Behind Jane Austen (Literary Arts Documentary) | Perspective

[Music] August 1806 Jane Austen found herself squeezed alongside her mother her sister and a lawyer rushing into Warwickshire in her cousin's carriage it's like a scene from one of Jane's own stories she was full of expectation about to play her part in a real life Austen family drama James destination was the ancestral home at the Lee family it was stony Abbey it's a story about money and inheritance and marriage the very things at the core of Jane's novels the Honorable Mary Lee reclusive mistress of the house had just died unmarried and childless who was going to get the house and the cash James elderly cousin one of the possible heirs rushed over to stake his claim bringing the Austen's along for support when Jane arrived here she was 30 years old she was unmarried and unpublished despite her best efforts and she was homeless she'd just been forced out of the city of Bath through lack of funds she was really hoping that some of the riches of this place would come in her direction she needed an inheritance but for Jane the aspiring novelist Stoney Harvey also promised bounty of another sort inspiration fragments of the Abbey made their way into her books in Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth Bennet is shown around Pemberley by the housekeeper just as Jane was shown around stir and Mansfield Park gained Stoney Abby's chapel and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge of the family gallery but in the end Jane went away without an inheritance but Stoney Abby left its legacy in her work Jane Austen's novels revolve around homes lost and mansions gained the threat of poverty and the promise of wealth and Janes own life gave her a unique insight in her 41 years she stayed in many houses at times she was tantalizingly close to riches at others a step from destitution I'm going to follow where Jane stayed I'll visit the scenes of her romantic adventures and see where she struggled with her social obligations this is the parlor with drawing-room where the women would come after dinner I'll try out some home economics Austen style amazingly that does look like real ink and explore the houses where she flourished as a writer I think that knowing where Jane lived can tell us who Jane really was [Music] [Music] I'm traveling to where it all began for jane hampshire in 18th century England your prospects for wealth and security were typically set from the moment of your birth but Jane Austen wasn't raised in a typical home Jane spent 25 years more than half of her life living in the house where she was born let's go and see what's left of it Jane grew up in the sleepy village of Steventon where her father was rector at the local church she was born in 1775 in the reign of George the third the Austin's were a bit unusual in that Jane's father was considered to be a gentleman but the family still struggled on a limited income [Music] the Steventon that Jane knew has almost vanished its cottages were demolished in the 19th century [Music] Jane's home the rectory she shared with her parents sister and six brothers has gone to but luckily for me archaeologist Debbie Charlton has been investigating the site and building up a picture of Jane's first home so Debbie let's pass out the plan of the rectory and find out roughly where it was right so we're at the front which was not facing so if you were to say about there this is the corner of the building in the West it goes off like that yeah okay and how far that way does it go oh just try and walk over there Hey so that's the other corner that is yeah where's where's the front door is it in the middle it's in the middle meet you there okay then this is it let me step inside in we go where are we now we've come into the lobby it was a Lobby entry hugs what were the other rooms she had the front kitchen and then you had the back kitchen the back kitchens with all the work went on all the cooking what about over here over here you got the main parlor so he took the dining parlour and then the sitting part what about mr. Austin's study and that was at the back so he was looking out over the cucumber gardens yeah over the gardens there is that because he was hiding away any word he was hiding away from the rest of the household okay lots of kids a lot of activity you need somewhere to go if you've got eight children you did I think it was a very busy house what's going on he may seem like a big house but it was crowded Jane's father supplemented his income by running a boys boarding school so the rectory was also packed with his pupils mr. Austen even had a third job as a farmer and the family kept cows ducks and chickens Davey I imagine a lot of people would think of Jane Austen growing up in some lovely country house situation but that's not right is it no no I think she was definitely doing a bit of work on the farm there is an instance where she's overjoyed that the new dairymaids arrived which gives you the impression she was probably hoping to do it until that point yeah tell me about some of these little little finds that you've excavated right so obviously when your due dates we've seen a lot that is the rubbish what's being discarded or be owned and so we've built this back together but it's a lovely little red cup look at some it's beautiful so this is the willow pattern so it's blue and white transferware yes the just come out they just learned to do the transfer prints everybody who is anybody had to have transfer where yes the from the perfect time so about 1770 now Debbie we don't have any evidence doing that Jane Austen didn't eat an egg out of this egg cup we don't know