That this House has considered the cultural contribution of Jane Austen.
It is a delight to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I am really grateful to have been granted this opportunity to recognise and celebrate the legacy of one of our nation’s greatest authors, if not the greatest: Jane Austen.
Many may be asking why I am the one here speaking about Jane Austen. I have been a fan, of course, of both the 1995 and 2005 adaptations of “Pride and Prejudice”; I thoroughly enjoyed the recent BBC drama “Miss Austen”, which looked at Jane Austen’s life through the eyes of her sister; I have been on a fantastic Jane Austen tour, led by my brilliant constituent, Phil Howe, who is in the Public Gallery; and I have enjoyed many of Austen’s novels over the years. I am not, however, speaking just as a fan. The truth is that although half the country like to claim her, she will always be, first and foremost, a Steventon girl. Born in Steventon in my constituency of Basingstoke, she spent her first 25 years there, where she drafted “Sense and Sensibility”, “Pride and Prejudice” and “Northanger Abbey”. I am proud to be here to commemorate her impact on our town, as well as on the country and around the world.
Throughout Austen’s work, the influence of her upbringing in Steventon is unmistakable. Her father served as the rector, and she spent her formative years deeply rooted in the small community there, observing the congregations that passed through the church and the daily life of the village around her. Many of the social and class dynamics that animate her novels are thought to be shaped by her early experiences watching, as one scholar, Brian Southam put it,
“the world—of the minor landed gentry and the country clergy”—
as they navigated their relationships with both working-class neighbours and the area’s aristocracy.
Dancing also played a central role in Austen’s novels, and that influence can be traced directly back to her years in Basingstoke. She attended lively assemblies at Worting House and at the Old Town Hall, which became the Lloyds bank at the top of town, where she also shopped for materials to make her dresses. That same bustling area was where her father purchased her now famous sloped writing desk from Ring Brothers, the furnishers on Church Street. Austen used that desk throughout her life, drafting the works that would become beloved around the world. Its origins in Basingstoke highlight just how deeply the town shaped both her experiences and her writing.
The quintessential English countryside, which frames so much of Austen’s storytelling, owes much to landscape of north Hampshire—its rolling hills, quiet lanes and natural beauty still recognisable to us today.
The hon. Gentleman may know that in “Emma” Jane Austen said that Cromer in my constituency was
“the best of all the sea-bathing places.”
Does he agree that if Jane Austen were around today, she would be delighted by the recent news that a record seven North Norfolk beaches have excellent water quality, making my whole coastline excellent for all sea bathers?
I am sure that Austen would agree and, as we do not have a sea coast in Steventon, that she may have admired the hon. Gentleman’s area more than most.
Local children in Steventon still climb the old lime tree where Jane and her brother once played more than two centuries ago—a living reminder of the world that helped to inspire her enduring works. Equally, we still feel Austen’s influence in Basingstoke today. Across the town there are countless reminders of Austen’s legacy, not least the striking bronze statue outside the Willis Museum, created by the brilliant local artist Adam Roud, who is also in the Public Gallery today.
To mark the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, Hampshire Cultural Trust is co-ordinating wonderful tours of our area, giving us all the chance to explore the places that shaped her life and work. I am so pleased that Paul and others are here in Parliament today representing the great work that Hampshire Cultural Trust is doing. I also highlight the outstanding work of the Basingstoke Heritage Society, including the research undertaken by Debbie and Joan—who are also in the Public Gallery—into Jane Austen’s life in Basingstoke, which has been vital to preserving and celebrating her legacy in the town. My constituents handed me some helpful maps with points of interest just before the debate, should anyone want to peruse them later.
Right now the Willis Museum at the top of the town is hosting a brilliant exhibition, aptly named “Beyond the Bonnets”, on the women behind Jane Austen, shining a light on the often overlooked working women of the Regency period—the women who restored Elizabeth Bennet’s curls and washed her petticoats after that famous three-mile walk to Netherfield Park; the women who cooked for the Dashwoods at Norland Park; and the many other women whose unseen labour made the stories possible, yet so rarely receive any credit.
As we mark what would have been Jane Austen’s 250th birthday this week, there has never been a more fitting moment to visit Basingstoke and reflect on its place in her story. My sincere thanks go to Tamsin, who is also here today, and her team at Steventon’s Jane Austen 250 for their dedication to celebrating Austen’s legacy in our area, and for helping us all to discover the many ways our town influenced Jane Austen’s life, worldview and writing.
