All language subtitles for Jane.Austen.Rise.of.a.Genius.S01E03.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-TBN

One of the things
that's always clear

about anyone who does anything,
it's all about the childhood.

These are the times when
real art is created.

Jane Austen's childhood was
scarred by a near-death experience.

When she was seven years old,

she and her sister Cassandra were
sent away to boarding school.

It's a terrible thing...

..what the girls faced.

An outbreak of typhus
struck the school

and both girls fell gravely ill.

Entirely alone, Cassandra nursed
Jane as her sickness worsened.

It's just Cassandra with her,
being with her, holding her.

That's sibling power.

That's love.

That's extraordinary.

Throughout her life, the support
and sacrifices of her sister

will enable Jane Austen
to fulfil her genius.

This is the most
powerful relationship

in either of those
women's lives.

Today, few records of Jane
Austen's life survive.

But now, with the help of
writers, experts and actors...

..we can piece her
story back together.

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.

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.

Jane Austen is 38 years old.

She has published three novels -

Pride And Prejudice,

Sense And Sensibility,

and, most recently,
Mansfield Park.

Although ignored by
critics, it has sold well,

and she is closer to having
financial freedom than ever before.

Jane Austen is now finally
on the literary map.

There's a great satisfaction
in the idea that, finally,

it's her pen that's keeping
a roof over her head

after the years and
years of insecurity.

She's really in her stride now and
she's feeling good about herself.

And why is she feeling
good about herself?

Cos she's earning money.

But there's one thing
still troubling her -

how to tackle big subjects and
say something about the world

without alienating
readers and critics.

For the past five years, Austen
has been living comfortably

in a home provided by
her brother Edward,

who had been raised
by wealthy relatives.

He's the brother that gets
given away to a rich family.

They adopt him.

It's a way that rich people
that didn't have sons

could guarantee male succession.

So, Edward Austen grows
up as Edward Knight

and inherits 8,000
acres in Hampshire...

..including the
village of Chawton.

Chawton Cottage is Jane's
sacred space that she has

with her sister Cassandra
and their mother.

Since the death of their father,

Cassandra has become
Jane's greatest supporter.

Jane's relationship with
Cassandra is exceptionally close.

In one letter, Jane refers to
themselves as "The Formidables".

And Cassandra is very,
very careful to make sure

that Jane doesn't have to take on
too big a share of the management

of the household, to make
space for her to write.

But now, news arrives that throws
Austen's life into turmoil.

Her adopted brother Edward
is threatened with a lawsuit

that could strip
him of his fortune.

The action is brought by
a local family who believe

they are the rightful heirs
to the Chawton estate.

Should Edward lose, the Austen women
will become homeless once again.

Austen suddenly faces
grave uncertainty.

If this lawsuit
goes against Edward,

he could face having to sell off
up to 80% of his enormous estate.

Jane is facing homelessness
if this lawsuit is successful.

Austen's modest earnings for her
writing are nowhere near enough

to protect her if she
was to lose her home.

So, she turns to what
she knows best - writing.

She needs profits.

She needs to make as much money as
she possibly can out of her fiction.

She needs a crowd-pleaser,
she needs a real banger

that's going to reach as
many readers as possible.

It's not just the Austen
family facing hard times.

Following a peace treaty with
France during the Napoleonic Wars,

Britain's economy falls
into a deep recession.

The price of bread has doubled.

And as new technology starts
to take people's jobs,

riots begin to spread
across the country.

The money that was
being spent on armaments

and providing things for the
war against Napoleon in Europe,

all of that stopped.

The Industrial
Revolution was starting,

meaning people were
coming in off the land.

And they were all crammed
together in terrible conditions.

So, there was a social
revolution in terms of living.

There's a growing sense
of strife and hunger

and increasing inequality.

Austen is witnessing a
terribly unequal country

that is increasingly divided.

The haves and the
have-nots are so far apart,

it's like a cost-of-living
crisis writ large,

right there in the village
where Austen is living.

As Austen travels from
her own home in Chawton

to the privileged world
of her brother Edward,

she cannot help but notice
the increasing divide

between rich and poor.

They're surrounded by poverty,

by people being evicted
from their houses,

by people being forced to pack
up and trudge on foot to London

to try to survive.

You know, people were
starving around them.

