Do Go On - 487 - Jane Austen

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Jane Austen is one of the most revered writers in history, but how much is actually known about her life? On this episode we dive into the life and work of the author behind Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma and so much more. Also, our great mate Michelle Brasier joins us for the fun!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 08:58 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170110-the-teenage-writings-of-jane-austenhttps://www.oxfordstudent.com/2018/05/14/jane-austens-juvenilia-extravagantly-absurd-and-outrageously-funny/https://jasna.org/austen/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jane-Austenhttps://digitalausten.org/node/16https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/18/jane-austen-banknote-unveiled-with-strange-choice-of-quotationhttps://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/07/stanford-literary-scholars-reflect-jane-austens-legacyhttps://janeaustens.house/online-exhibition/jane-austen-in-love/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen# Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenjai Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Wonki.

As always, I'm here with Jess Perkins. And this week, we are blessed to be joined by our dear friend, Michelle Brazier's here. I've got the sillies. And maybe an eye infection. There's a lot going on. Well, there's a lot of contagious stuff happening. It's not contagious. The sillies are.

Oh, the sillies are contagious. Look out. I certainly feel like I had when I couldn't get through that intro. You also, you were nervous to start. Then you said, instead of hello, you said, hello. Hello. How low. Can I go?

It was beautiful. That's my new thing, 487 weeks in. I'm changing from hello to hello. Yeah. And welcome. And welcome. And welcome. Thanks for being here, Michelle.

Thanks for having me. It was hard to get here. They're doing construction. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think it's pretty safe to say to our listeners that we'll be mentioning that a few times over the following months. We found out it's going to be. about 15 weeks. The street's gone.

It's gone. They're doing up the entire street. Usually they'll be like, we redirect traffic over here. On this particular time, they've said, do you know what? Actually, you're on your own. Yeah, they've just said burn it all down and start again. The street is gone. The path's gone. The driveway's gone. You can't get into the building. There's a pile of dirt. It's sinking. Yeah, that was a moat. Yeah, there's a moat. Yeah, there's a moat. You're a leap across a moat. Yeah. I have dirt in my feet.

Yeah, I mean, yep. My foot sunk into some dirt. It's got into my shoes. And I watched the feet. And I watched the construction work this, watch me and go like, you fucking idiot. Yeah, and I'm in the platform crooks today. Yeah. So that has to get up over the platform. That's how much dirt. And it was windy too out there.

And it wasn't windy on the other streets. I'm calling the cops. Yeah. Yeah, this is a cursed street now. Yeah, it's no good. But we made it and we're here to podcast together. That's right. How exciting.

I'll explain how this show works, shall I? Yes. So one of the three of us, usually Matt, but he's away. He's in far north Queensland. He's a long way. He's like. Honestly, on the other side of the planet, basically. Basically.

He's so far away. I bet they don't have any bloody road works up there. Let me tell you. Don't have any roads. Anyway, one of us, research is a topic. We bring that research back to the others. We tell them all about it. And the others just listen politely and never interrupt or go on dog shit riffs or zone out and then come in later and go, what kind of time period is this?

Or what's this guy's name again? Is this the same guys before? You know, we don't do that ever. And what's going on here? Where am I? It's usually my main question. Yeah. And we always get onto the topic with a question.

Dave, it is your turn to do a report this week. What is your question to get us onto the topic? Beautiful. You've hit a plant. I was trying to do it like a dramatic stretch. Like, here we go. And then there's a plant behind me that didn't realize. It's scared you.

You'll get startled by a plant. Yes. Yes. And I'll confess I'm currently reading the day of the Triffids for book cheat where plants take over. So I'm already on edge when I see a plant. I think I'd be okay in a world where plants take over. Yeah, I'd be like okay. Also a meteor shower has gone over and everyone's gone blind.