Does the Minister want to intervene on that point? No? I am sure he will elucidate that in good time.
Austen’s enduring cultural impact is felt not only on a global scale, but powerfully at a local level, where it continues to shape and enrich Basingstoke’s vibrant film and arts scene. From the literary legacy of Jane Austen to the creative energy of today, the town has long sustained a strong and distinctive cultural identity. We are home to nationally recognised venues such as the Anvil, an outstanding concert hall that hosts everything from world-class performances to much-loved community events like the mayor’s variety show, and the Haymarket theatre, which continues to delight audiences with a programme of productions, from the festive sparkle of “The Crooners Christmas Special” and “Aladdin” to a wide range of acclaimed theatrical performances throughout the year.
One incredible show that came out of Basingstoke was our very own Phil Howe’s “Twelve Hours”, which depicts the story of Austen’s infamous short-lived engagement to Harris Bigg-Wither of Manydown. Our creative momentum is further strengthened by the Exit 6 film festival, a flagship Basingstoke event that draws visitors from across the globe and showcases independent short films and emerging filmmakers. Celebrating its 10th edition in 2025, Exit 6 exemplifies Basingstoke’s commitment to nurturing talent, championing new voices and sharing culture with the world. Together, all these institutions and events demonstrate the fact that the town does not simply inherit a cultural legacy but actively lives it, making Basingstoke a compelling and deserving choice for UK town of culture 2029, as I am sure everyone here agrees.
For 250 years, Jane Austen has enriched our literary heritage, our culture and, indeed, our economy through her sharp wit and romanticism, and her ability to capture the enduring nature of human relationships. What are the Government doing to celebrate and promote Jane Austen’s extraordinary legacy? How are we supporting today’s and tomorrow’s generations of female authors and artists? Given the central role that place played in shaping Austen’s life and career, and because it has also been the birthplace of other great British icons such as Burberry, and is now home to the Anvil, the Haymarket and the Proteus, and the Willis Museum, the Milestones Museum and much more, does the Minister agree that Basingstoke would be a deserving winner of the UK town of culture 2029, which is to be decided next year?
I remind Members to bob in their place if they intend to speak in the debate. I want to bring in the Front Benchers at 2.28 pm. I am not going to impose a time limit now, but that will depend on how people behave.
It is very good to see you, Mr Efford, presiding over this timely debate. Not only is this the 250th-anniversary year, but I think this is the first Backbench Business slot available after Jane’s actual birthday, which was on Tuesday. I congratulate the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) not only on securing the debate—I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it—but on his excellent speech.
The last time I saw a production of a Jane Austen novel was “Pride and Prejudice” at the Vyne in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, as part of the 250th celebrations. It was the second-wettest outdoor event I have ever been at. By coincidence, the very wettest was “Sense and Sensibility” earlier that same summer, at Uppark just outside Petersfield.
A number of places have a link to Jane Austen, including Southampton, Winchester, Bath and, of course, the rectory at Steventon. But it was at Chawton that Jane Austen’s genius truly flourished, and where she either wrote entirely or revised and completed all six of her globally beloved novels. The house in Chawton is now, of course, the Jane Austen’s House museum, which is in my East Hampshire constituency.
The significance of Austen as a novelist can hardly be overstated. Things changed after her work. It was not that she wrote about ordinary people—they were not quite ordinary—but they were a lot more ordinary than the grand, historical figures or the Gothic characters who would typically have featured in novels up to that point. The novels were about ordinary events for those people: the subtle putdowns and the slightly tedious visits they had to withstand. She demonstrated that the domestic world holds just as much drama and just as many moral dilemmas and lessons as any royal court or battlefield. They were not quite what you would call kitchen sink dramas, but they were a social observation and social commentary, so in turn became a sort of social campaigning, because to change the world we first have to observe and explain it.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) on securing this timely and welcome debate and, to be honest, on allowing us to reread and rewatch the great works of Jane Austen, all on the grounds of pure research.
I begin by quoting Jane herself from “Persuasion”:
“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures.”
Those words were spoken by Anne Elliot, a character who knows exactly what it is like to be overlooked, underestimated and quietly right all along, and they seem like an entirely appropriate place to begin discussing Jane Austen. As has already been said, we are meeting just after the 250th anniversary of her birth, and what strikes me is not simply that her novels are still read and in great demand, but they are still being argued over, still being adapted and still capable of illuminating modern debates about power, class and gender. To my mind, that is the clearest measure of her literary and cultural legacy.
