John Mullan

There's not many novelists now who can earn that.

So I think Lizzie's absolutely right.

The Prince Regent, after all, who sort of forced her to dedicate Emma to him.

You know, he'd come across her and had a set in every palace, as it were.

Lots of people didn't know her name, didn't know who she was.

But they knew the product because, of course, Pride and Prejudice would say, buy the author of Sense and Sensibility on the cover.

So you knew that there was a single author.

But I think also in the question, unless I've got it wrong, there was a sort of almost an implicit second question at the beginning.

How much context do we need to know?

Which I'd like to address because I have a very quick answer to it.

I think one of the sort of slightly miraculous things about Jane Austen is that you don't really need to find out about the times to understand the conventions that are at play.

That's a really magic thing about her, I think.

I will quote that from now on.

You're totally right.

That totally sums it up.

And that's one of the reasons that Jane Austen carries on being so translatable, so re-readable.

You mentioned Mansfield Park, Lizzie.

Think about, you know, one aspect of the wartime stuff, which is about how Fanny's brother, William, can possibly, given his low origins, climb up the lower ranks of naval officers.

And it's all through sort of patronage and somebody having a word with somebody else.

And it's very important to the plot of Mansfield Park because Henry Crawford tries to win Fanny over by getting his uncle to help advance William Price's career.