cinema, directing dozens of iconic movies like Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. Dubbed the ‘master of suspense’, he meticulously crafted every scene and knew exactly where the plot was going. His Hitchcockian style and immense talent for storytelling could not be called upon, however, when it came to the grand denouement of his life, as his last words illustrate. He died from kidney failure, aged 80, on 29 April 1980, relying not on plot but his Catholic hopes.
7. “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance”
John Sedgwick
On the morning of 9 May 1864, John Sedgwick set about inspecting the line at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House. A general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, he had been wounded at Antietam in 1862 but did not share his men’s concerns about Confederate sharpshooters that began to make their presence known. He scolded his staff, stating that the enemy “couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance” – right before being felled by a bullet under his left eye.
8. “How’s this for your headline: French Fries!”
James Donald French
How did murderer James Donald French react as he was taken to the electric chair on 10 August 1966? He made a pun for the press. Far from fearing death, the 30-year-old American had been longing for it for years. Following his first murder in 1958, he requested execution and was disappointed to receive a life sentence. So, in 1961, he strangled his cellmate and again demanded the death penalty. It took three separate trials, and French’s constant pleas not to accept any appeals, before he finally got his wish and went out with a gag.
9. “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man”
Che Guevara
The man from all those posters and T-shirts, Che Guevara became a globally recognised name for his role in putting Fidel Castro in power in Cuba. But it was in a doomed insurgency in Bolivia that the Marxist revolutionary had his final fight. Captured by CIA-backed soldiers, he was held in a mud schoolhouse deep in the jungle when the decision was made to have him executed. When, on 9 October 1967, a soldier entered his rudimentary cell, Guevara barked out his final words before being shot. He may have been only a man, but his face became a ubiquitous and enduring icon of revolution.
10. “I must go in, for the fog is rising”
Emily Dickinson
By the time that Emily Dickinson – little known in her lifetime but now regarded as the influential and ever-popular American poet of the 19th century – died, it is fair to say that her spirit had been broken. In the preceding years, she endured numerous deaths of family and friends, most traumatically her young, favourite nephew, and her health collapsed. “The Crisis of the sorrow of so many years is all that tires me,” she wrote in a letter. Dickinson passed away at 55 on 15 May 1886, shortly after penning one last verse that ended, “I must go in, for the fog is rising”.
11. “Turn me over. I’m done on this side”
Lawrence of Rome
Lawrence served as one of the seven deacons of Rome in the third century; this was not a good time to be a Christian as, in AD 258, Emperor Valerian ordered that the pope and clergy be put to death. According to the legend, Lawrence’s method of execution was being burned alive on a gridiron, similar to cooking meat on a barbecue. Lawrence saw the funny side of this image, it seems, since during his martyrdom he supposedly joked that his tormentors should turn him over to ensure he cooked fully. These last words may be apocryphal, but Lawrence is still honoured as patron saint of comedians.
12. “Kurt Russell”
Walt Disney
After Walt Disney’s death from lung cancer on 15 December 1966, his body was not cryogenically frozen, as the urban myth goes. Yet the death of Mickey Mouse’s creator comes with another oddity: the mystery of his final written note. While the meanings of “Ron Miller”, “Way Down Cellar” and “CIA – Mobley” remain unknown, Disney also wrote the name Kurt Russell (misspelled as “Kirt”). The teen actor had signed a 10-year contract with Disney, and it seems that the ailing businessman wanted to plot out the young star’s next project before the end. Even without it, though, Kurt Russell became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
13. “Thomas Jefferson survives”
John Adams
On 4 July 1826, exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, a 90-year-old John Adams lay dying. Three decades earlier, he had been elected as the second president of the United States, and his final thoughts were with the man who succeeded him. Adams’ last reported words were “Thomas Jefferson survives”.
While the two men had fallen out over how their new country should be governed, they renewed their friendship in their later years, so maybe Adams was hopeful at the end that one of the Founding Fathers remained. Unfortunately, he was wrong: Jefferson, aged 83, had actually died just a few hours before Adams.