Jane Austen was a woman who was often presented as a writer of romance and— sometimes dismissively—the original chick lit, but she was a woman who never wrote escapism. As we have been reminded during this debate, she was writing social commentary, delivered lightly but never casually. Her novels examine money, inheritance, reputation and power with real precision, particularly in how they shape women’s lives or, as she puts it clearly in “Sense and Sensibility”:
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
That line does feel a bit less romantic than totally economically literate.
The clearest example of Austen’s seriousness is “Mansfield Park”, which to my mind is a novel that is often overshadowed by “Pride and Prejudice” or “Emma”. Through Fanny Price, Austen explores dependence and what it means to be grateful, constrained and constantly reminded of one’s place. Fanny’s refusal to marry wealth at the cost of her conscience is not dramatic rebellion; it is moral resistance under pressure. Austen shows us that integrity, especially for women, is rarely rewarded quickly or loudly.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Efford. What a wonderful debate to bring to this Chamber, on which I congratulate the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy). Jane Austen: what a legend, what a genius! She is still inspiring us today, and what an opportunity we have to hear from her directly, as she wanders the streets of Bath in 2025 through a little bit of time travel:
“My dearest Cassandra, you will laugh at me, I am sure, for the rapture in which I write, but I cannot help myself, for Bath is a much changed city from when you and I did grace its fair streets. I shall do but imperfect justice with my pen, but will endeavour to paint in your mind a picture befitting this changed city, which, despite the marching of time, I still find to hold immeasurable beauty.
As I wound through the streets of Bath, I marvelled at the honey-coloured stone, which did glow as pleasantly as ever. But sister, what will truly astonish you is what I did see coming towards me: I would call it a carriage, yet it is a strange mechanical one whose body is silver, and how it moves is beyond my comprehension, as there are no horses to pull it. Goodness! The noise it produced was most dreadful: a mixture of cry and roar such that I was compelled to leap from its path.
There are, too, these strange signs affixed around the town, and for the life of me I cannot decipher their meaning. ‘Clean air zone’ is inscribed upon them—what a peculiar thing to write! Sister, when I uncover their origin and meaning, I will let you know with great haste.
No sooner had I proceeded a little further than my senses were again most violently assailed, for I encountered a most merry band and of women, full of uproarious amusement; one did speak of a ‘hen party’. I shall not attempt to describe their attire, for it would, I fear, defile my pen. You may imagine them as you will, sister, but I shall leave that to you.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) for securing this debate. To take a quote from my favourite Austen novel, “Persuasion”:
“I wish nature had made such hearts…more common”.
I am also delighted to see the Minister in his place, not least because it has prompted me to consider which of Austen’s clergymen the Minister might best embody. He will be relieved to know I have discounted Edmund Bertram and Edward Ferrars, but I think we might be able to agree that he embodies Henry Tilney from “Northanger Abbey”, with his quick wit.
I cannot claim a constituency link to Jane Austen, but I would draw members attention to a doctoral researcher at the University of Cumbria, headquartered in my constituency, whose doctoral research explores Jane Austen’s depiction of walking as a form of resistance by her heroines—and it is her heroines that I wish to talk about in my brief remarks. She is a creator of heroines who have stood the test of time. In an era where women were often confined by social norms, Austen gave us characters who dared to think, to feel and to act with independence and integrity.
Those characteristics were embodied by my own A-level English teacher, Mrs Nutley, who steered us through the social pretensions and moral hypocrisy laid bare in “Mansfield Park” and unlocked in me a love of Jane Austen. I come from a working-class family. Our home was modest, my parents hard working and, while storybooks were read to me as a child, the books on our shelves in my adolescence were dictionaries and encyclopaedias, not novels. Therefore, I owe a debt of thanks to my English teachers at Trinity school, Carlisle, for opening up a world of Austen, Dickens, Hardy, the Brontës and—perhaps less enjoyably—James Joyce.
However, literature does not have to adhere to Joyce’s experimentalism to be good, and I would argue that the strength of Austen’s work, and what we learn from it, lies in the gentle subtlety of her drawn characters. Her heroines are not perfect; they stumble, they err and they learn. That is precisely what makes them extraordinary.
