The Jane Austen Society (United Kingdom)

The Jane Austen Society of the UK was founded in the 1940s principally with the aim of acquiring her home at Chawton and of opening it to the public. When other funds had secured this objective, forming a separate trust to own and administer the museum, JAS continued as a literary society dedicated to promoting knowledge and enjoyment of Jane Austen's life and work, and of fostering and publishing original research.

For some decades limited to a single annual meeting and one publication per year, JAS UK has developed into something more vibrant, wide-reaching, and responsive to members' wishes. People who love the novels of Austen but whose professional lives do not bring them into regular contact with her work are faced with the choice of nurturing their solitary pleasure or sharing it with like-minded enthusiasts in a society that offers meetings, events, and publications with some feeling of being connected to the wider world of Austen scholarship and ideas. It would be a mistake for those whose business it is to teach Austen to regard the interest of readers from other walks of life as somehow less worthy. Their knowledge can be formidable and their experience diverse, and they can and do make valuable contributions to the ongoing Austen conversation.

The main spurt of growth in membership and range of activities occurred during the years on either side of the millennium, when the explosion of popular interest in Austen generated by film and TV coincided with increased awareness in the UK of what was being achieved by the more active, enterprising Jane Austen Societies—notably JASNA—springing up in other parts of the world. Forging personal and professional relationships with representatives from these societies has proved highly beneficial and enjoyable. As Austen's literary appeal became a global phenomenon, reaching every level from academe through to popular culture and the marketplace, JAS UK faced exciting opportunities and challenges.

Individual initiatives established branches and groups that meet for lectures and other events in different regions of the UK; the Annual Report increased in size and was supplemented by spring and autumn newsletters; specialist books were published on facets of Austen family history and topography; residential conferences exploring areas of the country with Austen connections, and occasionally abroad, were organized and remain a very popular aspect of the Society's offerings, combining as they do learning and leisure. In the bicentenary year of 2017, representatives of JAS organized, facilitated, and attended important commemorations in Westminster Abbey, Winchester Cathedral, and elsewhere, raising awareness of her place in our national culture.

From a peak of approaching two thousand, membership has subsided somewhat as we approach the 2020s, but, for the time being at any rate, remains very loyal and enthusiastic. The question is whether, in a digital age, and with competing distractions and demands on the time of younger people, the traditional literary society has a future.

Of the enduring appeal of Austen's novels themselves there can be no doubt. No amount of books, lectures, theses, and blogs seems ever to exhaust what can be found to say about her relatively small but infinitely fascinating body of work. In terms of language, character, ethical debate, psychology, and humor—the fundamentals of fiction—her texts have been proven to transcend the specifics of time and place. Having outlasted most of the work of her contemporaries, her stories and the people of her imagination retain the power to touch and involve us despite the very different material and moral conditions we now inhabit. Not only that, but for many readers her work has been an entry point to a wide range of visual and historic subjects. From dressing up in Regency costume to attending lectures, from purchasing memorabilia to walking in her footsteps, there is much we can do to extend our interest and develop our understanding. There is something for every taste, from the frankly trivial to the esoteric. A surprising number of us have an insatiable interest in finding out everything we can about her forebears, nephews, nieces, and neighbors...