14. “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn”
Joe DiMaggio
The retired baseball great Joe DiMaggio may have been married to the glamourous movie star Marilyn Monroe for less than a year, but he remained devoted to her for the rest of his life. He took the lead in arranging the funeral after Monroe was found dead in 1962, and for the next 20 years he sent roses to her grave every week. DiMaggio never remarried and as he lay dying on 8 March 1999, aged 84, he clung on to one hope: that he and Monroe would finally be reunited.
15. “Nothing but death”
Jane Austen
The beloved author of Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion and Emma died at the age of 41 on 18 July 1817. The cause remains a matter of debate, although it is known that she suffered with pains and illnesses for at least a year, which may explain her last sentiments, expressed by her sister Cassandra in a letter to Austen’s niece, Fanny. “When I asked her if there was anything she wanted, her answer was she wanted nothing but death,” it read. These were probably not her final words, however, as Cassandra also refers to Austen saying, “God grant me patience, pray for me, oh, pray for me.”
16. “I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this”
Thomas J Grasso
With his execution by lethal injection scheduled for 20 March 1995, convicted murderer Thomas J Grasso put in a rather elaborate request for his final meal. It included two dozen steamed mussels, two dozen steamed clams, six barbecued spareribs, a Burger King double cheeseburger, a can of SpaghettiOs with meatballs, half a pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and strawberries. He clearly was not fully satisfied, since he wanted his last statement to be a complaint to the chef that he received spaghetti instead of the canned version he asked for.
17. “More weight”
Giles Corey
During the Salem Witch Trials, hundreds were accused of witchcraft in the small Massachusetts village, resulting in 19 hangings, at least five deaths in prison, and one man – a farmer in his 80s named Giles Corey – being pressed to death. Having refused to enter a plea, he was stripped and laid on the floor with a wooden board across his body, on which heavy stones were gradually put on top. The torture lasted days and was expected to end in confession; instead, Corey kept crying out for “more weight”. He finally succumbed on 19 September 1692.
18. “Thanks be to God. I have but lived this day and now I die content”
Horatio Nelson
It is a well-worn story that when Lord Nelson was shot at the battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, he asked of his friend, and flag captain of HMS Victory, “Kiss me, Hardy”. They were not the great admiral’s last words, though. Taken belowdecks, Nelson continued to issue orders and lived long enough to receive word that several French ships had surrendered. Only then did he say, “Thanks be to God. I have but lived this day and now I die content.” After the battle, his body was placed in a cask of brandy to keep it preserved for its voyage back to England.
- Read more | “A monster of egotism”: Dominic Sandbrook reveals the secret to Admiral Nelson’s unstoppable success
19. “I shoot better”
Hannie Schaft
During the Second World War, a young woman named Jannetje Johanna Schaft signed up to fight for the Dutch resistance. To them, she became ‘Hannie’, but to the Nazis, who came to fear her marksmanship, she was ‘the girl with red hair’. After carrying out numerous assassinations, Schaft was finally captured in 1945 and executed just three weeks before the end of the war. Although, according to her legend, she did not go down easily: the first shot only grazed her, leading Schaft to yell out, “I shoot better!” The executioner did not make the same mistake again.
20. “I am just going outside and may be some time”
Lawrence Oates
Captain Robert Falcon Scott and four other men – Dr Edward Wilson, Captain Lawrence Oates, Lieutenant Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers and Petty Officer Edgar Evans – had set out to be the very first to reach the South Pole, but on reaching it in January 1912 they discovered that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had just beaten them.
Defeated and demoralised, they began the 800-mile trek back to base camp. None of them survived. Oates, suffering from frostbite and gangrene, made the ultimate sacrifice by leaving the tent in a blizzard with the now-immortalised words, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” His body was never found.
21. “Now comes the mystery”
Henry Ward Beecher
In life, Henry Ward Beecher was the most famous preacher in the United States: a passionate minister in Congregational Protestantism, a gifted orator, and a social reformer calling for women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery. His works had a profound influence on American Christianity in the 19th century and beyond. As he faced the end of his mortal life, having suffered a stroke in early March 1887, his last words were filled with the philosophical curiosity and hopefulness that permeated much of his preaching, as he pondered what awaited him: “Now comes the mystery.”