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. As Mr Bennet said in “Pride and Prejudice”:
“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”;
so I thank my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) for securing this debate. I thought his speech was excellent, not just on the history of Jane Austen’s life, but on how relevant her works are today when viewed in terms of structural inequality, and how pioneering they were at the time. It was a very good speech, and I congratulate him on it.
The hon. Member has already talked about the links that Jane Austen has to my constituency; she is buried in Winchester cathedral. She is an immense source of pride for all of us in Hampshire—with everyone claiming their little section of her life—but particularly in Winchester. She moved there in 1817 and subsequently spent her final days there. She lived in No. 8 College Street and, to celebrate 250 years since her birth, Winchester College opened it to the public over the summer. It is a mere five minutes from the cathedral, a site that many of us here will have visited and where many people come from all over the world purely to visit Jane Austen’s headstone.
No. 8 College Street is a site where brilliant volunteers are brimming with knowledge about Jane Austen’s life in and around Winchester. It is also just a couple of doors down on the same street as P&G Wells bookshop, which is one of the longest continuously operating bookshops in the UK. It is very beautiful; Austen was probably one of its most famous customers, and it still sells beautiful collector’s editions of Jane Austen in the store. The cathedral, Hampshire Cultural Trust and many other local groups and businesses have put on excellent events and exhibitions to commemorate 250 years of Jane Austen this year. I thank everyone involved for their hard work, and everyone is welcome to visit.
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As much as I would like to give Basingstoke full credit as Austen’s muse, her life and literature were of course shaped by so many other places across the UK. Following her father’s retirement, the Austen family relocated to Bath, a setting that inspired “Persuasion” and “Northanger Abbey”. Five years later, after her father’s death, they returned to Hampshire, first to Southampton and then to Chawton. In this period Austen published “Sense and Sensibility”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “Mansfield Park” and “Emma”. Austen spent her final years in Winchester, where she was cared for by Giles Lyford during her illness. She died on 18 July 1817, at the age of 41, and was laid to rest in Winchester cathedral. I am sure the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) will comment later, but Austen’s influence in Winchester endures to this day, with the city hosting numerous events that celebrate the life and work of this very special Hampshire-born novelist.
Put simply, Austen reshaped the English novel. She perfected a narrative style that allowed readers to see the world through her heroines’ eyes, pioneering a realism that influenced writers such as Virginia Woolf and timeless narratives that inspired Helen Fielding’s “Bridget Jones” and, indeed, Heckerling’s “Clueless”, one of my favourite films. At its core, Austen’s style was characterised by her ability to weave her quick wit into her nuanced social commentary. Through interactions between her characters, she displayed the complex class dynamics at play at the time, and “Pride and Prejudice” captures it perfectly. The Bennets may belong to the gentry on paper, but at Netherfield Park they are frequently made to feel as though they do not quite belong alongside Mr Darcy and the Bingleys.
The social hierarchies of the period are also evident in the character of Charlotte Lucas from “Pride and Prejudice”—but as a vital means of securing her financial and social future. For many women of the so-called lower classes at the time, marriage was not simply for love; it was a matter of survival. As Austen so aptly reminds us:
“A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her”,
but because he can offer her security in a world that grants her few other options. By reflecting real aspects of Regency-era life back to her readers with her flair and humour, Austen was able to endear readers who saw themselves in her characters and entertain those who did not, swiftly gaining her recognition among her contemporaries.
Austen’s novels did more than entertain and enlighten her readers at the time. They also hold up a mirror to us now, revealing much about who we are as a nation today—not least because it is rumoured that the character of Mr Darcy in “Bridget Jones”, Helen Fielding’s modern reimagining of “Pride and Prejudice”, was perhaps inspired by our very own Prime Minister.
On a more serious note, Austen’s novels reveal the foundations that our society is built on today. Her contribution to feminist progress has been raised time and again when I have spoken to constituents, friends and colleagues. In her own lifetime she did not experience much of the autonomy that women today enjoy. She lived under strict legal limitations on women’s rights and within a culture that offered little recognition of women as people in their own right. Women’s voices were rarely platformed, and their lives were often tightly policed—so much so that even showing an ankle was considered improper.
