Happy Birthday Jane Austen! An Overview

Jane Austen

 16 December 2025 is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth. 

This has been a year of wonders for Austen fans, with lots of exhibitions dedicated to her life and work. The BBC iplayer is replete with several adaptations of her novels, so we have been really spoilt for choice.  

Here I will do a very brief recap of her life, and then explore some of my own personal Austen highlights of this year. 

Jane was born at Steventon Rectory, Hampshire, on 16 December 1775.  She was the second daughter of clergyman George Austen and Cassandra Leigh - a respectable middle-class family.  

When Jane Austen was a young girl, she wrote short plays and stories, greatly encouraged by her family. Between 1795 and 1799 Jane wrote early versions of three novels: First Impressions, Elinor and Marianne and Susan (later revised and published as Pride & Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey).

But in 1800 Jane fainted away when told the news the family was moving to Bath for George’s retirement. Their Bath stay was not one of Jane’s most creative periods - a new novel, The Watsons, was never completed. 

Jane Austen's Pelisse Coat.

Jane’s love life is still a source of mystery. A nameless suitor she met during a trip to Sidmouth in 1801 died suddenly. The following year, Jane accepted a proposal of marriage from a family friend but broke it off next day. 

Letter from Jane Austen to brother Frank on their father's death. 

George Austen’s death in 1805 left Jane, her mother and sister Cassandra with little ready money. 

After four years with no permanent address, Jane’s life changed for the better when her brother Edward Austen-Knight offered Chawton Cottage in Hampshire to his mother and sisters as a home.  

Jane began writing steadily again. Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride & Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816), were published during her lifetime.  

Her books were published anonymously, but her brother Henry was incapable of keeping a secret and her identity soon leaked out. After a long illness, Austen died on 18 July 1817, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral.  Her novels Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published together posthumously the following year, along with a Biographical Notice of the Author by her brother Henry.  

Chawton Cottage - Jane Austen's House.

I was very privileged to visit several Austen exhibitions this year. In June, I was excited to see Jane's pelisse-coat on display at Winchester City Museum – I had previously seen a copy, but never the original. That same week, we visited the house in College Street where Jane spent the last few weeks of her life. Of course, while in Hampshire, I took the opportunity to visit Chawton Cottage and Chawton House once more. I always love to visit Jane's writing desk at the Cottage, and the  Great House had a new exhibition, Sisters of the Pen. 

In September, we visited Harewood House to see its exhibition on Austen and Turner. And a few days later, I visited No 1 Royal Crescent in Bath, which also had an Austen exhibition to celebrate her bicentenary. Finally, I explored Bath Abbey's exhibition on Austens and the Abbey. 

And to round off the year, we have news of a new Jane Austen spin-off to air next year – The Other Bennet Sister. 

I feel very lucky that I have been able to see so many of these wonderful exhibitions this year. 

What an impact Jane's work has had, and continues to have, on writers' imaginations. 

All photos are my own. Image of Jane Austen from my own collection.

The letter from Jane Austen to Frank about their father's death (image above), dated 22 January 1805, was on display at No 1 Royal Crescent's exhibition, and was on loan from the British Library. 

Jane Austen's 250th Birthday - More Updates

Here's a couple more events to add to your Jane Austen bicentenary calendar! Harewood House (Leeds) will host a new exhibition, 'Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter', running from 2 May to 19 October 2025. 

Exhibits will include Jane's unfinished novel, Sanditon, plus a first edition of Sense and Sensibility, J M W Turner's paintbox, and landscapes by Turner. 

A new exhibition of artwork by Jane's sister Cassandra will open at Jane Austen's House Museum on 29 April. It runs until 8 June, and is free with your house entry ticket. 

Illustration: Opera dress, April 1816, Ackermann's Repository. Author's collection. 

Jane Austen's 250th Birthday - More Updates

Next week (16 December) will be Jane's Austen's 249th birthday, and I have some more updates regarding her 250th birthday next year. The Jane Austen Centre website has a list of 2025 events, including some in America and even one in Australia! It just shows that Austen and her works continue to be a global phenomenon. 

The Jane Austen Society is asking Janeites from all over the world to record a 2-minute tribute: 'What Jane Austen means to me'. You can find details on how to contribute here. You can begin uploading your contributions from 16 December this year - the final submission date is 15 December 2025. What a wonderful way to celebrate Jane's work!

Last week, Jane Austen's House Museum presented a mini-documentary, Jane Austen and the Art of Writing', discussing Jane's unfinished novel, The Watsons. You can watch the film here on YouTube. 

2025 is going to be absolutely epic for Jane Austen fans!

Image from the author's collection: December Fashions for 1803, Lady's Monthly Museum. 

Jane Austen 250th birthday - update

 

Here's an exciting update for you! Jane Austen's House Museum is hosting a special Pride and Prejudice festival during the last week of January 2025. 