]]> 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 real reason Jane Austen never married https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/the-real-reason-jane-austen-never-married/ Wed, 05 Feb 2025 08:30:29 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/the-real-reason-jane-austen-never-married/ Jane Austen's literary heroines famously enjoyed romantic wedded bliss, yet Austen herself remained unmarried all her life. Here, expert David Lassman asks why… One of the greatest writers in the English language, Jane Austen (1775–1817) is famed for her works of romantic fiction including Sense and Sensibility (1811); Pride and Prejudice (1813); Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Her present-day popularity derives chiefly from the fact her heroines, although two centuries old, act as romantic beacons for the modern age. With a universal message of marrying for love rather than money, they provide examples, albeit fictional, of women choosing husbands due to strings of the heart and not of the purse.
If the old adage ‘write what you know’ is applied to Austen’s writing, then she should have had one of the happiest marriages in the history of matrimony. But here lies the paradox. One of the supreme purveyors of romantic love in English literature, and the creator of numerous blissful couplings in print, never took her own trip down the aisle.
The whitewashing of Jane's public persona began almost immediately after her death in 1817 with the autobiographical note her brother, Henry, wrote to preface the publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. This meant that the question as to why this was so never really entered the equation. The mere fact that Jane did not find a Mr Darcy in real life and so lived – it seemed – as a virtuous Christian ‘spinster’ was enough to satisfy Victorian curiosity.
By the middle of the 20th century, however, this somewhat distorted view of the now much-admired and studied author began to be challenged. Literary critic QD Leavis protested in 1942, for example, against the “conventional account of Miss Austen as prim, demure, sedate, prudish and so on, the typical Victorian maiden lady”. Her essay was just one of many that would bring into question and then rewrite the received biography. And with this rewriting came the desire to know exactly why Jane Austen had remained single.
Was Jane Austen gay?
The most contentious hypothesis puts forward the assumption Jane Austen did not marry for the simple reason her sexuality was orientated towards other women. In other words, she was a lesbian. The evidence, however, is simply not there to support this.
We know of the early romance with Tom Lefroy, who would later become Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, which was called off not by Jane due to any burgeoning doubt about her own sexuality, but by his family due to the penniless status of the would-be lovers. And this was the age, lest we forget, at least for the middling classes and above, when marrying for money was a fact of life and the yardstick by which all potential partners – male and female – were measured.
There was also the mystery seaside rendezvous, where it is said Jane fell in love with a young clergyman and he with her. Their infatuation blossomed over several weeks during one of the Austen family’s regular summer breaks while they lived in Bath, and the lovers made arrangements to meet the following year. Sadly, when the time came for their reunion, news arrived saying that the clergyman had died during the intervening period. In 2009 Dr Andrew Norman named this clergyman as Samuel Blackall, but claims Blackall did not die but rather went on to marry someone else.
And then, of course, there was an actual proposal of marriage and acceptance of it. While Jane and her sister, Cassandra, were staying with friends, the Bigg sisters, at their residence, Manydown, Hants, in December 1802, their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither (the additional surname having been adopted for males of the family during the late 18th century) took it upon himself to integrate the families further by one evening proposing to Jane. Although he was six years younger than her she accepted, but after what can only have been a dark night of the soul rescinded it the following morning and hastily bid a retreat by carriage back to Steventon and then to Bath.
It could be argued that if there were any hint of lesbianism in Jane then surely she would simply have not accepted the offer in the first place, or else would not have changed her mind (enjoying the financial security the marriage brought, while at the same time free to enjoy her sexuality outside of the relationship). The reality is that any relations Jane did have with the same sex were either genuine friendships, or else those normally shared with relatives.
Jane's relationship with her sister Cassandra
Another theory was later put forward; that of an incestuous relationship. This ‘sisterly love’ theory, which suggested a sexual bond between Jane and her sister, Cassandra, came into public consciousness in 1995, the same year as Colin Firth’s shirt-drenched Darcy became lodged there; the former through a review essay by Terry Castle.
