At our March session we discussed Austen’s timeline for writing the six novels. She had two periods of intense creativity and work: firstly writing drafts of what later became Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey  between 1795 – 98. Then again nine years later , between 1810 – 1817, when she wrote the final versions of her three drafts and the three new novels Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion.

We discussed the characters in Sense and Sensibility and how they mirrored some of the “Pseudo Gentry” she had lived with at Steventon when she was a girl. The book explores the social responsibilities of  finding a life partner and marriage for men and women of those times and that class. Some were cheated and abandoned, others matured and had more tolerable marriages. It was all about money, grand estates and dowries. Love was an afterthought.

We watched the first half of the 1995 film of the novel, sumptuously produced, including Hugh Grant as Colonel Branson, Emma Thompson as Elinor and Greg Wise as the perfidious Willoughby. A romantic comedy version that excluded the satire and sharp observations of the novel. Worth watching though.

Our introductory session looked at both Georgian/Regency society 1780 – 1820, and Jane Austen’s life.

Austen grew up within a changing social group  of the County Gentry, a group of old rural squires but now, also rich newcomers renting or buying country properties, but with few understandings of how this county squirarchy had behaved for generations. Of the dozen or so local families that the Austen family visited, only two of the old gentry remained. This gave her a rich tapestry from which to satirically draw many of her characters: the frivolous and the worthy.

We watched Lucy Worsley’s excellent UTube video* in which she visited the many houses and towns the Austen family lived in after they shifted away from their original home in Steventon, where her father had been a rector in the local church for many years. She traced the changes of fortune that Jane Austen experienced in her life as an author.

​Meg Dillon

​*The Untold Story of Jane Austen: Behind Closed Doors, narrated by Lucy Worsley, UTube.  [50 minutes]  A general introduction to Austen’s life.

Extension:  Also recommended Death of Jane Austen, narrated by Lucy Worsley, UTube. 

The focus at our February session on Tuesday February 14th from 2 to 4 pm will be on developing an understanding of Jane Austen’s life, where she lived at various times and the different views that critics have of how she viewed her society and the Country Gentry class to which her family belonged. 

In March we will focus on ‘Sense and Sensibility’.

An email has been sent to class members with an overview of the course and session topics.  You can also download it here:  

Meg Dillon

Can you ever get too much Jane Austen?  Books, TV series, Films?

In this semester we will read Austen's 6 novels and have time for some films. 

Teenagers running off with soldiers, your best friend marrying a dud, your mother impossible and haughty rich men ridiculing you!  Really!!! 

Come and discover why Regency England was very similar to today. 

Meets in U3A main room, unlimited numbers.


Meg Dillon