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August 1806. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
Jane Austen found herself squeezed alongside her mother, | 0:00:08 | 0:00:12 | |
her sister and a lawyer, rushing into Warwickshire in her cousin's carriage. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:17 | |
It's like a scene from one of Jane's own stories. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
She was full of expectation, | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
about to play her part in a real-life Austen family drama. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:29 | |
Jane's destination was the ancestral home of the Leigh family. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:35 | |
It was Stoneleigh Abbey. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
It's a story about money and inheritance and marriage - | 0:00:40 | 0:00:45 | |
the very things at the core of Jane's novels. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:49 | |
The honourable Mary Leigh, reclusive mistress of the house, | 0:00:49 | 0:00:54 | |
had just died, unmarried and childless. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
Who was going to get the house and the cash? | 0:00:57 | 0:01:01 | |
Jane's elderly cousin, | 0:01:01 | 0:01:02 | |
one of the possible heirs, rushed over to stake his claim, | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
bringing the Austens along for support. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:09 | |
When Jane arrived here, she was 30 years old. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
She was unmarried and unpublished, despite her best efforts. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:17 | |
And she was homeless. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:19 | |
She'd just been forced out of the city of Bath through lack of funds. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:23 | |
She was really hoping that some of the riches of this place would come | 0:01:23 | 0:01:27 | |
in her direction. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:28 | |
She needed an inheritance. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:31 | |
But for Jane, the aspiring novelist, | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
Stoneleigh Abbey also promised bounty of another sort - | 0:01:35 | 0:01:39 | |
inspiration. Fragments of the Abbey made their way into her books. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:45 | |
In Pride And Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet is shown around Pemberley by | 0:01:45 | 0:01:49 | |
the housekeeper, just as Jane was shown around Stoneleigh. | 0:01:49 | 0:01:53 | |
And Mansfield Park gained Stoneleigh Abbey's chapel. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:58 | |
"The profusion of mahogany and the crimson velvet cushions appearing | 0:01:58 | 0:02:02 | |
"over the ledge of the family gallery above." | 0:02:02 | 0:02:06 | |
In the end, Jane went away without an inheritance, | 0:02:06 | 0:02:10 | |
but Stoneleigh Abbey left its legacy in her work. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
Jane Austen's novels revolve around homes lost and mansions gained, | 0:02:23 | 0:02:28 | |
the threat of poverty and the promise of wealth. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
And Jane's own life gave her a unique insight. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:37 | |
In her 41 years, she stayed in many houses. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:41 | |
At times, she was tantalisingly close to riches. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:45 | |
At others, a step from destitution. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
I'm going to follow where Jane stayed. | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
I'll visit the scenes of her romantic adventures and see where | 0:02:52 | 0:02:56 | |
she struggled with her social obligations. | 0:02:56 | 0:03:00 | |
This is the parlour with drawing room where the women would come after dinner. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:04 | |
I'll try out some home economics, Austen style... | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
Amazingly, that does look like real ink. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
..and explore the houses where she flourished as a writer. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:16 | |
I think that knowing where Jane lived can tell us who Jane really was. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:23 | |
I'm travelling to where it all began for Jane - Hampshire. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:44 | |
In 18th-century England, | 0:03:46 | 0:03:48 | |
your prospects for wealth and security were typically set from the moment | 0:03:48 | 0:03:54 | |
of your birth. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:55 | |
But Jane Austen wasn't raised in a typical home. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
Jane spent 25 years, | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
more than half of her life, living in the house where she was born. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:10 | |
Let's go and see what's left of it. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
Jane grew up in the sleepy village of Steventon, | 0:04:17 | 0:04:21 | |
where her father was rector of the local church. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
She was born in 1775, in the reign of George III. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:31 | |
The Austens were a bit unusual in that Jane's father was considered to | 0:04:34 | 0:04:38 | |
be a gentleman | 0:04:38 | 0:04:40 | |
but the family still struggled on a limited income. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
The Steventon that Jane knew has almost vanished. | 0:04:51 | 0:04:54 | |
Its cottages were demolished in the 19th century. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
Jane's home, the rectory she shared with her parents, | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
sister and six brothers has gone, too. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
But luckily for me, | 0:05:11 | 0:05:12 | |
archaeologist Debbie Charlton has been investigating the site and | 0:05:12 | 0:05:17 | |
building up a picture of Jane's first home. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
So, Debbie, | 0:05:21 | 0:05:22 | |
let's pace out the plan of the rectory and find out roughly where it was. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
Right, so we're at the front, which was north-facing. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:31 | |
So if you were to stay about there... | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
-This is the corner of the building? -In the west. -It goes off like that? | 0:05:34 | 0:05:37 | |
-Yes. -OK, and how far that way does it go? | 0:05:37 | 0:05:40 | |
I'll just try and walk over there. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:42 | |
Hey! So that's the other corner? | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
-That is, yes. -Where's the front door? Is it in the middle? | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
-It's in the middle. -Meet you there. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:54 | |
OK, then. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:55 | |
-Is this it? -This is it. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:02 | |
Let me open it up. Is that right? | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
-Yes, indeed. -Let's step inside. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
-In we go. -Where are we now? | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
We've come into the lobby. It was a lobby-entry house. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:13 | |
What were the other rooms? | 0:06:13 | 0:06:14 | |
You had the front kitchen and then you had the back kitchen. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
The back kitchen's where all the work went on, all the cooking. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:20 | |
-What about over here? -Over here, you've got the main parlour, | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
so you'd have the dining parlour and then the sitting parlour. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
What about Mr Austen's study? | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
That was at the back, so he was looking out over the cucumber gardens. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:32 | |
-Yeah, out over the gardens there. -Is that cos he was hiding away? | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
Yeah, he was, he was hiding away from the rest of the household. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
Oh, OK, lots of kids. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
A lot of activity. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:41 | |
You need somewhere to go if you've got eight children. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
You did. I think it was a very busy house, a lot going on. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:47 | |
It may seem like a big house, but it was crowded. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