so she may well have done there's pretty but it's mass-produced the Austin's may have aspired to the latest tableware but there wasn't that much money for luxuries Jane's letters give a detailed account of everyday life as Steventon rectory with its unfashionable mealtimes but a wealth of intellectual sustenance we dine now at half after 3:00 and have done dinner I suppose before you begin we drink tea at half after 6:00 I'm afraid you will despise us my father reads Cooper to us in the evenings to which I listen when I can reading was a big part of life that Steventon and jane had free access to her father's library which contained many works of fiction I think that this room set Jane on her path as of lighter the books here inspired her from the age of 11 she wrote plays satires poems and novels but how could her talent thrive in such a crowded house Jane Austen's father realized that his daughter was becoming a serious writer so he marked this by guessing her as a 19th birthday present this expensive and beautiful mahogany writing desk it hinges open like this so you can write on the sleep of it now for millions of Jane Austen lovers this item is a holy relic because under this flap she would have kept drafts of all of her novels and to the very end of her life everywhere the Jane Austen went this box went to think of it as a tiny little office the only space in her crowded home that Jane had completely to herself but she didn't spend all the first time shut up in the rectory Jane was a keen Walker she had to be for most of her life the Austin family couldn't afford a carriage and she often traveled miles on foot visiting a network of friends in the villages around Steventon some of their houses still survived like ash rectory here Jane would call on her close friend mrs. Ann Lefroy music was a big part of these woman's social lives I'm meeting professor Ginny's books to learn about Jane Austen the piano player it was music something that girls did together yeah there's there's lots of evidence that young women were communicating around and through music in the same way that we think about how teenagers today communicate through music and by exchanging music by swapping things around by saying hey listen to this this is my favorite right now it sounds like we don't know exactly how proficient she was but Jane Austen does strike me as somebody who really loves music would you agree yes yes and I think it important that if you look at the novels in all of the novels intelligent conversation is always about music and books it's not just books it's music and books it's something that she sees as part of a kind of normal cultured education something that people can talk about something that is important and she seems to in later life to have played everyday for herself it's a thread that weaves right through all of Jane's novels as well there's there are always characters who play in every single novel there's some very important scenes that happen while people are playing with music came dancing which Jane also loved many of her plots sent her around the excitement of encounters at balls and Jane felt that thrill herself dean house newly built at the time was the scene of one particularly eventful ball for Jane she came here on the night of January the 8th 1796 she just turned 20 and I got the chance to see inside the very room where Jane danced now this might not be the big and go I was born that you were expecting but it was possible to hold the ball in just an ordinary house you'd push back the furniture and invite around the neighbors for a dance this meant that when Jane went to balls she wasn't always meeting new people there were lots of familiar faces but one night in this very room she did meet somebody new he was a young law student called Tom Lefroy he and Jane goes on all three well and pretty soon they were flirting outrageously tom was the nephew of Jane's friend mrs. Laphroaig Jane's letters to her sister Cassandra tell of encounters with Tom over the course of a series of balls it all started so promising Lee you scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you that I'm almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together [Music] after I'd written the above we received a visit from mr. Tom Lefroy he has but one fault which time will I trust entirely removed it is that his morning coat is a great deal to light I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening I shall refuse him however unless he promises to give away his white coat [Music] that Tom's family didn't approve they're serious young lawyer was having way too much fun with Jane at their final ball together he didn't propose sometimes people at balls drank too much even Jane Austen one time she wrote about a hangover she had and the shaking of her hands the morning after and there would be a rude awakening from her romance with Tom Lavoie Tom was sent away from Hampshire he had 10 siblings he needed to be able to support them he needed to marry someone richer than Jane the harsh truth was that in jane's world money usually came before love no wonder this became a central theme in her novels and I don't think it's a coincidence that this is the year when Jane wrote her first draft of Pride and Prejudice [Music] in fiction at least she could make sure that the poor but clever heroine won both the good man and his impressive house and grounds poor Jane was dogged by worries about money and status even when she visited members of her own family [Music] I'm following Jane to Kent to her brother Edwards house where she sometimes stayed for months at a time now you might well wonder how Edward ended up with the