In this episode of the Anglotopia podcast, host Jonathan Thomas speaks with Sophie Reynolds, Head of Collections, Interpretation & Engagement at Jane Austen’s house in Chawton, Hampshire, about the enduring legacy of Jane Austen as a literary figure. 2025 is the 250th anniversary of her birth, so there are celebrations at Chawton and all over the world to celebrate this literary great. They discuss Austen’s impact on literature, her proto-feminist perspective, and the evolution of her house museum in Hampshire. Sophie shares insights into her journey to working at the house, the immersive experiences created for visitors, and the significance of Austen’s writing in contemporary culture. The conversation highlights the importance of preserving literary history and the relevance of Austen’s work to modern readers.

Links

• Jane Austen’s House Official Website
• Chawton House
• A Jane Austen Year Book
• A Jane Austen Year Podcast
• Places to Visit in Britain for Jane Austen Fans
• Historic First: Jane Austen’s Final Home Opens to Public
• Jane Austen: A visit to Jane Austen’s Home – Video
• Great Britons: Everything You Need to Know About Literary Great Jane Austen
• Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

Takeaways

• Sophie Reynolds has a background in theater and performance.
• Jane Austen’s house is a modest but significant site in literary history.
• Austen’s writing was influenced by her experiences and the society she lived in.
• The house has been transformed into an immersive experience for visitors.
• Austen’s novels challenge social conventions and advocate for female agency.
• Her characters are realistic and relatable, transcending time and culture.
• Austen’s writing style includes free and direct speech, influencing modern literature.
• The museum hosts various events to celebrate Austen’s legacy.
• Visitors from around the world come to experience Jane Austen’s house.
• Sophie emphasizes the importance of making literature accessible to all.

Sound Bites

• On Jane Austen’s modest writing conditions: “So many writers, you know, think of Dickens, his desk is very large and imposing and has a leather top and he had a lovely comfy chair and he had his own room that he could shut the door… Jane Austen didn’t have that. She had this tiny, tiny, funny little table and it’s barely big enough for a sheet of paper.”
• On making the house feel lived-in: “We wanted to make the house feel populated… we have recordings of actresses speaking from Jane Austen’s letters or from her novels. So there’s a kind of little background, little hubbub. It’s not intrusive, but it’s just the sense that the house is occupied.”
• On Austen as a proto-feminist: “She wrote realistic female characters… She doesn’t give her male characters particular… they’re not as three-dimensional as our female characters. They don’t have thoughts and as much to say in the way that you sort of might expect.”
• On visitor reactions to the writing table: “We get many visitors who burst into tears over the writing table because not only is it seeing where this extraordinary writer who they admire so much worked but it’s such a tiny table. It’s so modest.”
• On Austen’s real personality: “People seem to sort of have this idea of her as a very gentle, romantic soul in a bonnet and a long dress… And actually she was a very spiky person… she wrote some extraordinary letters to her sister where she is very rude about their neighbors and their friends and their family.”
• On the challenge of literary house museums: “Something that’s really difficult to do and that most museums don’t do is set out to really showcase the creative life of that person… most museums… show the domestic life… the pots and pans, the cups and saucers, and maybe the clothes.”
• On Austen’s teenage writings: “They are so not what you would expect Jane Austen to be writing. They are really wild… There’s a character who she kidnaps her children, they eat her fingers and they’re all on a raft at sea.”
• On the pilgrimage aspect: “For a lot of people, visiting Jane Austen’s house is almost like a kind of pilgrimage. People… just love Jane Austen so much and it’s an incredibly important… They want to have a very moving experience. They want to sense something about Jane Austen’s presence there.”
• On her literary innovations: “She wrote realistic novels in a time when that really wasn’t the norm… After Jane Austen, that does become much more what the English novel is doing… She wrote really brilliant, realistic dialogue.”
• On Austen’s enduring cultural impact: “Once you start to sort of look for it and you get your eye in, she is in sort of every aspect of our culture… the first line of Pride and Prejudice… has been turned into every single imaginable universal truth that you could imagine on coffee mugs and on t-shirts.”

Chapters

• 00:00 Celebrating Jane Austen’s Legacy
• 13:50 Sophie Reynolds’ Journey to Jane Austen’s House
• 27:55 The Evolution of Jane Austen’s House Museum
• 41:45 Jane Austen’s Feminism and Literary Innovations
• 55:25 Daily Life and Creative Process of Jane Austen

Video Version