Okay, that's, I can't see my plans. Oh my God, that's probably what's happening to my fucking eye. The meteor. Jesus Christ, you know, the planets were all in, they were aligned or something. Actually, no, they weren't, but I thought, I read the news wrong and I thought they were in a straight line. And I told Tim about it, and he didn't have the heart to tell me that that wasn't it. And he even got out the telescope and was like, well, look for him. Oh, I can't see him tonight.

And then, like, eventually he had to be like, they're not, like, they're not going to, like, appear in a straight line. Like, that's not. how it goes and I was like oh thank thank you for letting me believe it for a long time every night I'd be like let's check maybe tonight that's very sweet and dumb they did something like it I don't know what they did anyway I saw heaps of Venus and the moon a bunch it's heaps I love that you have a telescope I want oh yeah we're a pretty cool couple yeah all right your wild lifestyle apart yeah here we go here's my question what are you guys doing missionary we're on Telescope, having a look.

Okay, here we go. The question is, who wrote the following books? Speaking of... Michelle Brazier. Oh, my gosh. Imagine. Doing a report on my memoir that came out in September. That's great.

All right, who wrote the following books? Mansfield Park. Oh. North Anger Abbey. Fuck me. Hopefully getting easier. Persuasion. Oh, it's a fucking...

It's a... or an Emily or something. Jane Mansfield. It is not Jane Mansfield. She could have, though. Is it an Austin or a Bronte? It's one of the two and you have to lock one in. Is it Jane Austen?

It's Jane Austen, everyone. It's Jane Austen, I'm so sorry. I think it's the Bronte Sisters. Honestly, I toss up between doing the three of them or one Jane Austen. Wow. Jane won out. Okay. Do you guys know the Victoria Wood sketch where she's like a tour guide at the Bronte

sister's house? Oh, I was going to say no, but that is very vaguely familiar. I had to do that accent. I can't even remember what it is now, but I had to do that accent for the Secret Garden, the musical, and I learned it from doing Victoria Wood in that sketch. She's like, and I like to picture him in the bedroom, standing there with his slippers on, dying.

With his slippers on dying. Jane Austen. Jane Auster. Who is that? Emma. Sense and sensibility, I know what I've finished with pride and purchase. Yeah. You didn't quite get there.

Are you proud of me for getting it? I mean, what was the first one you said? Mansfield Park. Yeah, I was like, okay. I tried to go from the most obscure to the least obscure, I think. I've heard of all these books, but I was like, I don't know who the fuck this is. Are you proud I got a persuasion? Yes.

Thank you so much. Because do you remember that we did it on bookcheet many years ago? Uh-huh. Do you remember? No. Do you remember the plot, Jess? Well, only... I told you all about it.

Only because that's so funny that we've done on bookcheat. I've watched the, isn't there a Dakota Johnson version of persuasion, I'm pretty sure. Is it? I never watched things from time periods. I think it's persuasion. Yeah, I'm always like, ugh. Yeah, I'm not super, I'm not into period dramas. No, 2022, yes.

I know a lot of people are, um, their comfort show or movie is Pride and Prejudice. Yeah. And that's cool. Um, but it's not usually my thing. But I did watch persuasion. It was quite funny. Like it was good. Um, but I, it was a new story to me.

So at no point did you go, this sounds familiar? No, not at all. I remember when Dave told me and Broden about it, maybe six years ago. Broden? That's really funny. I have never met Broden. I've never met Broden in my life. So that's not true.

I know you're lying now. I've never met Broden. They don't let you meet Broden. You can't just meet Broden. You can't just have dinner with Broden not long ago. No. Are we having dinner with Broden tomorrow? At my house.

Yeah, probably. I look forward to meeting Brod. I can't wait to meet Brod tomorrow. Well, if you want to have a dinner party conversation about persuasion, you can tell everyone all about it. I have no... It was, to be fair, six years ago. It's episode 10, so a long time ago.

