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00:00One of the things that's always clear about anyone who does anything, it's all about the
00:08childhood. These are the times when real art is created. Jane Austen's childhood was scarred by
00:21a near-death experience. When she was seven years old, she and her sister Cassandra were sent away
00:28to boarding school. It's a terrible thing. What the girls faced. An outbreak of typhus struck the
00:37school and both girls fell gravely ill. Entirely alone, Cassandra nursed Jane as her sickness worsened.
00:47It's just Cassandra with her, being with her, holding her. That's sibling power. That's love.
00:54That's extraordinary. Throughout her life, the support and sacrifices of her sister will enable
01:05Jane Austen to fulfil her genius. This is the most powerful relationship in either of those women's
01:12lives. Today, few records of Jane Austen's life survive. But now, with the help of writers,
01:25experts, experts and actors, we can piece her story back together.
01:42Jane Austen was a writer teeming with new ideas, who revealed profound truths about the world she lived
01:49in. There is writing before Austen, and there is writing after Austen. That achievement is enormous.
01:58Jane Austen is the greatest comic novelist we have ever produced.
02:05At a time when women were supposed to know their place, Jane ripped up the rule book.
02:11She's not just writing about romance. We should see her as a political novelist.
02:16She's telling young women, I see you and I hear you, which I think is such a modern thing.
02:22Austen's life is a tale of ambition, struggle and tragedy. A genius cut down in her prime.
02:32She's really good at the light, the ironic, the beautifully observed, and then life drives a truck
02:37into that. This is the story of how a self-taught country girl from a Hampshire village
02:44defied the conventions of her day to become one of the greatest novelists who ever lived.
02:51Her voice is so strong and funny and perceptive and her work's still being copied and stolen by people
02:58like me. She did what she wanted to do and it makes me feel like I can always do what I want to do.
03:14Jane Austen is 38 years old. She has published three novels, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility,
03:34and most recently, Mansfield Park. Although ignored by critics, it has sold well and she is closer to
03:43having financial freedom than ever before. Jane Austen is now finally on the literary map.
03:50There's a great satisfaction in the idea that finally it's her pen that's keeping a roof over
03:56her head after the years and years of insecurity. She's really in her stride now and she's feeling
04:04good about herself and why is she feeling good about herself? Because she's earning money.
04:10But there's one thing still troubling her. How to tackle big subjects and say something about the world
04:18without alienating readers and critics.
04:27For the past five years, Austen has been living comfortably in a home provided by her brother
04:32Edward, who had been raised by wealthy relatives.
04:36He's the brother that gets given away to a rich family. They adopt him. It's a way that rich people
04:43that didn't have sons could guarantee male succession.
04:48So Edward Austen grows up as Edward Knight and inherits 8,000 acres in Hampshire,
04:55including the village of Chawton.
05:01Chawton Cottage is Jane's sacred space that she has with her sister Cassandra and their mother.
05:09Since the death of their father, Cassandra has become Jane's greatest supporter.
05:17Jane's relationship with Cassandra is exceptionally close. In one letter, Jane refers to themselves as
05:23the formidables. And Cassandra is very, very careful to make sure that Jane doesn't have to take on
05:30too big a share of the management of the household to make space for her to write.
05:41But now, news arrives that throws Austen's life into turmoil.
05:48Her brother Edward is threatened with a lawsuit that could strip him of his fortune.
05:53The action is brought by a local family, who believe they are the rightful heirs to the
06:00Chawton estate. Should Edward lose, the Austen women will become homeless once again.
06:09Austen suddenly faces grave uncertainty. If this lawsuit goes against Edward, he could face having to
06:17sell off up to 80% of his enormous estates. Jane is facing homelessness, if this lawsuit is successful.
06:27Austen's modest earnings for her writing are nowhere near enough to protect her if she was to lose her home.
06:33So she turns to what she knows best, writing. She needs profits. She needs to make as much money
06:48as she possibly can out of her fiction. She needs a crowd pleaser, she needs a real banger that's going to
06:54reach as many readers as possible. It's not just the Austen family facing hard times. Following a peace
07:03treaty with France during the Napoleonic Wars, Britain's economy falls into a deep recession.
