Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language

Jane Austen is Britain's most celebrated female novelist.

She left behind timeless masterpieces

including Pride and Prejudice,

Sense and Sensibility

and Emma.

Revealing the inner lives of men and women

in a way that still speaks to us today.

But getting into her own mind isn't easy.

In her lifetime, Austen wrote thousands of letters

to her beloved sister, Cassandra,

sharing her innermost thoughts.

But after Jane's death, at the age of just 41,

her sister burned them.

We have to ask ourselves why?

What was at risk there?

In the letters she could be so funny

and wicked and outrageous.

But some of them are so offensive.

Cassandra knew they would cause a lot of upset.

But a handful of letters survive.

Now, with the help of writers,

experts

and actors,

we can piece her extraordinary life back together.

NOISY STREET DIN

Jane Austen was a writer teeming with new ideas

who revealed profound truths about the world she lived in.

There is writing before Austen

and there is writing after Austen.

That achievement is enormous.

Jane Austen is the greatest comic novelist we have ever produced.

GUNSHOT

At a time when women were supposed to know their place,

Jane ripped up the rule book.

She's not just writing about romance.

We should see her as a political novelist.

She's telling young women, I see you and I hear you,

which I think is such a modern thing.

Austen's life is a tale of ambition,

struggle and tragedy.

A genius cut down in her prime.

She's really good at the light, the ironic,

the beautifully observed,

and then life drives a truck into that.

This is the story of how a self-taught country girl

from a Hampshire village defied the conventions of her day

to become one of the greatest novelists who ever lived.

Her voice is so strong and funny and perceptive.

And her work's still being copied and stolen by people like me.

She did what she wanted to do.

And it makes me feel like I can always do what I want to do.

1793.

King George III is on the throne.

It's an age of trade, slavery and Empire

where vast fortunes are being made.

It's also a time of danger with the risk of destitution

and the poorhouse...

..where your position at birth dictates the shape of your life.

But that world is starting to change.

Ideas of progress and equality

are breaking down old assumptions.

And for those who take the risk,

opportunities are there to be had.

Jane Austen is 17 years old.

She's grown up in the village of Steventon in Hampshire,

with six brothers and one older sister, Cassandra.

Jane is in a sort of perfect petri dish for a writer

in that she's got a lot of siblings,

a lot of brothers.

So there's a huge amount of stimulation and fun.

Lots of things to talk about, things to see,

things to watch going on.

And her siblings will become

her first fully realised characters.

Her father George is the clergyman of the village.

The job doesn't pay well

but it does come with a home.

They don't own the place they live in.

Nonetheless, as a rector,

he has social status,

doesn't have any money though.

And he is using multiple jobs to try to make ends meet.

They had just enough money

but there's always the risk that they could sink downwards.

This is the worry that hangs over

the heads of the Austens.

The Austen family may not be rich

but they do have something of value.

It's a modest home,

but most importantly, it's got a library.

It contains some 500 books.

This is unusual.

It's remarkable for a family with limited finances

to have this many books.

And the library is full of these ideas.

You've got the great classics of the time, history,

this world of literature, this world of politics.

It's at her fingertips.

And there's an inspiring new kind of book on her father's shelves -

the novel - a form of writing which takes the reader

into the worlds of vivid fictional characters.

Of course, all of this is fuel for her future genius.

This is where she's made, in this library.

From childhood, Jane's love of reading

fuels an obsession with writing stories of her own.

We know that from a very young age,

Jane is writing these exuberant,

energetic, satirical little skits.

CHILDREN LAUGH

She's very funny, she's very witty.

They're full of people falling down dead drunk, especially women.

They're just about what women should get up to or not get up to.

One of Austen's earliest known stories is titled

The Beautiful Cassandra.

Jane hero worships her sister.

Famously her mother said if Cassandra was going to have

her head cut off, Jane would have her head cut off too.

She's obsessed with Cassandra.

The heroine is a mischievous adventurer

who storms around London causing trouble.

"When Cassandra had attained her 16th year,

"she was lovely and amiable."

"She then proceeded to a pastry cook's where she devoured six ices,

"refused to pay for them, knocked down the pastry cook

"and walked away."