Jane's father supplemented his income by running a boys' boarding school, | 0:06:55 | 0:07:00 | |
so the rectory was also packed with his pupils. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
Mr Austen even had a third job as a farmer and the family kept cows, | 0:07:04 | 0:07:09 | |
ducks and chickens. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
Debbie, I imagine a lot of people would think of Jane Austen growing up in | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
some lovely country house situation, but that's not right, is it? | 0:07:15 | 0:07:18 | |
No, no, I think she was definitely doing a bit of work on the farm. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:23 | |
There is an instance where she's overjoyed that the new dairy maids | 0:07:23 | 0:07:27 | |
arrived, which gives you the impression she was probably having to do it. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:31 | |
-Until that point? -Yeah. -Ah! | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
Tell me about some of these little finds that you've excavated. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
Right, so obviously, when you're doing an excavation, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
-a lot of it is the rubbish - what's been discarded or broken. -Yes. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
So, we've built this back together, but it's a lovely little egg cup. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:48 | |
Look at that. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:49 | |
-It's beautiful. -So this is the Willow Pattern. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
-So it's blue and white transferware. -Yes. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:56 | |
They'd just come out, they'd just learnt to do the transfer print. | 0:07:56 | 0:08:00 | |
-Everybody who was anybody had to have transferware. -Yes. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:04 | |
They're from the perfect time, so about 1770. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
Now, Debbie, we don't have any evidence, do we, | 0:08:08 | 0:08:10 | |
that Jane Austen didn't eat an egg out of this egg cup? | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
We don't, no. So she may well have done. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
Jane Austen's egg cup! | 0:08:16 | 0:08:18 | |
It's pretty, but it's mass produced. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
The Austens may have aspired to the latest tableware, | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
but there wasn't that much money for luxuries. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
Jane's letters give a detailed account of everyday life at Steventon Rectory, | 0:08:32 | 0:08:37 | |
with its unfashionable mealtimes, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
but a wealth of intellectual sustenance. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
We dine now at half after three and have done dinner, I suppose, | 0:08:46 | 0:08:51 | |
before you begin. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
We drink tea at half after six. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:55 | |
I'm afraid you will despise us. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:58 | |
My father reads Cowper to us in the evenings, to which I listen, | 0:08:58 | 0:09:01 | |
when I can. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:02 | |
Reading was a big part of life at Steventon, and Jane had free access | 0:09:04 | 0:09:09 | |
to her father's library, which contained many works of fiction. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:13 | |
I think that this room set Jane on her path as a writer. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
The books here inspired her. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
From the age of 11, she wrote plays, satires, poems and novels. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:27 | |
But how could her talent thrive in such a crowded house? | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
Jane Austen's father realised that his daughter was becoming a serious writer. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:39 | |
So he marked this by getting her, as a 19th birthday present, | 0:09:39 | 0:09:43 | |
this expensive and beautiful mahogany writing desk. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:47 | |
It hinges open like this so you can write on the slope of it. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:52 | |
Now, for millions of Jane Austen lovers, this item is a holy relic | 0:09:53 | 0:09:59 | |
because, under this flap, she would have kept drafts of all of her novels. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:04 | |
Until the very end of her life, everywhere that Jane Austen went, | 0:10:04 | 0:10:09 | |
this box went, too. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:10 | |
Think of it as a tiny little office - | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
the only space in her crowded home that Jane had completely to herself. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:21 | |
But she didn't spend all of her time shut up in the rectory. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:27 | |
Jane was a keen walker. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
She had to be. For most of her life, | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
the Austen family couldn't afford a carriage. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
And she often travelled miles on foot, | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
visiting a network of friends in the villages around Steventon. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
Some of their houses still survive, like Ashe Rectory. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:48 | |
Here, Jane would call on her close friend Mrs Anne Lefroy. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:52 | |
Music was a big part of these women's social lives. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:02 | |
I'm meeting Professor Jeanice Brooks to learn about Jane Austen, | 0:11:02 | 0:11:07 | |
the piano player. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:08 | |
Was music something that girls did together? | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
Yeah, there's lots of evidence that young women | 0:11:13 | 0:11:18 | |
were communicating around and through music, | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
in the same way that we think about how teenagers today | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
communicate through music and by exchanging music, by swapping things round, by saying, | 0:11:25 | 0:11:30 | |
hey, listen to this, this is my favourite right now. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
It sounds like we don't know exactly how proficient she was, | 0:11:33 | 0:11:37 | |
but Jane Austen does strike me as somebody who really loves music. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:41 | |
-Would you agree? -Yes, yes. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
And I think it's important that, if you look at the novels, | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
in all of the novels, | 0:11:46 | 0:11:47 | |
intelligent conversation is always about music and books. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
It's not just books - it's music and books. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:54 | |
It's something that she sees as part of a kind of normal, | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
cultured education, something that people can talk about, | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
something that is important. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:03 | |
And she seems to, in later life, have played every day for herself. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:08 | |
It's a thread that weaves right through all of Jane's novels as well. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:14 | |
There are always characters who play in every single novel, | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
there are some very important scenes that happen while people are playing. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
With music came dancing, which Jane also loved. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:28 | |
Many of her plots centre around the excitement of encounters at balls, | 0:12:28 | 0:12:33 | |
and Jane felt that thrill herself. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:35 | |
Deane House, newly built at the time, | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
was the scene of one particularly eventful ball for Jane. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:44 | |
She came here on the night of January 8th, 1796. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:52 | |
She'd just turned 20. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
And I've got the chance to see inside the very room where Jane danced. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:59 | |
Now, this might not be the big and glamorous ballroom that you were expecting, | 0:13:03 | 0:13:08 | |
but it was possible to hold a ball in just an ordinary house. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:12 | |
