News for Austen Enthusiasts : April 2021

Summer is just around the corner - not that you'd know it from the weather we've been having here in England! Another stormer of a month for Austen news, starting with our most exciting news, we're reopening! With COVID-19 restrictions finally on the wane, the Jane Austen Centre will be opening its doors to visitors again on May 19. To book your tickets, click here. Here's everything else you might have missed this past month.

Another Persuasion adaptation has entered the ring- no, not the Sarah Snook one- another one! And this one has brought the big guns. Yes, we've got Dakota Johnson (of Fifty Shades fame) and Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) joining to play Anne Elliot and Mr. Elliot, her cousin, respectively. Our Wentworth remains a mystery. Who is your dream Wentworth casting?

With many historical institutions joining the call for more transparency about Britain's Empire and its colonial endeavours, the fine folk at Jane Austen's House in Hampshire announced plans to refresh their displays with more contextual information about the time in which the author lived, during which Great Britain would abolish the slave trade. Whilst the House have been criticised by some for the move, in a statement put out on their twitter, they clarified that they would not be 'cancelling' Jane, but hoping to provide some interesting and enriching historical context for the time in which she lived. 

After eighteen months of determined campaigning by fans, ITV have decided to renew their beloved adaptation of Austen's unfinished novel, Sanditon, for not one, but two more seasons. The two seasons will follow Charlotte Heywood as she returns to Sanditon, building on the foundations that Austen provided.

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We will admit that we are not the people you should be talking to about science, but this sounds pretty cool. Scientists at the University of Texas have managed to encode a quote from Mansfield Park onto a tiny plastic molecule! The chosen quote is appropriate, and pretty self explanatory:

As always, we would love to know if we've missed anything important! What do you think of all the latest? 

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