CHILDREN CHEER AND GIGGLE

For Jane to have girls punching pastry chefs

and watching people falling over drunk,

you can see that she is being playful but also it's that

rebellious streak running through Jane Austen.

What distinguishes her teenage writing

is its mastery of form

and its mastery of parody.

I think if you've got five older brothers and an older sister,

you do quite a lot of listening, don't you?

She's obviously got a great ear

and that's a great thing for a writer.

By the age of 17,

her stories have only been read and enjoyed by family and friends.

Jane Austen wants more.

We know from the letters that she is ambitious.

She knows herself, she wants to be a writer.

But as a young woman in Georgian Britain,

Austen's options are limited.

Women in the 1790s have no rights.

What little education is afforded them

is really just training for being a wife.

Girls are expected to live a life of domestic obedience

as wives and mothers.

And so Jane finds herself

a chess piece to be moved around the board to support

other family members,

to help with births, marriages and deaths,

as is convenient to the family.

SEAGULL CRIES

16th of December 1793,

Jane has been sent to Southampton.

Southampton is a very busy port.

It has that kind of rough and ready vibe.

You're seeing all sorts of different nationalities,

people of colour, men and women.

Sailors, soldiers, mercenaries.

All different classes mingling in these hustling, bustling spaces.

As a young woman and as a writer, this is incredibly exciting

and she's storing up these experiences,

like any creative person.

It's Jane's 18th birthday,

but she is not here to celebrate.

She is here to help her cousin, Elizabeth, who is going into labour.

To be dispatched to support the birth of a family member,

with no experience, no real understanding of what's going on.

ECHOING SCREAMS

I mean, talk about being chucked into the deep end.

The reality of giving birth in Georgian England

is messy, it's bloody, it's dangerous.

A woman can die and the baby can die.

Four of Jane's relatives die in childbirth.

To see that at 18 must have been mind-blowing.

ECHOING SCREAM

She would not have discounted the fact

that this was going to be her fate too.

Jane Austen is probably looking at this woman

and thinking about her own life,

thinking, "Is this what I want?"

We know that Jane Austen can be very, very savage,

very, very brutal.

There's an excruciating moment in one of the letters

where there's a searingly cruel comment about a woman

who has a miscarriage.

Jane Austen commented that the woman miscarried

because her husband was so ugly.

She took one look at him and aborted.

I mean, that's horrible.

You know, these are the kind of awful things that sisters

would say to each other in confidence.

Jane wants to be more than just marriage and childbirth material.

Then in 1794...

..she encounters a new kind of role model.

The arrival of Cousin Eliza is big news.

She's just this fabulous creature that swans into Steventon,

bringing with her a whole hinterland of exotic,

mysterious, fabulous

and foreign excitement.

Eliza had been married to a nobleman.

During the French Revolution, he'd been arrested and thrown into jail.

But worse followed.

Her husband has been guillotined.

And she relates this to Jane Austen.

It's one thing to know that the French Revolution's taken place

and that it's tipped over into bloodshed and chaos,

it's quite another to have that presence,

that bloodshed walk right through your door and tell it to your face.

Your cousin's husband is beheaded.

This is not reading about it in the newspaper.

Can you imagine being told this news while Eliza's there?

This causes her so much fear it sort of seeps into her subconscious.

DISTANT SCREAMS

As well as these tales of horror,

Eliza brings radical new ideas.

Eliza gives Jane Austen books.

She said, "Women will not be put down any longer."

Statements that would have been such a huge influence

on how Jane Austen perceived women's rights.

And this is catnip for Jane Austen.

I mean, like any teenage girl, when a cooler, slightly older woman

walks into the room, that's kind of electrifying.

The unfortunate death of her husband

leads to some interesting possibilities.

Jane sees a widow

as someone with a certain amount of freedom.

You are your own woman

with your own means and resources,

and you are able to do what you

would like to do with those.

And if that means you want to sleep with other men, you do it.

It gives women of the time a certain amount of freedom that maybe Jane

had never witnessed before or never thought existed.

I think we can't underestimate the excitement to her fizzing,

curious mind of this astonishing figure that's travelled around,

that's been in a revolution.

She's had sex, she's got money.

You know, could this be the beginnings of a character

that she might want to explore?

Inspired by the presence of Cousin Eliza,

Jane Austen writes her first longform work.