You'd push back the furniture and invite around the neighbours for a dance. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
This meant that, when Jane went to balls, she wasn't always meeting | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
new people. There were a lot of familiar faces but, one night, | 0:13:20 | 0:13:25 | |
in this very room, she did meet somebody new. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
He was a young law student called Tom Lefroy. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:33 | |
He and Jane got on awfully well | 0:13:33 | 0:13:35 | |
and, pretty soon, they were flirting outrageously. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:38 | |
Tom was the nephew of Jane's friend Mrs Lefroy. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
Jane's letters to her sister, Cassandra, tell of encounters with Tom | 0:13:46 | 0:13:52 | |
over the course of a series of balls. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:54 | |
It all started so promisingly. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:56 | |
You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have, this moment, | 0:13:59 | 0:14:03 | |
received from you | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
that I'm almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way | 0:14:09 | 0:14:15 | |
of dancing and sitting down together. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:17 | |
After I'd written the above, we received a visit from Mr Tom Lefroy. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:28 | |
He has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove. | 0:14:28 | 0:14:34 | |
It is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:37 | |
I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening. | 0:14:44 | 0:14:49 | |
I shall refuse him, however. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:51 | |
Unless he promises to give away his white coat. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
But Tom's family didn't approve. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
Their serious young lawyer was having way too much fun with Jane. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:07 | |
At their final ball together, he didn't propose. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:11 | |
Sometimes, people at balls drank too much, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
even Jane Austen. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:18 | |
One time, she wrote about a hangover she had | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
and the shaking of her hands the morning after. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
And there would be a rude awakening from her romance with Tom Lefroy. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:30 | |
Tom was sent away from Hampshire. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
He had ten siblings - he needed to be able to support them, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
he needed to marry someone richer than Jane. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:40 | |
The harsh truth was that, in Jane's world, money usually came before love. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:49 | |
No wonder this became a central theme in her novels. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:54 | |
And I don't think it's a coincidence that this is the year when Jane | 0:15:57 | 0:16:01 | |
wrote her first draft of Pride And Prejudice. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:04 | |
In fiction, at least, | 0:16:07 | 0:16:08 | |
she could make sure that the poor but clever heroine won both the good man | 0:16:08 | 0:16:13 | |
and his impressive house and grounds. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
Poor Jane was dogged by worries about money and status, | 0:16:27 | 0:16:32 | |
even when she visited members of her own family. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:36 | |
I'm following Jane to Kent to her brother Edward's house, | 0:16:38 | 0:16:42 | |
where she sometimes stayed for months at a time. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:47 | |
Now, you might well wonder how Edward ended up with the vast Godmersham Park near Canterbury. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:53 | |
Well, quite simply, Jane's parents gave Edward away. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:57 | |
Adopted by the childless but wealthy Knight family, | 0:16:59 | 0:17:03 | |
Edward enjoyed an income of £15,000 a year. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:08 | |
Even Jane's fictional catch, Mr Darcy, only had 10! | 0:17:08 | 0:17:12 | |
Life at Godmersham gave Jane a window into a different world. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:19 | |
I think it had a huge effect on her. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
Now it's a college for opticians. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:30 | |
But you can still feel its grandeur. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
This might be the very room where Jane stayed when she was at Godmersham - | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
a whole room to herself. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
She liked staying here because of the luxury. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
She wrote that she was going to eat ice cream and drink French wine and | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
be above vulgar economy. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
But it's quite hard for her, as the poor relation. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:02 | |
She worried that she couldn't afford to tip the servants properly. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:06 | |
And Jane's relatives here at Godmersham were very different from her. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
They were hyper-social. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:12 | |
They were into their outdoor pursuits. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:14 | |
They thought Jane was clever, but a bit odd. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:18 | |
I think it's telling that she made one very close friend here who wasn't | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
a member of the family. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
It was the governess. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:24 | |
Jane just wasn't in the same league as her fortunate brother, | 0:18:28 | 0:18:32 | |
and even the visiting hairdresser seems to have noticed. | 0:18:32 | 0:18:35 | |
Mr Hall walked off this morning with no inconsiderable booty. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:45 | |
He charged Elizabeth five shillings for every time of dressing her hair. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:50 | |
Towards me, he was as considerate as I'd hoped for, | 0:18:51 | 0:18:55 | |
charging me only two shillings sixpence for cutting my hair. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
He certainly respects either our youth or our poverty. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
Jane was expected to earn her keep, | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
helping to entertain a growing brood of nieces and nephews. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:14 | |
One niece recalled spending entire days acting out plays with Aunt Jane. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:19 | |
Home theatricals were all the rage at the time. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:25 | |
And Professor Judith Hawley is helping me to put on a play that Jane wrote | 0:19:25 | 0:19:29 | |
herself as a child. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
Scene the first, a parlour. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
Cousin, your servant. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:45 | |
Stanly, good morning to you. I hope you slept well last night. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:52 | |
Er, remarkably well, I thank you. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
I'm afraid you found your bed too short. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
It was bought in my grandmother's time, | 0:19:57 | 0:19:59 | |
who was herself a very short woman | 0:19:59 | 0:20:01 | |
and made a point of suiting all her beds to suit her own length. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
Judith, if you lived in a lovely big house in the country like this, | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
it must be very nice, | 0:20:09 | 0:20:10 | |
but do you think perhaps it got boring and you just longed for | 0:20:10 | 0:20:14 | |
something to happen? | 0:20:14 | 0:20:15 | |
That's when you could put on a private theatrical, and then you | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
had the whole sense of an event to work towards, | 0:20:18 | 0:20:21 | |
and the whole household could be involved. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:23 | |
One of the pleasures would just have been that business of the bustle of | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
turning a house upside down, rolling back the carpets, | 0:20:26 | 0:20:29 | |
clearing out all the furniture, that sort of chaotic disruption. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