Castle’s piece, which appeared in the London Review of Books, was a critique of the latest edition of Jane Austen’s collected letters. In the essay Castle pondered on the closeness of the sisters to the point where she mused about the true nature of their relationship and what had transpired between the sheets of the double bed she believed the sisters shared throughout their lives.
It was of course Cassandra, in one of the greatest acts of literary vandalism in history, who burnt the majority of her sister’s enormous correspondence to her, thus depriving posterity of an insight into a more authentic character study of Jane, other than the whitewashed, virginal one that prevailed. The burning of Jane’s letters also gave rise to endless speculation as to what exactly they contained.
Whether it was ever Castle’s intention to call into question the sisters’ sexual orientation – she later stated it was not – there was seemingly enough in the review to warrant a sub-editor on the periodical (with one-eye on circulation, no doubt) to title the review “Was Jane Austen Gay?” and then emblazon the headline on the front cover.
The ensuing fallout from the article – which included a media maelstrom – made at least one thing certain: not the bedtime habits of the Austen sisters, but the reverence held for Jane by various devotees (or ‘Janeites’, as they are called) around the globe. Indeed, many fans were outraged at the mere suggestion that Austen could have been anything other than a heterosexual, virginal singleton.
The final nail in the coffin of this theory seemed to come with the disclosure of an invoice. The whole episode had revolved around Castle’s assumption that the two women slept together in one double bed, but this assumption was completely shattered by a piece of paper that showed that Mr Austen, on his daughters reaching adolescence, had ordered a single bed for each of them.
And let us not forget, either, that Cassandra herself was engaged to be married, before her fiancé died in 1797, leaving her bereft but determined to embrace spinsterhood out of respect for him and not through any sexual orientation towards other women.
Is this the real reason Jane Austen didn't marry?
With that contentious theory hopefully put to bed (no pun intended), we can come to the real reason, I believe, Jane Austen did not marry. It was because she already had developed a deep, lifelong relationship with her art – writing – and believed there was a good chance any gentleman she uttered the words ‘I do’ to would insist on that artistic expression ceasing forthwith.
Jane Austen began writing at the age of 12 and did not stop until ill health forced it upon her, shortly before her death, at the age of 41. In between there were seemingly fallow years – in Bath – and even barren ones – in Southampton – but this did not mean she ceased in the development of her craft. There were voluminous letters to be written, so as to keep her wit and observations sharp, and large amounts of books devoured from circulating libraries or those of friends and relatives to stimulate her mind in readiness for an incredible six-year outpouring of literary creativity once ensconced at the cottage in Chawton.
This ‘revelation’ and the whole mass of evidence that is slowly being recognised as supporting this theory is, in its own way, possibly even more contentious than any questions about Jane’s sexuality. Why? Because this suggests that she was not only a literary genius but a forward-thinking woman, an independent mind, an astute business person and a feminist pioneer – one who can easily take her place alongside such luminaries as Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft – rolled into one.
And this at a time when women were supposed to love, honour and obey their husbands, and the only way for the majority of women – including Austen – to obtain financial security was to marry into it. Because God help them if they tried to make a living independently, say through the pen, as she chose to do! In hindsight, then, it is perhaps no wonder Jane’s brother, Henry, sought to soften the image of his sister, knowing a true portrait would most likely cause outrage in certain sections of the Regency, and then later Victorian, public.
Possibly Tom Lefroy would have encouraged Jane’s writing aspirations, as might the mysterious seaside suitor, but she was certain that Harris Bigg-Wither would not and ultimately, in my mind, at least, that is why she declined his proposal. But let us consider for a moment the pressure that would have been on Jane throughout that December night in 1802 at Manydown. Her family, although not poor, were not well off, and the marriage would have brought security for all of them, or at least the females within it: Jane, Cassandra and their mother.
I believe it was with a pragmatic mind that Jane accepted Bigg-Wither’s proposal. And then throughout the night, either within her solitary thoughts or in discussion with her sister, she pondered on what she might be losing herself, and changed her mind. It might have been the dutiful daughter who accepted the proposal, but it was the aspiring writer (and true artist) who descended the stairs the following morning, took Harris to one side, and declared she had made a mistake and the marriage was off.