vast Godmachine Park near Canterbury well quite simply Jane's parents gave Edward away adopted by the childless but wealthy Knight family Edward enjoyed an income of fifteen thousand pounds a year even James fictional catch mr. Darcy only had ten life at God version gave Jane a window into a different world I think it had a huge effect on her now it's a college for opticians that you can still feel its grandeur [Music] this might be the very room where Jane stayed when she was at God mission a whole loom to herself she likes staying here because of the luxury she wrote that she was going to eat ice cream and drink French wine and be above Volga economy but it's quite hard for her as the poor relation she worried that she couldn't afford to tip the servants properly and Jane's relatives here at God nation were very different from her they were hyper social they were into their outdoor pursuits they thought Jane was clever but a bit odd I think it's telling that she made one very close friend here who wasn't a member of the family it was the governess Jane just wasn't in the same league as her fortunate brother and even the visiting hairdresser seems to have noticed mr. Hall walked off this morning with no inconsiderable booty he charged Elizabeth five shillings for every time of dressing her hair towards me he was as considerate as I had hoped for charging the only two shilling sixpence for cutting my hair he certainly respects either I youth or our poverty Jane was expected to earn her keep helping to entertain a growing brood of nieces and nephews one niece recalled spending entire days acting out plays with Aunt Jane whom theatricals were all the rage at the time and professor Judith Hawley is helping me to put on a play that Jane wrote herself as a child scene the first a parlour cousin your servant Stanley good morning to you I hope you slept well last night remarkably well I thank you I'm afraid you found your bed to short it was bought in my grandmother's time who was herself a very short woman and made a point of sitting all her beds to suit her own length dude if if you've lived in a lovely big house in the country like this it must be very nice but do you think perhaps it got boring and you just longed for something to happen that's when you could put on a private theatrical and then you have the whole sense of an event to work toward and the whole household could be involved one of the pleasures were just been that business of the the bustle of turning house upside down you know the rolling back the carpets clearing out all the furniture that sort of chaotic disruption do we know what plays Jane Austen wrote herself we've got three surviving manuscripts in her juvenilia her second play which is my favorite it's called the visit what happens in the visit in the visit there's a brother and sister who invite people to their house only nothing works according to plan they're very apologetic about it but there are only six chairs for eight people because grandma Marr didn't really like having people around so also and lady Hampton miss Hampton mr. and miss willoughby that's a lot of people here they all come pray pray be seated blast me they really ought to be eight chairs for there are but six however if your ladyship will will take um sell offer um in your lap and and sophie my brother in yours then i believe that we shall all do pretty well I think you'll make no apologies and no Sophie oh yes please your brother really is very night it is better than a chair now if you've read Mansfield Park I don't often you might think that she doesn't approve at theatricals because they're a cover for flirtation and of inappropriate behavior well funny here's the sort of the center of the moral consciousness of the novel certainly refuses to act Fanny will not act but it's simply not the case that Jane Austen herself disapproved of either play reading or theater going or involving herself in private theatricals she's absorbing things from her life and transforming them in artistic ways in Mansfield Park the amateur theatricals helped to expose the conflicts and jealousies within a grade house just the sort of thing that Jane might've witnessed at God mission I think that this was the house that had the biggest influence on Jane's writing some of James other travels will love a more relaxing [Music] as the 19th century dawned Jane's parents embraced the fashion for tourism they took Jane to sigma2 Dawlish and then to Lyme Regis [Music] Jane couldn't swim but she was dipped in the sea by a local woman called Molly she probably didn't bathe nude whatever this picture might suggest but it is true that lime was a free and easy sort of a place this book is a guide to the sea bathing places and it's pretty frank about the advantages of lime advantages that would have appealed to the Austen's the lodgings at lime are not merely reasonable they are even cheap it's a budget resort there's no need to dress up in fancy clothes new need for extravagance of exterior show the boarding houses in lime are graded at the top of the hill you've got Pleasant houses with nice views for persons of consideration down in the lower town though you'll find the lower orders and sorry to say that the Austen's were right at the bottom of the hill in mr. pines house just there [Music] even on holiday you had to know your place and you got what you paid for the accommodation rented by the Austin's was strictly no-frills Jane wouldn't have given a very good review to the various lodging houses of Lyme if one of them she wrote the inconvenience is exceeded only by the dirtiness and she had a bit of a dingdong with the owner at this place mr. pine