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Anne Fertig: You've heard of
Jane Austen. She's in our movie
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theaters, our high school
classrooms, even on the British
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pound, she's inspired more than
400 novel adaptations and
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probably more than a few of your
favorite movies and series. You
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might even consider yourself a
big fan of Jane Austen. But do
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you know who Jane Austen was?
Like, really, who was she as a
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person? The thing is, Austen is
everywhere, but we know very
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little about her. She died
before her books became famous,
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and only a fraction of her
letters survive. So in this
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podcast, we're finding Jane
Austen. We're solving the
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mystery of one of the most
important writers in the English
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language through the clues she
left behind along the way. We'll
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speak to some of the top Austen
scholars in the world.
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Lizzie Dunford: So it meant
marriage for Austen, who does
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seem quite independent, but it
meant a lot of sacrifices, and
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it's really interesting that
when she did have the choice,
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she then changed her mind. So
she had the choice, and she had
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the chance to be the lady of the
manor, and she chose not to.
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Misty Krueger: Austen was
obsessed with criminals as a
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teenager. For people who haven't
read Austen's teenage writings,
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I will tell you that she's got
murders.
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Janine Barchas: Well, she might
have been a polite young lady,
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and I'm sure she was very well
behaved at parties, but she was
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no Victorian prig.
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Anne Fertig: So whether you love
Jane Austen or if you haven't
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read her since high school, we
invite you to join us in finding
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Jane Austen. Finding Jane Austen
releases early 2025 but you can
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subscribe now on your favorite
podcast app, including Spotify,
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Apple, and YouTube. Finding Jane
Austen is researched and written
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by me, Dr. Anne Fertig and is a
production of R2 Studios, part
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of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History New Media at George
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Mason University. Go to
r2studios.org. to learn more.