Okay, yeah, that does make me feel a little bit better, but also, I am increasingly concerned about my memory. So it's great to hear that both of you are very excited about Jane Austen. I love her adaptation. I am really excited because I don't know anything about her, and everyone, I have, like, a lot of friends who are always like, oh, you know, the Austin. I'm always like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, I pretend to know that I say I've read so much stuff. Yeah, you'd love bookcheat. But what do they say, The Austin? I do like, you know, oh, they're like, oh, it's like, you know, in like that Jane Austen. All right. And you just go, oh, my God, yes, it's so. Great reference. That is so, Mr. Darcy.

Yeah. Good one. Is that, that's Jane Austen. Yeah, that's Jane Austen. I don't know the difference between the Bronte sisters and I don't know the difference. Oh, okay. I mean, they're all English. I'm a bit uneducated about this.

She is not related to the others. Yeah. She's not a sister. Yeah. She's not as a star. She's older than them too. She came first. Okay, great. And I don't know a lot about like Jane herself, but I do like the idea of a woman from that long ago still being quite famous. Famous and widely regarded. I like that. And people say she's funny, so I should read her. But I just can't get past all the, all the, oh, she's not a vow, but you know what I mean. A bit of a pistake of those people as well, which is funny. Oh, we don't like it. Oh, we like

I might have misunderstood. Well, let me tell you about it. I go into the books a little bit, so you'll see, maybe you'll pick one out that you'd like to give a shot. Okay. But people suggest these topics, and thank you to Kyle from Ohio and Amanda May from Watkins-Glen, New York, for suggesting Jane Austen. New York. So let me tell you about Jane Austen. She was born on December the 16th, 1775.

No, see, that is too far back. What generation is that? Millennial? Yeah. Elder millennial. Yeah. Yeah, the cringe ones. Oh, the ones who go on Facebook and say, hey, chicky.

They're using all the emojis. That sort of thing. We did a thing. Yeah. Classic. So she's like that. She did a lot of things. Yeah, yeah.

She was born in Steventon, Hampshire in England. She was the seventh child and second daughter of Reverend George Austin, who served as an Anglican rector. Seventh of how many? Seventh of how many? Seventh. Or was she the baby? I think she's the seventh of eight.

That's rough. Too many kids. A lot of kids. And his wife was Cassandra. We'll talk about her in a minute. George was from an old family of wool merchants, but at the time, the family fortune was passed down to the eldest son,

a societal quirk that Jane Austen would frequently write about. And that's like a plot point for a lot of her writing. And this meant that George's side of the family were in poverty. And he was orphaned as a child, also which is not so good. so the older brother gets all the money and taken in by a wealthy uncle who later brought him a rectory to live at. Okay. What's a rectory?

Like a place where the priest lives. Ah, house. Yeah, a house. House for priests. I was going to call it like a priest house. A priest hole. Priest hole. But they actually exist.

They're those things that they'd hide in. Oh yeah. They'd hide the Catholic priests, right? People coming through it. My family did that. Getting the priest hole. My family was hiding Catholic priests in the troubles, I think. Oh, in the priest's hole.

Yeah. There you go. Which I've just realised, I look forward to coming back to Belfast at the end of the year, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. So whilst a student at Oxford, he met his future wife, this is the father, George, met his future wife Cassandra, who Britannica describes as a woman of ready wit, famed for her impromptu verses and stories. Yeah, she's a real Michelle Brise.

Yeah. She sounds just like, hot. Yeah. She sounds crazy. She's cool. Just like, she's just riffed. She's improvon. All the time.

Wow. You there, give me an occupation. All right. Yeah. And a place. A rectory, great. Mum. Press home.

Just please be my mum. I need help. They got engaged the parents when they, quote, exchanged miniatures. Which is an old-fashioned tradition. Like funcos. Where they exchanged miniature portraits of one another, and that's symbols that, hey, we're betrothed. Oh. So hang on, hang on.

If I'm proposing to you, am I giving you a portrait of me? Yeah, and I'll give you one of me. and it's like, hey, don't forget me. Yeah. Oh, I thought. You can't just walk around, like, carrying portraits of people you don't, like, fuck. You know what I mean? You can only do portraits of people you're fucking.