As often as they can, the Austen
women give food and clothes

to the most needy
in their community.

She has a real sense of
compassion for people around her,

and to imagine, you
know, "That could be me."

Austen pours this feeling into the
novel she is currently writing.

In this time of crisis, she decides
to put the self-indulgent behaviour

of the rich under
the microscope.

She's looking at rich
people and thinking,

"You live in a such big, nice
house. Do you deserve to be rich?

"Are you just a better person?"

And, of course, you're
not a better person.

And this is what
we meet in Emma.

Emma follows the
matchmaking misadventures

of the rich and
self-absorbed Emma Woodhouse.

Emma centres around a really spoilt
and wealthy heroine who has power.

This is one of the first
heroines she writes about

that really, fully has power.

And why does she have power?
Because she has money.

Emma is vain, beautiful, shallow,
irritating and very snobby.

She's a real monster.

And Jane Austen says herself,

"Nobody's going to much like
this heroine except for myself."

SHE GASPS Hurry along, dear.

It's Miss Bates coming.

The central theme of the novel

is Emma becoming awakened to her
thoughtless and selfish ways.

The key scene is a picnic
at the picturesque Box Hill,

where Emma and her
friends have gathered,

including the much
poorer Miss Bates.

So, Miss Bates is a
generally happy person,

but she also has verbal diarrhoea
- that she cannot stop talking,

is always commenting
on what she's seeing,

what she's experiencing,
what she's thinking.

Shall we all play a game?

Emma finds Miss Bates irritating
and mercilessly ridicules her.

I command that we each tell Miss
Woodhouse something entertaining.

You may offer one thing very clever,
two things moderately clever,

or three things
very dull indeed.

And in return, Miss Woodhouse
will laugh heartily at them all.

I shall be sure to say
three very dull things

as soon as I open
my mouth, shan't I?

THEY CHUCKLE

There may be a difficulty.

Oh, I doubt that. I'm sure I never
fail to say things very dull.

Yes, dear, but you will be
limited as to number - only three.

Oh...

To be sure.

Yes.

She's entirely humiliated
and everyone else can see it.

And Emma can't see it.

It's searingly cruel.

I-I...

I-I see... I see...
I see what she means.

I will try and hold my tongue.

Oh, I must make myself
very disagreeable,

or she would not have said such
a thing to an old... friend.

There you have, in microcosm,

an illustration of what actually
is going on in the country.

There's huge disparity
between rich and poor.

She's chosen the romantic structure
as her narrative structure,

but her books are
about everything.

So, she's not just
talking about love at all.

Oh... SHE CHUCKLES

Just three.

Jane would have known
people like this.

So, there is an exquisite sense of
real life within these characters.

And these characters
are all understandable,

which is why we still
read the stories today,

because we know who
these people are.

We have met people like this.

It falls to Mr Knightley to
say, "You ought to be ashamed."

He really tells her off. He
really gives it both barrels.

How could you be so
unfeeling to Miss Bates?

How could you be so insolent to
a woman of her age and situation?

I'd not thought it possible.

How could I help saying it?

I dare say she did
not understand me.

I assure you, she felt
your full meaning.

She cannot stop mentioning it.

Knightley pulls
her aside and says,

"You can't act like
that. That was wrong."

And sometimes, you've got to
not tell the joke, actually,

you've got to hold back.

But she is poor!

Even more so than
when she was born.

And should she live
to be an old lady,

she will sink further still.

Her situation being every way below
you should secure your compassion!

And the famous line is, you
know, "It was badly done."

Badly done, Emma!

Badly done.

In Emma, Austen uses
the same technique

she pioneered in
Sense And Sensibility,

blending the narrator and the
characters' perspectives together.

But now she pushes
it even further,

playing with her readers and
deliberately misleading them.

There's an example
of it here in Emma,

where Mr Elton is described as "the
lover of Harriet" by the narrator.

We know that that's not true.

So, what we have here is
an unreliable narrator.

It is the most remarkable
technique, and she invents it.

It's such a mark of her genius.

Throughout the novel, Emma begins
to see the error of her ways.

You want our friendship to remain
the same as it has always been.

In this scene, she tries to convince
Mr Knightley that she has changed.

I know I make mistakes, but had
you been here the last few days,

you would have seen how
I have tried to change.