Lady Susan tells the story of a recently widowed seductress

who is looking for a new husband.

Lady Susan is beautiful.

She's clever, she's manipulative

and she knows how to get what she wants.

She's a force of nature

and she is just doing what she needs to do to survive.

Lady Susan?

Lady Susan Vernon?

How dare you address me, sir?

But Lady Susan... Be gone, sir, or I will have you whipped.

Outrageous. Have you never met him?

No, I know him well. I would never speak to a stranger like that.

Susan, I've...

Lady Susan has a problem -

a teenage daughter who she needs to marry off.

She arranges for a wealthy but dim suitor to visit them

at Churchill Manor.

Churchill.

That's how you say it?

Altogether like that - Churchill.

Ah, well, that explains a lot.

You see, I'd heard church and hill but couldn't find either.

All I could see was this big house.

HIGH PITCHED CHUCKLE

I played Sir James Martin.

He's a fucking idiot,

but he's a likeable fucking idiot.

He walks through life with his gold shoes on going,

"Isn't this marvellous?"

How jolly! HE LAUGHS

Tiny green balls.

Mm, yes.

Good tasting.

Quite sweet.

What are they called?

Peas.

Oh, yes, no, I knew that.

To honour means, among other things,

to listen with respect to a parent's sincere counsel.

When her daughter tries to reject Sir James,

Lady Susan callously ignores her feelings

and piles on the pressure.

An offer as splendid as Sir James's is not likely to come around again.

He has offered you the one thing he has of value to give -

his income.

It's very funny because her attitude to her daughter is just so awful

and she is the world's worst mother.

Destitute. Is that what you want?

No.

I can see Sir James is a kind man

and if it weren't a matter of marriage, I'm sure I could like him.

But marriage is for one's whole life.

Not in my experience. Meanwhile...

Lady Susan is the hand grenade

that Jane Austen is lobbing into Georgian society.

Women are meant to present in a certain way.

And she did away with all of that and she created complex,

three dimensional characters

who had massive flaws,

massive contradictions.

And this was written by a teenage girl.

It's unfathomable.

Lady Susan's plan fails

and she shows her true nature as she rails against her own daughter.

If my daughter were not the greatest simpleton on earth,

she'd be engaged to him now. What?

She refused him.

A baronet with 10,000 a year. It's all so...

This is your daughter.

It's one of the moments where we go,

"Oh, no, she isn't...

"No, she is a nasty piece of work actually, isn't she?"

In the end, Lady Susan marries her daughter off happily

to another aristocrat...

God bless you all!

..and she takes the rich fool for herself.

What is truly remarkable is that a young girl

could understand the ways of the world so intricately

to create a monster, a creature like Lady Susan.

You know, precocious talent is not the word for it.

She is a rebellious modern spirit.

She's just standing up for women as human beings

and refusing to bow

to the oppressive stereotypes.

It will be years before Lady Susan reaches a reading public.

For now, Jane's only audience is her family.

Girls like her aren't expected to have careers.

Unlike her brothers.

War brings opportunities for the Austen boys.

Henry joins the militia,

while Frank and Charles serve in the Navy.

The Navy of course supported you

and made all your provisions.

The other great joy of the Navy was it opens people's horizons.

SOUNDS OF BATTLE

And as a young officer, you were part of it.

The Royal Navy at that stage was charting the world.

We were leading the scientific research.

But even better than that, if you were lucky and competent,

you could make an immense amount of money.

Jane Austen of course was privy to all of this life at sea

because of the letters from her brothers.

This was like a window, a ray of light

showing her what was going on in all these places.

And being as bright as she was,

she absorbed this and understood it and learned about it.

And I think she used it in what she wrote.

But it must have been quite frustrating sometimes

for Jane Austen.

The opportunities available for a genteel middle class woman

were about zero.

But Jane has one person who believes in her -

her father.

I do think that George Austen recognised that his daughter

was something special.

She is writing in a different way,

she is thinking in a different way to everybody else.

He clearly valued her for who she was

and for her intelligence.

There is that total acceptance and support for her.

To encourage his daughter, on Jane's 19th birthday,

he buys her a special gift.

He gives her a portable writing desk

that he's bought from a cabinet maker in Basingstoke.

An investment in her talent for writing.