Do we know what plays Jane Austen wrote herself? | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
We've got three surviving manuscripts in her Juvenilia. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:39 | |
Her second play, which is my favourite, is called The Visit. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
What happens in The Visit? | 0:20:42 | 0:20:43 | |
In The Visit, there's a brother and sister who invite people to | 0:20:43 | 0:20:47 | |
their house, only nothing works according to plan. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:52 | |
They're very apologetic about it, | 0:20:52 | 0:20:53 | |
but there are only six chairs for eight people | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
because Grandmamma didn't really like having people round. | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
Sir Arthur and Lady Hampton, Miss Hampton, Mr and Miss Willoughby. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:04 | |
Ooh, that's a lot of people. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:06 | |
Here they all come. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:07 | |
Pray, pray be seated. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:12 | |
Bless me! There really ought to be eight chairs, but there are but six. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:18 | |
However, if your Ladyship will take Sir Arthur in your lap and, Sophy, | 0:21:18 | 0:21:25 | |
my brother in yours, then I believe that we shall do pretty well. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:30 | |
I beg you'll make no apologies. Um... | 0:21:30 | 0:21:33 | |
Ooh, Sophy! Oh, yes, please! | 0:21:35 | 0:21:38 | |
Your brother really is very light. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:40 | |
This is better than a chair. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:43 | |
Now, if you've read Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
you might think that she doesn't approve of theatricals | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
because they're a cover for flirtation and all sorts of inappropriate behaviour. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
Well, Fanny, who's sort of the centre of the moral consciousness of the novel, | 0:21:52 | 0:21:57 | |
certainly refuses to act - Fanny will not act - | 0:21:57 | 0:22:00 | |
but it's simply not the case that Jane Austen herself disapproved of | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
either play-reading or theatre-going or involving herself in private theatricals. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:10 | |
She's absorbing things from her life and transforming them in artistic ways. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:14 | |
In Mansfield Park, | 0:22:18 | 0:22:19 | |
the amateur theatricals help to expose the conflicts and jealousies | 0:22:19 | 0:22:24 | |
within a great house - | 0:22:24 | 0:22:26 | |
just the sort of thing that Jane might have witnessed at Godmersham. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:30 | |
I think that this was the house that had the biggest influence on Jane's writing. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:35 | |
Some of Jane's other travels were rather more relaxing. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:49 | |
As the 19th century dawned, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:55 | |
Jane's parents embraced the fashion for tourism. | 0:22:55 | 0:22:58 | |
They took Jane to Sidmouth, to Dawlish... | 0:22:59 | 0:23:02 | |
..and then to Lyme Regis. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:06 | |
Jane couldn't swim, | 0:23:11 | 0:23:12 | |
but she was dipped in the sea by a local woman called Molly. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:18 | |
She probably didn't bathe nude, whatever this picture might suggest. | 0:23:18 | 0:23:23 | |
But it is true that Lyme was a free and easy sort of a place. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:27 | |
This book is a guide to the sea-bathing places, | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
and it's pretty frank about the advantages of Lyme - | 0:23:32 | 0:23:36 | |
advantages that would have appealed to the Austens. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
The "lodgings at Lyme are not merely reasonable, they are even cheap." | 0:23:40 | 0:23:44 | |
It's a budget resort. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:46 | |
"There's no need to dress up in fancy clothes, | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
"no need for extravagance of exterior show." | 0:23:49 | 0:23:53 | |
The boarding houses in Lyme are graded. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
At the top of the hill, you've got pleasant houses with nice views | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
for "persons of consideration". | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
Down in the lower town, though, you'll find "the lower orders". | 0:24:02 | 0:24:07 | |
And I'm sorry to say that the Austens were right at the bottom of the hill | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
in Mr Pyne's house, just there. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:13 | |
Even on holiday, you had to know your place. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:22 | |
And you got what you paid for. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
The accommodation rented by the Austens was strictly no-frills. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
Jane wouldn't have given a very good review to the various lodging houses | 0:24:30 | 0:24:33 | |
of Lyme. Of one of them, she wrote, "The inconvenience is exceeded only | 0:24:33 | 0:24:38 | |
"by the dirtiness." | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
And she had a bit of a ding-dong with the owner of this place, | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
Mr Pyne, about the ludicrous sum he wanted to charge for something that got broken. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:49 | |
But Jane didn't care at all because she could look out of this window | 0:24:49 | 0:24:55 | |
and watch the sea. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:56 | |
Jane thought that travel to the seaside was very delightful - | 0:25:07 | 0:25:12 | |
a taste of the itinerant life she envied in the wives of sailors or soldiers. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:16 | |
And there was a wildness here. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:20 | |
Jane was most drawn to the sea wall called The Cobb. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:24 | |
She once spent a whole hour walking along it. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:27 | |
You're not allowed to walk up here when it's windy because the big waves | 0:25:30 | 0:25:34 | |
come jumping up over the edge. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:37 | |
And I think that, for Jane, | 0:25:37 | 0:25:39 | |
being at the seaside was all about cutting loose and letting go. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
She did have a holiday fling at the seaside, and her sister later said | 0:25:45 | 0:25:51 | |
that this mysterious man had been the love of Jane's life. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:55 | |
Jane saw the seaside as a place for passion, and Lyme became one of | 0:25:58 | 0:26:03 | |
her most memorable literary settings. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
In Jane's novel Persuasion, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:10 | |
the high winds drive some ladies to come down from the Upper Cobb to | 0:26:10 | 0:26:14 | |
walk on the lower part, but one of them, Louisa, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:18 | |
gets so excited by the wind and the waves that she wants to jump down to | 0:26:18 | 0:26:23 | |
the bottom and into the arms of a dashing sea captain. She slips, | 0:26:23 | 0:26:28 | |
she falls, she's lifeless on the ground. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:31 | |
In this case, the exhilaration of the seaside has led to danger. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:35 | |
Jane herself liked the idea of a leap into the unknown - | 0:26:37 | 0:26:42 | |
that's what holidays were for. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:44 | |
But a permanent move was quite another matter. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:48 | |
In 1801, aged 25, Jane had to leave her home in Steventon forever. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:56 | |
Her father decided to retire and relocate, taking his wife and daughters | 0:26:57 | 0:27:03 | |
with him to start a new life in Bath. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:06 | |
It's said that, when Jane first heard she was moving here, she fainted. | 0:27:19 | 0:27:24 | |
Bath was a flourishing spa town with an incredibly busy social scene. | 0:27:25 | 0:27:30 | |
It was probably the last place that Jane would find peace and quiet to write. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:37 | |
But she had no choice. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:40 | |
She decided it was best just to get on with the move. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
