Home
Period
Georgian
Beyond the podcast: Jane Austen

Beyond the podcast: Jane Austen

Want to know more about Jane Austen, her novels and the period she lived in? Lauren Good has curated a selection of essential reading from the HistoryExtra and BBC History Magazine archive to help you explore more about Austen and her life.

Lauren Good

Published: November 24, 2025 at 3:43 PM

24 items

Jane Austen’s novels have captivated readers for more than two centuries. Their blend of romance, social insight and wit has inspired countless adaptations – from classic films to more modern reinterpretations. But who was the woman behind these beloved stories, and how did she come to write them?

In a new four-part HistoryExtra podcast series, launching weekly from 14 December 2025, I’m joined by Dr Lizzie Rogers, a leading expert on Austen. Together, we trace Austen’s journey from her formative years to her remarkable literary legacy, uncovering what her life looked like beyond the pages of her novels.

Below, you’ll find a selection of supplementary material to deepen your understanding of Austen’s world and the Regency era she wrote in. You can explore insights from Lizzie herself, discover the historical influences that shaped Austen’s work and even delve into the theories surrounding her death.

Showing 1 to 24 of 24 results

Membership

Reading between the lines: the real-life events that inspired Jane Austen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Beneath the genteel surface of decorous society, unrest simmered in the world – and works – of Jane Austen
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…
Membership

VideoIntroduction to the Regency. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the first mini-lecture of our HistoryExtra Academy Regency short course, Dr Lizzie Rogers explores the backdrop of Georgian Britain, and introduces one of its biggest characters: the Prince Regent
Georgian

Your guide to Sanditon, Jane Austen’s last unfinished work

Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon – set in a fictional seaside resort of the same name – was inherited by the author’s sister following her death in 1817. But what is known about the plot that Austen intended? And which real places might have inspired the setting for the novel? Historian and author Helen Amy explores
Membership

Austen’s influences: Lucy Worsley on the author’s life and work. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Two hundred years after the death of the iconic English author, Lucy Worsley talks to Matt Elton about her new book on Jane Austen, examining the influence that domesticity, gender and family relationships had on her life and work...
Period

Should we rewrite Jane Austen’s classic novels?

Plans to reinterpret Jane Austen’s novels for a modern-day audience have divided leading academics
Membership

Honeymooning with your mother-in-law? The truths of Regency romance. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

For all their charm, period dramas can gloss over some of the Regency’s more peculiar realities. Lauren Good unveils the surprising truths behind romance in the period, from honeymooning with your mother-in-law to taxing ‘old maids’
Membership

A day in the life of Jane Austen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

She is one of the world's most beloved novelists, famous for her romantic works set among the Georgian gentry. A guide to writing like Jane Austen reveals the novelist's methods, tips and tricks – from techniques of plotting and characterisation through to dialogue and suspense. Penned by author and Austen's five-times-great niece, Rebecca Smith, The Jane Austen Writers' Club features exercises, illustrations and quotations from Jane's novels and letters, shedding new light on how she wrote her most famous masterpieces. Writing for History Extra, Smith explores Jane's time at the cottage in Chawton (now Jane Austen's House Museum), where she did the most important work of her life…
Georgian

Jane Austen’s passion for fashion. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hilary Davidson takes a tour through Jane Austen’s wardrobe – from the clothes she wore behind closed doors to her most treasured jewellery
Membership

Everything you wanted to know about Jane Austen's England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Dr Lizzie Rogers answers questions about the author and the social conventions of the world in which she lived and wrote
Membership

Becoming Jane Austen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

At first glance, Jane Austen’s life seems to have been uneventful – but those initial appearances are somewhat deceptive
Georgian

Lupus or murder?What was Jane Austen's cause of 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…
Membership

Regency romance and a real-life Anne Elliot. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

For many, Jane Austen's novels help to define the Regency period. Here, Peter James Bowman explores the real routines and rituals of the wealthy Georgian families portrayed by Austen, and considers the remarkable parallels between one real-life figure and Anne Elliot, the heroine of Austen's Persuasion
Membership

Jane Austen's fiction: an accurate portrayal of life in Georgian England?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Jane Austen's novels, which are set predominantly in rural England in the late Georgian period, provide a fascinating picture of life at that time – but how much is fact and how much fiction? Here, historian and author Helen Amy considers Austen's depictions of rural life, social etiquette and more...
Membership

Jane Austen’s tips for “health and happiness”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Descriptions of health, says author Bryan Kozlowski, run throughout the work of famed novelist Jane Austen – from the character of Mr Woodhouse in Emma to the health resort setting of her unfinished Sanditon. Writing for History Extra, Kozlowski shares four tips that can be found in the Regency-era writer’s classic novels, and what they tell us about contemporary attitudes towards healthy figures, women’s exercise and more…
Georgian

Jane Austen: a guide to her life, books and death – plus 8 fascinating facts

Jane Austen (1775–1817) is one of the most recognised names in English literature. Her six major novels – Pride and Prejudice; Sense and Sensibility; Persuasion; Mansfield Park; Northanger Abbey and Emma – are considered classics today, renowned for their portrayal of English middle-class life in the early 19th century
Georgian

What did Jane Austen really look like?

In 2017 an image of Jane Austen appeared for the first time on British currency – but with just one authenticated image of the great writer, how do we know what the Regency-era writer really looked like? Writing for History Extra, expert David Lassman explores the many pictures that have contributed to our knowledge of the author's likeness…
Membership

How to survive a Regency marriage. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Anyone who has read Jane Austen will have an idea of how much effort a high society woman in Regency Britain gave to finding a husband. Felicity Day lays out what they needed to know, how they could meet that special someone, and why getting married had its dangers...
Georgian

Strange and surprising pastimes of the Regency Ton

From wrenching off door knockers to imitating coachmen’s dress, Felicity Day explores the curious pastimes of the Regency super-rich…
Membership

Did women have good friendships in the Regency era?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

From sisterly love to confidantes during time of romantic woe, Lizzie Rogers illuminates the power of female friendship in the Regency era…
Membership

Regency timelinethe key dates you need to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Danny Bird charts the life and literary career of Jane Austen against the backdrop of a period marked by conflict, revolution and groundbreaking discoveries
Membership

Regency inequality: the gap between rich and poor in Georgian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Never was the chasm between rich and poor more stark than in the Regency era. Ian Mortimer chronicles a period in which the wealthiest gorged themselves on the fruits of Britain’s industrial might, while the working classes endured lives that were often nasty, brutish and short
Georgian

Was the Regency era a good time to be a woman?The truth not seen in Bridgerton

Conforming to strict rules in order to find a husband, who then had control over her property and lifestyle; risking the loss of reputation for any societal indiscretion; and enduring painful pregnancies and childbirths: life for a Regency woman came with supreme challenges. Catherine Curzon explores the real world of Bridgerton
Membership

Uncertainty and unrest: the madness of the Regency period. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In February 1811, Prince George became the Regent in place of his father, George III. Stella Tillyard looks beyond the romanticised Regency world of Jane Austen novels and finds a time of unrest and uncertainty

See more Beyond the podcast: Jane Austen

Authors

Lauren GoodSenior content producer

Lauren Good is a senior content producer at HistoryExtra

Visit us on Twitter