It's interesting that she names
Mr Knightley "Mr Knightley",

her "Knightley in
shining armour",

particularly as her brother's
name was also Edward Knight.

Jane is acknowledging the role
of this older male figure,

someone who looks back
with love and compassion,

as Jane Austen's older
brother does to her.

Please, tell me
I am your friend.

I do not wish to call
you my friend, because...

..I hoped to call you
something infinitely more dear.

Marry me?

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

In the finale, Emma and Mr
Knightley happily marry.

The enlightenment of Emma is
possibly a message from Austen

that rich people have to
become aware of the impact

of their lives on the
rest of the world.

APPLAUSE

Emma is Austen's
greatest work yet.

It's a combination of
everything she's learnt so far.

It's commercial, funny,
poignant and subtly political.

If it sells well, it could
provide the Austen women

with the financial
security they need.

Feeling let down by
her previous publisher,

this time, Austen
decides to go to the top

and approach the best in
the business, John Murray.

John Murray is the most fashionable
bookseller in London in 1814.

He is the publisher
of Lord Byron.

He is as glamorous
and well connected

as a bookseller can possibly be.

This unshakeable
self-confidence,

this unshakeable belief
in her own genius,

is what propels her to believe that
she can be a John Murray author.

In October 1815, Jane's
brother Henry negotiates a deal

on his sister's behalf.

Murray agrees to publish
Emma, but on one condition -

he also wants the copyright.

What he's asking her to do is
give up her intellectual property,

her ownership of these works.

So, it's a real
conundrum for her.

Can she bear to let the
ownership of her works go to him?

Austen reveals her thoughts in a
letter to her sister, Cassandra.

"Mr Murray's letter has come.

"He is a rogue, of
course, but a civil one.

"He sends more praise,
however, than I expected.

"It is an amusing letter."

"A rogue, but a civil one" -

it's such a characteristic
Austen expression.

It captures his edginess,

the fact that there's
something potentially explosive

which she is going to have to
handle very, very carefully.

The prospect of a cash
injection is too good to refuse.

Austen wants her brother
Henry to accept the deal.

She obviously wants to be
published by John Murray.

But Henry is prevaricating,

and I think she's feeling
really infuriated.

I think she's feeling,
"Are you kidding me?

"This is John Murray!"

So, Henry's in danger of
really messing this up.

Then, with the deal still
hanging in the balance,

Jane's brother
falls gravely ill.

The talks with Murray
grind to a halt.

The expectation is
that it will be delayed

and that everyone will wait
for Henry Austen to get better.

But, no, she takes over.

She thinks, "I don't really need
Henry. I can do this myself.

"I can take matters
into my own hands."

Austen takes personal
control of the negotiations

and rips up Murray's terms.

She's been burnt by
deals like this before.

What she's doing is
fighting for her own voice,

and I really think that matters.

Which is a bold move.
That's a boss move.

Austen negotiates
her own contract.

She won't sell her copyright.

Instead, she will take on the
cost of printing Emma herself.

Austen is thinking about
the profits from her work

and how that could function as
a pension for the Austen women.

So, she's thinking about
the long-term gain.

As part of this deal,

Austen also pays for a second
print run of Mansfield Park.

She believes it never got
the attention it deserved.

It's a huge risk,
but if it comes off,

she will keep 90%
of the profits.

She's unafraid to meet
this legendary John Murray

and face him out and
advocate for herself.

She is ahead of her time, cos
men always make the deals.

And it's still... You know, if you
look at the movie industry now,

it's still hard, as a woman,
to stand up for yourself.

Austen is the first female
novelist on Murray's books.

It's a real sign of her wanting
to take back some of the control

that she's not had
for most of her life.

With this new deal, Austen
accepts that she has no control

over when Murray will send
the books to the printers.

It must have felt fantastic.

But, you know, you can't actually
make a publisher do anything.

That is infuriating, cos
I've had delays in publishing

that I have just gone,
"Well, why the delay?

"Why isn't it being published?"
You have no control over that.

With the lawsuit
hanging over them,

it is an absolute imperative
for her at this point,

that the process of printing
happens quickly as possible.

Then, an unexpected opportunity
falls into Austen's lap.

As in so many cases
in Jane's life,

an incident of misfortune turns
into something quite amazing.

It turns out that Henry's doctor

is also the official physician
to the Prince Regent.