'Jane Austen and the Art of Writing', a new exhibition, is on now, and on 22 January a new exhibition, 'Austenmania', will look at the TV adaptations of Jane's works. 

The Hampshire Cultural Trust is also planning some events around the county for next year. 

Image from the author's collection: Evening dresses for November 1803, Lady's Monthly Museum. 

Jane Austen's 250th Birthday

 Jane Austen fans are already looking forward to a very special anniversary! 16 December 2025 will be the 250th anniversary of Jane's birth. It may seem a long way off, but events and exhibitions are already being planned. 

I will be posting updates on this blog whenever I hear of anything new, but in the meantime, you can sign up to a special newsletter here on the Jane Austen's House Museum website.

Some Southampton events are now on the Visit Hampshire website. Her burial place, Winchester Cathedral, will be holding a special service in memory of our favourite author, and is also planning to unveil a new statue of Jane. 

And of course, a reminder that you can find out more about Jane Austen's life and times in my book!

Cautionary Tales

 

My latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World discusses 'Cautionary Tales' for children. When Jane was a little girl, many moralistic tales were available to help set children's feet on the right path in life. 

Stories  like these were parodied in some of Jane Austen's juvenilia, such as Love and Freindship.

One of Jane's favourite stories was the History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. Anne Fisher's Pleasing Instructor or entertaining moralist (c.1756) was another extremely popular work. 

Children’s literature was an area of publishing where women authors like Mary Wollstonecraft, Mrs Barbauld, and Mme de Genlis increasingly gained acceptance. 

In Emma, the eponymous heroine says that Mrs Weston’s new little girl will be “educated on a more perfect plan” like Adelaide in de Genlis’ story Adelaide and Theodore. 

Of course, Austen's mature fiction, like Mansfield Park, also includes some cautionary tales for her readers.

Image:

Title Page of Anne Fisher, The Pleasing Instructor or Entertaining Moralist, T. Fisher, c.1780. Author’s collection.

New Audio-book!

 I'm thrilled to announce that A Visitor's Guide to Jane Austen's England will be released as an audio-book on 6 April! The book is narrated by Christine Rendel, and you can listen to an MP3 sample of the book here on Tantor Media. 

The audio-book is also available to pre-order here on Amazon. If you purchase the Kindle version of the book, then you can buy the audio-book at a specially reduced price - or you can get a free copy of the audio-book with an Amazon Audible trial. 

I do hope you enjoy listening to - and reading - my book!

Illustration (right). Evening dress, Ackermann's Repository, March 1816. Author's collection. 

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A Visit to Lyme Regis

The Cobb, Lyme Regis. 

'The young people were all wild to see Lyme...the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the stranger's eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better', (Persuasion).



In Jane Austen's day, the most respectable houses were in the upper part of town. 'To be a person of consideration in Lyme, it is necessary to toil up hill, and to fix one's abode where it is in danger of being assailed by every wind that blows', (John Feltham, A Guide to all the Watering and Sea-bathing Places for 1813, London, 1813). The houses in the lower part of town were rather 'mean', with 'intricate' streets.

View from the Cobb. 

The Golden Lion and Three Cups were the most respectable inns, and lodgings could be procured there 'on easy terms'. Lyme also boasted a 'small Assembly-Room, Card-Room, and Billiard-table' under one roof, and several bathing-machines. The beach was considered too pebbly for pleasant walking. Feltham was also rather sniffy about Lyme's libraries, which were 'neither copious nor select' and the book collections were 'principally composed of novels'.

The Cobb was Lyme's 'harbour of a most singular construction...where ships ride in perfect safety'. And of course Anne Elliot, Captain Wentworth and the Musgrove girls enjoyed walking along it - except on the day of Louisa Musgrove's accident: 'There was too much wind to make the high part of the new Cobb pleasant for the ladies, and they agreed to get down the steps to the lower, and all were contented to pass quietly and carefully down the steep flight, excepting Louisa; she must be jumped down them by Captain Wentworth'.

But which steps did Louisa fall from? For my money, these horribly gappy ones (left) look like the obvious candidate.















However, there are some very ancient-looking ones (right) near the end of the Cobb which could also be the steps which Jane Austen meant (and which look easier to jump a young lady down from).

Harville Cottage, Lyme Regis. 

There are some nice Regency-era houses on Marine Parade, but they were probably built after Jane Austen's visits in 1803 and 1804.

More On The Way!

A Visitor's Guide to Jane Austen's England has now sold out! But the good news is that it will be re-released at the end of November. You can pre-order here from Pen and Sword, or in the meantime, order one of the last few print copies here at Amazon, or order a Kindle copy.

A Visit To Parkgate

Parkgate today - it was once a thriving port.