07:09The price of bread has doubled. And as new technology starts to take people's jobs,
07:17riots begin to spread across the country.
07:19The money that was being spent on armaments and providing things for the war against Napoleon
07:27in Europe, all of that stopped. The Industrial Revolution was starting, meaning people were coming
07:32in off the land and they were all crammed together in terrible conditions. So there was a social
07:37revolution in terms of living. There's a growing sense of strife and hunger and increasing inequality.
07:46Austen is witnessing a terribly unequal country that is increasingly divided. The haves and the have-nots
07:55are so far apart. It's like a cost-of-living crisis writ large right there in the village where Austen is living.
08:09As Austen travels from her home in Chawton to the privileged world of her brother Edward,
08:14she cannot help but notice the increasing divide between rich and poor.
08:25They're surrounded by poverty, by people being evicted from their houses,
08:28by people being forced to pack up and trudge on foot to London to try to survive.
08:33You know, people were starving around them.
08:37As often as they can, the Austen women give food and clothes to the most needy in their community.
08:44She has a real sense of compassion for people around her and to imagine, you know, that could be me.
08:57Austen pours this feeling into the novel she is currently writing.
09:02In this time of crisis, she decides to put the self-indulgent behaviour of the rich under the microscope.
09:09She's looking at rich people and thinking, you live in a such big, nice house.
09:13Do you deserve to be rich? Are you just a better person?
09:16And of course, you're not a better person. And this is what we meet in Emma.
09:25Emma follows the matchmaking misadventures of the rich and self-absorbed Emma Woodhouse.
09:31Emma centres around a really spoiled and wealthy heroine who has power.
09:41This is one of the first heroines that she writes about that really fully has power.
09:46And why does she have power? Because she has money.
09:49Emma is vain, beautiful, shallow, irritating and very snobby.
09:54She's a real monster. And Jane Austen says herself,
09:56nobody's going to much like this heroine except for myself.
10:03The central theme of the novel is Emma becoming awakened to her thoughtless and selfish ways.
10:11The key scene is a picnic at the picturesque Box Hill, where Emma and her friends have gathered,
10:17including the much poorer Miss Bates.
10:19Miss Bates is a generally happy person, but she also has verbal diarrhoea, that she cannot stop talking,
10:28is always commenting on what she's seeing, what she's experiencing, what she's thinking.
10:34Shall we all play a game?
10:36Emma finds Miss Bates irritating and mercilessly ridicules her.
10:41I command that we each tell Miss Woodhouse something entertaining.
10:44You may offer one thing very clever, two things moderately clever, or three things very dull and deep.
10:51And in return, Miss Woodhouse will laugh heartily at them all.
10:56I shall be sure to say three very dull things as soon as I open my mouth, can't I?
11:01There may be a difficulty.
11:02Oh, I doubt that. I'm sure I never fail to say things very dull.
11:05Yes, dear, but you will be limited as to number, only three.
11:08Oh!
11:14To be sure, yes.
11:19She's entirely humiliated, and everyone else can see it, and Emma can't see it.
11:24It's searingly cruel.
11:26I...
11:27I see, I see, I see what she means.
11:35I will try and hold my tongue.
11:36Oh, I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend.
11:49There you have in Microcosm an illustration of what actually is going on in the country.
11:54There's huge disparity between rich and poor.
11:56She's chosen the romantic structure as her narrative structure.
12:02But her books are about everything.
12:06So she's not just talking about love at all.
12:11Just three.
12:11Jane would have known people like this.
12:15So there is an exquisite sense of real life within these characters.
12:21And these characters are all understandable.
12:24Which is why we still read the stories today, because we know who these people are.
12:28We have met people like this.
12:32It falls to Mr. Knightley to say you ought to be ashamed.
12:37He really tells her off.
12:38He really gives it both barrels.
12:41How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates?
12:45How could you be so insolent to a woman of her age and situation?
12:48I'd not thought it possible.
12:50How could I help playing it?
12:51I dare say she did not understand me.
12:53I assure you, she felt your full meaning.
12:56She cannot stop mentioning it.
12:58Knightley pulls her aside and says,
13:00you can't act like that.
13:01That was wrong.
13:03And sometimes you've got to not tell the joke, actually.
13:06You've got to hold back.
13:07But she is poor.
13:10Even more so than when she was born.
13:12And should she live to be an old lady, she will sink further still.
13:15Her situation being in every way below you should secure your compassion.
13:19And the famous line is, you know, it was badly done.
13:22Badly done, Emma.
13:27Badly done.
13:27Badly done.
13:30gastricenter.
13:33Umm, don't stopp9 chce.
13:35You can ever tell the joke, man.
13:36You know, she's too late.
13:36Smartp9, tells me the old lady to pronounce her son.
13:39You've got to be deceived.
13:40Drs 있어.
13:42So in Emma, Austin uses the same technique she pioneered in Sense and Sensibility.
13:44it even further playing with her readers and deliberately misleading them
13:51there's an example of it here in emma where mr elton is described as the lover of harriet
13:58by the narrator we know that that's not true so what we have here is an unreliable narrator it
14:14mark of her genius throughout the novel emma begins to see the error of her ways you want
14:21our friendship to remain the same as it has always been in this scene she tries to convince mr knightley
14:28that she has changed i know i made mistakes but had you been here the last few days you would have
14:33seen how i've tried to change it's interesting that she names mr knightley mr knightley her her
14:39knightly and shining armor particularly as her brother's name was also edward knight jane is
14:46acknowledging the role of this older male figure someone who looks back with love and compassion
14:55as jane austen's older brother does to her please tell me i am your friend i do not wish to call you
15:01my friend because i hope to call you something infinitely more dear
15:09you know what i mean
15:21in the finale emma and mr knightley happily marry the enlightenment of emma is a message from austin
15:30that rich people have to become aware of the impact of their of their lives on the rest of the world
15:39emma is austin's greatest work yet it's a combination of everything she's learned so far
15:56it's commercial funny poignant and subtly political if it sells well it could provide the austin women with
16:05the financial security they need feeling let down by her previous publisher this time austin decides to go
16:14to the top and approach the best in the business john murray john murray is the most fashionable bookseller
16:23in london in 1814 he is the publisher of lord byron he is as glamorous and well-connected as a bookseller can possibly be
16:32this unshakable self-confidence this unshakable belief in her ingenious
16:40is what propels her to believe that she can be a john murray author
16:48in october 1815 jane's brother henry negotiates a deal on his sister's behalf
16:54murray agrees to publish emma but on one condition he also wants the copyright what he's asking her to
17:04do is give up her intellectual property her ownership of these works so it's a real conundrum for her
17:11can she bear to let the ownership of her works go to him austin reveals her thoughts in a letter
17:18to her sister cassandra mr murray's letter has come he is a rogue of course but a civil one he sends more
17:28praise however than i expected it is an amusing letter a rogue but a civil one it's such a characteristic
17:36austin expression it captures his edginess the fact that there's something potentially explosive
17:44which she's going to have to handle very very carefully the prospect of a cash injection is too
17:51good to refuse austin wants her brother henry to accept the deal she obviously wants to be published
18:01by john murray but henry is prevaricating and i think she's feeling really infuriated i think she's
18:07feeling are you kidding me this is john murray so henry's in danger of really messing this up
18:14then with the deal still hanging in the balance jane's brother falls gravely ill
18:22the talks with murray grind to a halt the expectation is that it will be delayed and that
18:30everyone will wait for henry austin to get better
18:36but no she takes over she thinks i don't really need henry i can do this myself i can take
18:42matters into my own hands austin takes personal control of the negotiations
18:50and rips up murray's terms she's been burnt by deals like this before
18:56what she's doing is fighting for her own voice i really think that matters which is a bold move that's
19:04a boss move austin negotiates her own contract she won't sell her copyright instead she will take on
19:13the cost of printing emma herself austin is thinking about the profits from her work and how that could
19:20function as a pension for the austin women so she's thinking about the long-term gain as part of this deal
19:29austin also pays for a second print run of mansfield park she believes it never got the attention it
19:36deserved it's a huge risk but if it comes off she will keep 90 of the profits
19:44she's unafraid to meet this legendary john murray and face him out and advocate for herself she is ahead
19:57of her time because men always make the deals and it's still you know if you look at the movie
20:02industry now and it's still hard as a woman to stand up for yourself austin is the first female novelist
20:11on murray's books it's a real sign of her wanting to take back some of the control that she's not
20:19had for most of her life with this new deal austin accepts that she has no control over when murray
20:28will send the books to the printers it must have felt fantastic but you know you can't actually make
20:36a publisher do anything that is infuriating because i've had delays in publishing that i've just
20:41kind of why why they're delaying why why isn't it being published you have no control over that with
20:47the lawsuit hanging over them it is an absolute imperative for her at this point that the process
20:53of printing happens as quickly as possible
20:55then an unexpected opportunity falls into austin's lap as in so many cases in jane's life an incident
21:06of misfortune turns into something quite amazing it turns out that henry's doctor is also the official
21:13physician to the prince regent jane hears at first hand how her novels are beloved by the prince regent
21:22how he has multiple copies of them in his different residences dr bailey makes a tempting suggestion
21:31he offers to arrange a date for austin to have a private tour of the prince regent's library
21:37one of the most luxurious libraries in the country
21:42this is a slightly complicated coincidence because jane herself is a great enemy of the prince regent
21:48he's spending money and he's gluttonous and there are these caricatures in the shop windows
21:56showing him with prostitutes he's made a figure of mockery and jenolson certainly doesn't like him
22:05no doubt jane will have been torn over what to do
22:08jane must stand her moral ground or put her loathing of the prince regent aside for this once in a
22:17lifetime opportunity this is a compromised invitation but she's a pragmatist she would have been crazy not
22:26to do this you know it's not the last time or first time that she's had to suck it up
22:3813th of november 1815 austin arrives at carlton house the prince regent's home
22:46a glittering palace at the heart of decadent london the prince has spent millions on its renovation
22:53running up huge debt in 1811 he spent over 10 million pounds in today's money on just one party
23:01as his people starved this is jane austin very far removed from chorting cottage we're suddenly
23:08seeing her in exalted circles surely she's feeling to herself i'm really making it she is greeted by
23:18james stanier clark the prince regent's personal librarian
23:22during the visit clark makes an offer of a lifetime why doesn't austin dedicate her next novel to the
23:33prince jane is not 100 sure what to do with it she feels her principled distrust of the prince regent
23:43kicking in but she might be able to use that dedication to the prince regent as leverage
23:50almost against her publisher in order to get emma published more quickly
23:57adding a dedication to the prince regent will drive the sales she needs austin sees this as a unique
24:05marketing opportunity for emma it's just huge this is a deal breaker in terms of her visibility
24:13as a writer austin accepts the offer to force the hand of her publisher murray
24:20she rolls the dice and decides to go with it thinking that i have had to fight tooth and nail
24:27to get to where i am this time she's going to make the system work for her rather than against her
24:32she has been writing for 20 years about maneuvering women and here is austin performing a successful
24:42maneuver with the most fashionable publisher in london austin's plan works
24:53murray prints 2 000 copies of emma rather than the usual print run of 500
24:59emma is split up and sold in volumes as all novels are at the time whilst driving greater profits
25:09it also enables people to share and read the novel at the same time
25:16on the 20th of december 1815 austin gifts the prince regent three specially bound volumes of emma
25:23emma is a blockbuster and flies off the shelves she's got a publisher who believes in her she's got a
25:43stonking banger of a book that's hitting the shelves and it's got a royal endorsement
25:49after so many setbacks being scammed by publishers being dismissed and rejected she must feel amazing
25:58because also she's had a really integral part in engineering its its success
26:02one of the keys to john murray's flourishing business is a new marketing tool the book review where he
26:19pays famous authors to plug his latest books murray asks his friend walter scott to write a piece on emma
26:29and austin's previous works so walter scott writes an extraordinarily perceptive a real rocket boost of
26:37a review of emma to get good reviews is great it's it's really it's great and those are moments you
26:45have to really savour but when the review is showed to jane austin however this is not quite good enough
26:52the review lists austin's previous novels but fails to mention her most personal work mansfield park
27:01which she had just paid to re-release it stings austin she can't actually hear the praise because
27:08that omission is is quite devastating to her and she immediately sends off a letter of complaint to her
27:14publisher saying how come someone so clever can fail to to notice mansfield park
27:19a great number of novelists have an orphan child and the orphan child is the novel that came out that
27:27no one seemed to want i have a novel called the story of the night and you haven't heard of it no
27:32one's heard of it because no one's read it and yet i was pretty sure even the eve of its coming out
27:37that i was going to do all these things and it simply shrunk it simply disappeared i thought if only
27:43people could read this book they would love it but no no the answer to that is no
27:51but austin's personal grievances are soon overshadowed
27:59in 1815 the peace with france collapses and fighting resumes at the battle of waterloo
28:06british forces under the duke of wellington finally defeat napoleon's army
28:11but britain's victory comes at great cost to the economy the move from a wartime to a peacetime
28:18economy it is very bouncy well the first thing with peace is you cut the size of your armed forces
28:25and the navy which had had 120 000 men was cut down to about 30 000 men and those men were put out on
28:32the streets with very little ditto the army so suddenly there was this extra mass of people wandering
28:37around trying to find jobs and things all these things together meant a perfect storm in terms of
28:43things going wrong and that caused huge problems with banks going bust with people losing huge fortunes
28:49very very disturbed and disturbing times with the war over austin's seafaring brothers frank and charles
28:57return home 1816 begins as a period of prolonged peace for the first time in a really long time and yet
29:07the austin family are imploding
29:11edward knight's lawsuit is still going ahead over chawton and henry austin's bank has gone bankrupt
29:18the impact is huge because most of the family have invested in his bank and
29:26they all lose money the collapse of henry's bank is catastrophic for the family
29:33edward loses two million pounds in today's money and frank and henry can no longer afford their small
29:41annual contribution to the austin women the austin women are at the behest of the men in their lives
29:49who control the purse strings they have no power to extricate themselves from the financial place that
29:56they find themselves austin at least feels well hooray i've got a stonking paycheck on the wing because
30:04emma has done spectacularly well 12 months after emma is published murray finally sends austin her first
30:14paycheck austin receives a paltry 38 pounds that's just 3 800 pounds today the second edition of mansfield
30:33park which murray has published at the same time as emma has not been a success he has large numbers
30:40of copies still on his hands and he's had to pulp them and jane has still had to pay for the costs of
30:46producing those pulped volumes the failure of mansfield park has wiped out the profits from emma
30:54which would have totaled approximately 40 000 pounds today had austin not included mansfield park in that
31:03contract austin and her sister and her mum would be safe for some years to come regardless of their
31:09brother's finances and this this costs her dearly she's made the wrong choice she's backed the wrong
31:19horse her great love of her child mansfield park has betrayed her once again into making a commercial
31:28mistake this is a very dark time and it really begins to tell on jane
31:39the austins are now in dire financial straits one brother is bankrupt another faces a multi-million
31:48pound lawsuit and jane's earnings have been swallowed up meanwhile jane aged 40 works on a new novel
31:58about the passage of time and life's regrets what she does is she writes her way out of it that's her
32:06life line if i don't write i feel weird but the act of doing it is really important in persuasion she's
32:16not thinking about business or her audience she's just writing from the heart
32:27the novel follows the story of anne elliott who is persuaded to break off an engagement to a young
32:33naval officer of lower social status captain wentworth wentworth is left heartbroken we have an older
32:42austin writing about an older heroine who is herself looking back on her life and is herself in a pensive
32:50state she's thinking about the choices that she's made in her life and that seeps right into the narrative
32:56in her life despite him being away at sea for many years anne is still in love with wentworth thriving
33:04and regrets not following her heart sweetheart it's been seven years eight
33:14you couldn't possibly still feel i do
33:17frederick wentworth was the only person save you and my mother who ever really saw me
33:29and understood me and loved me
33:36anne and wentworth meet again when he returns from the napoleonic wars a hero
33:42in a key scene when anne is playing with her nephews wentworth removes a clambering child from her back
33:50this act of kindness encourages anne to question whether wentworth might still have feelings for her
33:56boy could have been hurt austin writes his little sturdy hands were unfastened from around her neck
34:03and he was resolutely born away before she knew that captain wentworth had done it
34:09it's a beautifully simple gesture very modern in its simplicity i think she is really writing the
34:17ideal man here he's not darcy he's he's gentle he he does what a partner should do he he relieves you
34:25of your burden she's really redefining the the sort of male hero of her romance fiction in those little
34:33moments in one of the most moving scenes captain wentworth overhears and debating the differences
34:40between men and women you look a bit sad captain harville in this conversation and boldly declares
34:48it is women who love the longest we women do not forget you so soon as you forget us
34:53the only privilege i claim for my sex is that of loving longest loving even when hope is gone
35:05loving because you don't have a choice
35:09during this scene captain wentworth remains completely silent
35:15it's two people talking a third person listening and the reader overseeing all of this
35:19wentworth is silent now his silence is so active it's so filled with things but you realize how much
35:27he's listening moved by what he is hearing wentworth writes anne a letter confessing he has loved her all
35:35along the scratching of that pen has an enormous power in this moment the fact that he doesn't go to her to
35:43say it he writes to her
35:54it's a letter which begins with these wonderful words i can listen no longer in silence
35:59anne you pierce my soul dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman
36:13that his love has an earlier death
36:17i am half agony half hope tell me not that i am too late that such precious feelings are gone forever
36:24i offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it eight
36:30years and a half ago you alone have brought me to bar for you alone i think and plan
36:38but of course you have not seen this how could you
36:44because your love has not lasted as long as mine
36:46and i have loved no one but you you pierced my soul half agony half hope this is almost a religious
37:00sound she's making i think it's the only time where one of her men actually speaks seriously from the
37:06self from a part that's normally held at bay or withheld and obviously he writes it rather than speaks
37:16it because it would sound like weakness but when he writes it you can see what's always at the
37:22heart of everything she does the inner life
37:28here you can really feel the simple naked longing i mean one of the great love letters in all literature
37:38everyone who's loved and lost reads that and kindles the hope that the person that they've
37:43loved all their life might come to them at the end of it and say i never forgot you i'm still here
37:54in the end anne gets a second chance at happiness she follows her heart rejecting the life her family
38:01wanted for her overcome with emotion they confess their love one of the most exhilarating things i think
38:08about that novel is the way anne elliott doesn't take fixity she doesn't take those nice stolid english
38:16country houses that her other heroines inherit or marry into she chooses mobility risk danger and she
38:26chooses a completely different path for herself just like jane austen it was a sign that a woman that age in
38:37her in her you know beyond what was considered marriageable age could actually find happiness i think
38:43it's a metaphor for jane austen's own life i doubt very much whether jane austen is thinking oh i might
38:51still meet someone i'm not going to be that person i'm not going to be a married woman i am going to be
38:56a spinster but i am going to make something of that there's no sense in her letters whatsoever
39:03that this is a woman who's got any regrets who's looking back and saying wish i got married wish
39:07i'd had children did i make the wrong decision it just doesn't feel like any of that in july 1816
39:15as austin writes the final chapters she begins to feel unwell i think reading the final chapters of
39:22persuasion it's hard to avoid reflecting on the fortitude that austin had to marshal to produce that
39:31perfect that perfectly hopeful resolution at a point where she herself was increasingly in physical
39:38pain persuasion is the only complete austin novel that has a surviving alternate ending
39:46it shows rushed scrolls and crossings out
39:51i mean part of the problem of writing a novel is that you imagine an ending but then you put all the
39:56detail you're working on you're working with so much detail that when it comes to the moment you've
39:59imagined it's not right and you need to go over and over and adding and adding and adding just to
40:08see if there's any way you could bring this down naturally the only person can judge it is you to have a
40:14document that shows us exactly the process of revision of rewriting of struggling for the perfect
40:23resolution of that narrative is very precious indeed we can see the process of a novelist who is entering
40:33a phase of late mastery
40:39aged just 41 jane is at the height of her powers in persuasion she has written what is widely believed
40:47to be her greatest work but her sickness has worsened she is suffering from back aches and fainting spells
40:59we do not know what illness jane has it is likely a form of tuberculosis jane chooses to lay herself
41:08across three wooden chairs saving the sofa for her elderly mother
41:13i think this tells us an enormous amount about looking after the women in her family and of always
41:22being the provider and the self-sacrificer but austin's mind is as active as ever
41:29she isn't slowing down isn't stopping she's still got things to say
41:33drawing on her experience of illness she begins a new novel here and in great pain she begins a new
41:44literary adventure but she's writing against the clock she's doing the only thing she knows which
41:50is right she's dying she's going to write about death and she's going to do it brilliantly
41:55because she's got one last one in her
42:04in sanderton austin creates a drama set in a fictional seaside resort the enthusiastic mr
42:11parker is keen to convince everyone of the town's healing powers sea air better than any medicine or tonic
42:20and there there is the sea itself oh yes i see it unlike austin's previous novels which focus on a
42:29single heroine sanderton features a collection of characters and is written much like a sitcom
42:36there you are are you surprised to see us
42:39how'd you do how'd you do arthur and diana parker are two of sanderton's most comical characters my
42:51sister miss diana parker and my brother we've all been very ill almost at death's door they constantly
42:58complain of illness whilst strolling around sanderton looking the picture of health as soon as we arrived
43:04only to learn you're on a cliff walk so we thought we'd be brave and surprise you our lodgings are
43:09closest come take tea with us and let all of us for god's sake get out of this howling gale
43:18austin paints the characters as hypochondriacs who worry incessantly about the weather
43:26you see we were sure the good fire poor arthur feels the cold so it takes some balls to mock
43:33hypochondriacs when you're on death's door yourself it's quite it's quite an up yours isn't it but i
43:40guess if we know nothing else of austin she was quite bold and forthright i don't find the weather
43:47chilly at all oh what a constitution you must have in one witty scene arthur reveals his secret recipe
43:54for a healthy lifestyle if i were billy as wine would disagree with me when i've always found it does my
43:59nerves good do you know the more i drink the better i feel often i wake up in the morning feeling very
44:04groggy but then after a few glasses of wine i feel right as rain that's quite remarkable don't you think
44:08though i can take a little toast with butter on it no more than six or seven slices though
44:12will you let me toast you a slice or two please do everyone uses comedy austin does it and everyone
44:20i've ever worked with who's any good does it we all use humor to get us through those tough times
44:25she likes to have fun she's writing with this child's mind and being playful and being elastic
44:33and being silly and wanting to make people laugh and in sanderton she's going to go out laughing
44:40laughing miss philida beaufort and miss lamb austin also does something revolutionary she writes a
44:50wealthy black female character miss lamb in this adaptation she makes a glamorous entrance
44:59the ways in which she's writing black characters into her story she's way ahead of even our time
45:05right we think of things like bridgerton now as as radical and revolutionary but there was jane austen
45:11doing it in her time despite her best efforts jane's illness worsens and she is forced to abandon the
45:22novel i just would love to have known what jane austen was going to do with this beautiful rich
45:29powerful black woman where would she take that with jane austen of course there is no decline she is
45:40cut down at the very peak of her powers austen knows she is dying she agrees to be taken to winchester
45:52to see a specialist for jane the drama of real life gets in the way of the creative drama
46:07in a letter to a friend austen uses her unfailing humor to poke fun at her own situation
46:13i am now a very genteel portable sort of invalid if i live to be an old woman i must expect to wish
46:25i had died now blessed in the tenderness of such a family
46:36a genteel portable sort of invalid fantastic very funny you've got to be able to laugh at death
46:44treat death in the way that you treat life face it front on with wit
46:53it's the only way to do it it's what she did
46:57by the 15th of july 1817 austin is being nursed in winchester by her sister cassandra
47:04she's in excruciating pain austin dictates a poem to her sister 24 lines of comic verse
47:14these are the last words she will ever write
47:20when once we are buried you think we are dead but behold me immortal
47:28set off for your course i'll pursue with my reign
47:32to use the d word the word dead is pretty powerful
47:43the fact that it was able to come off the tongue of someone who knew that they were at the end of
47:49life but jane always tried to be truthful didn't she and why should it be different on her deathbed
47:57on the 17th of july 1817 cassandra cradles jane's head throughout the night
48:10she remains in that position for six hours
48:17the detail of her death is incredibly moving she's at a sort of crooked angle and cassandra's holding her
48:22head and her head is bent in an awkward way and so her sister holds her and cares for her
48:29in these last hours of intimacy there's a sort of very poignant echo of their childhood
48:38where sisters care for each other sisters look out for each other and this is its sort of final embodiment
48:48we have the most poignant end to a life of sibling love a love that has been present for 40 plus years
49:01the unbelievably fitting nature of the fact that it is just cassandra with her at her end
49:07i nursed my sister i was at my sister's deathbed um and it's exquisitely powerful
49:27and very tender and i can only think cassandra would have had that self-same experience
49:42cassandra then tends to her sister's body it's the last thing that she can do for her sister
49:50who she describes as her son the son of her life
49:57in a letter to their niece cassandra writes of jane's final moments
50:04i have lost a treasure such a sister such a friend she was the son of my life
50:12the gilder of every pleasure the soother of every sorrow and it is as if i had lost a part of myself
50:21you couldn't get a better epitaph than that could you
50:29the gilder of every pleasure the soother of every sorrow that's that's the most powerful relationship
50:37in either of those women's lives
50:55jane austen is buried in winchester cathedral
50:58only four people attend her funeral her gravestone makes no mention of her career as a writer
51:08in her will jane leaves almost everything to her sister including the rights to all of her works
51:17i think that's so telling that she doesn't leave it to her brothers because after all it's cassandra
51:22that's been there with her through thick and thin through all the ups and downs that they've had to
51:26face both financially and privately and i think it's right you know it's quite a beautiful thing
51:3125 years after jane austen's death cassandra burns thousands of jane's letters only 161 survive
51:53it's really seen today as an act of literary vandalism people are horrified how could she do this
52:01because the letters are so brilliant we do not know why cassandra burnt them but it is widely
52:09believed she did it to protect austin's legacy it's many many years later when she's getting old herself
52:17that she makes the decision that i cannot i cannot let these letters out into the world
52:22jane always speaks the plain truth and cassandra genuinely didn't want to hurt the family's feelings
52:36it cannot have been easy for her to destroy
52:40the letters that had been a lifeline and really brought her close to her sister
52:44aside from her novels nearly all we know of austin comes from the letters cassandra deemed acceptable
52:54enough to save
52:56if you want to date literary modernity at a particular point it is 18 15 16. there is
53:15writing before austin and there is writing after austin that achievement is enormous the greatest
53:22writers in our language the brontes mary shelley dickens they all come on the heels of this huge
53:29legacy given to them by jane austen she did it she did it before anyone else
53:39she wasn't concerned with leaving behind money or even children or having a husband
53:43she was concerned with leaving her voice this is a woman who was leading the charge in
53:48saying what literally nobody had said before she did what she wanted to do
53:57she made a career as a novelist and made money out of it and her work's still being copied and stolen
54:04by people like me
54:09i feel i know her and considering she was born 250 years ago
54:13so it's like breaking bread with the dead isn't it shaking hands across the centuries gossiping that's not
54:21to like
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