Jane Austen in 41 Objects

A stunning, sophisticated and thought-provoking journey through Austen’s life, written by a world expert. This book is small but so, so beautiful, and utterly perfectly formed.

Objects are witnesses to our lives. It’s wonderful to see the dancing slippers belonging to one of Jane Austen’s nieces, a scrap of wallpaper, a recipe book from Chawton. Taken all together they form a rich and lively picture of a life cut off too soon. Yes, we have the legacy of her novels, but it’s fascinating to experience more of the wider context of her life. Is there room in the world for another book about Jane Austen? Definitely – this one!

In this riveting, gorgeously illustrated book, Sutherland… has identified 42 objects - one for each year of Austen’s life … the great advantage of Sutherland’s pick and mix approach is that it allows us the buried stories, side angles and overlooked corners that get squeezed out in more conventional treatments of Austen’s life.

There is not a dull page. I can imagine book club members’ impassioned responses, with speculationsinspired by objects so close to the life and the legends. What I cannot imagine is a better gift for a fan of Jane Austen, or for yourself.

To really understand the life of one of England’s greatest novelists is to look through the personal possessionsshe left behind. In celebration of Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary, author Kathryn Sutherland looks at the 41 objects that depict her short life in a new kind of biography.

In this book Kathryn Sutherland shows we can gain new insight into Austen byexamining the everyday artefacts that fed into her work. We are lucky that so manysurvive, and in this lavishly illustrated tribute can see a diverse array of the objects andephemera that surrounded her.

As lovely to look at as it is to read, Kathryn Sutherland’s catalogue of ‘a life in objects’ is set to be one of the stand-out publications of 2025, Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary year.

‘Jane Austen in 41 Objects’ is likely to be among the most attractive of many publications brought out to mark the 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth. No mere keepsake (though well worth keeping), its chunky format and high production values are at the service of a thoughtful, original and deeply satisfying text.

Kathryn Sutherland is Senior Research Fellow, St Anne’s College, Oxford.