At Home with Jane Austen

This handsome, decorative book evokes the charm of a Jane Austen novel with lively prose, whimsical illustrations, and stunning modern photographs. Wilson (Tea with Jane Austen) presents the houses where Austen lived or visited, the people she encountered, the events she experienced, and the brilliant response she made to her world: her novels. In this volume, Wilson relies on Austen's letters, family memoirs, travel guides, and other publications of the era to create an enchanting biographical sketch. The author shares detailed descriptions of each house occupied by the novelist—the spacious parsonage at Steventon, where Jane was born, the narrow terraced Sydney Place house in Bath, and the "old-fashioned" Castle Square residence in Southampton. Austen's final home was Chawton Cottage, a "comfortable and ladylike establishment," as described by her niece Caroline. Austen's daily activities—sewing, practicing the piano, reading—are examined, and her love of dancing ("there were twenty dances and I danced them all") celebrated.