The Jane Austen BBC Radio Drama Collection

Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775, the sixth of seven children. Her father, George, was the prosperous and cultured rector at Steventon, near Basingstoke. He encouraged Jane’s early love of reading and writing; by fourteen, she had penned Love and Friendship, and by fifteen, she had completed the ambitiously titled A History of England.

Although Austen’s heroines experienced many adventures, Jane herself lived a relatively uneventful life. She famously accepted a proposal of marriage one evening, only to retract her agreement the following morning. Her life was largely characterized by quiet family routines interspersed with occasional visits to Bath, London, and Lyme. Her novels were written during intervals between these family excursions, though not always in the order they were eventually published. Sense and Sensibility (published in 1811) was originally written in 1795 as Elinor and Marianne. Pride and Prejudice (published in 1813) began life as ‘First Impressions’ in 1797. Of her other novels, Mansfield Park was published in 1814, Emma in 1816, and Persuasion posthumously in 1818.

Throughout her life, Jane maintained regular correspondence with her sister Cassandra, her friends, and her nieces and nephews. Though Cassandra later removed any deeply personal content from these letters after Jane’s death, they offer insight into Jane’s view of her own work, which she described as “the little bit (two inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour.” This modest assessment was not shared by Sir Walter Scott or by the Prince Regent, who kept a set of her novels in each of his residences.

The Austen family moved several times during Jane’s life. In 1801, they left Steventon for Bath. Following George Austen’s death in 1805, they moved to Southampton and then, in 1809, to Chawton. In the weeks leading up to her death, Jane lodged in Winchester to be near her doctor. Her illness has been attributed to various conditions, including Addison’s disease, Hodgkin’s disease, and arsenic poisoning. She died on 18 July 1817.

Jane Austen’s novels have garnered a devoted following, and the numerous adaptations of her work for film, television, and radio attest to their enduring popularity. One of her works was among the earliest broadcasts on BBC radio: a reading of the proposal scene from Pride and Prejudice aired on 15 January 1924.

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