Charlie and Jessica Bull (Miss Austen Investigates) discuss Jane Austen! The mysteries in her books, what and how she read, her likely views on slavery, her forgotten brother, the proposals of marriage she received (there were many!), and her life in her birthplace of Steventon.

A transcript is available on my site

General references:
Charlie said she'd find info on the yew tree, here's Jessica Bull's Instagram reel on St Nicholas' Church

Books mentioned by name or extensively:
Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries Of Udolpho
Charlotte Lennox: The Female Quixote
Claire Tomalin: Jane Austen: A Life
Daniel Livesay: Children Of Uncertain Fortune
Deirdre Le Faye (ed.) Jane Austen's Letters
Frances Burney: Camilla
Frances Burney: Cecelia
James Edward Austen-Leigh: A Memoir Of Jane Austen
Jane Austen: Sense And Sensibility
Jane Austen: Pride And Prejudice
Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen: Sanditon
Jessica Bull: Miss Austen Investigates (The Hapless Milliner)
Jessica Bull: Miss Austen Investigates: A Fortune Most Fatal
Lucy Worsley: Jane Austen At Home
Henry James: Tom Jones
Margaret Edgeworth: Belinda
Matthew Gregory Lewis: The Monk
PD James: Death Comes To Pemberley

Buy the books: UK || USA

Release details: recorded 29th April 2024; published 14th October 2024

Where to find Jessica online: Twitter || Instagram || TikTok

Where to find Charlie online: Website || Twitter || Instagram || TikTok

Discussions

02:35 Jessica's love of and study of Jane Austen
05:30 Expanding on Jessica's statement that a lot of Austen involves mystery
10:45 Were you ever worried about how people might view your Jane Austen, her silliness?
17:15 The importance of including, in the novel, what Jane Austen was reading
21:11 Where Cowper, Austen's favourite poet, comes into it, and we begin to discuss Austen's views of slavery and abolition, and Jessica's response to such
27:04 The price of books in those days!
28:51 We discuss a ton about Steventon, Austen's birth place - Jessica's recreation of the house and our own visits to the location
32:57 Talking about the other family members, including Anna and, particularly, George and what we know about him
39:34 About the people Jessica had to cut from the book and how she's going to go forward in terms of including people later in the series
41:52 All about Jessica's fictional letters and the allusions to the real ones
45:22 What Jessica believes about Austen and Tom Lefroy's relationship and Austen's love live in general
49:53 Changing real events to suit the novel, as well as Austen's agency, and locations
53:20 Jessica's time in Hampshire, seeing Chawton and how it inspired her
54:57 About book 2, A Fortune Most Fatal, and the fraudster Princess Caraboo
58:04 Brief notes on how many books may be in the series

Photo credit: Cassie Burac

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