What Next for Jane Austen . . . at Chawton House

Chawton House and estate belonged to Jane Austen's brother Edward Austen Knight. Because of this, Jane Austen, her mother, and her sister, Cassandra, came to live in Chawton village, and the "Great House" occupies a special place in Jane Austen country as the setting for Austen and Knight family gatherings. As a complement to Jane Austen's House Museum, we offer a place of context for those making the pilgrimage to the village from which her six completed novels were sent into the world.

The Great House, an Elizabethan manor, is set in an idyllic parkland landscape, only moderately changed since the eighteenth century. Our physical setting inspires multiple recognitions and echoes of scenes from Jane Austen's life and work. Mrs. Austen and Cassandra are buried in the church at our gateway, and in 2018 local campaigners installed a beautiful small statue of Jane Austen to mark the bicentenary of her death. The house and its history—of both place and people—provides family context, and ongoing close connections with the Knight family mean living links continue.

The Knight library collection comprises many books that were held at Edward Austen Knight's other estate at Godmersham Park in Kent, a collection that Jane Austen knew. She referred to the library and its books in her letters from Godmersham. Our extensive library collection of women's writing from 1600 to 1830 allows scholars and general readers actual, historical, and literary legacy contexts. We hold a wealth of works by early women writers: poets, novelists, musicians, botanists, travel writers, diarists, and more. One of our core treasures is a Jane Austen manuscript of a dramatic adaptation of Sir Charles Grandison. We also hold first editions of her novels as well as an excellent secondary collection on her writing and life.

A charity to support research into early writing by women in English, and to preserve the house and grounds for the benefit of the public, was founded in the 1990s and operated mainly as a dedicated research library, garnering a worldwide reputation as a place from which comes scholarship of excellence and renown.

We have begun a project titled Jane Austen's Reading examining influences on Austen's own writing. Dr. Peter Sabor's excellent project to digitally re-create the library at Godmersham Park is available alongside the volumes that we hold, the original Godmersham Park library catalogue, and other related items. This project has scope to expand, as we continue to rebuild the original Godmersham library collection and collate and curate the wealth of research into Jane Austen's reading throughout her life.

We continue to welcome scholars and students to use our collections for research, and are gratified by the many resulting published volumes that are presented to us. We have local links with the University of Southampton, which partially funds our postdoctoral research post. Southampton colleagues have founded an MA in Jane Austen Studies and have developed a free online course, "Jane Austen: Myth, Reality and Global Celebrity."

A literary and heritage visitor offer has developed over the past five years, winning education and tourism awards from national bodies, welcoming local, national, and international visitors. The lawns, walled garden, and wilderness garden, whether showing off their snowdrops in February, their bluebells in April, their roses in June, or the glory of autumn color, are a draw in themselves. The visitor experience includes an expanded gift shop and the popular Old Kitchen café.

At this time between the 2017 and 2025 anniversaries, we aim to strengthen our existing relations with the jewel box that is Jane Austen's House Museum and reveal more of the treasure chest that Chawton House represents. For an institution such as Chawton House to thrive and to make its best contribution to securing and expanding Jane Austen's place as the best-loved English woman writer, it needs to adapt and find new and evolving ways to grow and prosper, and offering visitors a full day in the village of Chawton is a key part of this. Jane Austen herself would...