Happy 250th Birthday, Jane Austen! - A Personal Appreciation of a Beloved Writer

Today, December 16th marks 250 years - a quarter of a millennium - till a baby girl was born to the Reverend George and Cassandra Austen. 

She would go on to have a rare impact on the world, a lasting charm spread across centuries with her witty, heartfelt and carefully crafted story. Often thought of as an author of romances, she really studied and portrayed the human condition with both sharpness and sympathy. By giving her characters, chiefly her young female heroines, room to breathe and to discover the world around them and themselves, she tapped into the timeless topic of the self and of identity. 
As a girl, she was provided a thorough but not an institutionalised education. She learned at home, in the centre of a well-read family which had lively discussions. Jane's literary talents were fostered. Ultimately remaining unmarried through choice in at least one instance and ill fortune through the loss of her lover in another, her characters were something of a second family to her we learn from her letters. Her first family were her steadfast sister Cassandra, her parents and siblings, as well as close family friends. Jane Austen led an eventful life, having to change her place of abode as the family's financial means straightened, depending on the well-fare of a rich brother, and ultimately falling terminally ill just as her writing success really begin to kick off. 

Though dying untimely - and leaving one to wonder what else she would have added to literature had she lived longer - we have several finished and unfinished novels, as well as letters and juvenilia. Many scholars and commentators over the years have provided their perspectives on the woman and writer Jane. In conversations with other Jane Austen fans, everybody seems to find passages which particularly resonate. This gives her works such a broad readership. 

Since my mother first placed her books into my hands in my early teens, she has been a constant in my life over now nearly two decades. Her characters are companions to me both on a winter's night with a cup of tea, on a long drive, and while sewing. The Librivox audiobooks and the voices of their cherished readers - especially Elizabeth Klett and Karen Savage - have been almost as much companions as the characters. 

In my early teens, I discovered the film costumes of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and the immersive 2005 Pride and Prejudice adaptation around the same time and both inspired me to start sewing (my grandma, a keen embroiderer herself and daughter of a dressmaker was pleased as punch!). I started small, with an underdress, and went on - one project at a time. I am fully self-taught and Regency dresses are very beginner friendly. The construction is relatively straight forward and forgiving of mistakes. It also led me to chronicle my sewing and provide information on this website. 

Jane Austen sent me on my career journey by channelling my budding love for history. She provided a space, a framework to start reading about Regency England, about the manners and customs, to seek out dressmaking patterns, and learn about cloth. She was a vital foundation which led me to study history of art at university and to go to live in England for my Master's and my Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Having packed up a car boot's worth of my belongings and driven myself to Rotterdam port to board a ship that would take me to Kingston-upon-Hull in September of 2018 (coincidentally also the day on which Frodo set out for Rivendell in LotR), I felt comforted by the idea of Jane Austen, so boldly forging her own path as an unmarried lady writer in a time when was a shockingly self-reliant choice. 

There, I had the opportunity to learn English country dances, met wonderful like-minded people, improved my sewing, and made teenage me proud. I lived within an hour's drive of Chatsworth House and a considerable number of National Trust and independent historic properties to visit. Also, very importantly, my interest in learning English country dances led me to join a local folk dancing society in my first week in England, where a handsome young man asked me during a break whether he could have the next dance. We've been together for seven years now. In a way, my love for Jane Austen's books set in motion a series of moments which have become rather defining to my life and from which I have derived great happiness.

The community of Jane Austen fans which comes together at the annual Jane Austen Festival in Bath, at other Regency-themed events in Europe and further afield in societies across the globe which I follow on Instagram, is an impressive legacy for a writer to create. Many people give a lot of time to create memorable moments for others and to ensure the world and legacy of Jane Austen is accessible and inclusive. Also, watching people become self-employed through Jane Austen, starting shops and writing books based on Jane Austen or the wider Regency society, founding non-profit organisations to provide events and get-together's, is really lovely. 
I think Jane Austen would approve.