Join acclaimed scholar Collins Hemingway for a fascinating virtual talk canvassing all of Jane Austen’s novels and unpublished manuscripts, exploring how her craft as a novelist evolved throughout her two decades of writing. We’ll cover the structural issues in Northanger Abbey, the origin of Sense and Sensibility as an epistolary novel, and Jane Austen’s fresh start stylistically with Pride and Prejudice. We’ll go on to see how Jane Austen applies the lessons of her apprenticeship in her mature Chawton novels, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion, and explore how she increasingly delves into the minds of her characters using innovative writing techniques through the last three books.

This fascinating talk sits alongside our permanent exhibition Jane Austen and the Art of Writing – celebrating Jane Austen as a brilliant and ambitious writer throughout her life.

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Collins Hemingway is the author of the newly published Jane Austen and the Creation of Modern Fiction: Six Novels in “a Style Entirely New” (McFarland). The book investigates Austen’s development as a writer and shows how her innovations as a prose stylist set the course for modern fiction. He has written historical fiction based on Austen’s life as well as five books of nonfiction on subjects including business, technology, ethics, and cognitive psychology. He regularly addresses Jane Austen societies around the world and is a regular contributor to the magazine Jane Austen’s Regency World, and the academic journals of JASNA and the Jane Austen Society of Australia.

DETAILS:
Date: Thursday 18 September 2025
Time: 8pm – 9pm (BST)
Location: This event will take place online. Join us from the comfort of your own home!
Tickets: £7

This event will take place on Zoom. Please provide a valid email address, as you will be emailed a link to join the tour in the run up to the event. Please check your junk folders!

 If you are joining as a group or household, please buy one ticket for each person attending.  All proceeds go towards the upkeep of the Museum. 

🎥 This event will be recorded so you can watch again later. All ticket-holders will be emailed a link to the recording after the event. The recording will be accessible for one month.

Timings are given in UK time (British Summertime) – please do check what the event time is in your territory, to ensure you log in at the right time. 

Please note that booking for this event will close at 5.00pm (BST) on Wednesday 17 September 2025. This is to ensure that all attendees receive their link in good time. 

 This event is part of our Persuasion and Poetry Festival, running from 12-21 September 2025