about the ludicrous sum he wanted to charge for something that got broken but Jane didn't care at all because she could look out of this window and watch the sea [Music] Jane Ford's that travel to the seaside was very delightful it tasted the itinerant life she envied in the wives of sailors or soldiers and there was a wildness fear Jane was most drawn to the seawall called the Cobb she once spent a whole hour walking along it you're not allowed to walk up here when it's windy because the big waves come jumping up over the edge and I think that for Jane being at the seaside was all about cutting loose and letting go she did have a holiday fling at the seaside and her sister later said that this mysterious man had been the love of Jane's life Jane saw the seaside as a place for passion and lime became one of her most memorable literary settings in James novel persuasion the high winds drive some ladies to come down from the upper cub to walk on the lower part but one of them Louisa gets so excited by the wind and the waves that she wants to jump down to the bottom and into the arms of a dashing sea captain she slips she falls she's lifeless on the ground in this case the exhilaration at the seaside has led to danger Jane herself likes the idea of a leap into the unknown that's what holidays were for but a permanent move was quite another matter in 1801 aged 25 Jane had to leave her home in Steventon forever her father decided to retire and relocate taking his wife and daughters with him to start a new life in bath it's said that when Jane first heard she was moving here she fainted both was a flourishing spa town with an incredibly busy social scene it was probably the last place that Jane would find peace and quiets to write that she had no choice she decided it was best just to get on with the movies Jane and her mother threw themselves into house hunting this was their headquarters the house where James aren't an uncle lived Jane's aunt wanted them to settle in this part of town it was no good it was too noisy there wasn't enough greenery and mr. Austen now had arthritis he walked with a stick and couldn't manage the steep hills even more than in Lyme where you lived in buff reflected your status there was a fiving rental market catering to wealthy visitors I'm off to see some of the traces that Jane considered there are an awful lot of them I went with my mother to help look at some houses in new King Street towards which she felt some kind of inclination they were smaller than I expected to find them quite monstrously little Jane's mother kept setting her heart on the most unsuitable places above all others her wishes are at present fixed on the corner house in Chapel row which opens into Princess Street her knowledge of it however is confined only to the outside the houses in Green Park buildings were so very desirable in size and situation but they were also very damp the Austen's looked at Charles Street Seymour Street Westgate buildings the streets off flora place too expensive gay Street too steep at least Jane and her mother agreed on one place they absolutely would not live she will do everything in her power to avoid trim Street [Music] eventually the Austin's decided on four Sidney place [Music] newly-built and a flat walk from the center he had the right sort of neighbors a baronet a major-general and a lady and it was just about affordable at a hundred and fifty pounds a year that's a quarter of Jane's father's income these days is a holiday let which means that I get to stay the night the Austen's had rather longer a three-year lease to enjoy its comforts up here are the bedrooms mr. and mrs. Austin had the lovely view over the park while Jane and Cassandra shared the room of the back this fantastic and utterly ginormous document contains the original deeds of for Sydney place here's a beautiful elevation showing exactly how the Builder should construct their house and over here is the contract which specifies that he's got to put in street lighting and running water it's all terribly grand but sitting here in Jane and Cassandra's bedroom what strikes me is that your experience of a Georgian house like this really does depend on your position in society the girls are tucked away upstairs in the back bedroom and out of their window what you can see today are the slightly rubbish backs of the houses behind in fact this document doesn't specify what the back of Sydney place was to look like because nobody cared bath was all about the first impression first impressions mattered because most people didn't stay in bar for long the whole social scene was constantly changing Jane had to embark on a complex schedule of visits and engagements and there was always the hope that she might find a husband I'm paying a call just as Jane would have done to revolve a grander house than her own in the royal present professor Elaine chalice has left her card for me so I'm now returning the visit good morning Elaine oh thank you for having me very welcome I'm paying you a morning call what what are the walls for that you will come in and you'll find me in my morning drawing-room in this house it happens to be on the ground floor but often it's upstairs if you're somebody that I don't know particularly well or you're paying me a courtesy call you may come in say 10 15 minutes maybe half an hour maximum and go if you're somebody that's intimate with me and we're good friends we haven't seen each other for a while we could then spend the rest of the morning together basically gossiping and having chat over tea and what would you do if you didn't want to see me you're gonna keep me out oh yeah yeah that's rather fun you