This book is meticulously researched using letters from the family. Lucy Worsley explores the impact of Jane Austen's experiences in different homes. She points out that readers enjoy Jane Austen for her themes of love and romance, but she suggests that a happy home is equally important. Her evidence for this is that her heroines are often displaced from their homes or families. In Pride and Prejudice, the Bennet sisters face the fact that their home will pass to a male relative upon their father's death.

As an Anglican clergyman, Jane Austen’s father moved the family to Steventon in 1768, which included the rectory and the glebe lands that were farmed and the income used for the benefit of the parish priest. The idea that a house and land were not owned by a family but held on behalf of others featured in Jane’s novels. It is pointed out that in Mansfield Park there is a question over who looks after England best and thus deserves to inherit it. Referring to the family’s position in society she makes the point that they were not rich but lived among landed squires and well-educated clergymen. They were what was termed pseudo-gentry, not landowners, but they sought to be seen as gentry.

Jane was sent away to different places in her teens and twenties to enable her to meet suitable men. She went to her brother’s home in Godmersham Park, Southampton, Gloucestershire, and Bath. Worsley also includes some general details about how Jane and her contemporaries would have lived at this time. Jane would have been told where to go and for how long, none of these journeys being her choice. As she had no money of her own for travelling she had to wait for one of her male relatives to be ready and willing to take her. During the Napoleonic Wars, Hampshire’s roads were improved to facilitate the movement of troops. However, this led some coachmen to drive too fast, prompting the introduction of a £10 fine. There was also the danger that a carriage might overturn, and this was especially true of the light gigs driven by young men. In 1793, the perils of travelling were highlighted by Mrs. Bramston, who was the victim of highway robbery after returning home from tea with her neighbours. Long journeys necessitated an overnight stay, and the bed was always checked to ensure it was not damp before accepting a room.

In 1797, when Jane was 22, the Leigh Perrots invited their niece to Bath to introduce her to good society. Jane followed the predictable routine of visitors, beginning with the pump rooms to take the waters. Bathing was mixed, and women wore a canvas gown and petticoat, which was weighted at the hem to keep it submerged. In the evenings, there were balls in the Upper and Lower Assembly Rooms. Bath’s steep hills made carriages impractical, so sedan chairs were used. She returned to Bath in May 1799 with her brother Edward, who rented a house in Queen Square while they searched for a cure for his gout.

The houses in Bath where Jane lived reflected the family’s changing fortunes. In 1800, Mr. Austen decided to retire to Bath permanently. In 1804, when they returned from their holiday in Lyme, they did not go back to Sydney Place in Bath but moved to Green Park Buildings East. These houses, located by the river, were built on a platform due to frequent flooding of the land. They were also close to the city’s slums on the southern fringe, a location the family had rejected in 1801 because of its dampness. After the death of Jane’s father, they relocated to a more affordable residence in Gay Street in the city center. In 1806, they moved to Trim Street in the commercial district. In July 1806, the family left for Southampton to stay in a house rented by her brother Frank for his wife and the rest of the family while he was away fighting.

In terms of Jane’s talent as an author, it was suggested she inherited this from her mother, who is described as having a strong personality and common sense. There is a reference to the Lady’s Magazine and the restriction of women’s education, leading to comments that if women read any non-fiction they were criticised as being pedantic and being witty was also a fault. This was not the view of Jane’s father, who valued humour highly.

For Wollstonecraft, the emphasis on accomplishments designed to make women more appealing as wives prevented them from becoming rational beings. Although Jane did not denounce accomplishments, her novels suggest that she believed a woman should improve her mind through reading. Many Georgians regarded fiction as frivolous and feminine, even dangerous. In Northanger Abbey, Jane addresses other novelists with a plea to support one another, stating, “if the heroine of one novel is not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?”

Being fit and healthy in Georgian times was the exception rather than the rule, as there were no vaccinations or modern dentistry. The condition, chlorosis, was caused by a lack of iron and manifested in debility and paleness. There is an argument to say it was not all physical, with females becoming feeble and immobile as a self-fulfilling prophecy. For Jane’s mother, it was mind-numbing to visit the same neighbours, help the same paupers, and cultivate the same garden. One answer was to be ill, and on medical advice, she took 12 drops of laudanum at bedtime. Laudanum was made up of 10% opium dissolved in alcohol. It was this boredom which caused Jane to turn daily life into art. By the middle of the century, sensibility had become a fashionable affliction of the well-off. Your nerves only became dangerously sensitive if you had plenty of leisure time and lots of money to indulge them. Initially, Hannah More embraced sensibility but then began to think feelings got in the way of duty and action. Wollstonecraft also felt sensibility may harm women by making them too soft and lacking in purpose and firmness.

This book examines Jane Austen’s life not only through the lens of her novels but also in terms of how her home life and family experiences are reflected in her fiction. It offers valuable insights into Georgian Britain as a whole, alongside Austen’s personal experiences, making it a detailed and well-researched read.