With this knowledge of Jane’s literary aspirations, it is perhaps no surprise that on her return to Bath she subsequently revised Northanger Abbey (or rather Susan, as it was originally titled) and successfully sought a publishing deal for it, which saw her achieve the goal of finally being paid for her writing. The fact that, for whatever reason, the publishing firm chose not to publish the work merely taught Jane a lesson about the industry and made her more determined to see her work in print, if not bearing her own name, certainly on her own terms.
To this end, after revising Sense & Sensibility and once settled at Chawton, Jane used her own money to publish the book and saw a handsome return on her investment. And although she sold the rights to her next published novel, Pride & Prejudice, she quickly realised a mistake had been made and so subsequent books reverted back to this initial ‘business model’.
The fact that Jane Austen remained single all her life, while her literary heroines enjoyed both romantic wedded bliss and financial security, is one of English literature’s greatest ironies. The simple fact is, though, that even if Jane had herself experienced a happy marriage with a husband only too obliging for her to continue writing, with the prospect of possibly a large family to bring up Jane may not have had the time to write to the extent she did and so develop her incredible talent that is so revered today.
So, to reiterate, by not marrying, Jane allowed herself the time and space to develop her talent unhindered by domestic duties or conjugal obligations. She sacrificed financial security and matrimonial happiness in order to retain the freedom to write and develop as a true artist. It is perhaps because of that choice Jane Austen is considered one of the greatest literary talents of all time.
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This article was first published by History Extra in 2016
]]> Lupus, lymphoma – or murder? Why Jane Austen's mysterious cause of death has puzzled historians for years https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/jane-austen-death/ Tue, 04 Feb 2025 14:49:01 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/jane-austen-death/ In BBC drama Miss Austen, Jane's sister Cassandra is on a mission to destroy a cache of letters following the 41-year-old Jane's death. But by destroying these documents, which may have contained key medical details about Jane's final illness, Cassandra denied historians vital evidence, causing wild theories about her cause of death to swirl for years. Hilary Mitchell investigates how much we know about the real story… The medical landscape in the early 19th century was – unsurprisingly – vastly different to today. During the lifetime of Jane Austen, who died in 1817 at the age of 41, diseases were rife and often fatal, and knowledge of human anatomy was scanty.
A visit to the doctor was expensive and there was little effective treatment available beyond alcohol, opium, and bloodletting with leeches. Germs had yet to be identified, antiseptics and antibiotics were unheard of, and surgery was performed without anaesthetic. Most medicine was herbal and came from apothecaries who made remedies and gave general health advice.
Most of the ‘cure-alls’ on sale at the time were entirely without benefit. For example, London’s Old Operating Theatre museum owns a domestic medicine chest from that period, which contains a bottle of Steers’s Chemical Opodeldoc, a popular liniment.
An eye-opening 1783 advert for Opodeldoc lists the many things it can cure – everything from tendon injuries (“In wounded Tendons it is likewise of the greatest Service, by Preventing the Juice which oozes out of them from fixing) to injured horses that are “strained in the back Sinews… or have their Backs galled”. Not bad for an ointment that was, according to a recipe in 1856 text The Medical Formulary, just a mixture of soap, alcohol, camphor and ammonia.
What was Jane Austen’s cause of death?
Against this backdrop of confusion about the nature of illnesses and how to cure them, it should come as no great shock to discover that Jane Austen’s official cause of death was never clearly documented.
Instead, her family and attending physician – the esteemed Dr Giles King Lyford, a surgeon at the county hospital at Winchester – recorded that she died of a vague illness referred to as "consumption" or "decline." No post-mortem was ever performed.
Jane Austen's letters describe how she was plagued by awful ill health in the final years of her life, which left her bedridden at her home in the village of Chawton, near Alton in Hampshire.