Jane and her mother threw themselves into house-hunting. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:48 | |
This was their headquarters - the house where Jane's aunt and uncle lived. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:52 | |
Jane's aunt wanted them to settle in this part of town, | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
but it was no good - it was too noisy, | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
there wasn't enough greenery and Mr Austen now had arthritis. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:03 | |
He walked with a stick and couldn't manage the steep hills. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:07 | |
Even more than in Lyme, where you lived in Bath reflected your status. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:14 | |
There was a thriving rental market catering to wealthy visitors. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:18 | |
I'm off to see some of the places that Jane considered. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:22 | |
There are an awful lot of them! | 0:28:22 | 0:28:24 | |
"I went with my mother to help look at some houses in New King Street, | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
"towards which she felt some kind of inclination. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
"They were smaller than I expected to find them." | 0:28:39 | 0:28:41 | |
Quite monstrously little. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:44 | |
Jane's mother kept setting her heart on the most unsuitable places. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:50 | |
"Above all others, her wishes are, at present, | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 | |
"fixed on the corner house in Chapel Row which opens into Princes Street. | 0:28:54 | 0:28:59 | |
"Her knowledge of it, however, is confined only to the outside." | 0:28:59 | 0:29:02 | |
The houses in Green Park Buildings were... | 0:29:05 | 0:29:08 | |
"So very desirable in size and situation..." | 0:29:08 | 0:29:11 | |
but they were also very damp. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:14 | |
The Austens looked at Charles Street, Seymour Street, | 0:29:14 | 0:29:18 | |
Westgate Buildings, | 0:29:18 | 0:29:19 | |
the streets off Laura Place - too expensive - | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
Gay Street - too steep. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:25 | |
At least Jane and her mother agreed on one place they absolutely would not live. | 0:29:25 | 0:29:30 | |
"She will do everything in her power to avoid Trim Street." | 0:29:30 | 0:29:34 | |
Eventually, the Austens decided on 4 Sydney Place. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:46 | |
Newly built and a flat walk from the centre, | 0:29:54 | 0:29:57 | |
it had the right sort of neighbours - | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
a baronet, a Major-General and a lady. | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
And it was just about affordable at £150 a year - | 0:30:03 | 0:30:08 | |
that's a quarter of Jane's father's income. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
These days, it's a holiday let, which means that I get to stay the night. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:16 | |
The Austens had rather longer - a three-year lease - to enjoy its comforts. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:22 | |
Up here are the bedrooms. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:26 | |
Mr and Mrs Austen had the lovely view over the park... | 0:30:26 | 0:30:30 | |
..while Jane and Cassandra shared the room at the back. | 0:30:33 | 0:30:37 | |
This fantastic and utterly ginormous document contains | 0:30:44 | 0:30:49 | |
the original deeds of 4 Sydney Place. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:53 | |
Here's a beautiful elevation showing exactly how the builder should | 0:30:53 | 0:30:57 | |
construct the house, and over here is the contract, which specifies that | 0:30:57 | 0:31:01 | |
he's got to put in street lighting and running water. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:05 | |
It's all terribly grand. | 0:31:05 | 0:31:07 | |
But sitting here, in Jane and Cassandra's bedroom, | 0:31:08 | 0:31:11 | |
what strikes me is that your experience of a Georgian house like this | 0:31:11 | 0:31:16 | |
really does depend on your position in society. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:19 | |
The girls are tucked away upstairs in the back bedroom and, out of their window, | 0:31:19 | 0:31:24 | |
what you can see today are the slightly rubbish backs of the houses behind. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:30 | |
In fact, this document doesn't specify what the back of Sydney Place was to | 0:31:31 | 0:31:36 | |
look like because nobody cared. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:39 | |
Bath was all about the first impression. | 0:31:39 | 0:31:42 | |
First impressions mattered because most people didn't stay in Bath for long. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:53 | |
The whole social scene was constantly changing. | 0:31:53 | 0:31:57 | |
Jane had to embark on a complex schedule of visits and engagements, | 0:31:57 | 0:32:02 | |
and there was always the hope that she might find a husband. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:04 | |
I'm paying a call, just as Jane would have done, to a rather grander house | 0:32:06 | 0:32:11 | |
than her own in the Royal Crescent. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:13 | |
Professor Elaine Chalus has left her card for me, so I'm now returning the visit. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:19 | |
-Good morning, Elaine. -Hi, Lucy. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:23 | |
Thank you for having me. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:24 | |
-You're very welcome. -I'm paying you a morning call. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:28 | |
What are the rules for that? | 0:32:28 | 0:32:29 | |
You will come in and you'll find me in my morning drawing room. | 0:32:29 | 0:32:32 | |
In this house, it happens to be on the ground floor, | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
but often it's upstairs. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:36 | |
If you're somebody that I don't know particularly well or you're paying me | 0:32:36 | 0:32:40 | |
a courtesy call, you may come in, stay 10-15 minutes, | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
maybe half an hour maximum, and go. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:46 | |
If you're somebody that's intimate with me and we're good friends, | 0:32:46 | 0:32:49 | |
we haven't seen each other for a while, we could then spend the rest of | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
the morning together, basically, gossiping and having chat over tea. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:56 | |
And what would you do if you didn't want to see me? | 0:32:56 | 0:32:59 | |
-You can keep me out, can't you? -Oh, yeah. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:00 | |
That's rather fun. You basically tell your servants that you're not in. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:05 | |
So, Elaine, the morning's over, what's next in the Bath schedule? | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
Once you've changed and you're ready to go out, then you'll go out and you'll maybe go | 0:33:08 | 0:33:12 | |
for your walk, | 0:33:12 | 0:33:13 | |
you might go shopping, | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
then you come home and you're going to change again, of course. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:18 | |
And you'll get ready for dinner. | 0:33:18 | 0:33:20 | |
And that wouldn't take place in this room, | 0:33:20 | 0:33:22 | |
that would actually take place on the other side, and it was really | 0:33:22 | 0:33:25 | |
important that you had a good dining room because a dining room is one | 0:33:25 | 0:33:30 | |
of the places where people get together over food and drink, | 0:33:30 | 0:33:35 | |
it's more intimate than the morning visits. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
That is a fantastic display, isn't it? | 0:33:38 | 0:33:40 | |
-It is. -Lovely dinner. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:42 | |
Yeah, and it's a wonderful place to show off your best china, | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
to show off the skills of your cook. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:49 | |
'After dinner, the guests moved upstairs for tea, where they were often | 0:33:49 | 0:33:53 | |
'joined by second-tier visitors - that's people like the Austens.' | 0:33:53 | 0:33:57 | |
This is the parlour withdrawing room where the women would come | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
after dinner, and things would be set out all ready for tea, as they are here. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:06 | |
You would find all kinds of things going on. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:08 | |
You would have some people reading and you could be, of course, playing | 0:34:08 | 0:34:11 | |
on whatever musical instruments were available. We've got a harpsichord here. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:14 | |