I mean she's only 19.

It's almost impossible to imagine what this would have meant to her.

It gives her permission to be an author.

That's what he gives her.

Despite her father's approval,

with no family money to fall back on,

Jane is still expected to find a husband to support her.

And the traditional place for meeting a man is the ballroom.

The Georgian marriage market is a very ruthless place.

It was important for people to like one another in a marriage,

but more important was their social standing.

And courtship will be watched eagle-eyed by both families.

I think the pressure was enormous.

Balls aren't just for husband hunting,

they are also an opportunity for young people to let loose.

The party goes on until the candles burn out.

Sometimes until 6am.

The dancing can be so relentless guests bleed through their shoes.

Ladies use their fans as cheat sheets,

concealing the latest dance moves.

To get ready for one of these balls is a real deal.

You've got to wear corsets,

you've got to have your hair done in a certain way.

You are there to be seen.

If you even look at their dresses,

they're really low cut with heaving bosoms.

And the dances were,

I mean obviously no-one was grinding or twerking,

but they were very sexual.

Jane wants to be a writer,

but she also loves going to balls,

and she's a wonderful dancer.

Men want to dance with her.

She's just excited and happy,

so she's having the time of her life.

In December 1795,

at the Hampshire County Christmas ball,

Jane locks eyes with a handsome Irishman.

His name is Tom Lefroy.

He's connected to one of her best friends, Madam Lefroy.

So, he's not a stranger completely,

but he's strange enough

for her to be excited and thrilled.

And I think she really genuinely has a big crush on him.

And he has a crush on her.

Austen writes about her feelings to her sister, Cassandra,

in her earliest surviving letter.

This is a really exciting moment.

We hear her voice,

we're inside her head for the first time.

It's such an intimate conversation she's having.

"My dear Cassandra,

"I'm almost afraid to tell you how I behaved.

"Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking

"in the way of dancing and sitting down together.

"He is a very gentlemanlike, good looking, pleasant young man."

I think Jane's being very naughty here.

Sitting with someone for a long time was one thing,

sitting too close with them, holding their hands,

touching wasn't done at all.

So, it sounds like it's getting all a little bit heady.

She definitely fancies him.

There's just one problem...

The Lefroy family don't think Jane's family come up to scratch.

They don't have enough money.

They're not going to make a good match

and therefore they're forced to part.

When Tom's family decided this was not a good idea...

..she feels that she's perhaps not good enough.

She's not even been able to say, "I reject you."

The choice is taken away from her.

And she has a strong sense of pride,

she feels the fact that she doesn't have a lot of money,

she feels it deeply.

All sorts of emotions would have been running around her

at this particular moment.

Feeling a lack of voice, a lack of autonomy.

That she's powerless in this situation.

She writes this really beautiful letter to Cassandra.

The first thing we see is her amazing sense of tragic irony.

"At length, the day is come on which I am to flirt my last

"with Tom Lefroy.

"And when you receive this, it will be over.

"My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea."

"My tears flow at the melancholy idea."

I love the fact that she's so dry and ironic

in the way she describes her own reactions.

This is typical Jane Austen -

sort of expressing something and then putting it in perspective

and slightly laughing at herself.

So, we see her here aping the sentimental heroine

who's been let down.

She's mocking herself.

But I really do believe that, behind that,

there is a genuine sense of hurt and disappointment.

Bruised by the Tom Lefroy affair,

Austen channels her frustration into a new novel

that she calls First Impressions.

She finishes a draft at the age of just 21.

Her father, George, is captivated.

He decides it's time to approach a publisher.

George Austen is making a great vote of faith

in the abilities of his daughter.

He's very ambitious for her.

He realises that this is a publishable novel.

He realises that it could be a success.

That must have been a huge boost.

Because up until that point, she has read to her family,

they've all listened to these first novels.

But he is the person who actually thinks

this is something that is professional.

George Austen writes a letter offering Jane's work

to a top publishing house.

The letter is sent for the consideration

of Thomas Cadell,

London publisher of some of the most famous writers in the country.

In the capital, the publishing industry is taking off.

New printing techniques and rising literacy rates

mean business is booming.

To drive profits, books are sold in multiple volumes,

so readers have to pay to read each new instalment.