Famously. And fucking to marry, you know? Oh, of course. I'm not one of these people who just fucks around. I fuck to marry. I fuck to marry. So we don't look at your wall and there's like 50 portraits up there. No, no, no, no.

But yeah, but she's been married 50 times. Yeah, I'm very unlucky in marriage. Yeah. So together, these people exchange portraits they did get. married. They had eight children. Jane being the second youngest. And as was common at the time, as a three-month-old, all their siblings did this apparently, she was sent to live with a wet nurse, raised, breastfed by this other woman down the

street, and then return to the family when she was walking. Okay. So it's like... They just sort of outsource... Yeah, the hard bit. You take care of her when she's really young, grow up to a bit. She's about, you know, between 12 and 18 months. When she's she's walking, then she can come back to the family.

Is that wild? I don't think the woman whose job it is to just have, like, fairer. fat naturals on tap. Sorry. That's quite rude. But like that's a good job. Implied that it was her siblings had also gone to this same woman. Yeah, right.

For the natties. That was the job, yeah. That's a, that's a bizarre. Drink the nectar. I never heard that, but apparently it was common for the time. So I knew about wet nurses, but I didn't know you'd go and live with them. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought that was, I'd heard of wet nurses, but I thought they were more like an employee in the house. I thought they lived in the house. Yeah, or like if the, the, the, the mother can't breastfeed or something to you outsource. But this is more like, this is pre-form. Hey, I have six other children.

Yeah. I can't have another one. Yeah, running it like not, do you know. So don't, don't get pregnant. Yeah,

don't get pregnant. Get the marina. Just get them to put it in. Honestly, it's not that hard. I don't know why these women. They're bad feminists. These women.

But, ah, they are employing another woman. Oh, that's so true. So if they stop having kids, she's out of work. She's out of work. So actually they're supporting a local business.

She was stoked when she would hear Janos's mom be like, I'm pregnant again. She was like, yes. Yeah, making that cash. There's another year at least. If you're breastfeeding, you sort of have to maintain breastfeeding or the milk will dry up. So she kind of needs to have like, yeah, I've got availability in April. Yeah, I need to keep going.

I'll have some milk. You can reserve the milk. Yeah, yeah. You need to give me six months notice. I've got a wait list. I am astounded that you could. breastfeed without having a baby. She must have been...

You have a baby first probably to get your own supply in. And then... But then it just doesn't stop. If you keep it going... If you keep it going... If you keep it going... If you keep it going... You can do it without.

You can just will it. Yeah. Does let it happen. I reckon I can do it right now. Think about it. Could you not? We are at work. We don't want to let down the studio.

Oh, okay. You don't want a woman breastfeeding at work. Okay. Okay. So we haven't come that far, have we? You can use a dark little room around the corner. No, no, I want to be here in the fluorescence. These beautiful, flattering fluorescence.

Camera rolling. Wacking out one of my fat naturals. Stop. That's the quota of fat naturals. Fat naturals is funny. It's very funny. We've hit the quota. There's no baby to feed, so what are we?

What's you doing? I'm going to stop saying it. Just have a break. Don't worry. The good news is that Jane Austen will Stop being a baby soon. I've never micromanaged a guest before, but... Yeah, you've never put a quota on,

being like, that's enough for you. It's a really hectic thing to say. The first time I said it, I was trying it out. I do enjoy it. I think someone said it. I think Chloe Pets said it, and I was like, whoa. Fat Natural is very funny stuff. I just want to try it in my own mouth.

Anyway, we really got lost on wetness for a bit there. But don't worry, she's going to grow up. And then she's walking, says she goes back to her family and has to like, get to know them. Oh, great. Hi, hi, who are you again? Jane. Did we call you Jane? Was it Jane or was it Gillian?