basically tell your servants that you're not in so relating the mornings over what's next in the bath schedule once you've changed and you're ready to go out then you'll go out and you'll maybe go for your walk you might go shopping and you come home and you're gonna change again of course and you'll get ready for dinner and that wouldn't take place in this room that will actually take place on the other side and it was really important that you had a good dining room because a dining room is one of the places where people get together over food and drink it's more intimate than the morning visits that is a fantastic display isn't it lovely dinner yeah and it's a wonderful place to show off your best china to show off the skills of your cook after dinner the guests moved upstairs for tea where they were often joined by second-tier visitors that's people like the Austen's this is the parlor or with drawing-room where the women would come after dinner and things would be set out already for tea as they are here you would find all kinds of things going on we would have some people reading and you could be of course playing or whatever musical instruments were available we've got a harpsichord here by the time of Austin often you would have had a piano there might have been a harp but these kinds of things so that you've got something to do to keep your hands occupied did Jane enjoy these tea drinking sessions some of them she did some of them she enjoyed because she liked the people but there were certainly some events that she found desperately difficult in terms of being really really boring I loved the time when she says nothing much is happening so the entertainment is a reading from a pamphlet about small pulse yeah that kind of thing can happen it I think smallpox tells you it was a really slow evening this subtext to all this social life is husband hunting isn't it how did that go for Jane what sort of a catch was she not a great catch actually she wouldn't have had a huge amount of money to bring with her she's a vicar's daughter she's not superbly beautiful she does have a G Soh where's a sense of humor oh she does have that but that's actually double-edged because having a witty woman who could sort of take the make out of out of the man isn't necessarily going to win you a lot of a lot of plaudits with some man for sure it'd look good come off [Music] Jane may not have been to the liking of the bath bachelors but while she was living here she did receive a proposal from a highly eligible country gentleman in 1802 Jane and Cassandra visited some old friends Catherine and a la fere big back in Hampshire they were joined by the bigs younger brother 21 year old Harris big wither [Music] Harris big wither proposed to Jane and she accepted him she must have been relieved she was nearly 27 getting on a bit and while Harris wasn't a looker he was very respectable and he was going to inherit many down Park long since demolished but the next morning having fought it over Jane broke it all off it must have been excruciating Lee awkward she had to flee from any damn Park in embarrassment it was probably for the best Harris didn't have much conversation he could sometimes be outrageously rude and Jane clearly didn't love him and I believe there was another reason Jane was feeling confident enough to turn down the mansion and the cushy lifestyle she thought that she was soon going to become a published author and she knew that if she got married she'd have to give birth to babies not books sure enough in 1803 James sold the manuscript of her novel Susan to a publisher for 10 whole pounds this book would eventually become noir fanger Abbey and it's all about bath Society it's young heroin catherine arrives here with eager delight ready for the pleasures of the public dances and the pomp rooms it seemed that jane had finally made it as an author except it all came to nothing the novel wasn't printed in her lifetime and Jane had lost her chance at independence single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony it was the start of a difficult time the Austen's were going down in the world [Music] when the lease expired on Sydney place they were forced to take a house in Green Park buildings even though they previously ruled it out then in 1805 Jane's father became seriously ill with a fever and he died when the Austen's had first been house hunting in bath they'd rejected Green Park buildings because although the houses were cheap they were damp you can see that they've been built up on a platform because the river used to flood just here the people in the houses complained about putrid fevers now when you get a lot of water standing around you get mosquitos and mr. Austin's waves of fever are consistent with the disease of malaria it could be the Green Park buildings killed him whatever the cause his death was a disaster Jane and her mother and sister now found themselves in reduced circumstances reliant on the charity of Jane's brothers they moved again to gay Street and then finally to the dreaded trimmed streets in trim Street there weren't any titled neighbors just at milliner's and a fire insurance office Jane's mother was really fed up with living here she addressed her letters from trim Street still in persuasion Jane's heroin and Elliot persists in a very determined they very silent disinclination for bath you could certainly go off a place the truth was that the Austen's couldn't afford to stay there in 1806 after five years in bath Jane was packed off again this time to a rented house indistinctly down Market Southampton Jane's brother Frank was in the Navy he moved his mother and sisters in