Jane Austen’s England, by Roy & Lesley Adkins

As a fond reader of both social histories [1] and writings by and about Jane Austen [2], this book was a no-brainer to read once I saw it in the library.  The book, as might be expected, is full of quotations from the letters and writings of Jane Austen, as well as a few other sources, particularly diarists like Parson Woodforde and Benjamin Sillman, and the authors are particularly keen, as might be expected, to make this a social history that discusses the life of both the commonfolk of England during the life of Jane Austen (from 1775 to 1817, covering the period from the beginning of the American Revolution to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, roughly), as well as the life of those elites like the gentry in whose circles Jane Austen lived and even in the higher elites, where possible.  As a result, the book carries with it a good deal of bite, some of it coming from the sources itself, for Jane Austen’s letters and novels contain a good deal of sarcasm and pointed comments, and the other sources do as well.  This is the sort of book that commends itself to a reader fond of Jane Austen’s novels with a strong social conscience and an interest in reading about the grim reality of the times Jane Austen lived and which provide the broader context of her novels.

The contents of this book are full of interest as well, consisting of roughly a dozen chapters that extend for almost 350 pages of material that is easy to read in terms of its style but sometimes a bit hard to take for its context.  The chapters are roughly in a chronological fashion concerning lifespan, beginning with an introduction about knowing one’s place, and then going through the following progression:  wedding bells, breeding, toddler to teenager, home and hearth, fashions and filth, sermons and superstitions, wealth and work, leisure and pleasure, on the move, dark deeds, medicine men, and last words.  Many of the chapters contain not only contrasts between social classes, but between different related modes of behavior.  For example, the chapter on dark deeds contrasts the way that wealthy people were often able to bribe themselves out of trouble, as happened for one of Jane Austen’s aunts, but that poor people were sentenced to brutal whippings, transportation to America or Australia, or faced with the death penalty for acts of petty theft.  Likewise, the chapter on travel contrasts the experiences of travel for the wealthy in their phaetons or chaises or on horseback with the poor beggars sweeping the crosswalks clear in the hope of receiving a tip and the poor care that could often be found in inns.  As a result, the book gives a comprehensive and often unsettling picture of life in Jane Austen’s England.

Readers who swoon over the gentry heroes and heroines of Jane Austen’s novels, heroes who were, it should be noted, from the same social sphere as the author herself, who wrote what she knew, will likely find a great deal of interest in this history in the way that different groups of people faced the struggle of difficult times.  A spendthrift royal family was supported by a large body of mostly poor people, and children and adults alike often faced horrific risks of death whether from disease or from the hazards of their occupations, including cancers and mishaps while sweeping chimneys or working in dreadful darkness in coal mines.  The authors clearly have a social conscience, and wish for readers to apply insights about the contrasts and inequalities and injustices of life in late 18^th and early 19^th century England with our own contemporary societies.  If the writers stop short of political programs, they at least point out the sources and wide extent of much inequality and also point out the sometimes uncomfortably cozy relationship between state religion and moral decadence, such as cases where a parson demonstrates considerable friendliness with the mistress of a wealthy parishioner.  This is a book that will provoke a great deal of thought and reflection among those who read it, and will provide a worthwhile source for those who wish to make realistic Regency fiction as well, since the book has plenty of novel-worthy action within it.

[1] See, for example:

Book Review: Domesday

Audiobook Review: The Big Roads

Book Review: How The North Won

[2] See, for example:

Book Review: Two Histories of England, by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens

Book Review: All Roads Lead To Austen

Book Review: Jane And Her Gentlemen

Book Review: Juvenilia