By the time of Austen, often, you would have had a piano, | 0:34:14 | 0:34:17 | |
there might have been a harp, | 0:34:17 | 0:34:18 | |
but these kinds of things so that you've got something to do to keep your hands occupied. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:23 | |
Did Jane enjoy these tea drinking sessions? | 0:34:23 | 0:34:26 | |
Some of them she did, | 0:34:26 | 0:34:27 | |
some of them she enjoyed because she liked the people, | 0:34:27 | 0:34:29 | |
but there were certainly some events that she found desperately difficult | 0:34:29 | 0:34:33 | |
in terms of being really, really boring. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:36 | |
I love the time when she says nothing much is happening, | 0:34:36 | 0:34:38 | |
so the entertainment is a reading from a pamphlet about smallpox. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:44 | |
Yeah, that kind of thing can happen. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:46 | |
I think smallpox tells you it was a really slow evening. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
The subtext to all this social life is husband-hunting, | 0:34:49 | 0:34:53 | |
isn't it? How did that go for Jane? | 0:34:53 | 0:34:56 | |
What sort of a catch was she? | 0:34:56 | 0:34:57 | |
Not a great catch, actually. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:01 | |
She wouldn't have had a huge amount of money to bring with her. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
She's a vicar's daughter. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:06 | |
She's not superbly beautiful. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:08 | |
She does have a GSOH - | 0:35:08 | 0:35:10 | |
-a good sense of humour. -She does have that, | 0:35:10 | 0:35:12 | |
but that's actually double-edged | 0:35:12 | 0:35:14 | |
because having a witty woman who could sort of | 0:35:14 | 0:35:16 | |
take the mick out of the men isn't necessarily going to win you a lot | 0:35:16 | 0:35:22 | |
of plaudits with some men, for sure, it will put them off. | 0:35:22 | 0:35:24 | |
Jane may not have been to the liking of the Bath bachelors | 0:35:28 | 0:35:32 | |
but, while she was living here, she did receive a proposal from a highly | 0:35:32 | 0:35:36 | |
eligible country gentleman. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:38 | |
In 1802, Jane and Cassandra | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
visited some old friends, Catherine and Alethea Bigg, | 0:35:46 | 0:35:51 | |
back in Hampshire. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:52 | |
They were joined by the Biggs' younger brother, | 0:35:54 | 0:35:57 | |
21-year-old Harris Bigg-Wither. | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
Harris Bigg-Wither proposed to Jane, and she accepted him. | 0:36:03 | 0:36:08 | |
She must have been relieved - she was nearly 27, getting on a bit. | 0:36:08 | 0:36:14 | |
And while Harris wasn't a looker, he was very respectable. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:18 | |
And he was going to inherit Manydown Park, long since demolished. | 0:36:18 | 0:36:23 | |
But the next morning, having thought it over, Jane broke it all off. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:28 | |
It must have been excruciatingly awkward. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
She had to flee from Manydown Park in embarrassment. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:35 | |
It was probably for the best. | 0:36:37 | 0:36:40 | |
Harris didn't have much conversation, | 0:36:40 | 0:36:42 | |
he could sometimes be outrageously rude and Jane clearly didn't love him. | 0:36:42 | 0:36:47 | |
And I believe there was another reason Jane was feeling confident enough | 0:36:49 | 0:36:54 | |
to turn down the mansion and the cushy lifestyle. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
She thought that she was soon going to become a published author. | 0:36:57 | 0:37:01 | |
And she knew that, if she got married, she'd have to give birth to babies, | 0:37:02 | 0:37:07 | |
not books. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:08 | |
Sure enough, in 1803, Jane sold the manuscript of her novel Susan | 0:37:11 | 0:37:17 | |
to a publisher for ten whole pounds. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:20 | |
This book would eventually become Northanger Abbey, | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
and it's all about Bath society. | 0:37:23 | 0:37:26 | |
Its young heroine, Catherine, | 0:37:28 | 0:37:30 | |
arrives here with eager delight, ready for the pleasures of | 0:37:30 | 0:37:34 | |
the public dances and the pump rooms. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:36 | |
It seemed that Jane had finally made it as an author. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:39 | |
Except, it all came to nothing. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:46 | |
The novel wasn't printed in her lifetime, | 0:37:46 | 0:37:49 | |
and Jane had lost her chance at independence. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor... | 0:37:54 | 0:37:58 | |
..which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony. | 0:37:59 | 0:38:02 | |
It was the start of a difficult time. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:11 | |
The Austens were going down in the world. | 0:38:11 | 0:38:13 | |
When the lease expired on Sydney Place, | 0:38:17 | 0:38:20 | |
they were forced to take a house in Green Park Buildings, | 0:38:20 | 0:38:24 | |
even though they'd previously ruled it out. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:26 | |
Then, in 1805, Jane's father became seriously ill with a fever... | 0:38:26 | 0:38:32 | |
and he died. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:33 | |
When the Austens had first been house-hunting in Bath, they'd rejected | 0:38:34 | 0:38:38 | |
Green Park Buildings because, although the houses were cheap, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:41 | |
they were damp. You can see that they've been built up on a platform | 0:38:41 | 0:38:45 | |
because the river used to flood just here. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
The people in the houses complained about putrid fevers. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:52 | |
Now, when you get a lot of water standing around, you get mosquitoes. | 0:38:53 | 0:38:58 | |
And Mr Austen's waves of fever are consistent with the disease of malaria. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:06 | |
It could be that Green Park Buildings killed him. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:09 | |
Whatever the cause, his death was a disaster. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:17 | |
Jane and her mother and sister | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
now found themselves in reduced circumstances, | 0:39:19 | 0:39:23 | |
reliant on the charity of Jane's brothers. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:26 | |
They moved again, to Gay Street, | 0:39:27 | 0:39:29 | |
and then finally to the dreaded Trim Street. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:34 | |
In Trim Street, there weren't any titled neighbours, just a milliner's | 0:39:35 | 0:39:39 | |
and a fire insurance office. | 0:39:39 | 0:39:42 | |
Jane's mother was really fed up of living here. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:45 | |
She addressed her letters from Trim Street, still. Rr! | 0:39:45 | 0:39:48 | |
In Persuasion, Jane's heroine, Anne Eliot, persists in a very determined, | 0:39:50 | 0:39:56 | |
though very silent, disinclination for Bath. | 0:39:56 | 0:39:59 | |
You could certainly go off a place. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:02 | |
The truth was that the Austens couldn't afford to stay there. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:09 | |
In 1806, after five years in Bath, Jane was packed off again, | 0:40:11 | 0:40:16 | |
this time to a rented house in distinctly down-market Southampton. | 0:40:16 | 0:40:21 | |
Jane's brother Frank was in the Navy. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:26 | |
He moved his mother and sisters in with his young wife while he was | 0:40:26 | 0:40:31 | |
away at sea. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:33 | |
Southampton was the lowest point in Jane's fortunes. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:37 | |
It was described by one contemporary visitor as a dirty town | 0:40:38 | 0:40:42 | |
with unsurpassably smelly side streets. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:46 | |
Southampton has changed quite a lot since Jane's time. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:52 | |
But she would still recognise the ancient stone ramparts. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:56 | |
All this used to be the sea. It came right up against the old city walls. | 0:41:00 | 0:41:05 | |
You could see dolphins from this spot. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:08 | |
It's now dry land and a ginormous building site. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:12 | |
Jane's house has gone, too. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:17 | |
But luckily, a contemporary artist included it in his painting. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:21 | |
This is Jane's house, right next door to this rather eccentric castle | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
