Steventon

Okay, I'm gonna introduce them.

So Jane Austen was born December 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, in the south of England.

Mm.

She had six brothers and an older sister, Cassandra or Cassandra.

[laughs] I can expose myself, however, only one, once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all.

He's a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you, but as to our having met except at the last three balls, I cannot say much, for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe." ...

that he is ashamed to come to Steventon and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago." So she says he's excessively laughed at about me.

So people are, like, making fun of him-

He saw her brilliance, and he encouraged her and, and with, with great enthusiasm and support.

I mean, he built a library for her of over 500 books at Steventon.

And so that was, like, a really remarkable thing for a father to do of that period.

And I think that's, that really sort of shows that, um- That sense of moving into the future rather than harking back to your kind of family heritage from the past.

[piano music] "There has been a great deal of rain here for this last fortnight, much more than in Kent, and indeed we found the roads all the way from Steine most disgracefully dirty.

Steventon Lane has its full share of it, and I don't know when I shall be able to get to Deane." Jane Austen, Saturday, 27th of October, 1798.

[piano music] Autumn is a beautiful time here in Jane Austen country.

The Chawton woods are full of beech trees, which turn to shades of brilliant yellow, copper, and fiery orange red in October and November, their fallen leaves forming drifts among the woodland paths.

Whatever troubles befall, people must go on doing their work and making the best of it, and we are not allowed to feel respect or even overmuch sympathy for the characters in the novel who cannot bear this test.

There is a matter-of-courseness about this view which, combined with all that we know of the other members of the family, gives one the idea that the children at Steventon had a strict bringing up.

This, in fact, was the case, and a very rich reward was the result.

In a family of seven, all turned out well.

She was the first object of his love, but it was a love which his stronger spirits and bolder temper made it as natural for him to express as to feel.

So far, this describes the love of William and Fanny, but a few lines further on comes a passage which has the ring of personal experience.

In reading it, it s impossible not to picture a time which was always of great importance in the life of Steventon, the return on leave for a few weeks or a few months of one or other of the sailor brothers, and all the walks and talks which filled up the pleasant days.

On the morrow they were walking about together with true enjoyment, and every succeeding morrow renewed the t te- -t te.

First of all, he teaches for a while at the Tanbridge School, which is his alma mater.

And then George Austin... becomes a curate in Oxford, and then he gets the parishes of Dean and Steventon acquired for him by his relatives.

That is a really big deal.

It's an example of patronage being done within a family to secure the future of a young man who doesn't have a father or mother.

His father was a surgeon, by the way.

Jane Austen's paternal grandfather was a surgeon.

Now, they stay at Dean for a while, the young married couple, and eventually they will move to Steventon where Jane is born.

But the atmosphere in which Jane would have grown up is fiercely intellectual, almost carelessly intellectual.

Um, and she decided that this is what defined her as, as a writer.

Um, it-- She was born in December 1775 in a small village, um, Steventon, sixteen miles south of, uh, Basingstoke.

Her father was George Austen, a clergyman, um, but not a clergyman like Mr. Elton in, um, in Emma.

He was, uh, very well educated, cultivated, and very hardworking.

He was also quite poor, and it wasn't quite enough, uh, to live off his earnings as a vicar at Steventon.

And, uh, so he also on the side ran a boarding school for boys from his own home and, uh, did a little bit of farming on the side as well.

Um, her mother, Cassandra, um, was also very intelligent.

But at her core, she was truly just a girl, and that is where our story begins.

On a frigid December night in 1775 in the sleepy Hampshire village of Steventon, a baby named Jane was born inside the village rectory when she entered the world just a week shy of Christmas.

The blistering storm outside rattled the windows during a record breaking cold winter.

And this blizzard was practically a premonition of the profound and lasting impact that Jane Austen would make on the world.

Her father, George Austen, was Steventon's rector, the local clergyman whose position placed the family at the center of village life.

Jane's mother, Cassandra Lee Austen, came from a very well-connected and socially prominent family, bringing with her a world of relatives and connections beyond their small country parish.

The rectory where the Austins lived wasn't like a sprawling estate like you read about or see in adaptations of Jane's work.

She was also like a fly on the wall.

Whatever troubles befall, people must go on doing their work and making the best of it, and we are not allowed to feel respect or even overmuch sympathy for the characters in the novels who cannot bear this test.

There is a matter-of-courseness about this view which, combined with all that we know of the other members of the family, gives one the idea that the children at Steventon had a strict bringing up.

This, in fact, was the case, and a very rich reward was the result.

In a family of seven, all turned out well.

She was the first object of his love, but it was a love which his stronger spirits and bolder temper made it as natural for him to express as to feel.

So far, this describes the love of William and Fanny, but a few lines further on comes a passage which has the ring of personal experience.

In reading it, it’s impossible not to picture a time which was always of great importance in the life at Steventon, the return on leave for a few weeks or a few months of one or other of the sailor brothers and all the walks and talks which filled up the pleasant days.

On the morrow, they were walking about together with true enjoyment, and every succeeding morrow renewed the tête-à-tête.

And that's during the time when he was residing in her father's house as a student when he was studying.

And that's very similar to how George Austin, Jane's father, had to operate and have students living, residing, in the house in Hampshire in Steventon.

So he had to take in pupils the way that Edward is taken in and then unfortunately creates an attachment to the terrible Lucy whose name then becomes Lucy Ferrars because of course she marries the brother.

Lucy Ferrars is a pun on Lucifer So she is the devil.