Yeah.

Given the concentration of wealth and how many people in Regency Britain couldn't even dream of affording a book of that quality and that publication standard.

So 10,000 copies is astonishing.

If I write a book that sells 10,000 copies now, I am very, very pleased.

Well, Byron did that more than 200 years ago in a morning.

So Austen is choosing the two most famous poets of the day.

Scott is the older of the two poets.

So what do you think is being said about Anne's character that she is... sort of hypocritically likes Byron, but trying to encourage Benek away from Byron.

faster.

They also gather in enormous numbers to protest against the government.

It's a very inspiring period when people who have nothing gather.

And the most famous example of this is Peterloo, when 60,000 people gather in Manchester.

to protest the state of the country and to argue that parliamentary reform should come into being.

So it's a moment when sort of the traditional way that Britain has been run is called into question, and people start thinking about creating a society that is democratic, that is secular, that is capitalistic, that is opportunistic, and that centers not on this rich ruling elite class, but on a broader population that believes in things like democracy.

And all those things, I try to make the case in the book, happen in varying ways and to varying degrees over the course of these nine years.

So why Persuasion and what does it capture about the Regency moment that her other novels didn't?