And publishers are on the lookout for the next big hit.

Rejection.

All writers keep their rejection slips,

those first knockbacks.

It's despicable to be rejected.

The publisher has sent George Austen's letter

back with a line saying:

"Declined by return of post."

They haven't even read it.

I think that that's...

That's going to be the thing.

She feels angry because she knows she's good.

There is something about knowing that you're good

and the world around you not understanding yet.

That is going to drive her.

And I think it's critical that they are outsiders.

They're outsiders to the publishing and cultural elites

and the power that's held by London.

Although stung by the rejection,

Jane has the unfailing support of her sister, Cassandra.

Deemed the pretty sister,

Cassandra had been engaged to marry a young chaplain.

But in early 1797,

more bad news arrives.

Cassandra knows that very well

when she sees the black seal on the letter,

on the notice of death.

She knows what that represents.

Cassandra's fiance has died on a voyage to the West Indies,

his body buried at sea.

Jane Austen is heartbroken for her sister.

She sees the pain her sister is going through.

And Jane says,

"I've never seen anybody behave

"with such grace and such fortitude and such courage

"in the light of this absolutely heartbreaking news."

Cassandra resolves, from this point on,

she's not going to find another love,

and that's it for her.

Cassandra's vow to remain unmarried

will have a profound impact on the lives of both women.

I think there is a part of her that also feels a sense of relief.

"She's not going to be parted from me,

"we can be together.

"We can stay together."

It's an absolutely pivotal moment in the life of Jane Austen.

It opens the doorway for Jane Austen to

think about a life in which she may not get married.

It's almost as if, you know, they're in it together now.

So she must now be thinking:

"Writing.

"How can I be secure and independent through my writing?"

That's her project.

And every project needs a great idea.

From her own extensive reading,

Jane knows what makes a bestseller.

There was a real fashion for Gothic novels at the time.

The racy Gothic novels with the shivering,

shuddering, swooning heroine.

Gothic fiction features beautiful heroines,

often trapped in mysterious settings

and facing terrifying dangers.

For some, these racy page-turners are a cause for concern.

There's lots of quite stiff writers in the 18th century -

male writers, usually -

who are very worried about the influence

that these terrible, trashy things

are going to have on women's imagination.

The idea that a young woman might read this

and think that all these things are going to happen to her.

Austen comes up with a masterstroke.

She takes the idea of the novel as a bad influence

and runs with it.

In Northanger Abbey, Austen creates a teenage heroine,

Catherine Morland, who is obsessed with reading Gothic horror.

Both Jane and the character of Catherine Morland's father

were rectors, and you could really see that Jane is putting

a lot of herself into this character.

She's plain. She comes from a large, undistinguished family.

Her father's not rich.

Her mother's sensible but not particularly anything else.

And yet she's the one we're going to follow, and proudly.

Jane is holding a standard for her and says,

"Come with me. This person's worth watching."

Austen is subverting the idea of what a heroine is

or should be.

"For when a young lady is to be a heroine... ♪

Swept up in her Gothic novel obsession,

Catherine is prone to dramatic daydreams.

"Tumultive emotions stirred in the bosom of Adeline

"and fear gripped her heart

"that at any moment ruffians would fly upon the carriage

"and return her to the ignominy of her captive state."

My God, Mrs Allen!

Oh!

Back in the real world,

Catherine is invited to the family home of her suitor,

Henry Tilney.

Arriving at Northanger Abbey,

a looming Gothic pile,

Catherine's imagination runs riot.

Catherine is always looking for the Gothic horror.

She's looking in the cupboards, in the drawers.

You know, she wants all the horror of the typical abbey.

SAMUEL WEST: "The night was dark,

"and the rain still beat violently against the windows.

"Catherine's heart beat quick

"but her courage did not fail her.

"With a cheek flushed by hope

"and an eye straining with curiosity,

"her fingers grasped the handle of a drawer and drew it forth.

"It was entirely empty."

Stylistically, this is the high Gothic style.

I think what makes me laugh

about this is the sort of main character energy.

That Catherine stars in the film of her own life.

You know, everything she does has significance.

You can hear the soundtrack.

And then when the drawer's empty,

is that meaningful or is that a disappointment?

It's dramatic. Whatever it is, it's dramatic.

