In the footsteps of Jane Austen

By Carolyn Carpenter-Meister, Exclusive Journeys, Llc

A small drawing of Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra, National Portrait Gallery, London

Can you imagine yourself walking in the footsteps of past civilizations, or meandering through the home, garden and life of your favorite literary figure? Just think for a moment what would it feel like to be standing by the exact gravesite that inspired Charles Dickens to write his novel, Great Expectations, or standing on the moors of Thomas Hardy’s Dorset?

Our literary geniuses have truly helped to form our opinions and beliefs, broaden our horizons and spark our imaginations. They have taken us to places both in the world and within ourselves that we have never been before. They have aroused emotions of fear, hate, happiness, hope, joy, sadness and humor, to name a few, but the greatest of all emotions they’ve aroused is love, it being at the foundation of everything.

Let’s take English writer Jane Austen’s love affair with romance, for example, and her artistry in creating mind-pictures that take readers to 18th-century England, allowing them to experience  middle-class life and romance of those times. Born in the Hampshire village of Steventon, England, on Dec. 16, 1775 (seventh child in a family of eight), Austen began her journey through life with a scholar/reverend for a father, and a mother of ready wit, famed for her impromptu verses and stories. Her lively and affectionate family circle provided a stimulating context for her writing, as well as her extensive network of relationships by blood and friendship.

It was this world – people of good breeding and high social position, the country clergy, the village, the neighborhood, the country town, the occasional visits to Bath and London –  that she was to use in the settings, characters and subject matter of her novels. In her six novels - Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, Austen created the comedy of manners of middle-class life in the England of her era.  Although having never been married herself, her novels showed a deep concern with love and marriage, and an unquestionable understanding of the experience of love and of love’s disappointments.  Her repeated fable of a young woman’s voyage to self-discovery on the passage through love and marriage focuses upon easily recognizable aspects of life.

Austen was a domestic novelist concerned with the nature of society and the quality of its culture. It was her concentration upon character and personality, and upon the tensions between her heroines and their society that relates her novels more closely to modern world than to the traditions of the 18th century. It is this modernity, together with the wit, realism and timelessness of her prose style, and her shrewd, amused sympathy that created stories so skillfully told, in novels so beautifully constructed, that they have inspired 200 years of readers to find great satisfaction in her.. 

To follow in Austen’s literary footsteps is to first pay a visit to the beginnings of her growth as a novelist in Steventon, where she lived for the first 25 years of her life, and where her father was vicar. The rectory no longer stands, but visitors can still see railings around an iron pump in a field, which replaced the wooden pump used by the Austen family. The 12th-century church where Austen worshipped remains almost unchanged, and contains memorials to her brother, who took over the parish from her father. You can pause for refreshment at The Wheatsheaf Inn at North Waltham where Austen used to walk to collect the family mail.

When her father retired as vicar the family moved to Bath.  For eight years they put up with succession of temporary lodgings or visits to relatives, in Bath, London, Clifton, Warwickshire, and Southampton.  When her father died, her brother, Edward, provided a large cottage in Chawton, within his Hampshire estate, not far from Steventon. This gave Austen a renewed sense of purpose, and she began to prepare Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice for publication.

Take a pilgrimage to Austen’s beloved home in Chawton. Jane Austen’s House (her home from 1809 to just before her death) is open to the public and visitors can see where she wrote or revised all her famous novels. The house is preserved as it was in her lifetime and includes the small table where she used to write. 

Just opposite the Jane Austen’s House is a tearoom, Cassandra’s Cup, named after Austen’s sister, where you can sit gazing out the window at Austen’s house while enjoying a wonderful cuppa tea and a tantalizing dessert. One has to wonder what it felt like to live back in her time. I had the pleasure of meeting Austen’s great-great-great nephew, who often speaks at the Jane Austen Society’s gatherings each year. He was very gracious and a wellspring of information.

Then there is Winchester where Austen was taken to be under the care of an expert surgeon for her Addison’s disease. You can see the outside of the house on College Street where she spent the last few days of her life.  She died six days later, on July 18, 1817, at the age of 41, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Visitors can see her tomb and the memorial to her there 

Explore Jane Austen’s connections with Bath, where she lived and visited frequently throughout her life. Two of her major novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, are set here. Take a walking tour (1.5 hours) with a guide that can point out where she stayed and the settings used in her novels.

Austen also spent time up in the Peak District of Derbyshire, such as Bakewell, Matlock and Dovedale. These locations were visited and later used by her in her novels. Bakewell is said to be the “Lambton” of Pride and Prejudice, and Austen based “Pemberley” (Mr. Darcy’s family seat) on the magnificent house of Chatsworth.

Enjoy a day in rural Wiltshire as you visit Mompesson House and Wilton House, in the heart of historic Salisbury, two of the locations used for the filming for Sense and Sensibility.

As you can see, there are a number of places to visit having to do with Jane Austen, places where you can experience a society that adheres to many of yesterday’s traditions and culture. You can feel the aura from the scenes in her novels radiating out around you – from the tranquility and splendor of the land, to the quintessential cottages and tearooms, and the impeccable English accents. 

Copyright 2002 Carolyn Carpenter-Meister. Carpenter-Meister has traveled extensively for many years in Europe. She owns and operates U.S.-based Exclusive Journeys, LLc, which provides specialty tours to Britain, Europe and New England.