Anna Walker

Welcome back to Jane Austen's Paper Trail for our bonus Q&A episode.

We were delighted that so many of you tuned into the podcast and even happier to receive so many emails with your Jane Austen questions.

You'll be pleased to hear that unlike Cassandra Austen, we won't be burning your letters.

Instead, in this episode, I'll be presenting them to our expert panel and demanding some answers.

Our first panellist is Emma Clare Sweeney, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University and author of The Secret Sisterhood, The Hidden Friendships of Austen, Bronte, Eliot and Wolfe.

Welcome to the podcast, Emma.

I'm also joined by John Mullen, Professor of Literature at University College London and the author of What Matters in Jane Austen.

Hello, John.

And completing our trio is the director of Jane Austen's house in Hampshire, Lizzie Dunford.

Thanks so much for joining us, Lizzie.

Thank you for having me.

So to kick us off, I'm rummaging around in my sort of virtual bag of letters for Jane Austen.

And we have an email from a listener called Sarah Hoxbergen.

Sarah writes, I'm curious to know what we know about Jane Austen and faith, and also Jane Austen and religion.

How did Austen's personal faith influence her?

And how did she view the institution of the church in her day?

Lizzie, can you shed some light on that one?

I think that makes the distinction really clear there actually between, as the question asked, Austen's faith perhaps, and then her thoughts on the institution of the church.

From what you've said, John, they seem to be quite different.

Lizzie or Emma, can you think of any other examples from Austen's books that are particularly interesting for understanding the faith aspect of that question?