with his young wife while he was away at sea Southampton was the lowest point in Jane's fortunes it was described by one contemporary visitor as a dirty town with unsurpassable smelly side streets southampton has changed quite a lot since james time but she would still recognize the ancient stone ramparts all this used to be the sea it came right up against the old city walls you can see dolphins from this spot it's now dry land and a ginormous building site james house has gone too but luckily a contemporary artist included it in his painting this is james house right next door to this rather eccentric castle that had recently been embellished with extra turrets i think that the austin ladies chose this house because it had a lovely garden they were missing greenery and you can see the gardens trees poking up over the old city walls and - despite the size it soon got full up there was jane her sister their mother their friend Martha their sister-in-law Mary had in three or four servants and you have a household of eight or nine women it was cramped [Music] the castles been replaced by a tower block and Janes garden by a pub I'm for a pint Jane had to spend her money very carefully because it was all gifted to her earning money was inappropriate for a gentlewoman Jane's actual accounts from 1807 survived her mother and brother covered food and rent but everything else was down to her this is Jane's discretionary expenditure and she's feeling very flush because she's just received a legacy from a little old lady that she met and got to know in bath this is payback time all of that hard socializing so what she spent his on on getting her clothes washed on letters and parcels that's very characteristic and there are treats here too because she's feeling rich she's hired a piano for two pounds and she gives away a quarter of her money in tips to servants in charity and in presence someone else had given her this money now she was giving it to people who were even more in need it's a very feminine form of economics and it's a very precarious way of living Jane had no income except from family and friends she didn't have time or space to write stuck in Southampton in her mid-thirties she had no prospects at all but then Along Came another chance to move Jane's brother Edward the rich adopted one who lived in Kent also had a little bolt hole in Hampshire chorten house a glorious Elizabethan Manor when Edwards wife died his forts turned to his home County and to his mother and sisters why not move them all back to be near him so in 1809 Jane found herself heading again for a prime property but Edward wasn't quite as generous as he might have been Jane wasn't moving here but to the former bailiffs house down the street shorten cottage was on a main road in fact passing stagecoach passengers could see right in through the windows [Music] but at least it was an end to all the uncertainty and here Jane settled down into a daily routine we're told that she got up early to play the piano and before anyone else was around then at nine o'clock she made the tea this seems to have been about the limit of her household duties it's as if the rest of them realized she was no good at housework and shielded her from it so that she could get on with her writing Jane now worked hard rewriting the novel's she'd started years earlier at Steventon and in 1811 she finally had a book published Sense and Sensibility is the story of sisters who were forced to leave their spacious home and moved to a modest cottage in the country mahmud dark narrow stairs in a kitchen that smokes the book made Jane a respectable 140 pounds enough to cover her expenses for three years she sold the rights to Pride and Prejudice for a similar amount but when it came out in 1813 it was a huge bestseller it made Jane's publisher more than three times what he'd paid her James still lived frugally a Chilton cottage with her sister mother and friend Martha this is a collection of recipes put together by the Austen ladies with their friend Martha Lloyd they're not very ambitious in their cooking plans the first recipe is for pea soup and they're thrifty if you turn to the back of the book we've got recipes for household products here's one for a cure for a swelled neck and here's one that seems particularly appropriate a recipe to make in I can have a go of that one but possibly not one I'm holding a priceless historical artifact first you take gules these are little nodules that are produced when an insect lays its egg in an oak tree next comes out the gum this is gum arabic and my gun has been pre powdered next comes the green copper ass this stuff is basically iron sulfate next you put in the strong stale beer now there's no real chemical reason for the beer but I think it's really in the recipe to make ink making more fun you add some sugar and stir then you stand the ink in a chimney corner for 14 days and you shake it two or three times a day hmm 14 days unfortunately I don't think we have one that we made earlier [Music] amazingly that does look like real ink the original recipe makes two points of ink J needed plenty of it she wrote a brand new novel Mansfield Park her books were bringing her freedom and confidence the Nitty Gritty of publishing often took Jane to London where she stayed with her brother Henry who was now a banker Henry had been working his way up the London property ladder and by 1814 he owned a fancy bachelor pad in hands place Knightsbridge now replaced by mansion flats [Music] you might not think of London as Jane Austen land but I reckon that this was the place that suited her best of all Henry's house had a lovely garden right next to his