Parkgate, in Cheshire, no longer has direct access to the sea for shipping because the River Dee estuary has silted up. But it was formerly a point of departure for passengers to Ireland (like John Wesley). The port was used by the Royal Yachts, which sailed on the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland’s official business.

Parkgate’s chief claim to fame was as a fashionable bathing-place. The neat, modern brick buildings of the town were arranged along one side of the banks of the Dee, which inspired the old Cheshire saying ‘all on one side, like Parkgate.’

The Old Watch House used by the customs officers.

Although it was double the distance by sea from Parkgate to Dublin than the alternative route via Holyhead, the port was a popular terminus because of its good coach links with Chester. Emma Hart (later to become famous as Nelson’s lover, Lady Hamilton) stayed here on holiday in 1784.
Passengers for Dublin caught a ‘new and elegant coach,’ the Mercury, which left the White Lion Inn, Chester for Parkgate every morning at eight, except for Mondays; it returned the same evening.

Dover Cottage, where Emma Hart (Lady Hamilton) stayed. 

The reputation of Parkgate and Neston as tourist hotspots was greatly enhanced by ‘the extensive and brilliant patronage shewn to the Parkgate packets, which, from the regularity of their sailing, the excellence of their accommodations, and every other advantage, seem to have a decided ascendancy over all others; and in consequence, Parkgate is become the resort of elegance and fashion’.

Plaque dedicated to Emma Hamilton.

All photos copyright Sue Wilkes. 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Offering of the Magi, Gentleman's Magazine, 1824.

Lady's Monthly Museum, 1798.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers! I look forward to sharing more aspects of Jane Austen's world with you next year!
The illustration on the left shows full dress for December 1798 - a lovely gown for a Christmas ball!

Beside The Seaside

My latest feature for Family Tree magazine is on the history of the British seaside and its health benefits. When Jane Austen was a little girl in the late 1770s, very few of our ancestors had a bath in their home. During the eighteenth century sea-bathing was recommended for many types of ailments (the ‘sea-cure’).

The patronage of the royal family made sea-bathing very fashionable at places like Brighton, Sidmouth and Margate. Long-established watering-places like Bath, which was famous for its hot springs, fell out of fashion.

Fanny Burney.

People did not necessarily bathe on hot sunny days. In late November 1782, the novelist Fanny Burney (later Madame D’Arblay) went bathing at 6am at Brighton by moonlight : ‘We had bespoke the bathing-women to be ready for us, and into the ocean we plunged. It was cold, but pleasant'.

Fairlynch Museum.

As Austen joked in her unfinished novel Sanditon, great claims were made for the coast’s briny benefits: ‘Sea air and sea bathing together were nearly infallible, one or the other of them being a match for every disorder of the stomach, the lungs or the blood. They were anti- spasmodic, anti-pulmonary, anti-bilious and anti-rheumatic’.
Images:
A Regency belle on a donkey at Worthing – the donkey is refusing to come out of the sea. With a poem by Robert Bloomfield. I. Cruikshank, 1807. Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ds-03595.

Fanny Burney. Collotype after the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Dr Johnson’s Mrs Thrale, T.N. Foulis, 1910. Author’s collection.  

A cottage orné at Budleigh Salterton (now the Fairlynch Museum and Arts Centre). © Sue Wilkes.

Latest Reviews of A Visitor's Guide to Jane Austen's England

I have been very busy working on a new project for the last few weeks, so I've been rather out of the loop. So I was thrilled to bits when I discovered this review on the Shields Gazette website:
'Discover the grim reality of Jane Austen’s England
In fact, the smells and tastes would probably make us sick; go far enough back, and we wouldn’t even be able to understand our own language.
So while period dramas are seductive on the telly, in reality, returning to, say, the turn of the 19th century may mean that your false teeth could have been taken from a dead soldier, face powder turns your skin brown, or even black, and surgery is carried out without anaesthetic.
Given that I’ve just had a tooth out, a Regency-era remedy for toothache – using a hot wire driven into an aching tooth to kill the nerve – makes me wince.
You would, then, need something like A Visitor’s Guide to Jane Austen’s England, which chaperones you across the social, health etc minefields of what could feel, in effect, like a foreign country.
Not that it’s even the terrain of the working man. The world Austen moved in bordered the middle/upper class, so there is the treatment of servants to consider, and how to keep up with fashion – “What wicked people dyers are” – dyeing a dress being one way of recycling your clothes.
A dance at a ball or an assembly hall is the best, approved way to meet the opposite sex. Once married, though, having separate rooms may be your only form of contraception. Jane Austen’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth, had 10 children before the age of 35, when she died in childbirth.
It all makes for an entertaining read and is charmingly illustrated with contemporary images, including the work of hilarious caricaturist Gillray'.
There's also another lovely review here on the Heritage Traveller website.

Happy Birthday Jane Austen!