that had recently been embellished with extra turrets. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:31 | |
I think that the Austen ladies chose this house because it had a lovely garden. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:36 | |
They were missing greenery. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
And you can see the garden's trees poking up over the old city walls. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:43 | |
And despite the size, it soon got full up. | 0:41:43 | 0:41:46 | |
There was Jane, her sister, their mother, their friend Martha, | 0:41:46 | 0:41:51 | |
their sister-in-law Mary, add in three or four servants, | 0:41:51 | 0:41:54 | |
and you have a household of eight or nine women. | 0:41:54 | 0:41:58 | |
It was cramped. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:00 | |
The castle's been replaced by a tower block and Jane's garden by a pub. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:09 | |
Time for a pint. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:11 | |
Jane had to spend her money very carefully | 0:42:11 | 0:42:13 | |
because it was all gifted to her. | 0:42:13 | 0:42:15 | |
Earning money was inappropriate for a gentlewoman. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:18 | |
Jane's actual accounts from 1807 survive. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:23 | |
Her mother and brother covered food and rent, | 0:42:23 | 0:42:26 | |
but everything else was down to her. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:28 | |
This is Jane's discretionary expenditure, and she's feeling very flush | 0:42:29 | 0:42:35 | |
because she's just received a legacy from a little old lady that she met | 0:42:35 | 0:42:39 | |
and got to know in Bath. | 0:42:39 | 0:42:40 | |
This is payback time for all of that hard socialising. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:44 | |
So what's she spent it on? | 0:42:45 | 0:42:47 | |
On getting her clothes washed, on letters and parcels - | 0:42:47 | 0:42:52 | |
that's very characteristic - | 0:42:52 | 0:42:54 | |
and there are treats here, too, because she's feeling rich. | 0:42:54 | 0:42:57 | |
She's hired a piano for £2. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
She gives away a quarter of her money in tips to servants, in charity | 0:43:00 | 0:43:07 | |
and in presents. | 0:43:07 | 0:43:08 | |
Someone else had given her this money. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:10 | |
Now she was giving it to people who were even more in need. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:14 | |
It's a very feminine form of economics. | 0:43:14 | 0:43:19 | |
And it's a very precarious way of living. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:21 | |
Jane had no income except from family and friends. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:30 | |
She didn't have time or space to write. | 0:43:30 | 0:43:32 | |
Stuck in Southampton in her mid-30s, she had no prospects at all. | 0:43:34 | 0:43:38 | |
But then, along came another chance to move. Jane's brother Edward, | 0:43:41 | 0:43:46 | |
the rich adopted one who lived in Kent, | 0:43:46 | 0:43:48 | |
also had a little bolthole in Hampshire. | 0:43:48 | 0:43:51 | |
Chawton House - a glorious Elizabethan manor. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:58 | |
When Edward's wife died, his thoughts turned to his home county | 0:44:01 | 0:44:07 | |
and to his mother and sisters. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:08 | |
Why not move them all back to be near him? | 0:44:09 | 0:44:13 | |
So, in 1809, Jane found herself heading again for a prime property, | 0:44:13 | 0:44:19 | |
but Edward wasn't quite as generous as he might have been. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:22 | |
Jane wasn't moving here... | 0:44:25 | 0:44:27 | |
..but to the former bailiff's house down the street. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
Chawton Cottage was on a main road. In fact, | 0:44:37 | 0:44:41 | |
passing stagecoach passengers could see right in through the windows. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:45 | |
But at least it was an end to all the uncertainty. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:52 | |
And here, Jane settled down into a daily routine. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:01 | |
We're told that she got up early to play the piano before anyone else | 0:45:01 | 0:45:05 | |
was around. Then, at nine o'clock, she made the tea. | 0:45:05 | 0:45:09 | |
This seems to have been about the limit of her household duties. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:14 | |
It's as if the rest of them realised she was no good at housework | 0:45:14 | 0:45:17 | |
and shielded her from it so that she could get on with her writing. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:20 | |
Jane now worked hard, | 0:45:27 | 0:45:28 | |
rewriting the novels she'd started years earlier at Steventon. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:32 | |
And, in 1811, she finally had a book published - | 0:45:34 | 0:45:38 | |
Sense And Sensibility. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:41 | |
It's the story of sisters who are forced to leave their spacious home | 0:45:41 | 0:45:44 | |
and move to a modest cottage in the country - | 0:45:44 | 0:45:47 | |
one with dark, narrow stairs and a kitchen that smokes. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:53 | |
The book made Jane a respectable £140 - | 0:45:53 | 0:45:57 | |
enough to cover her expenses for three years. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:01 | |
She sold the rights to Pride And Prejudice for a similar amount. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:06 | |
But when it came out in 1813, it was a huge bestseller. | 0:46:06 | 0:46:11 | |
It made Jane's publisher more than three times what he'd paid her. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:15 | |
Jane still lived frugally at Chawton Cottage with her sister, | 0:46:18 | 0:46:23 | |
mother and friend Martha. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:25 | |
This is a collection of recipes put together by the Austen ladies with | 0:46:26 | 0:46:30 | |
their friend Martha Lloyd. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:32 | |
They're not very ambitious in their cooking plans. | 0:46:32 | 0:46:36 | |
The first recipe is for pea soup. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
And they're thrifty. | 0:46:39 | 0:46:40 | |
If you turn to the back of the book, we've got recipes for household products. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:46 | |
Here's one for "a cure for a swelled neck". | 0:46:46 | 0:46:50 | |
And here's one that seems particularly appropriate - a recipe "to make ink". | 0:46:50 | 0:46:55 | |
I'm going to have a go at that one, | 0:46:56 | 0:46:58 | |
but possibly not while I'm holding a priceless historical artefact! | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
First, you take galls. These are little nodules | 0:47:04 | 0:47:09 | |
that are produced when an insect lays its egg in an oak tree. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:13 | |
Next comes...oh, the gum. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:21 | |
This is gum arabic. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:23 | |
And my gum has been pre-powdered. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:26 | |
Next comes the green copperas. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
This stuff is basically iron sulphate. | 0:47:32 | 0:47:34 | |
Next you put in the strong, stale beer. | 0:47:36 | 0:47:41 | |
Now, there's no real chemical reason for the beer, | 0:47:41 | 0:47:45 | |
but I think it's really in the recipe to make ink-making more fun. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:48 | |
You add some sugar and stir. | 0:47:55 | 0:47:57 | |
Then you stand the ink in a chimney corner | 0:48:01 | 0:48:06 | |
for 14 days, and you shake it | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
two or three times a day. Hm. 14 days! | 0:48:09 | 0:48:13 | |
Unfortunately, I don't think we have one that we made earlier! | 0:48:15 | 0:48:18 | |
Amazingly, that does look like real ink. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:29 | |
The original recipe makes two pints of ink. | 0:48:30 | 0:48:33 | |
Jane needed plenty of it. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:36 | |
She wrote a brand-new novel - Mansfield Park. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:40 | |
Her books were bringing her freedom and confidence. | 0:48:42 | 0:48:46 | |
The nitty-gritty of publishing often took Jane to London, | 0:48:48 | 0:48:51 | |
where she stayed with her brother Henry, who was now a banker. | 0:48:51 | 0:48:54 | |
Henry had been working his way up the London property ladder. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:06 | |
And by 1814, he owned a fancy bachelor pad in Hans Place, Knightsbridge, | 0:49:06 | 0:49:13 | |
now replaced by mansion flats. | 0:49:13 | 0:49:15 | |
You might not think of London as Jane Austen land, | 0:49:22 | 0:49:26 | |
but I reckon that this was the place that suited her best of all. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:30 | |
