Jane Austen, the daughter of a clergyman, was born in Hampshire in 1775, and later lived in Bath and the village of Chawton. As a child and teenager, she wrote brilliantly witty stories for her family's amusement, as well as a novella, Lady Susan. Her first published novel was Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in 1811 and was soon followed by Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Austen died in 1817, and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818.
Dolly Alderton (Introducer)
Dolly Alderton is an award-winning author and screenwriter based in London. She is a columnist for the
Sunday Times Style magazine and is the former co-host and co-creator of the podcast
The High Low. Her first book,
Everything I Know About Love, became a top-five
Sunday Times bestseller in its first week of publication, won a National Book Award (UK) for Autobiography of the Year and was made into a BBC One TV series. Both of her novels,
Ghosts (published 2020) and
Good Material (published 2023), were instant
Sunday Times bestsellers.
Dear Dolly, a collection of her agony aunt columns from the
Sunday Times Style magazine, was published in 2022, and was also a
Sunday Times bestseller.