Lots of people first meet Jane Austen through Pride and Prejudice often at school, and often as their only encounter with her work. It's certainly her most dramatised novel. In this episode, Caroline and Nicola delve into something a little different: one of Austen’s earliest stories, Love and Freindship (spelled just as she wrote it!), penned when she was just fourteen, and Sanditon the novel she sadly never finished before her untimely death.

Caroline, whose expertise lies in the history of medicine, shares why the cause of Austen’s death at 41 remains uncertain and looks at the competing theories.

This episode comes with a small audio caveat: Nicola was recording from a holiday cottage in the wilds of Cornwall with dodgy broadband and no microphone, and may sound a little Dalek-esque at times. She hopes you’ll forgive the wobble in sound in exchange for the joys of Austen.

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