Jane hears at first-hand

how her novels are beloved
by the Prince Regent,

how he has multiple copies of
them in his different residences.

Dr Baillie now makes
a tempting suggestion.

He offers to arrange a date for
Austen to have a private tour

of the Prince Regent's library,

one of the most luxurious
libraries in the country.

This is a slightly
complicated coincidence,

because Jane herself is a great
enemy of the Prince Regent.

He's spending money
and he's gluttonous.

And there are these
caricatures in the shop windows

showing him with prostitutes.

He's made a figure of mockery,

and Jane Austen certainly
doesn't like him.

No doubt Jane will have
been torn over what to do.

Jane must stand her moral ground

or put her loathing of
the Prince Regent aside

for this once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity.

This is a compromised invitation,
but she's a pragmatist.

She would have been
crazy not to do this.

You know, it's not the
last time or first time

that she's had to suck it up.

13th of November, 1815 -

Austen arrives at Carlton
House, the Prince Regent's home.

A glittering party palace at
the heart of decadent London,

the Prince has spent millions on its
renovation, running up huge debt.

In 1811, he spent over £10
million in today's money

on just one party, as
his people starved.

This is Jane Austen, very far
removed from Chawton Cottage.

We're suddenly seeing
her in exalted circles.

Surely, she's feeling to
herself, "I'm really making it."

She is greeted by
James Stanier Clarke,

the Prince Regent's
personal librarian.

During the visit, Clarke
makes an offer of a lifetime -

why doesn't Austen dedicate
her next novel to the Prince?

Jane is not 100% sure
what to do with it.

She feels her principled distrust
of the Prince Regent kicking in.

But she might be able to use that
dedication to the Prince Regent

as leverage, almost,
against her publisher,

in order to get Emma
published more quickly.

Adding a dedication
to the Prince Regent

will drive the sales she needs.

Austen sees this as a unique
marketing opportunity for Emma.

It's just huge.

This is a deal breaker, in terms
of her visibility as a writer.

Austen accepts the offer to force
the hand of her publisher, Murray.

She rolls the dice and
decides to go with it,

thinking that, "I have had to fight
tooth and nail to get where I am."

This time, she's going to
make the system work for her

rather than against her.

She has been writing for 20
years about manoeuvring women,

and here is Austen performing
a successful manoeuvre

with the most fashionable
publisher in London.

Austen's plan works.

Murray prints 2,000
copies of Emma,

rather than the usual
print run of 500.

Emma is split up
and sold in volumes,

as all novels are at the time.

Whilst driving greater profits,

it also enables people to share and
read the novel at the same time.

On the 20th of December, 1815,

Austen gifts the Prince Regent three
specially bound volumes of Emma.

This is Jane Austen's
crowning moment,

the result of years of hard
work and determination.

Emma is a blockbuster and
flies off the shelves.

She's got a publisher
who believes in her,

she's got a stonking banger of a
book that's hitting the shelves,

and it's got a
royal endorsement.

After so many setbacks,
being scammed by publishers,

being dismissed and rejected,

she must feel amazing because also
she's had a really integral part

in engineering its success.

One of the keys to John
Murray's flourishing business,

is a new marketing tool...

..the book review,

where he pays famous authors
to plug his latest books.

Murray asks his
friend, Walter Scott,

to write a piece on Emma
and Austen's previous works.

Sir Walter Scott writes an
extraordinarily perceptive,

a real rocket boost
of a review of Emma...

To get good reviews is great.

It's... It's really...

It's great and those are the
moments you have to really savour.

..but when the review is
shown to Jane Austen, however,

this is not quite good enough.

The review lists
Austen's previous novels,

but fails to mention
her most personal work,

Mansfield Park, which she
had just paid to re-release.

It stings Austen.

She can't actually
hear the praise

because that omission is
quite devastating to her,

and she immediately sends
off a letter of complaint

to her publisher, saying,

"How come someone so clever can
fail to notice Mansfield Park?"

A great number of novelists
have an orphan child,

and the orphan child is
the novel that came out

that no-one seemed to want.

I have a novel called
The Story Of The Night,

and you haven't heard of it,
no-one's heard of it because

no-one's read it, and
yet, I was pretty sure,

even the eve of its coming out,

that it was going to do all these
things and it simply shrunk.

It simply disappeared.

