Second Decade

Jane Austen is rightly considered perhaps the greatest British novelist of her day, or any age. Her novels about women, marriage and family among the English gentry, especially Pride and Prejudice, have defined how we think about British society in the late Georgian and Regency eras for all time. Like almost no other person, Austen is the living historical embodiment of the 1810s, the decade that saw the publication of all of her novels—and her untimely death. But how did she come to be? What was her story? What drove her, and why, after a lifetime of writing, did she finally achieve her long-awaited success during the Second Decade?  In this episode of Second Decade, Dr. Sean Munger takes you into the modest bedrooms and parlors of Chawton Cottage, Jane Austen’s home for the most productive period of her life, and investigates how Jane’s wonderful literary creations came to be and why they reflect the spirit of the time and the society in which she lived. You’ll get a crash course in the tangled relatio