The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Jane Austen at Home: A Biography - Lucy Worsley - Google Books

Throughout the biography, Worsley provides vivid details of the homes, furnishings, gardens, and neighborhoods where Jane Austen lived, bringing these places to life. We also see the influence that these homes exerted upon Jane and her work. Worsley takes us through the ups and downs of Jane’s life, the family celebrations and disasters, and most revealingly, the everyday aspects of life that she so realistically observed and captured in her novels. The only improvement to the virtual tour of Jane Austen at Home that I could wish for would be an actual tour with Lucy Worsley as a guide.This is a meticulously researched bio of Jane Austen, warts and all. We follow Jane and her family from home to home, including schools, visits, vacations, assemblies, even occasional Inns. This is a book by a Janeite for Janeites. There were some points where I was reading about cousins and neighbors and wondering 'wait where is Jane in all this again?' A refreshingly unique perspective on Austen and her work and a beautifully nuanced exploration of gender, creativity, and domesticity.’ Amanda Foreman Although I did— for the most part—find Lucy Worsley's prose to be compelling, I thought that many of her arguments were unconvincing and biased. You might wonder why George Austen needed two livings, and how he could preach in both churches at once. As they were close together, he could dash from one to the other, and their combined income enabled him to live like a gentleman, or as close an approximation to it as he could manage. Later on he would subcontract the work of the smaller parish to a curate. Overall however I don't recommend reading this if you are looking for to read some informative, or credible, material about Austen. Worsley's constant snubs at her 'competitors' were tiring, especially considering that she seems to do exactly the same thing.

Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley | Waterstones

As Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, Lucy Worsley is a popular historian and writer well known for her television programmes on aspects of British history. In these however she lightens her erudition with simpering innuendo and sadly indulges some of that characteristic here. There are occasional rather desperate attempts to provide sensation: ‘The sea in Emma stands firmly for sex’ is one of the more lurid. There were lots of surelys and no wonders, and a lot of rhetorical questions, which yeah, didn't really work. If anything they reminded of her presence. And often Worsley used this BBC-type of tone that sounded both patronising and childish. Her attempts to engage the reader seemed a bit cheesy. As time passes books are published but illness descends and we are taken towards the tragic early demise of this great author. We see how fine a sister Cassandra is as well as some friends and family. The final chapter discusses the works of Jane after her death and what happened to the people and homes from within the story. There is also a interesting thread throughout that shows how the family tried to tweak/re-write history around Jane (for the better or at least so they thought). For Jane, home was a perennial problem. Where could she afford to live? Amid the many domestic duties of an unmarried daughter and aunt, how could she find the time to write? Where could she keep her manuscripts safe? A home of her own must have seemed to Jane to be always just out of reach."

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This book is a superb telling of 18th century society and life - Jane's life - through her homes and it is ably done with passion and care that brings our subject and her family in to being. We read of early life at home in Hampshire and how the family lived together but with financial challenges that saw her mother and (especially) father try their best for the children. To return to what Jane might have looked like, Lucy suggests she was around five feet seven, with a twenty-four inch waist (the alarming consequence of wearing tight stays as a girl). She rebukes biographers who describe her as a ‘plump, dumpy woman’ based on Cassandra’s portrait rather than the evidence. Similarly, the romantic image of a lonely writer fits poorly with the known facts.

Jane Austen At Home | Bring Jane Austen Home Page 2 Jane Austen At Home | Bring Jane Austen Home Page 2

I was born in Reading (not great, but it could have been Slough), studied Ancient and Modern History at New College, Oxford, and I've got a PhD in art history from the University of Sussex.

Lucy Worsley gives us Jane's life through the places she lived, and her few possessions. She never had a place of her own, as spinsters and widows were dependent on family charity for their survival in the early 19th century. Jane apparently had at least five chances at marriage, but never found her Mr. Darcy, and decided to let her novels be her children. This biography gives a fascinating history of her and her family, and my only complaint was that I would have liked more information about Cassandra, without whom Jane would not have been able to devote time to her novels.