A new exhibition at the author’s home is part of preparations for the author’s 250th birthday celebrations.
First-edition copies of Jane Austen’s completed novels are on display in the home where the author spent years writing and revising. The rare books are part of a new permanent exhibition, Jane Austen and the Art of Writing, at her family’s former cottage in the quintessentially English village of Chawton in Hampshire, about 50 miles from London.
Austen lived in the house during the last eight years of her life (1809 to 1817) with her mother and sister Cassandra. She wrote or revised all six of her completed novels there: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
This is the first time that all six first-edition novels will be on display together at Jane Austen’s House, which is now a museum. “The new exhibition presents them as real treasures - almost as relics of Jane Austen’s life in this house,” says Sophie Reynolds, the head of collections. “Some of these are copies that Austen would have handled, including those owned by her brothers Frank and Edward. It is very special to see them all together like this.”
The novels appear on display in a 12-sided case built for the new installation, a nod to Austen’s small 12-sided wooden table she often worked at.
Additionally, some of Austen’s letters are on view at the exhibition, which examines how her correspondence and love of letter-writing informed her fiction.
It's all part of the museum’s preparations for the author’s 250th birthday celebrations in December 2025. However, the museum is already open to visitors.
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