Jane Austen was born on a snowy winter’s night at Steventon Rectory at Hampshire, on 16 December 1775. She was the daughter of clergyman George Austen and Cassandra Leigh, who had eight children: James, George, Edward, Henry, Francis (Frank), Cassandra, Jane and Charles.

The rectory at Steventon had a front door which opened into a small parlour, where Mrs Austen sat busily making and mending clothes. A dining or common sitting-room was at the front of the house, and George Austen had a study overlooking the garden. 

Steventon Parsonage.

Jane was very happy living at Steventon. She had the run of her father’s extensive library (over 500 volumes), and her family encouraged her to write - Austen’s juvenilia and early satirical works are full of fun. Early versions of her novels Sense & Sensibility (Elinor and Marianne), Pride and Prejudice (First Impressions), and Northanger Abbey (Susan) were all written at Steventon. 

Jane shared a bedroom with her sister Cassandra upstairs, where there was another small sitting-room or ‘dressing-room’ which, Jane’s niece Anna Lefroy recalled, ‘opened into a smaller chamber in which my two aunts slept. I remember the common-looking carpet with its chocolate ground, and painted press with shelves above for books, and Jane’s piano, and an oval looking-glass that hung between the windows; but the charm of the room with its scanty furniture and cheaply painted walls must have been... the flow of native wit, with all the fun and nonsense of a large and clever family’ (W. & R.A. Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters, Smith, Elder & Co., 1913). 

Hyde Park

In Jane Austen’s day, at about five o’clock in the afternoon, in London people of fashion loved to promenade in the public parks such as Hyde Park. In June 1806 ladies paraded with ‘hats and tiaras of white satin and various coloured silks’, and ‘turbans, bonnets and straw hats...‘tastefully ornamented’ with roses, lilac and hyacinths, according to La Belle Assemblée. Kensington Gardens were popular, too, but St James’s Park was no longer fashionable.

The very ‘best’ society like the Prince Regent and his friends drove their carriages there. Captain Gronow (1794–1865 recalled that after the Peninsular War, many ladies were seen driving in Hyde Park ‘in a carriage called a vis-à-vis, which held two persons. The hammer-cloth, rich inheraldic designs, the powdered footmen in smart liveries, and a coachman who assumed all the gaiety and appearance of a wigged archbishop, were indispensable’. 
The crowds headed home again about three o’clock.

Off To Gretna Green!

A Clandestine Interview.

This week I've written a guest post for the British Newspaper Archive blog on a true-life thrilling 19th century elopement - that of Mr Giles, a penniless comedian, and Augusta Nicholson, a rich heiress. Elopements were standard newspaper fodder in Jane Austen's day. In Scotland, it was legal for people as young as sixteen to marry without their parents' consent. The village of Gretna Green, just over the Scottish border, was easily accessible and it was famous for runaway marriages. In Pride and Prejudice, George Wickham famously runs off with flighty Lydia Bennet after an earlier unsuccessful attempt to elope with Mr Darcy's sister

News reaches Longbourn that Lydia and Wickham have been found.

Georgiana. When Lydia first disappears with Wickham, she leaves a note to say that they are going to Gretna Green. The Bennet family are upset but philosophical about Lydia’s ‘imprudent’ marriage, but when news reaches them that the runaways have not gone to Gretna, her parents ‘believe the worst'. Darcy proves that he really loves Elizabeth Bennet when he goes to London to ensure that her sister Lydia marries Wickham.

Illustrations by Hugh Thomson.

Vauxhall Gardens

Tom and Jerry visit Vauxhall Gardens.

Vauxhall Gardens, on the banks of the River Thames about a mile and a half from the centre of London, were still hugely popular in Jane Austen’s day. A visitor in 1810 paid 3s 6d for admission; the gardens opened on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and thousands of people gathered there in the evenings. American Benjamin Silliman was enchanted when he visited Vauxhall and explored its

Chinese Pavilion, Vauxhall.

illuminated groves. He found a scene ‘splendid beyond description…exceeding all that poets have told of fairy lands and Elysian fields…a flood of brightness was poured out from ten thousand lamps, whose flames were tinged with every hue of light’.

The evening’s main concert began at 8 p.m., followed by a waterworks display and cascade. After more music, a bell announced the start of a firework display. The orchestra was in the form of a Grecian temple and was lit by 4,000 lamps.

Views of Vauxhall.

Visitors ended their evening with a cold collation in one of the alcoves or ‘boxes’. Vauxhall’s ham slices were famously meagre, as Silliman discovered: ‘the ham was shaved so thin, that it served rather to excite than to allay the appetite’. (A Journal of Travels in England, Holland and Scotland… in the Years 1805 and 1806, Boston, 1812).

Jane Austen doesn’t seem to have visited the gardens, but she does mention them in her juvenilia (Lesley Castle).

All images from the author's collection.