I thought, "If only people
could read this book,

"they would love it."

But, no, no, the
answer to that is no.

But Austen's personal grievances
are soon overshadowed.

SHOUTING AND EXPLOSIONS

In 1815, the peace
with France collapses

and fighting resumes at
the Battle of Waterloo.

British forces under
the Duke of Wellington

finally defeat Napoleon's army,

but Britain's victory comes
at great cost to the economy.

The move from a wartime to a
peacetime economy is very bouncy.

The first thing with peace is you
cut the size of your armed forces.

And the Navy, which
had had 120,000 men,

was cut down to
about 30,000 men.

And those men were put out on
the streets with very little,

ditto the army. So, suddenly there
was this extra mass of people

wandering around, trying
to find jobs and things.

All these things together meant
a perfect storm in terms of

things going wrong, and
that caused huge problems

with banks going bust, with
people losing huge fortunes.

Very, very disturbed
and disturbing times.

With the war over,

Austen's seafaring brothers,
Frank and Charles, return home.

1816 begins as a period of
prolonged peace for the first time

in a really long time,

and yet, the Austen
family are imploding.

Edward Knight's lawsuit is
still going ahead over Chawton

and Henry Austen's
bank has gone bankrupt.

The impact is huge because
most of the family have

invested in his bank
and they all lose money.

The collapse of Henry's bank
is catastrophic for the family.

Edward loses £2 million
in today's money,

and Frank and Henry can no
longer afford their small annual

contribution to
the Austen women.

The Austen women
are at the behest

of the men in their lives,

who control the purse strings.

They have no power to extricate
themselves from the financial

place that they find themselves.

Austen at least feels, "Well,
hurray, I've got a stonking

"pay cheque on the way in," cos
Emma has done spectacularly well.

12 months after
Emma is published,

Murray finally sends Austen
her first pay cheque.

Austen receives a paltry £38.

That's just £3,800 today.

The second edition of Mansfield
Park, which Murray has published at

the same time as Emma,
has not been a success.

He has large numbers of
copies still on his hands

and he's had to pulp them,

and Jane has still had to pay
for the costs of producing

those pulped volumes.

The failure of Mansfield Park has
wiped out the profits from Emma,

which would have totalled
approximately £40,000 today.

Had Austen not included
Mansfield Park in that contract,

Austen and her sister and her
mum would be safe for some years

to come, regardless of
their brothers' finances,

and this costs her dearly.

She's made the wrong choice.

She's backed the wrong horse.

Her great love of her
child, Mansfield Park,

has betrayed her once again into
making a commercial mistake.

This is a very dark time and it
really begins to tell on Jane.

The Austens are now in
dire financial straits.

One brother is bankrupt, another
faces a multi-million-pound lawsuit

and Jane's earnings
have been swallowed up.

Meanwhile, Jane, aged 40, works on a
new novel about the passage of time

and life's regrets.

What she does is she
writes her way out of it.

That's her lifeline.

If I don't write, I feel weird,

but the act of doing
it is really important.

In Persuasion,
she's not thinking

about business or her audience,
she's just writing from the heart.

The novel follows the story of
Anne Elliot, who is persuaded to

break off an engagement
to a young naval officer

of lower social status,
Captain Wentworth.

Wentworth is left heartbroken.

We have an older Austen writing
about an older heroine, who is

herself looking back on her life
and is herself in a pensive state.

She's thinking about the choices
that she's made in her life

and that seeps right
into the narrative.

Despite him being away
at sea for many years,

Anne is still in love with Wentworth
and regrets not following her heart.

Sweetheart, it's
been seven years.

Eight.

You couldn't possibly
still feel...

I do!

Frederick Wentworth is the only
person, save you and my mother,

who ever really saw me...

..and understood me...

..and loved me.

Aw...

Ha-ha!

Anne and Wentworth meet again

when he returns from the
Napoleonic Wars a hero.

In a key scene, when Anne
is playing with her nephews,

Wentworth removes a clambering
child from her back.

This act of kindness
encourages Anne to question

whether Wentworth might
still have feelings for her.

Boy could have been hurt...

Austen writes, "His
little sturdy hands

"were unfastened from around her
neck, and he was resolutely borne

"away before she knew that
Captain Wentworth had done it."

It's a beautifully
simple gesture,

very modern in its
simplicity, I think.

