Jane's Contemporaries

The Barker Family: Panorama Painters

Robert Barker revolutionized the way the world saw art, allowing the viewer to step into the painting for the first time.

Isaac Watts: Author of Joy to the World

Joy to the world! the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven, and nature sin...

Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte

An amazing woman, in uncertain times

Who is Sandy Lerner?

where did this Fairy Godmother of English women's literature appear from?

Rudolph Ackermann and his Repository of Arts

The fascinating life of Rudolph Ackermann

Hannah More and Jane Austen: Mary Crawford and Jane Fairfax

Arnie Perlstein examines “the sale—not quite of human flesh—but of human intellect”

Mary Elizabeth (Williams) Lucy

The ordinary life and an extraordinary woman...

Joseph Paisley: 'The Celebrated Gretna Green Parson'

"My dear Harriet, You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you ...

Princess Caraboo from the Island of Javasu

She turned up in Gloucestershire in 1817, claiming to be Princess Caraboo from the island of Javasu - saying she had been kidnapped by pirates before escaping and making her way to England. The fac...

The Patronesses of Almack's: The Arbiters of London Respectability

The Patronesses of Almack's: The Arbiters of London Respectability Almack's Assembly Rooms was governed by a select committee of the most influential and exclusive ladies of the ton, known as the L...

James Stanier Clarke: Librarian to the Prince of Wales

"I am quite honoured by your thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of... But I assure you I am not. The comic part of the character I might be equal to, but not th...

D'Arcy Wentworth: Heroic Inspiration?

Jane Austen's Aunt was once at risk of transportation to Botany Bay for shoplifting. It is piquant then,  that Austen named two of her major male characters Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)...