Henry's house had a lovely garden right next to his study. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:35 | |
It was August and, when Jane got hot and tired of writing, | 0:49:35 | 0:49:39 | |
she could come out here for a restorative stroll. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:43 | |
Henry was out all day at his bank. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:45 | |
He was now a widower, he only had one maid. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:48 | |
There was nobody to bother Jane. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
Here, at last, was a life free from social obligations. | 0:49:50 | 0:49:54 | |
And here, she got on with what I think is her most brilliant book - Emma. | 0:49:54 | 0:50:00 | |
This new heroine was rich and confident. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:05 | |
But she wasn't a woman of the world. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:08 | |
Although Emma lived 16 miles from London, she never actually goes there. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:12 | |
Jane was more intrepid. | 0:50:12 | 0:50:15 | |
For this latest novel, Jane's brother Henry | 0:50:16 | 0:50:18 | |
had found her a more prestigious publisher - John Murray. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:23 | |
But then Henry fell ill | 0:50:23 | 0:50:25 | |
and Jane was forced, for the first time, | 0:50:25 | 0:50:27 | |
to start dealing with her business herself. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:30 | |
This is John Murray's office and home, at 50 Albemarle Street. | 0:50:32 | 0:50:37 | |
This was a place where Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott would come. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
I can imagine Jane sitting impatiently in this waiting room... | 0:50:47 | 0:50:51 | |
..before being sent upstairs to John Murray's famous drawing room. | 0:50:54 | 0:50:58 | |
Murray had offered to publish Emma, | 0:51:00 | 0:51:03 | |
but he wanted the copyright of both Mansfield Park and | 0:51:03 | 0:51:08 | |
Sense And Sensibility thrown in, too. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:10 | |
Jane thought that Murray was offering her a bad deal. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:15 | |
She decided to seize control of her affairs at last. | 0:51:15 | 0:51:20 | |
So Jane started to negotiate, first by letter, | 0:51:25 | 0:51:29 | |
then in visits to this office. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:31 | |
It was hard work. | 0:51:31 | 0:51:33 | |
She wrote that John Murray was a rogue, if a very civil one, | 0:51:33 | 0:51:38 | |
and he offered her £450. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:41 | |
Now, Jane had been stung before by this selling the copyright thing. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:46 | |
That's how she'd published Pride And Prejudice. | 0:51:46 | 0:51:49 | |
And when it sold much better than expected, it meant that the publisher | 0:51:49 | 0:51:52 | |
kept all the cash. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:54 | |
So she refused that. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:56 | |
Instead, she went for what we'd call self-publishing, | 0:51:56 | 0:52:00 | |
where she ran the risk but would get the reward, | 0:52:00 | 0:52:03 | |
minus 10% commission to Murray. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:05 | |
Now, the really heartbreaking thing is | 0:52:06 | 0:52:09 | |
that this was a terrible business decision of Jane's. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:13 | |
None of her later books would sell as well as Pride And Prejudice. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:17 | |
And by the time she died, | 0:52:17 | 0:52:19 | |
she'd actually only earnt just over £650 | 0:52:19 | 0:52:23 | |
from all her books. | 0:52:23 | 0:52:25 | |
But for a few years, during her visits to London, | 0:52:27 | 0:52:31 | |
Jane glimpsed a different life. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:33 | |
The life of a successful novelist, shopping, visiting exhibitions | 0:52:35 | 0:52:40 | |
and plays, and travelling in her brother's carriage. | 0:52:40 | 0:52:44 | |
The driving about, the carriage being open, was very pleasant. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:55 | |
I liked my solitary elegance very much | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
and was ready to laugh all the time at my being where I was. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:02 | |
I could not but feel that I had naturally small right to be parading | 0:53:02 | 0:53:06 | |
around London in a barouche. | 0:53:06 | 0:53:08 | |
Jane was no longer dependent, | 0:53:12 | 0:53:14 | |
to be passed about from one place to another like a parcel. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
She was an author. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:19 | |
She could go where she liked. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:21 | |
It didn't last. Less than a year after Emma was published, | 0:53:26 | 0:53:30 | |
Jane was back at Chawton Cottage and seriously ill. | 0:53:30 | 0:53:34 | |
She was suffering from aches and pains, from fevers and bilious attacks. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:41 | |
One of her nieces remembers visiting Aunt Jane and being shocked to find | 0:53:43 | 0:53:47 | |
her up here in her bedroom, | 0:53:47 | 0:53:49 | |
wearing a dressing gown and sitting in a chair, just like an invalid. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:54 | |
Things were looking bad for Jane. | 0:53:54 | 0:53:56 | |
And she was only 41. | 0:53:56 | 0:53:58 | |
On 24th May, 1817, Jane and Cassandra made the 16-mile journey | 0:54:01 | 0:54:07 | |
to Winchester in their brother James' carriage. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:11 | |
They came to be near a doctor - Jane's last chance for a cure. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:16 | |
But she'd already made her will. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:19 | |
For two months, College Street was their home. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:23 | |
These rented rooms in the city centre were just the sort of place | 0:54:23 | 0:54:26 | |
that genteel old maids ended up. | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
My attendant is encouraging | 0:54:45 | 0:54:48 | |
and talks of making me quite well. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:50 | |
I live chiefly on the sofa... | 0:54:51 | 0:54:53 | |
..but I'm allowed to walk from one room to the other. | 0:54:54 | 0:54:57 | |
I've been out once in the sedan chair, and am to repeat it, | 0:54:58 | 0:55:03 | |
and be promoted to a wheelchair as the weather serves. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:06 | |
The upside was that Jane was living here with the family that she'd | 0:55:13 | 0:55:17 | |
selected for herself, spinsters looking out for each other. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:21 | |
She got this house because of her two good friends who live just | 0:55:21 | 0:55:24 | |
around the corner. And as Jane got sicker and sicker, | 0:55:24 | 0:55:28 | |
she was looked after here by her sister and her sister-in-law. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:33 | |
Jane spent the very last hours of her life with her head in her sister Cassandra's lap. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:40 | |
And then, very early in the morning of 18th July, 1817, | 0:55:40 | 0:55:46 | |
she slipped away in that room, just up there. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
Six days later, Jane's body was borne along College Street. | 0:55:57 | 0:56:02 | |
Cassandra wrote, | 0:56:06 | 0:56:08 | |
"I watched the little mournful procession the length of the street. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:11 | |
"And when it turned from my sight, I had lost her for ever." | 0:56:13 | 0:56:17 | |
Walking alongside the coffin were three of Jane's brothers and a nephew - | 0:56:20 | 0:56:25 | |
the only mourners. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:27 | |
Jane was brought here, to Winchester Cathedral, | 0:56:50 | 0:56:53 | |
and placed in a vault on the North Aisle. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
It was a prime location at last. | 0:56:57 | 0:57:00 | |
A black marble gravestone was laid over her. | 0:57:01 | 0:57:05 | |
The inscription mentions "the benevolence of her heart, | 0:57:14 | 0:57:18 | |
"the sweetness of her temper, | 0:57:18 | 0:57:20 | |
"and the extraordinary endowments of her mind." | 0:57:20 | 0:57:24 | |
That's as close as it gets to mentioning her novels. | 0:57:24 | 0:57:28 | |
When Jane died, she was just a youngish, unknown, frail woman. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:33 | |
Her name wasn't even printed in her books. | 0:57:33 | 0:57:37 | |
All this would change. A few years later, | 0:57:37 | 0:57:40 | |
one of the vergers of the cathedral was heard asking, | 0:57:40 | 0:57:43 | |
"Who is this Jane Austen woman that everybody's talking about?" | 0:57:43 | 0:57:48 | |
And now her fame almost eclipses that of the cathedral. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:52 | |
Today, Winchester Cathedral is perhaps best known as Jane's final home. | 0:57:52 | 0:57:59 |