In May 1817 she wrote a letter to her friend Anne Sharp, detailing a recent “attack”, explaining: “My chief [sic] sufferings were from feverish nights, weakness & Languor. This Discharge was on me for above a week, & as our Alton Apothy [Apothecary] did not pretend to be able to cope with it, better advice was called in. Our nearest very good, is at Winchester, where there is a Hospital & capital Surgeons, & one of them attended me, & his applications gradually removed the Evil.”
Jane travelled to Winchester to place herself in the care of Lyford two days later, but she never returned home. She died on 18 July 1817 with her devoted sister, Cassandra, by her side.
Was Jane Austen murdered?
Whenever there’s a significant gap in any important historical record, theories – both rational and not-so-rational – will inevitably spring up, and Jane’s death is no different.
One of the most outlandish ideas to be put forward in recent years is that Jane was murdered.
In 2011, crime novelist Lindsay Ashford seized on the fact that traces of arsenic had been found in the Pride and Prejudice author’s body, and concluded that she must have been poisoned.
According to the Guardian, while reading Jane’s letters, the crime novelist spotted the following sentence, written shortly before her death: "I am considerably better now and am recovering my looks a little, which have been bad enough, black and white and every wrong colour."
Ashford realised the symptoms could be ascribed to arsenic poisoning, which can cause "raindrop" pigmentation, where patches of skin go brown or black. After discovering that a lock of Jane’s hair had tested positive for the substance, she said: "I don't think murder is out of the question," she said, adding: “In the early 19th century a lot of people were getting away with murder with arsenic as a weapon.”
However, Ashford’s claims were dismissed by Professor Janet Todd, who edited the Cambridge edition of the works of Jane Austen, who noted that many 19th century ‘cure-alls’ contained arsenic, including remedies that claimed to treat rheumatism, which Jane could have taken.
If not murder, how did Jane Austen die?
Another illness that may have caused Jane’s symptoms is Addison’s Disease, first proposed by English physician and author Zachary Cope in 1964. This rare condition involving adrenal insufficiency, causes fatigue, weakness, weight loss, and white and dark patches on the skin.
This diagnosis has fallen out of favour over the years. One key issue with it is that tubercular Addison’s is often rapidly fatal, yet Jane was ill for about a year before her death in 1817.
A third plausible candidate for Jane’s cause of death is Hodgkin’s disease, a form of lymphoma. Journalist Claire Tomalin took issue with Cope’s diagnosis in her 1997 book Jane Austen: A Life, proposing Hodgkin’s instead, a conclusion also reached by Annette Upfal, professor of British literature at the University of Queensland, in a 2005 Medical Humanities article.
In her letters, Jane described experiencing periodic fevers, a hallmark of Hodgkin lymphoma. Hodgkin’s is also a slowly progressive condition, which matches Jane’s year-long decline. Her fevers also seemed to come and go in cycles, a distinctive characteristic of the illness.
An even more recently proposed theory is that Jane may have died of systemic lupus erythematosus. This chronic autoimmune disease affects multiple organs, causing fatigue, joint pain, skin issues, and organ damage – and also causes recurrent fevers – all symptoms that align with descriptions of her illness. The theory was put forward in 2022 by retired surgeon Michael Sanders following a comprehensive review of all of Jane’s surviving letters.
Did the burned letters hold the secret to Jane Austen’s death?
Were more symptoms described in any of the thousands of letters burned by Cassandra? It seems very likely; and just a few additional details could have helped historians to solve this medical conundrum conclusively.
Of the approximately 3,000 letters Jane Austen is thought to have written, only about 160 remain, many heavily edited by Cassandra or others.
However, it’s likely that she only had the best of intentions in doing so – a desire to protect and preserve Jane’s public image. Jane’s characters showcase the author’s stinging wit and ability to come up with incredible takedowns and scathing retorts. Her letters may well have contained critical or unflattering comments about family members or influential people of their time.
It’s also worth noting that Jane was a private individual and may not have wanted her correspondence to be preserved. Nor might Cassandra have foreseen the letters’ historical value. Few people at the time could have predicted that we’d be still talking about Jane today, or that Cassandra’s actions would form the basis for a BBC drama more than 200 years on.
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