Jane Austen’s 250th birthday celebration

hampshirewriterssociety.co.uk
Hampshire Writers’ Society: Jane Austen Birthday Party.

All are welcome!

Admission £10; £2 for students (free for HWS members); no advance booking is necessary.

With speakers:

Lizzie Dunford: ‘From the writing table to the world: the living legacy of Jane Austen’s House’

In this illustrated talk, Lizzie will explore the extraordinary literary legacy of Jane Austen’s final home, and its ongoing global impact. As the place from which Austen revised and wrote all six of her novels, Jane Austen’s House holds a unique significance in the rise of the novel. Using the extraordinary collection of letters, first editions and objects held at the museum, this talk will celebrate Austen’s life and storytelling within the walls of this special place, in this special anniversary year.

An avid reader from a young age, Lizzie has spent her career working in and caring for writers’ houses and historic house museums. She is a dedicated exponent of the power of storytelling through objects and space and has been Director of Jane Austen’s House since 2020. She writes and presents regularly on Austen and literary houses, as well as having a background in conservation and historic house management.

Nicola Pritchard-Pink: What would Jane do?

In a year celebrating 250 years of this great novelist, this talk explores Austen's writing practices and habits. Using her letters as sources for how she approached her writing throughout her life, we examine her earliest writing exploits as a teenager, to her attitudes to editing and publishing in her later years. Nicky has a Master’s in Eighteenth-Century Studies from the University of Southampton and specialises in Georgian and Regency social history, with particular emphasis on Jane Austen, landscapes, country houses, and domestic vocal music.

She regularly speaks on these subjects across the UK and Europe and is currently writing about Austen's experience of walking.

Specially commissioned for this event is a Jane Austen Birthday Cake, from an authentic Georgian recipe, from the cakemaker Lydia Roper at the Wildflower Cake Studio in Fareham.