She is really writing
the ideal man here.

He's not Darcy.

He's... He's gentle.

He does what a
partner should do.

He relieves you of your burden.

She's really redefining
the sort of male hero

of her romance fiction

in those little moments.

In one of the most
moving scenes,

Captain Wentworth overhears
Anne debating the differences

between men and women.

You look a bit sad,
Captain Harville.

In this conversation,

Anne boldly declares it is
women who love the longest.

We women do not forget you
so soon as you forget us.

The only privilege I claim for
my sex is that of loving longest,

loving even when hope is gone.

Loving because you
don't have a choice.

During this scene, Captain
Wentworth remains completely silent.

It's two people talking,

a third person listening

and the reader
overseeing all of this.

Wentworth is silent.

Now, his silence is so active,
it's so filled with things,

but you realise how
much he's listening.

Moved by what he is hearing,
Wentworth writes Anne a letter,

confessing he has
loved her all along.

The scratching of that pen has an
enormous power in this moment...

..the fact that he doesn't go to
her to say it, her writes to her.

It's a letter which begins
with these wonderful words,

"I can listen no
longer in silence."

"I can listen no
longer in silence.

"Anne, you pierce my soul.

"Dare not say that man
forgets sooner than woman...

"..that his love has
an earlier death.

"I am half agony, half hope...

"Tell me not that I am too late,

"that such precious
feelings are gone forever.

"I offer myself to you again
with a heart even more your own

"than when you almost broke it
eight years and a half ago...

"You alone have brought me to Bath,
for you alone I think and plan.

"But, of course, you have
not seen this. How could you?

"Because your love has not
lasted as long as mine.

"Anne...

"..I have loved no-one but you."

"You pierce my soul."

"Half agony, half hope."

This is almost a religious
sound she's making.

I think it's the only time that one
of her men actually speaks seriously

from the self, from a part that's
normally held at bay or withheld.

And obviously, he writes
it, rather than speaks it

because it would
sound like weakness,

but when he writes it, you can
see what's always at the heart

of everything she
does, the inner life.

Here, you can really feel
the simple, naked longing.

I mean, one of the great love
letters in all literature.

Everyone who's loved
and lost reads that

and kindles the hope that the person
that they've loved all their life

might come to them at the end of
it and say, "I never forgot you.

"I'm still here."

Frederick!

In the end, Anne gets a
second chance at happiness.

She follows her heart, rejecting
the life her family wanted for her.

Overcome with emotion,
they confess their love.

One of the most exhilarating
things, I think, about that novel

is the way Anne Elliot
doesn't take fixity.

She doesn't take those nice,
stolid English country houses

that her other heroines
inherit or marry into.

She chooses mobility,
risk, danger,

and she chooses a completely
different path for herself,

just like Jane Austen.

It was a sign that a woman
that age, in her, you know,

beyond what was considered
marriageable age,

could actually find happiness.

I think it's a metaphor
for Jane Austen's own life.

I doubt very much whether
Jane Austen is thinking,

"Oh, well, I might
still meet someone.

"I'm not going to be that person.
I'm not going to be a married woman.

"I am going to be a spinster,

"but I am going to make
something of that."

There's no sense in her letters
whatsoever that this is a woman

who's got any regrets, who's
looking back and saying,

"Wish I'd got married,
wish I'd had children.

"Did I make the wrong decision?"

There just doesn't
feel like any of that.

In July 1816, as Austen
writes the final chapters,

she begins to feel unwell.

I think reading the final
chapters of Persuasion,

it's hard to avoid reflecting on
the fortitude that Austen had to

marshal to produce that perfect,

that perfectly
hopeful resolution

at a point where she herself was
increasingly in physical pain.

Persuasion is the only
complete Austen novel that has

a surviving alternate ending.

It shows rushed scrawls
and crossings out.

I mean, part of the problem
of writing a novel is that you

imagine an ending, but then, you put
all the detail you're working on,

you're working with so
much detail that when it

comes to the moment you've
imagined, it's not right,

and you need to go over and over
it, adding and adding and adding...

..just to see if there's any way
you could bring this down naturally,

and the only person who
can judge it is you.

To have a document that shows us
exactly the process of revision,

of rewriting, of struggling
for the perfect resolution

of that narrative is
very precious indeed.