I can't remember. So the Austin household had moved by the time she'd come along to the Steventon Parsonage, where they're living in the Rector's house. And it does sound like the family had a fun time together. This is again from Britannica. The great family amusement was acting. Ah. They were a lively and affectionate family,

and patriarch George has been described as a scholar who encouraged the love of learning in his children. He had a master large personal library at home And his kids were encouraged to read whatever they wanted Wow, that's so lovely So yeah, that was great for their self-education The family would also play word games With riddles and poems And played charades to amuse each other

Nah, that's good That's nice They would also stage plays with friends In the rectory's barn Put on little shows Wow, I love that So it's a fun time This is my perfect childhood

But they weren't very well off And lived on Father George's rectal cellars Sorry, wrecked a salary. A bit of fun there. Dave, had you written that joke? That's good stuff. Yes, I had. But I had forgotten by the time I got to it, so I was like, oh, that's pretty good.

It was a genuine delight for you as well. But they were surrounded by the middle class and by a minor landed gentry in their surrounding village and neighborhood, and they went on short visits to Bath and London. So they're not very well off, but they were. They were exposed to other people who were quite well off. Not the top echelons society, sort of upper middle class. And all of this would go on to inspire the setting for many of Jane's future novels. Usually set in the minor landed gentry, so to speak. Young Jane had access to the wider world through her brothers as well.

Francis, known as Frank, and Charles were officers in the Royal Navy and served on ships around the world and saw action in the Napoleonic Wars. Henry became a clergyman like his father and James was an officer in the militia and later a banker. Henry and James also wrote and they jointly founded a largely humorous weekly paper called The Loiterer while students at Oxford.

That's fun. So they're all their creative types but then also because she's the youngest one and they're a bit old. They're going out and coming back with stories from around the world. The Jane Austen North America Society writes that her other brother,

Edward, was adopted by wealthy country. cousins called the Knights, becoming their heir and later taking their name, Jane would visit their large estate exposing her to the privileged life of the landed gentry. This is the actual upper class, which was also reflected in her fiction. Imagine your cousins, they've got no male air, so they just go, you're in. You get the title, you get all the money. I was confused as to why that happened, but yeah, they didn't have a male, so they're like, we need to borrow one. Yes, and actually is, I don't know if you remember in Pride and Prejudice, that is a major plot point is that there's the five Bennett sisters.

Elizabeth. Yep. I've never seen it. So, sorry. That's all. I was excited. Kitty. Kitty.

Kitty is definitely one. Kitty is one. Pippy Jippy. Kitty Pitty and Lily May. Is there a Jane? Mary. Yeah, if you were. Mary.

Yeah. Elizabeth? We said that. The Jane Austen. That's the main one. Frieney. Let's say Pramber just says, how many have we got to here? Is one, Pippie?

I can't wait to see this. It's definitely Kitty. I play Pippi and Jane Oh Lydia is the one we didn't get Jane Elizabeth Mary Kitty and Lydia Anyway so the plot is that They've only got daughters Their parents

And their house has been entailed To a wealthy or to a cousin Because he's a man Fuck that So they don't have any future to look forward to So the parents, especially the mother I should say is desperate to marry the girls off To assure their future

Right So that is that's what happened to her her brother father got inherited. I'm not sure if they had sisters that he was usurping, but that is, I'd only just put that together that that happened to her brother. Wow. Yeah, okay. So in, in Pride and Prejudice, the mum wants them to marry to then have kids to hopefully have a boy, so there's an heir or no. Also, no, marry a wealthy man to be looked after because they've got no money of their own and they're going to be kicked out of the family home soon. I have no money. By their cousin? Yeah, by their cousin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why weren't he

let them live there? Because he's not a great guy. I got a great guy of a cousin. Really? Yeah, he's called Tim. I really like him. No, that's your partner. Oh, sorry.

Is it also your cousin? We should be checking. No, I do have a cousin called Tim, but they're different guys. Okay, different Tims. Yeah. Both good guys? Both good guys. All Tims are good guys.

All Tims. Yeah, I've never met a bad Tim, I don't think. I don't think I've met a bad Tim ever. No, I've got an Uncle Tim. He rules. Yes. Tim Allen. Tim Allen.

He's great. Not problematic. Tim, the tall man, Taylor? Tim, same guy. Same guy. But still, still great. Still good. I didn't.