To marry Henry Tilney,

Catherine must win the approval of his sinister father,

General Tilney.

Miss Morland, welcome to Northanger Abbey.

When she finds out the General's wife died,

she concludes he murdered her.

Catherine's imagination is running absolutely wild here.

She says to Henry Tilney,

"He is a murderer.

"I cannot help believing it."

There's always this monstrous barren figure

in these romances,

and she thinks that General Tilney has murdered his wife...

..and there'll be corpses hanging up

in his bedroom.

But actually, what he does is much more monstrous.

My father insists on your leaving immediately.

As soon as you can make yourself ready.

The carriage will take you to meet the public stagecoach.

No servant will accompany you.

I'm to travel all night?

Alone?

General Tilney had believed Catherine was rich.

When he learns she's a penniless clergyman's daughter,

he ruthlessly casts her out of the Abbey.

That's it. She's out.

She has no money. She has no means of getting home.

She's completely betrayed by what should've been his duty of care.

So it turns out it IS a book full of monsters.

But actually, you know, they live amongst us.

In Northanger Abbey, Austen uses the Gothic fantasy to expose

an uncomfortable truth about society.

She's played with a very, very popular literary movement,

and she's looked behind the spooky velvet curtain

of shivery horrors

and she's shown us a real monster,

which is the kind of man that would treat women that way.

Austen gives her heroine a fairy tale ending.

Catherine and Henry Tilney marry and live happily ever after.

But her own future is far from settled.

And in the winter of 1800,

her world is turned upside down.

Jane's father is growing old.

He has decided to give up his position

as the village clergyman.

She comes back from staying with a friend.

And she walks into her home and her mother blurts out

that they're going to leave.

She's turfed out of the family home,

and it's such an overpowering shock.

Her father passes the living at Steventon

to his eldest son, James.

The rectory will now be his home.

She's being uprooted,

and Jane cannot conceal her resentment about this.

She writes,

"The whole world is a conspiracy to enrich one part of our family

"at the expense of another."

This is about the unfairness of male inheritance,

that her elder brother James gets the house.

It's just this wonderfully succinct, angry comment.

She feels at this moment that sense of powerlessness.

"Does nobody ever consult my feelings?

"Am I important or am I just dispensable?"

It's a move by the family

that really doesn't consider her needs at all.

And it screws her up.

Worse, to pay for the move and help fund her father's retirement,

the library is sold.

I just can't begin to imagine what that represented for her.

The pain of not being able to have those books around you,

not being able to find that refuge that she's always had.

It's like it's one body blow after another.

And she has to pack up and move on.

Jane and her sister are forced to move with their parents

to Bath.

It is hoped here the two girls will find husbands.

At this point, she's 25, which seems very young to us.

But at that time, she's getting to the end of marriageable age.

It's sort of a bit like the 30s panic in Bridget Jones.

That's not an easy time for her.

It's potentially humiliating.

It's a daily occurrence in Bath,

going to a visitation,

attending things in public

with a very strong sense of urgency about finding a marriage match.

Jane writes about the social engagements

she's made to attend.

"Another stupid party last night.

"Perhaps, if larger, they might be less intolerable.

"I cannot anyhow continue to find people agreeable."

She's starting to have difficulty in crowds in general.

This is too much.

She's shy, she's introverted.

Having to make conversation with a few people

in intense ways really tires her out,

and her situation becomes intolerable.

We associate Jane Austen with Bath,

but the fact is she hates it.

In the summer of 1801,

Jane manages to escape to the seaside.

Invited by family friends,

she spends several weeks in Sidmouth.

Sidmouth is this beautiful, genteel Georgian beach town.

It's just gorgeous. It was known as the English Riviera.

So it's a great place to go and she's really happy to be there.

And she meets a man...

..and she falls in love.

We know he was a clergyman.

It's pretty serious and he makes his intentions pretty clear.

What's infuriating for us

is we just don't know anything about him.

We don't know what his name was.

He's very shadowy.

The only source of information about the romance

is from Austen's sister, Cassandra.

Cassandra tells us later

this might've been the love of her life.

She said, "He had the charm of person,

"mind and manners" that made him worthy to possess

her sister's love.

"We think that this could lead to a proposal."

To meet someone she falls for at that point in her life

is huge.

