Jane Austen followers mark 250 years because the author’s start with a wave of events

In her lifetime, Jane Austen was comparatively unknown. The title web page of Sense and Sensibility, her first revealed novel, mentioned merely it was “By a Lady”, and her different books additionally saved her title a secret. However right now, Austen is one among Britain’s finest cherished writers, with a portrait of her face even showing on a number of the UK’s forex – the ten pound be aware.

Austen was born within the village of Steventon, Hampshire, in December 1775 – and this 12 months, there are occasions throughout Britain to mark 250 years since her start.

Most typical among the many celebrations are “balls”, full with interval dancing, just like the events depicted in Austen’s novels. One such Georgian costume ball was held in June at St Albans Museum and Gallery. Sitting 20 miles north of London, St Albans is within the county of Hertfordshire, the setting for Austen’s most well-known novel, Delight and Prejudice. Friends on the St Albans ball have been invited to put on seventeenth Century interval gown – with women in full size robes, and males in tailcoats.

Main the dancing was Libby Curzon, who runs a small dancing firm referred to as Mrs Bennet’s Ballroom. Curzon teaches interval dance to newcomers, and named her enterprise after the mom of the household in Delight and Prejudice, who desires of discovering her daughters an acceptable husband.

Curzon says that in Austen’s day, individuals would have discovered the dances earlier than they got here out to bounce at a ball. “They wouldn’t have had somebody like me telling them what to do on the night,” she mentioned. “They would have all been expected to know what to do, and it would have been really shocking… if you made a mistake during the dance.”

The dance trainer mentioned that her courses and balls might be romantic, similar to Austen’s books, with {couples} typically assembly at her occasions. “It’s not like taking a look at them and swiping left or right,” she mentioned. “You’ve actually got to move with them, hold hands, work out how to do the dance and… give eye contact,” she added. “So, it helps those little Cupid’s arrows.”

Dance trainer Libby Curzon, from ‘Mrs Bennet’s Ballroom’, teaches attendees interval dances at a Georgian Costume Ball to have fun 250 years since Jane Austen’s start. St Albans Museum and Gallery, England, June 7, 2025.

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One of many attendees on the St Albans ball was Gauri Davies, who’s from Australia, however lives close by. Davies rereads Jane Austen books yearly, and defined that going to a ball together with her husband Peter was a “bucket list” occasion for her, as a result of she loves Austen’s tales, and identifies with a number of the characters.

“I think that she really gets to the heart of romance,” Davies mentioned. “She talks about different classes, different amounts of privilege, people coming from different family backgrounds, and all of those themes are still so relevant today.”

Jane Austen died younger – in 1817, when she was simply 41 – that means she was solely capable of full six novels. However over 2 hundred years later, new diversifications of her work are recurrently made and remade for stage and display.

This 12 months, British actors Emma Corrin, Jack Lowden and Olivia Colman are filming a brand new six-part adaptation of Delight and Prejudice for Netflix. That adaptation is one among many – together with a Keira Knightly film from 2005, and a celebrated BBC tv sequence with Colin Firth from 1995. The writer’s personal life story has additionally fascinated movie makers: this 12 months, a brand new BBC drama referred to as Miss Austen imagined Jane Austen’s life, alongside her sister Cassandra.

On prime of that, Austen’s plots continually encourage new fictional tales, as her work has influenced the entire romantic comedy style. This 12 months noticed the discharge of the French romantic comedy Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, in addition to the fourth movie within the Bridget Jones franchise, whose first installment was initially impressed by Delight and Prejudice.

On London’s West Finish, a musical of the Nineties film Clueless additionally began operating this 12 months, with a plot that takes its cues from Austen’s novel Emma. Austen’s plots have travelled internationally: the flicks Aisha and Bride and Prejudice, each set in India, are derived from Jane Austen too.

Throughout Britain, there are events and talks unfold out all year long. Maybe the most important occasion of its variety is September’s Jane Austen Competition in Tub, a ten day celebration that may host hundreds of devotees. Followers throughout the globe are planning their very own tributes. The Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) has 2,000 members, and has its personal occasions within the U.S. and Canada.

Dancers take pleasure in a Georgian Costume Ball celebrating 250 years since Jane Austen’s start at St Albans Museum and Gallery, England, June 7, 2025.

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JASNA additionally runs excursions of England, together with two particular journeys this 12 months. They go to websites together with Jane Austen’s birthplace, her grave in Winchester Cathedral, and Tub, a metropolis the place she lived for 5 years – in addition to the websites of scenes from the novels. JASNA’s president Mary Mintz says that going to Jane Austen’s Home in Chawton, Hampshire, to see the writing desk the place she wrote her books, is very highly effective.

“You can see her writing table there and know that’s where these incredible novels that have endured for so long were composed,” Mintz mentioned, mentioning that Austen wrote all of her work in longhand, generally hiding it from friends who visited. “Seeing anything that Jane Austen touched is a very moving experience… it can be very emotional and it engenders a lot of respect for what she accomplished.”

Mintz feels that Austen’s work is a precious doc of the altering function of girls in society. “Above all, I think she’s interested in the economic plight of women in her time period, because women were property, their property belonged to the males in their lives,” Mintz mentioned. “And while she may be dealing with the marriage plot, she’s acutely aware of the fact that women in her era had to get married in order to have economic viability to survive.”

After all, the love tales and household intrigue are necessary too. “Her stories go even deeper than the romance story or the marriage plot, they’re about making universal connections with others,” Mintz added. “What do people want most in life? They want to find someone to love and who loves them.”

John Mullan is professor of English at College Faculty London, and writer of the e-book What Issues in Jane Austen? Mullan thinks that whereas some may dismiss Austen as only a romance author, she is without doubt one of the literary greats.

“I think only Shakespeare compares to her in this respect, that however often you’ve read one of her novels, when you read it again, it’s like a whole rediscovery,” Mullan mentioned. “You see things which aren’t in your head, they’re on the page, they’re in her invention that you hadn’t noticed before.”

Mullan says Austen additionally compares to William Shakespeare in her international fame. “I’ve travelled quite a lot giving talks about Jane Austen in lots of different countries, and she is second only to Shakespeare, and not even always second to him, in her reach, in the extent to which people will have heard of her, know something of her plots – and very often, if they’re at all bookish people, have read her in translation, or seen the film adaptations of her stories,” he added.

Producer Biba Kang contributed to this report.