We can see the process of
a novelist who is entering

a phase of late mastery.

Aged just 41, Jane is at
the height of her powers.

In Persuasion, she has written
what is widely believed

to be her greatest work.

But her sickness has worsened.

She is suffering from
backaches and fainting spells.

We do not know what
illness Jane has.

It is likely a form
of tuberculosis.

Jane chooses to lay herself
across three wooden chairs,

saving the sofa for
her elderly mother.

I think this tells
us an enormous amount

about looking after
the women in her family

and of always being the provider
and the self-sacrificer.

But Austen's mind is
as active as ever.

She isn't slowing
down, isn't stopping.

She's still got things to say.

Drawing on her experience of
illness, she begins a new novel.

Here and in great pain, she
begins a new literary adventure,

but she's writing
against the clock.

She's doing the only thing
she knows, which is write.

She's dying.

She's going to write about death

and she's going to
do it brilliantly

cos she's got one
last one in her.

In Sanditon, Austen
creates a drama

set in a fictional
seaside resort.

The enthusiastic Mr
Parker is keen to convince

everyone of the
town's healing powers.

Sea air, better than
any medicine or tonic.

And there, there
is the sea itself.

Oh, yes, I see it!

Unlike Austen's previous novels,
which focus on a single heroine,

Sanditon features a
collection of characters

and is written
much like a sitcom.

There you are!

Are you surprised to see us?

How do you do?

How do you do?! Oh...

Arthur and Diana Parker are two of
Sanditon's most comical characters.

My sister, Miss Diana Parker,
and my brother, Arthur.

We've all been very ill,
almost at death's door...

They constantly
complain of illness,

whilst strolling around Sanditon
looking the picture of health.

..and we came to call on
you as soon as we arrived,

only to learn you
were on a cliff walk,

so we thought we'd be
brave and surprise you.

Our lodgings are closest.

Come, take tea with us and
let's, all of us, for God's sake,

get out of this howling gale.

Come, come.

Austen paints the
characters as hypochondriacs

who worry incessantly
about the weather.

You see, we were
sure of a good fire.

Poor Arthur feels the cold so.

It takes some balls
to mock hypochondriacs

when you're on
death's door yourself.

HE LAUGHS

It's quite... It's quite
an "up yours", isn't it?

But I guess if we know
nothing else of Austen,

she was quite bold
and forthright.

I don't find the
weather chilly at all.

Oh. What a constitution
you must have.

In one witty scene,

Arthur reveals his secret
recipe for a healthy lifestyle.

If I were bilious, wine
would disagree with me,

when I've always found
it does my nerves good.

Do you know, the more I
drink, the better I feel.

Often, I wake up in the
morning feeling very groggy,

but then, after a few glasses of
wine, I feel as right as rain.

That's quite remarkable,
don't you think?

Though I can take a little
toast with butter on it,

no more than six or
seven slices, though.

Will you let me toast
you a slice or two?

Please do.

Everyone uses comedy,
Austen does it,

and everyone I've ever worked
with who's any good does it.

We all use humour to get us
through those tough times.

She likes to have fun.

She's writing with this
child's mind and being playful,

and being elastic,
and being silly,

and wanting to
make people laugh.

And in Sanditon, she's
going to go out laughing.

Miss Phyllida Beaufort
and Miss Lambe.

Austen also does
something revolutionary -

she writes a wealthy, black,
female character, Miss Lambe.

In this adaptation, she
makes a glamorous entrance.

Ladies. Georgiana.

The ways in which she's writing
black characters into her story,

she's way ahead of
even our time, right?

We think of things
like Bridgerton

now as radical
and revolutionary,

but there was Jane Austen
doing it in her time.

Despite her best efforts,
Jane's illness worsens

and she is forced to
abandon the novel.

I just would love to have known
what Jane Austen was going to do

with this beautiful, rich,
powerful black woman.

Where would she take that?

With Jane Austen, of
course, there is no decline.

She is cut down at the
very peak of her powers.

Austen knows she is dying.

She agrees to be taken to
Winchester to see a specialist.

For Jane, the drama of real life

gets in the way of
the creative drama.

In a letter to a friend,

Austen uses her unfailing humour
to poke fun at her own situation.

"I am now a very genteel,
portable sort of invalid.

"If I live to be an old woman, I
must expect to wish I had died now,

"blessed in the tenderness
of such a family."