I imagine she would think "Yes," you know?

"It's all going to be all right after all."

The pair agree to meet again.

In the meantime, Jane returns to Bath.

Something awful has happened.

The love of her life has died.

It's probably making her think that she's lost all her chances now.

This could've been the last one.

It's clearly huge for her.

But the sense of pain that she must feel,

that's the sort of fuel that a writer needs.

And it channels itself into one of the greatest novels

ever written.

So, the opening line of Pride and Prejudice

is one of the most famous opening lines in literature.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged

"that a single man in possession of a good fortune

"must be in want of a wife."

That's already funny.

It also is the painful truth behind the whole novel.

That if your family doesn't have any money and you're a woman,

you have to marry a rich man.

When the wealthy and single Mr Bingley

arrives in the neighbourhood,

the five Bennet sisters are thrilled.

Kitty!

Kitty, what have I told you about listening at the door?

Sh! Never mind that!

There's a Mr Bingley arrived from the north!

5,000 a year!

Really?

He's single! Who's single?

A Mr Bingley, apparently. Sh!

Mr Bennet owns an estate,

but when he dies it will pass down the male line.

With no inheritance in sight,

the Bennet girls face poverty unless they marry well.

When you die, Mr Bennet, which may in fact be very soon,

our girls will be left without a roof over their head,

nor a penny to their name.

Oh, Mama, please. It's ten in the morning!

Pride and Prejudice is full of an abundance of females

that no-one knows what to do with!

How on earth do you get shot of them all?

I mean, it's almost like a send-up of her own life so far.

"What do we do with these women?"

The novel's heroine is the proud

and fiercely independent Elizabeth Bennet,

another young woman who loves reading.

I always imagine Elizabeth is the closest

to actual Jane of all of her heroines.

She's funny, she's smart, she's kind.

She's full of spirit.

She's modern, she's independent.

And so you're gunning for her from the start.

Well, if every man in the room

does not end the evening in love with you

then I am no judge of beauty.

Or men. LAUGHTER

No, they are far too easy to judge.

They're not all bad.

Humourless poppycocks in my limited experience.

One of these days, Lizzie, someone will catch your eye,

and then you'll have to watch your tongue.

In this particular scene, we see the dance

from Elizabeth's perspective.

Part of Austen's genius is she slowly brings you in.

A very close study of what somebody sees,

feels,

hears,

remembers, notices.

That you, as the reader, will slowly be pulled in,

in sort of an immersive way,

into that person's consciousness.

Now, that takes extraordinary skill.

Lizzie is determined to marry for love.

Enter the dangerous Mr Darcy.

Darcy is one of her strange, silent types

that come from your dreams.

The sense that somehow or other there's no reason to speak

because the aura that's been given off

by this male figure

is so filled with sort of pungent sexuality

that it doesn't really matter what he says.

With his sex appeal, fortune and sprawling ancestral mansion,

Darcy seems to have everything.

But he's far from perfect.

He needs fixing, you know?

He's rude, he's arrogant.

And crucially, he's rude to her.

But her sister, Elizabeth, is very agreeable.

Perfectly tolerable, I dare say.

But not handsome enough to tempt me.

You'd better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles.

You're wasting your time with me.

And they both need to learn some things,

so Jane Austen plots the dynamic between Darcy and Elizabeth

really precisely,

and that's the narrative drive of the book.

The arrogant Mr Darcy and the proud Lizzie

are in denial over their intense mutual attraction.

While they smoulder, an obstacle arrives.

Mr Collins at your service.

Mr Collins is the male heir to the Bennet estate.

He shows up at their home,

hoping to choose a wife from one of the Bennet daughters.

What a superbly featured room,

and what excellent boiled potatoes.

It's many years since I've had such an exemplary vegetable.

To which of my fair cousins should I compliment

the excellence of the cooking?

Yeah, Mr Collins is another one of Austen's idiots.

But he is not lovable.

He is a proud, boastful, odious,

charmless little toad of a man.

After dinner, I thought I might read to you all for an hour or two.

I have with me Fordyce's Sermons,

which speak very eloquently on all matters moral.

Are you familiar with Fordyce's Sermons, Miss Bennet?

And you can see what he's trying to do.