He didn't. I didn't. That's Tim Allen. Man. It's Timothy Chamelais. Timothy Salame. Shalame. Okay.

Now you've lost it, Dave. Word Association. No. Keep it going. Keep it going. Sharmay. Yeah. How do we go?

Where do we go from M.9 Chamelan? We have got the sillies. Oh yeah. Paul Bettney. Also in that. I love Paul Bettney. My brother's name is Paul. He was cool.

And he wasn't your cousin. He was not my cousin. But the circle's complete. He goes along well with my cousin. That feels like a close loop because that's two good family members that knew each other. I think that's good. We did it. Oh my God.

My uncle Tim's married to my auntie, Paul. Paul. Paul. I love the only way to connect your brother. and your cousin was to go the long way around. You have to go via Shaman or you can't make it. That's a new fun game. It's a new fun game.

It's a new fun game. It's called Cool Guy called Tim. And you have to connect him to a ball. Via Shana Lange. Mian. So that's all her brothers. But her absolute bestie was her older sister, Cassandra, who was almost three years her senior, and the two were very close to their entire life.

Was her mother Cassandra as well? Yes. So this is Cassandra Jr. I love that. Cassandra Jr. Cast you. The reason we know a bit about Jane's personal life away from writing is because of Kendra.

It's because of Cassandra. It's because of Kendra from Real Housewives of Hugh Hefner. What's that show called? The Playboy Mansion. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. They should have remand it the Real Housewives of Hugh. Yeah, they should have.

That's so funny. Kendra was, Kendra ruled. She was like, I could lose weight by sleeping more. She's like, less wake and hours, less meals. And I was like, that's crazy. Wow. So crazy, it just might work. Kendra might be a genius.

Yeah. She might be. Sorry, you go. So the reason we know about Jane's personal life away from writing is because of Cassandra, but the reason we don't know that much is also because of Cassandra. Because the two wrote thousands of letters to each other back and forth as adults. But when Jane died, Cassandra. destroyed most of them and only about 160 survive.

Wow. And that's where a lot of our info comes from. I guess she didn't know a sister would become one of the most celebrated writers of all time. Or maybe she did and wanted to protect her sister who apparently could be quite scathing and snarky in her letters. Oh, writing about meeting people and being like, can you believe what they were wearing? Oh, that's good. Yeah, Jess. Delete my text when I die.

Of course. This is a protecting. This is something she wrote to Cassandra. Getting rid of all those voice notes. Oh, yeah. Never keep a voice note. It's not right. And if you say anything bad, it's AI.

That's AI. Yeah, that's AI. That's AI. This is something to E. To E.O.C. After attending a ball. I danced twice with Warren last night and once with Mr. Charles Watkins. And to my inexpressible astonishment, I entirely escaped John Leifford.

I was forced to fight hard for it, however. Cop that, John. So apparently, that's only the tip of the ice week. She was apparently quite. She was sassy. Yeah, she was sassy. Oh, my God, I love her. What am I doing? Living my life, not reading those books. God, there's so many books. I'm going to have such a good time.

So many. You have so much to look forward to. You know what you watch episode one of a show that's been like, you watch episode one of like Ali McBeal and you're like, oh, I like this. Oh, I have such a future. Yeah, for so much. What a rich and bountiest future I have. This is going to be a wonderful journey for me. Yeah, that's how I feel. That's what you've got. So back to their youth, the sisters were sent to boarding school together. Jane was originally not to go as she was considered too young, but ended up. pretending along because in their mother's words, if Cassandra's head had been going to be cut off, Jane would have hers cut off too. Oh, that's so nice.

That's cute. Yeah, I love that. So they both went and both caught typhus, which almost killed Jane. That's so nice. That's nice. Cassandra's got typhus, I want it to. I'm getting typhus. Yeah.

She recovered, but sadly their education was soon cut short by financial difficulties and they were sent home, and she would remain. This is Jane with her family for the rest of her life. Oh. She would remain as a Jane. Yeah, is that what you said? She would remain with her family. She remained as a year.

