Jane's Contemporaries

After Austen: What to read next

Clara Callén i Rusiñol provides advice on what to read after you've finished the work of Jane Austen. 

An Enlightening Letter: The Leigh Perrot Shoplifting Case

You likely know the story of how Jane Austen’s aunt, Jane Leigh Perrot, was falsely accused of stealing from a haberdashers in Bath and prosecuted at Taunton Assizes. It is thought that the accu...

Elizabeth Fry: Social Reformer

As many of us look to celebrate International Women's Day today, we thought it  fitting to go back and acquaint ourselves with Elizabeth Fry, the social reformer formerly depicted on the five poun...

Catherine 'Kitty' Stephens

  A short while ago, we shared with you what we had learnt about the harp-lute and its popularity during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. One of our lovely readers pointed out tha...

Robert Burns: Poet, Lyricist and Scottish National Figure

 "I have read several of Burns' Poems with great delight", said Charlotte, as soon as she had time to speak, "but I am not poetic enough to separate a Man's Poetry entirely from his Character; -- ...

Family intrigue: A letter from Mrs A Foley to Jane Leigh Perrot

David Pugsley with another archival discovery relating to the Austens

Mary Anning: Fossil Hunter Extraordinaire

Austen doesn't often write about science, but Georgian society was abuzz with new developments. Learn about the Anning family, and their daughter, the famous palaeontologist and fossil collector, M...

The Jane Austen of Art: Diana Sperling

Margaret Mills delves into the the life of one of Jane's contemporaries- an illusrator named Diana Sperling.

The Formative Years of George Austen, Jane's father

A look at James Cawthorn, George Austen and the Curious Case of the Schoolboy Who Was Killed by Martin J. Cawthorne   Jane Austen’s father, George Austen has many connections to the city of Bath....

Pierre-Joseph Redouté: The Raphael of flowers

Royal court painter at Marie Antoinette's Versailles.

The Swiss Family Robinson: "One of the most popular novels of all time"

Written in 1812 and translated into English by William Godwin in 1814

The Moonlight Sonata

Written in 1801 and dedicated to Giulietta Guicciardi; was she also the "Immortal Beloved"?