chawton: the world of jane

"She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste." --Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth on Pemberley

Yesterday our Austen class--with a couple of additions of people who just wanted to come--traversed to Chawton to see Jane's home as well as the lovely home of her brother Edward, which is now home to a library specialising in women's writing from roughly 1600-1830. 

Chawton is absolutely gorgeous. It's this tiny English town in the country, complete with just about nothing to do except marvel at rolling English hills. It's very charming, though, and even on a cloudy day like yesterday it's really, really beautiful. 

 This was Jane's house. She and her sister Cassandra shared a bedroom, and they lived their with their family, as neither married. Now, of course, it's been turned into a museum of sorts, but many of the original furnishings remain, as well as original garments, tools, etc. from the house.

This is Jane's actual writing desk--tiny, right?
 Kathryn Sutherland, my absolutely brilliant professor (if you've seen articles lately, which I certainly have seen dozens, about the digitization of Austen's manuscripts or the resulting questions of how much influence her editor had upon her work, that was all Kathryn's project), feels that her writing, which is sort of cramped in both its subject matter and its treatment of life in rural England, stems from these sort of cramped writing circumstances. Regardless, it's pretty frickin' cool.

And here's the Knight house, where Edward Austen Knight lived. While we were there, they were having an adorable Halloween party for some very cute English children. The house is beautiful, and absolutely huge! The grounds have lots of buildings on them, from the church to the stables, and the surrounding countryside is populated by lots of sheep.  Many of the original furnishings from this house are still there, too, like the original furnaces and preparation-tables in the kitchen, lots of paintings on the walls, and even some of the original wallpaper.


Chawton was pretty much fantastic, and it was so fun to go with my whole Austen class. Because we were with Kathryn and Freya (our other professor), we got to see and even handle the first edition printings of some of the Austen novels that the museum happens to own, which are worth an insane amount of money and are terrifying but thrilling to get to hold.

We are maybe possibly planning an unofficial trip to Stratford soon. I'll keep you posted.