Women were expected to be seen to bolster their husband’s social status, but were never truly heard, treated as secondary citizens under the law of the time. This manifested in Austen’s own life as she initially had to publish under a masculine pseudonym to be taken seriously by contemporaries. Yet in the world she created on the page, Austen centred female voices that had hardly been acknowledged before, and in her own life she broke quiet but powerful barriers. She chose not to marry, rejecting a system that often defined a woman’s worth by her husband.
It is true that Austen did not campaign for women’s suffrage or other forms of reform, but she still did something transformative. Through her stories, she invited her readers to recognise women as full people with ambition, intellect and agency. In doing so, she quietly laid the groundwork for the generations of feminists who would follow. Austen may not have lived to see the freedoms that women now enjoy, but her influence helped to shape them, one honest, courageous sentence at a time. Today, as new barriers to gender equality emerge, including from online radicalisation around the world, her message remains an important reminder to approach politics with a respect for everyone’s humanity.
Jane Austen is not only a cornerstone of our national literary heritage, but a global phenomenon. More than two centuries after her death, her novels continue to inspire readers around the world—from the United States to Japan, India and beyond. Global fan societies, reading groups, academic conferences and adaptations for stage and screen all testify to the extraordinary reach of her work. Austen’s characters, wit and insights into human nature transcend time and place, uniting an international community of admirers who find her writing still speaks powerfully to modern life.
Beyond the far-reaching cultural impact of her work, Austen’s economic legacy also endures. In Hampshire, we enjoy what the Hampshire Cultural Trust calls the “Jane effect”: every year, we welcome millions of visitors who want to experience the landmarks and areas that shaped her writing. Austen continues to inspire devotion from readers all over the world, which in turn supports our local businesses and regional economy. Most notably, this year alone more than 92,000 copies of her novels were sold in the UK—an increase of a third on last year.
Austen’s stories have inspired so many high-grossing films and TV shows spanning decades, helping to sustain a thriving British film industry: de Wilde’s adaptation of “Emma” grossed millions as recently as 2020, and there is a huge buzz around Alderton’s upcoming adaption of “Pride and Prejudice”. To this day, there is still a fierce debate about whether Colin Firth’s or Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr Darcy reigns supreme—
Basingstoke represents a notable chapter in Britain’s cultural and economic story, having produced globally recognised figures and brands. I am delighted to see so many colleagues here today to celebrate one of them—Jane Austen—and to acknowledge the vital role that our authors, artists and entrepreneurs play in shaping who we are as a nation.
There was then Austen’s own ordinariness, coming not quite from the masses, but still, relatively speaking, ordinary. She was the daughter of a clergyman with a fairly limited formal education, which makes hers also a story of social mobility. That social mobility grew posthumously. We talk about the enduring significance and legacy of authors, but for Jane Austen that grew dramatically with the increasing interest in the 1870s and 1880s.
The huge increase then came in the mid-1990s, with the BBC adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice”. Notably, the most famous scene in that adaptation was not in the book. There is an interesting question about how new media adds to what we already have. As the hon. Member for Basingstoke said, we see the storylines in “Bridget Jones”, “Clueless” and “Bridgerton”—there may be no actual Austen link, but quite a few people probably think there is. In any event, we see a kind of genre-spawning going on.
I am not a literary critic. Were Jane Austen to describe me, she might say something like, “He was a moderately read man who happily knew the limits of his own scholarship.” I will not go further than that—the hon. Member for Basingstoke did a very good job—but I can and will pay tribute to all those who do so much to keep Jane Austen’s legacy alive, celebrate her work and its wider impact and make sure it gets to a wider and wider audience. It just so happens that many of those people are resident in my constituency and connected with Jane Austen’s house, Chawton House or the Regency day and festival.
I already spoke briefly about the significance of the house in Chawton. It was Jane’s place of stability after what had been a period of insecurity, and it was there that she received her own copy of “Pride and Prejudice”—I think she called it her darling child when it arrived from London—and read it out loud to a neighbour with her mother. Not only was the house the place where those novels were fashioned; it was also the place where that “truth universally acknowledged” was heard out loud for the first time. The house became a museum in 1949. Today, it holds an unparalleled collection of first editions, personal letters and artefacts, and receives tens of thousands of visitors from around the world. This year, for the anniversary year, there were 55,000 visitors, a third of whom were from overseas. Under the leadership of Lizzie Dunford, it has done amazing things with the team of 18 staff and 80 fantastic volunteers.