study it was August and when Jane got hot and tired of writing she who come out here for a restorative stroll Henry was out all day at his bank he was now a widower he only had one maid there was nobody to bother Jane here lust was a life free from social obligations and here she got on with what I think is her most brilliant book Emma this new heroine was rich and confident but she wasn't a woman of the world although Emma lives sixteen miles from London she never actually goes there Jane was more intrepid for this latest novel Jane's brother Henry had found her a more prestigious publisher John Murray but then Henry fell ill and Jane was forced for the first time to start dealing with her business herself this is John Murray's office and home at 50 Albemarle Street this was a place where Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott would come I can imagine James sitting impatiently in this waiting room before being sent upstairs to John Murray's famous drawing-room Murray had offered to publish Emma but he wanted the copyright of both Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility thrown into gene for that Murray was offering her a bad deal she decided to seize control of her affairs at last [Music] so Jane started to negotiate first by letter then in visits to this office it was hard work she wrote that John Murray was a rogue if a very civil one and he offered her 450 pounds now Jane had been stung before by this selling the copyright thing that's how she published Pride and Prejudice and when it sold much better than expected it meant that the publisher kept all their cash so she refused that instead she went for what we'd call self publishing where she ran the risk but will get the reward - ten percent commission to Mary now the really heartbreaking thing is that this was a terrible business decision of James none of her later books would sell as well as Pride and Prejudice and by the time she died she'd actually only earned just over six hundred and fifty pounds from all her books but for a few years during her visits to London Jayne glimpsed a different life the life of a successful novelist shopping visiting exhibitions and plays and travelling in her brother's carriage [Music] the driving about the carriage being opened was very pleasant I liked my solitary elegance very much and was ready to laugh all the time at my being where I was I could not but feel that I had naturally small right to be parading around London in a barouche [Music] Jane was no longer dependent to be passed about from one place to another like a parcel she was an offer she could go where she liked [Music] it didn't last less than a year after Emma was published Jane was back at Chilton cottage and seriously ill she was suffering from aches and pains from fevers and bilious attacks one of her nieces remembers visiting on Jane and being shocked to find her up here in her bedroom wearing a dressing-gown and sitting in a chair just like an invalid things were looking bad for Jane and she was only 41 on the 24th of May 1817 Jane and Cassandra made the 60-mile journey to Winchester in their brother James's carriage they came to be near a doctor Jane's last chance for a cure but she'd already made her will for two months College Street was their home these rented rooms in the city center were just the sort of place that genteel old maids ended up [Music] my attendant is encouraging and talks of making you quite well I live chiefly on the sofa but I'm allowed to walk from one room to the other I've been out once in the sedan chair and I'm to repeat it to be promoted to a wheelchair as the weather serves the upside was that Jane was living here with the family that she's selected for herself spinsters looking out for each other she got this house because of her two good friends who live just around the corner and as jane got sicker and sicker she was looked after here by her sister and her sister-in-law Jane spent the very last hours of her life with her head in her sister Cassandra's lap and then very early in the morning at the 18th of July 1817 she slipped away in that room just up there six days later Jane's body was born along College Street Cassandra wrote I watched the little mournful procession the length of the street and when it turned from my sight I had lost her forever walking alongside the coffin were free of chains brothers and a nephew the only mourners [Music] Jane was brought here to Winchester Cathedral and placed in a vault on the north aisle it was a prime location at last a black marble gravestone was laid over her [Music] the inscription mentions the benevolence of her heart the sweetness of her temper and the extraordinary endowments of her mind that's as close as it gets to mentioning her novels when Jane died she was just a youngish unknown frail woman her name wasn't even printed in her books all this would change a few years later one of the Verge's of the Cathedral was heard asking who is this Jane Austen woman that everybody's talking about and now her fame almost eclipses that of the Cathedral today Winchester Cathedral is perhaps best known as Jane's final home [Music] [Music]

Channel: Perspective

Views: 70,117

Keywords: Authors' homes, Behind Jane Austen, Classic literature, England, English heritage, Georgian era, Historical homes, Historical sites England, Jane Austen biography, Literary Arts Documentary, Literary heritage, Literary journeys, Literary landmarks, Literary travel, Literature houses, Period drama, Perspective, Romantic novels, Storytelling tradition, Women writers

Id: qiiyyKqQbII

Length: 58min 27sec (3507 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2020