Of the mysterious Jane Austen herself, apart from her handful of delicately worded novels and other surviving scribblings, we know relatively little. Was she the “narrow-gutted” spinster aunt of family legend turned naive romance writer? Was she actually her own Elizabeth Bennet without a Darcy, as many fans want to believe? Was she an ironic observer of life, a comedian with a well-regulated hatred, writing for those she secretly despised? Was she really “everybody’s dear Jane,” malleable to everybody’s purpose, as Henry James complained? It’s enough to throw one into a succession of fainting fits, though perhaps we should heed the wise words of a young Jane: “Run mad as often as you chuse but do not faint.”Īusten’s subtly subversive ironic language allows readers to receive her work in a layered way-romance, comedy, mystery. There are as many ways to enjoy Jane Austen as there are ways to be infuriated by her. People can’t seem to decide who Jane Austen really is. What is it about the slow-moving spectacle of good manners in grand manors, in a confined and unvarying society of three or four families, ending in a rewarding marriage to the satisfaction of all, that gets readers all fired up? Austen’s contemporary Maria Edgeworth complained that there was no story in it.

Some two hundred years after her death, why is it Jane Austen is still so very much loved-and so very much hated? ( From St.Upon first reading Jane Austen, there are those who would reward her by smiles of approbation and others who would punish her with a cudgel (or in the words of Mark Twain, “dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone”). A powerful and moving novel that explores the tragedies and triumphs of life, both large and small, and the universal humanity in us all, Natalie Jenner's The Jane Austen Society is destined to resonate with readers for years to come. As each of them endures their own quiet struggle with loss and trauma, some from the recent war, others from more distant tragedies, they rally together to create the Jane Austen Society. These people―a laborer, a young widow, the local doctor, and a movie star, among others―could not be more different and yet they are united in their love for the works and words of Austen. With the last bit of Austen's legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen's home and her legacy.

Now it's home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists.

Just after the Second World War, in the small English village of Chawton, an unusual but like-minded group of people band together to attempt something remarkable.

The jane austen society a novel