However, Chawton is not about only Jane’s own house. There is also what she called the “Great House”: her brother Edward’s house, which is correctly called Chawton House and was the reason that Jane was in Chawton. She was a frequent visitor, even when it was let out to another family. Today, it is a public historic house in the estate run by the Chawton House library trust and is dedicated to telling the stories of women’s history and women’s writing. It has the UK’s leading collection of pre-20th century women’s writing, with around 16,000 items, including the so-called Grandison manuscript in Jane’s own hand.
Chawton House is a centre of scholarship and long has been, but these days it is also a fantastic day out. It has had a great upgrade under the chief executive, Katie Childs. There are brilliant volunteers there who help to bring the place to life. Visitors will discover many influences on Jane’s novels around the house. It runs a great programme of outdoor theatre, classical music and walks—countryside walks such as the walk from Chawton to Farringdon were, of course, a great influence on Jane—as well as being a Royal Horticultural Society partner garden.
Finally, there is the town of Alton, just outside which the small village of Chawton lies. The whole of Alton is really involved with Jane Austen’s legacy. On 21 June this year, we had a fantastic unveiling of the new bust of Jane Austen, which is now in the Alton Regency garden just outside the assembly rooms and very close to the branch of her brother Henry’s bank on the high street. It was great to have there the sculptor Mark Coreth and descendants of the Austen and Knight families. The bust was made at Morris Singer foundry in Lasham, which—a little fun fact for colleagues—was the same foundry that fashioned the two unique bronze sculptures outside the door of Westminster Hall that mark the late Queen’s platinum jubilee.
Every year, the Regency day and festival bring into Alton hundreds of people, particularly those with a fondness for period costume. It is a great spectacle. The Regency ball always sells out. There is great work between Chawton and Basingstoke on some of these commemorative events. That festival is now into its 17th year and attracts people from around the world, with some 50 events. It has a brilliant organising committee, which includes the secretary, Julie McLatch. It was all the brainchild of local hero Pat Lerew.
In conclusion, and given the season, I will quote Mr Elton in “Emma”:
“At Christmas every body invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather”—
which will be a good thing if it stays as filthy as it is outside right now. Mr Efford, if I might paraphrase Caroline Bingley in “Pride and Prejudice”:
“I sincerely hope your Christmas”—
in Eltham and Chislehurst—
“may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings”.
Austen is never heavy-handed. Her greatest strength is irony. She exposes hypocrisy, entitlement and self-importance by letting her characters speak for themselves, often while being entirely convinced of their own virtue. It is a technique that has aged extremely well and still feels uncomfortably familiar in public life, which is why her influence today is so extensive. She wrote about structures, not fashions, which is why her work travels so easily more than two centuries later. We have already talked at length about “Bridget Jones’s Diary”, but we also have Bollywood’s “Bride and Prejudice”, modern queer retellings such as “Fire Island”, and let us not forget “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, which suggests that if a writer’s work can survive both the literary canon and the undead, their cultural legacy is in a really good place.
Most recently, historians such as Lucy Worsley have reminded us that Austen’s radicalism lay in insisting that ordinary women were worthy of being heroines and that their inner lives mattered, which is why she continues to speak so powerfully to young women today. Her heroines think, judge, change their minds and, crucially, are allowed to say no. They are underestimated, patronised and sometimes dismissed as trivial, only to prove otherwise. That theme has not entirely lost its relevance.
By writing women’s lives seriously—their judgment, their intelligence and their everyday experience—Austen helped to shift what was considered worthy of literature. Writers such as the Brontë sisters, George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell went on to write very different kinds of novels, but they did so in a literary world that Austen herself had helped to open up. She showed that stories centred on women could be complex, rigorous and enduring, and that women novelists themselves deserved to be taken seriously. Her influence runs through literature, films, television and popular culture, and it continues to invite us to question how power really operates, often behind politeness and convention.
I will end with Austen herself again, who wrote:
“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it”.
Some 250 years on, Jane Austen remains beloved, not because she smoothed over difficulty, but because she understood it, and because she trusted her readers to do exactly the same.
They still hold celebrations and festivals in Bath; I watched one where ladies and gentlemen paraded about in coats and costumes of such cut and colour that I felt I had stepped into one of my own chapters. I observed them with all the greatest delight, so imagine my surprise when I found it was being undertaken in my honour. How gratifying to have unconsciously inspired so strong an affection!
