Dancers carry out in St Swithins Church, Tub, on the Jane Austen Competition, 2023.
Beata Cosgrove/Jane Austen Competition
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Beata Cosgrove/Jane Austen Competition
In her lifetime, Jane Austen was comparatively unknown. The title web page of Sense and Sensibility, her first revealed novel, mentioned merely it was “By a Woman”, and her different books additionally saved her identify a secret. However as we speak, Austen is one in every of Britain’s finest beloved writers, with a portrait of her face even showing on among the UK’s foreign money – the ten pound observe.
Austen was born within the village of Steventon, Hampshire, in December 1775 – and this yr, there are occasions throughout Britain to mark 250 years since her start.
Most typical among the many celebrations are “balls”, full with interval dancing, just like the events depicted in Austen’s novels. One such Georgian costume ball was held in June at St Albans Museum and Gallery. Sitting 20 miles north of London, St Albans is within the county of Hertfordshire, the setting for Austen’s most well-known novel, Satisfaction and Prejudice. Company on the St Albans ball have been invited to put on seventeenth Century interval costume – with women in full size robes, and males in tailcoats.
Main the dancing was Libby Curzon, who runs a small dancing firm known as Mrs Bennet’s Ballroom. Curzon teaches interval dance to newbies, and named her enterprise after the mom of the household in Satisfaction and Prejudice, who desires of discovering her daughters an appropriate husband.
Curzon says that in Austen’s day, individuals would have discovered the dances earlier than they got here out to bounce at a ball. “They would not have had someone like me telling them what to do on the evening,” she mentioned. “They might have all been anticipated to know what to do, and it could have been actually surprising… when you made a mistake in the course of the dance.”
The dance instructor mentioned that her courses and balls could be romantic, similar to Austen’s books, with {couples} usually assembly at her occasions. “It is not like having a look at them and swiping left or proper,” she mentioned. “You’ve got truly received to maneuver with them, maintain palms, work out how one can do the dance and… give eye contact,” she added. “So, it helps these little Cupid’s arrows.”
Dance instructor Libby Curzon, from ‘Mrs Bennet’s Ballroom’, teaches attendees interval dances at a Georgian Costume Ball to have a good time 250 years since Jane Austen’s start. St Albans Museum and Gallery, England, June 7, 2025.
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Robbie Griffiths/NPR
One of many attendees on the St Albans ball was Gauri Davies, who’s from Australia, however lives close by. Davies rereads Jane Austen books yearly, and defined that going to a ball together with her husband Peter was a “bucket record” occasion for her, as a result of she loves Austen’s tales, and identifies with among the characters.
“I believe that she actually will get to the guts of romance,” Davies mentioned. “She talks about completely different courses, completely different quantities of privilege, individuals coming from completely different household backgrounds, and all of these themes are nonetheless so related as we speak.”
Jane Austen died younger – in 1817, when she was simply 41 – which means she was solely in a position to full six novels. However over 2 hundred years later, new variations of her work are repeatedly made and remade for stage and display screen.
This yr, British actors Emma Corrin, Jack Lowden and Olivia Colman are filming a brand new six-part adaptation of Satisfaction and Prejudice for Netflix. That adaptation is one in every of many – together with a Keira Knightly film from 2005, and a celebrated BBC tv collection with Colin Firth from 1995. The writer’s personal life story has additionally fascinated movie makers: this yr, a brand new BBC drama known as Miss Austen imagined Jane Austen’s life, alongside her sister Cassandra.
On prime of that, Austen’s plots always encourage new fictional tales, as her work has influenced the entire romantic comedy style. This yr noticed the discharge of the French romantic comedy Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, in addition to the fourth movie within the Bridget Jones franchise, whose first installment was initially impressed by Satisfaction and Prejudice.
On London’s West Finish, a musical of the Nineteen Nineties film Clueless additionally began operating this yr, with a plot that takes its cues from Austen’s novel Emma. Austen’s plots have travelled internationally: the films Aisha and Bride and Prejudice, each set in India, are derived from Jane Austen too.
Throughout Britain, there are events and talks unfold out all year long. Maybe the most important occasion of its variety is September’s Jane Austen Competition in Tub, a ten day celebration that can host 1000’s of devotees. Followers throughout the globe are planning their very own tributes. The Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) has 2,000 members, and has its personal occasions within the U.S. and Canada.
Dancers get pleasure from a Georgian Costume Ball celebrating 250 years since Jane Austen’s start at St Albans Museum and Gallery, England, June 7, 2025.
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Biba Kang/NPR
JASNA additionally runs excursions of England, together with two particular journeys this yr. They go to websites together with Jane Austen’s birthplace, her grave in Winchester Cathedral, and Tub, a metropolis the place she lived for 5 years – in addition to the websites of scenes from the novels. JASNA’s president Mary Mintz says that going to Jane Austen’s Home in Chawton, Hampshire, to see the writing desk the place she wrote her books, is very highly effective.
“You may see her writing desk there and know that is the place these unbelievable novels which have endured for thus lengthy have been composed,” Mintz mentioned, declaring that Austen wrote all of her work in longhand, typically hiding it from friends who visited. “Seeing something that Jane Austen touched is a really shifting expertise… it may be very emotional and it engenders a whole lot of respect for what she achieved.”
Mintz feels that Austen’s work is a useful doc of the altering function of girls in society. “Above all, I believe she’s within the financial plight of girls in her time interval, as a result of ladies have been property, their property belonged to the males of their lives,” Mintz mentioned. “And whereas she could also be coping with the wedding plot, she’s conscious about the truth that ladies in her period needed to get married to be able to have financial viability to outlive.”
In fact, the love tales and household intrigue are essential too. “Her tales go even deeper than the romance story or the wedding plot, they’re about making common connections with others,” Mintz added. “What do individuals need most in life? They need to discover somebody to like and who loves them.”
John Mullan is professor of English at College Faculty London, and writer of the guide What Issues in Jane Austen? Mullan thinks that whereas some may dismiss Austen as only a romance author, she is likely one of the literary greats.
“I believe solely Shakespeare compares to her on this respect, that nonetheless usually you’ve got learn one in every of her novels, while you learn it once more, it is like a complete rediscovery,” Mullan mentioned. “You see issues which are not in your head, they’re on the web page, they’re in her invention that you simply hadn’t observed earlier than.”
Mullan says Austen additionally compares to William Shakespeare in her world fame. “I’ve travelled quite a bit giving talks about Jane Austen in a lot of completely different international locations, and she or he is second solely to Shakespeare, and never even all the time second to him, in her attain, within the extent to which individuals may have heard of her, know one thing of her plots – and fairly often, in the event that they’re in any respect bookish individuals, have learn her in translation, or seen the movie variations of her tales,” he added.
Producer Biba Kang contributed to this report.
