http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1375938138

Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England : how our ancestors lived two centuries ago

BRITISH & IRISH HISTORY: C 1700 TO C 1900. Jane Austen, arguably the greatest novelist of the English language, lived from 1775 to 1817. Her fiction focuses on the gentry and aristocracy, and her heroines are young women looking for love. Yet the comfortable, tranquil country that she brilliantly devised is a complete contrast to the England in which she actually lived. For twenty-nine of Jane Austen's forty-one years, the country was embroiled in war. These were troubled times, with disturbing changes in industry and agriculture and a constant dread of invasion. The loss of America was followed by terrifying revolution in neighbouring France, provoking fears that the sporadic unrest and rioting in England might lead to wholesale insurrection and the overthrow of the ruling classes. Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England explores the real England of that time.

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