You will laugh, but it continues. I inquired, and found this not a singular affair; events across the city are held entirely to commemorate me. Exhibitions in museums and balls of the sort we once danced at are held in grand halls during an annual festival. There is even a museum—they call it the Jane Austen Centre—which informs visitors of my life, work and the manner in which I lived. I ought to be embarrassed, and perhaps I am—but only just a little. Mostly, I am entertained beyond measure.
I am often detained by Bath’s excellent bookshops. One such establishment, Persephone Books, is a publisher devoted to selling neglected fiction and non-fiction text by women authors. It is admirable to see this shop promoting women writers. Imagine if when I struggled to publish my books, I had had such support. I find this accompanied with a certain vexation, though, as I see so very few women’s titles—or, indeed, their characters—within school curricula. The imbalance is unmistakable. The books of men and the stories of their heroes are bound in such numbers that it is most improper. I hear—and I do say it is frightful—that only 5% of GCSE pupils studied a text authored by a women for GCSE literature in 2024. Such figures speak plainly and require no ornament. That books written by women appear so seldom in the curriculum is most unjustifiable.
I then, most unexpectedly, found myself being carried along by a crowd, my legs no longer my own. Hurried to a great stadium and with my curiosity spurring me on I ventured within and behold, what a spectacle presented itself! A number of gentlemen most astonishingly hurled one another across the grass in pursuit of a misshapen ball. They ended up in a most undignified heap, yet the people appeared highly entertained. I, caught up in the fervour, did lend my own voice. That is how I, to my own surprise, became a supporter of Bath Rugby.
Cassandra, how a single city can change so much I cannot easily comprehend, but it is not an unhappy alternative lying before me. Far from it: Bath still leaves my heart fluttering. Until you can come again, you must accept this poor description in place of your own experience, and believe me, as ever, to be your affectionate sister Jane.”
I apologise to all Jane Austen scholars, everybody who loves her and the great author herself for this poor epistle—but my team and I had great fun.
Elizabeth Bennet, with her wit and courage, reminds us that self-respect is non-negotiable. She refuses to marry for convenience, choosing instead to marry for love and equality. Elinor Dashwood, calm and rational, teaches us the strength of quiet resilience, while her sister Marianne embodies the beauty and the peril of unguarded passion. Then there is Emma Woodhouse, clever and confident, whose journey from vanity to humility shows that growth is the true mark of greatness. My favourite is Anne Elliot, whose quiet endurance and steadfast heart reveal that patience and hope can triumph over time and circumstance. In my favourite passage, she moves Captain Wentworth to declare:
“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.”
By the way, if anyone is looking for an Austen to watch over the Christmas period, I strongly commend the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of “Persuasion”.
Austen’s heroines are not rebels in the loud sense. They do not storm barricades or shout slogans. Their rebellion is subtle, yet profound. They insist on being true to themselves in a world that often demands compromise. They value love, but never at the cost of dignity. They seek happiness, but never by surrendering principle. In praising these women, we praise Austen’s vision—a vision that still speaks to us today. Her heroines remind us that strength comes in many forms: in wit, in kindness, in perseverance and the in courage to choose one’s own path. Those are heroines I feel we need now more than ever.
The more we learn about Jane Austen, the greater our admiration becomes for a woman with such wit, skill and literary prowess. Through her work, we enter into the mind of a young woman in a society where that voice would not usually be heard—and it is not just any voice; it is bold, witty, ironic and very funny. Austen brings us a voice that had hitherto been sidelined; when it is given centre stage, we can hear all its incredible qualities. She has a sharp and honest sense of humour and a clear-minded understanding of people and society, and emphasises the importance of taking pleasure in a good novel, which should be an inspiration to us today, particularly at a time when the proportion of the UK population reading for pleasure has been decreasing significantly.
Austen delighted in the ridiculous, and was never one to take life too seriously, writing in “Mansfield Park”:
“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”
As we celebrate her immense cultural legacy, I hope that that joy and amusement in the society of others will continue to inspire and enlighten us today. When I was younger, my mother and my two younger sisters watched the ’90s BBC adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” on loop for about a decade, and I can still quote nearly every line from it—I should thank them for making me appeared more cultured than I actually am. As Lizzy Bennet says:
“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
It is with great pleasure, fondness and admiration that we celebrate the life and works of Jane Austen.