Jane Austen wrote just six novels in her short life. Yet, 250 years after her birth, her work continues to impact literature and pop culture around the world. Each of her novels — “Sense and Sensibility,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Northanger Abbey,” “Mansfield Park,” “Emma” and “Persuasion” — has been adapted for miniseries, films and stage plays, all centering multidimensional women who are navigating the societal and familial norms of the Regency era with humor, intelligence and propriety.
Harvard professor Deidre Shauna Lynch told GBH’s Under the Radar that Austen’s lasting legacy is partly because her books transcend beyond the era and geography in which they were written.
“[Austen] has an amazing way of depicting inequality and differentials in power,” Lynch said. “She depicts a world of unequal opportunity that I think is very familiar to us. It’s kind of the world that we continue to inhabit today.”
The novels each have a romantic storyline, but Jill Crowley, longtime member of the Massachusetts region of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), said romance is her least favorite feature of Austen’s work.
“I think I’m drawn to the the razor-sharp wit,” Crowley said. “[Austen] manages to nail human experience. It’s all very accessible and feels like it could have been written today.”
Caroline Jane Knight’s interest to Austen’s work is much more personal: She is the fifth great-niece of Austen and the last member of the inheritance line to live in Chawton Manor, down the street from Chawton Cottage, where Austen lived. The cottage was turned into a museum in the 1940s.
“As a child, I used to watch people as they came into the museum,” Knight said. “I used to go down there and and talk to people and wonder why they had traveled halfway across the world to come and see this cottage where Jane wrote all of her novels.”
As an adult, Knight said she now understands the deep connection fans have with her ancestor. After speaking to Austen-loving audiences around the world, Knight said it’s not unusual for people to approach her with tears in her eyes because of Austen and her work, which often came into their lives at pivotal or difficult times.
“In that moment, a copy of usually ‘Pride and Prejudice’ ended up in their hands. And they were told to read it. And they found such comfort in this world that Jane created, in this voice of Jane’s that they can hear through her writing, and it just takes them into such a safe, comfortable place and feeling of comfort that that’s something they never ever ever forget,” Knight said.
Not much is known about Jane Austen’s life, aside from historical records, which Knight said could be part of what keeps fans, scholars and Hollywood coming back for more. And while “Pride and Prejudice” is her most beloved and adapted novel, Lynch said readers should remember Austen’s later works as well, which offer a glimpse into the growing sophistication and maturity in her writing and her advancement of the novel as a literary form.
“‘Mansfield Park’ is just the most amazing exposé of how power works, how bullying works,” Lynch said. “If you don’t read ‘Persuasion,’ I think you’re missing out on the most romantic of the entire group. Anne Elliot is an astonishing heroine, in part because when the novel opens, she’s already lost so much. She’s 27, which in Austen’s day means that she’s an old maid; her dancing days are done. And this is a story of how love comes back into her life. ‘Persuasion’ just sweeps me away every time.”
“I’m going to have to get on the ‘Persuasion’ bandwagon, because that is my favorite novel,” Crowley adds. “And if you want to talk about ‘Emma,’ I would say you’d be missing some of her best humor. There are some great characters in there that are just hilarious. It’s a laugh-out-loud read.”
Whether its social commentary, humor or romance, Knight said that Austen is for everyone.
“The world of Jane Austen is very diverse,” Knight said. “Yes, there are only six novels, but there are so many different groups and so many different ways of enjoying Jane Austen, from watching movies to academic societies to reading groups to dress-up balls where you can enjoy a taste of of that Regency experience yourself. There are so many ways to enjoy Jane Austen.”
Guests
- Jill Crowley, longtime member and former coordinator of the Massachusetts Region of JASNA, the Jane Austen Society of North America
- Dr. Deidre Shauna Lynch, the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of English Literature at Harvard University
- Caroline Jane Knight, the fifth great niece of Jane Austen, author of the memoir, “Jane & Me: My Austen Heritage,” founder of the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation
