Lecture outline

To celebrate this 250th anniversary of her birth, there have been many attempts to locate the authentic Jane Austen, indeed to "place" her in her local context; a closer look at her output uncovers the significance of location for her narratives, and not just Northanger Abbey or Mansfield Park but as a valuable thread throughout her work. This has a significance for understanding her life outside of fiction, and this lecture will explore just how the references to village and estate life resonated in both her fiction and her letters. Is she as confined in her assumptions as she seems, so accepting of provincial mores that she earns a place in the canon as some home-spun spirit, inviting the reader to connect with a small circle of acquaintance? Or does she gesture to far wider issues? 

Indeed, various biographers have delved below the testimony offered in her letters and uncovered several 'Janes' often hidden from public view, selves that require guesswork and intuition on their part so that the jigsaw pieces can be made to fit.

Nigel Wood is an Emeritus Professor of Literature at Loughborough University, UK. His recent publication is Shakespeare and Reception Theory (2022) and he has co-edited two editions (with David Lodge) of Modern Theory and Criticism (2009 and 2015). He was also the General Editor of the Open University Press’s Theory in Practice series, (including a volume on Mansfield Park). He has also written on Shakespeare and eighteenth-century writers as well as editing Evelyn Waugh's Put Out More Flags (due to appear in Oxford University Press's series of Waugh's Compete Writings in 2026).

Attending the lecture

The lecture is open both to members of the Society and to guests.

The lecture will take place in Hansom Hall - how to find Hansom Hall.

Please note that tea and coffee drinks will be available between 7.00pm and 7.15pm before the formal start of the event at 7.30pm.

The lecture will also be streamed on Zoom. A recording of the lecture may be available to members only.