"A genteel, portable
sort of invalid."

Fantastic. Very funny.

You've got to be able
to laugh at death,

treat death in the way
that you treat life...

..face it, front on, with wit.

It's the only way to do it.

It's what she did.

By the 15th of July, 1817,

Austen is being nursed in
Winchester by her sister, Cassandra.

She's in excruciating pain.

Austen dictates a poem to her
sister, 24 lines of comic verse.

These are the last words
she will ever write.

"When once we are buried,
you think we are dead.

"But behold me, immortal!

"Set off for your course.

"I'll pursue with my reign."

To use the D-word, the word
"dead", is pretty powerful.

The fact that it was able to come
off the tongue of someone who

knew that they were
at the end of life.

But Jane always tried to
be truthful, didn't she?

And why should it be
different on her deathbed?

On the 17th of July, 1817,

Cassandra cradles Jane's
head throughout the night.

She remains in that
position for six hours.

The detail of her death
is incredibly moving.

She's at a sort of crooked angle
and Cassandra's holding her head,

and her head is bent
in an awkward way,

and so her sister holds
her and cares for her

in these last hours of intimacy.

There's a sort of very poignant
echo of their childhood...

..where sisters care for each other,
sisters look out for each other,

and this is its sort
of final embodiment.

We have the most poignant end
to a life of sibling love,

a love that has been
present for 40-plus years.

The unbelievably fitting
nature of the fact

that it is just Cassandra
with her at her end.

I nursed my sister.

I was at my sister's deathbed.

Erm...

And it's...
exquisitely powerful...

..and very tender.

And I can only think Cassandra would
have had that self-same experience.

Cassandra then tends
to her sister's body.

It's the last thing that
she can do for her sister,

who she describes as her
sun, the sun of her life.

In a letter to their niece,

Cassandra writes of
Jane's final moments.

"I have lost a treasure.

"Such a sister. Such a friend.

"She was the sun of my life.

"The gilder of every pleasure,
the soother of every sorrow.

"And it is as if I had
lost a part of myself."

You couldn't get a better
epitaph than that, could you?

"The gilder of every pleasure,
the soother of every sorrow."

That's...

That's the most
powerful relationship

in either of those
women's lives.

Jane Austen is buried
in Winchester Cathedral.

Only four people
attend her funeral.

Her gravestone makes no mention
of her career as a writer.

In her will, Austen leaves
almost everything to her sister,

including the rights
to all of her works.

I think that's so telling, that she
doesn't leave it to her brothers

because, after all, it's Cassandra
that's been there with her

through thick and thin,
through all the ups and downs

that they've had to face, both
financially and privately.

And I think it's
right, you know.

It's quite a beautiful thing.

25 years after Jane
Austen's death,

Cassandra burns thousands
of Jane's letters.

Only 161 survive.

It's really seen today as an
act of literary vandalism.

People are horrified,

"How could she do this?" because
the letters are so brilliant.

We do not know why
Cassandra burnt them,

but it is widely believed she did
it to protect Austen's legacy.

It's many, many years later

when she's getting old herself
that she makes the decision that,

"I cannot... I cannot let these
letters out into the world."

Jane always speaks
the plain truth

and Cassandra genuinely didn't
want to hurt the family's feelings.

It cannot have been easy for her
to destroy the letters that had

been a lifeline and really
brought her close to her sister.

Aside from her novels,
nearly all we know of Austen

comes from the letters Cassandra
deemed acceptable enough to save.

If you want to date literary
modernity at a particular point,

it is 1815, '16.

There is writing before Austen
and there is writing after Austen.

That achievement is... enormous.

The greatest writers in
our language - the Brontes,

Mary Shelley, Dickens -
they all come on the heels

of this huge legacy given
to them by Jane Austen.

She did it. She did
it before anyone else.

She wasn't concerned with leaving
behind money or even children

or having a husband.

She was concerned with
leaving her voice.

This is a woman who is leading
the charge in saying what

literally nobody
has said before.

She did what she wanted to do.

She made a career as a novelist
and made money out of it,

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

I feel I know her.

And considering she was
born 250 years ago...

..it's like breaking bread
with the dead, isn't it?

Shaking hands across the centuries,
gossiping - what's not to like?

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

and follow the links
to the Open University.