He believes, literally,

it is his God-given right to go round to this house

and pick a daughter.

What a prick.

Later on, of course, Mr Collins will ask Lizzie to marry him.

And now nothing remains but for me to assure you

in the most animated language of the violence of my affection...

Mr Collins!

..and that no reproach on the subject

of fortune will cross my lips once we're married.

You are too hasty, Sir.

You forget that I have given no answer.

Please understand me.

I cannot accept you.

Lizzie is affronted by Mr Collins's proposal

and abruptly turns him down.

Then Darcy makes his move.

Please do me the honour of accepting my hand.

He is actually trying to propose to her at this point,

and Darcy says...

Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority

of your circumstances?

And those are the words of a gentleman?

It's a bit of a cack-handed proposal.

LAUGHTER

He is very open about his awareness of her "inferiority",

but Lizzie responds with usual fire

and wit and defiance.

From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit,

your selfish disdain for the feelings of others

made me realise that you were the last man in the world

I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.

"You have money, you have class over me,

"but you can still never be the person that I am."

Lizzie will never, ever be told that she's not as good

as anyone else.

She's amazing.

Jane Austen is doing something brilliantly subversive here

because she's going against the hierarchical nature of society,

of class, of class divide.

Jane Austen's project was to make public

the idea that women's imagination and that women's minds

were not just subtle and graceful -

but sharp with enormous integrity and seriousness.

There were no other images available of how women thought and felt.

It wasn't as though it was happening in opera.

You know, it wasn't happening in poetry.

But she managed to create an extraordinary sense,

not only of life in the protagonists

but also of sharp intelligence, tact, wit, knowledge.

Despite her defiance, Lizzie seems truly devastated.

As a writer, you always want your characters

to be like Lizzie and Darcy -

in a place where you think we're not coming back from this.

There is no way.

But we always need a journey to go on.

In the end, Darcy proves himself worthy of Lizzie's love.

They finally surrender to their feelings.

I will have to tell you,

you have bewitched me, body and soul.

And I love... I love...

I love you.

I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.

Well, then...

Your hands are cold.

It's a really beautiful ending.

We all have to have someone who sees us and loves us.

He...

..is probably the only person that sees Lizzie.

Jane has written for us

a character and a story that we need as readers.

She's writing the happy ending that she needed.

Jane Austen is about to turn 27.

She's still living with her parents.

One suitor's family rejected her,

the man she loved has died...

..and nothing she's written has been published.

Then, in December, 1802,

Jane and her sister are invited to stay

with some family friends.

Wealthy members of a landed gentry.

During Austen's stay,

she does receive an offer of marriage

from the improbably named Mr Bigg-Wither.

LAUGHTER

It's straight out of one of her novels.

She doesn't love him,

and he clearly doesn't love her.

It's hard to have to marry someone you don't love

because that's the only way you can survive financially.

And she thinks, "I'll be rich."

How tempting is that?

Why shouldn't she have security and respectability and money?

Jane accepts Bigg-Wither's proposal.

And then, that night, she thinks about it.

And she must've thought, you know, "What are the ups and downs?

"Could I still write?

"And what cost would it come at?"

This is a real fork in the road for her.

She speaks with her sister...

..and she decides, "I cannot go through with this."

She just couldn't make herself marry someone

that she did not - or could not -

imagine herself loving.

And that is the mantra in the novels.

Her heroines say, "I will not marry without love."

So she's actually living what she's preaching.

And she's pretty brave to say, "Yes," to him and then say, "No."

That's a real independent spirit.

This is a defining moment

and it determines the rest of her writing life.

She chooses to take the route of being an independent woman,

to pursue her dream of being a writer.

That is the moment when she says,

"My life's going to be different."

And I think there was almost a real pledge -

an internal pledge -

to the life that, "I am choosing for myself."

Jane has gambled.

She's gambled everything on writing.

All of her chips are down.

This is just a whole new chapter in her life.

She's thinking, "This is just all going so well for me!"

Then suddenly everything goes wrong.

This is an absolute gut-punch.

"What was I thinking,

"thinking I could be a writer?"

Take an interactive journey through spaces

that shaped Jane Austen's life and work.

And explore how her influence extends across time,

place, and cultures.

Scan the QR code or visit bbc.co.uk/austengenius

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