Jane Austen - 250th Anniversary

[Daisy]

I imagine we've all read at least one of Jane Austen's novels, even if it was some years ago. This year marks the 250th anniversary of her birth, and a statue of her is going to be erected outside Winchester Cathedral, where she is buried.

She also spent time living in Bath and Southampton. The house she lived in in Southampton was right by the old City seawalls. The museum of her life and work is Chawton, Hampshire (now Jane Austen's House Museum) and is quite modest.

She visited Lyme Regis a couple of times and set part of Persuasion in the town.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/cyv3rv6evd3o

[Nanto2girls]

Daisy, i have never read a Jane Austen book.

[Daisy]

Nanto, I have only read one, apart from when I was at school. But I find her life interesting. For women especially, they were under so much pressure to make a 'good' marriage - meaning to a man who was financially secure. Their world was so controlled by class, social expectations and what other people thought of them.

[Gemini]

I read Emma when I was around 18 and really liked it. I read Pride and Prejudice a couple of years ago, and didn't enjoy that so much.
I decided that it wasn't the book but me coming to it at a different stage of life!

I must admit that whilst I know quite a lot about the Brontes, I knew little about Jane Austen.

[Daisy]

Gem, I know practically nothing about the Brontes, but there are a lot of places close to here that are associated with Jane, so it's hard to avoid her!

[Sum1Ls]

I love Jane Austin. The women in her books are all complex characters and I think we all know someone who fits the profile of an Emma or Elizabeth or Marianne. Constrained as they were by the conventions and expectations of their time their sharp or witty comments made them big characters and not adjuncts to the men or the plots.