For the rest of her life. And I'll talk a bit about her personal life coming up. Oh. She began writing in bound notebooks when she was young, writing plays versus short novels and parodies of existing types of literature. Did she write scary movie? Yeah. What a great idea.

I love Jane Austen's work. I love scary movie. I love scary movie. So she wrote these from the ages of 11 to 17, and she called the three notebooks. This is a very genius. Volume the first. Volume the second. And?

Scary movie. Oh, damn it. I didn't say Tokyo drift faster. Damn it. No, there was volume the third. And she really did experiment with some wild stuff. Catherine Sutherland, a professor of English at the University of Oxford rights, Jane Austen's earliest writings appear to have little in common with the restrained and realistic society portrayed in her adult novel.

novels. By contrast, they are exuberantly expressionistic tales of sexual misdemeanor of female drunkenness and violence. Whoa. Oh my God, I want to read. Are these available? Yes, they are. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Go off. Some have murder and violence, which you don't come across in her famous novels. I will warn you about that. One theme that does appear early and across all three novels and would be a staple of her future novels is her young writing is the portrayal of confident, willful, even rebellious young women. So that was always the theme for her. Oxfordstudent.com describes the plot of a story

called the beautiful Cassandra, probably named for a sister, but maybe her mother. Sure. This is how it describes the story. In this abruptly random tale, Cassandra, so random. So random. A milliner's daughter

shamelessly steals a bonnet from her mother's shop and then romps around London, gluttonously devouring the pastries she sees in a bakery, ignoring any eligible bachelor on the street, and outright refusing to pay her coachman. Go off. So just going on like a crime spray. A while, the 18th century version of a wild night out.

Yeah, yeah. Just having pastries. Ignoring off guys. Ignoring them, just being like, no, and then not paying the coachman. Wild stuff. Incredibly rude to ignore a man. If you see a man on the street, you must acknowledge.

You must tip your hat to the man. I doff my cap to you, sir. I doth my stolen bonnet to you. In another story called The Visit, this is very funny, you'll love this, the rules of propriety are shattered by having the male guests of a dinner party sit on the women's lap due to a lack of chairs. That's so good. And one character, a woman, drinks a glass of wine in one go.

Oh, what? Wild stuff. That's wild stuff. That is outrageous. That's crazy. You can't allow women to do that. No. That's very unbecoming of a lady. We're supposed to have straws.

Sips only. Sip from a big straw. Where is that woman's curly straw? There are some unexpected things in there too. One woman in one of the story loses two fingers when her son bites them off. The fuck? Yeah. That's fun.

So yeah, she's just having to go. Austin's history of England, as she wrote it, was a parody of history written when she was 15. It is a spoof or a spoof. Do you ever where you pronounce that word? Account of England from Henry the Fourth. It is a spoof. It's a spoof. Eddard is appropriate.

Spoof or spoof? In what word? In Matt Stewart's world, it's a spoof. Oh my God, I listened to an episode of the podcast recently where you were talking about something about pronunciation. And he was saying conquistadorous. Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, no. Because you've had that exact conversation within months before.

Yeah, I remembered it. I have. I was glad you brought it up. Conquistador. And you're like, nope. No, very close. Anyway, tell us about the spoof. Oh, yeah.

Her spoof account of England was called the History of England, from Henry IV to Charles I, as told by, quote, a partial prejudiced and ignorant historian. Bit of fun. That's fun. Love that. And Austin's sister Cassandra created illustrated portraits for the history, so they're accompanying illustrations. It's a co-lab. Yeah. And many of them

looking more like men and women from the time rather than regal figures of the past. Professor Sutherland from Oxford noted that Henry the 7th looked particularly haggard. Oh, wow. Which is so brutal. There you go. After the notebooks between 1793 and 1795, when she was 18 to 20, Austin wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel made up of letters back and fourth. It was first published almost a century later in 1871, and a Britannica describes it thusly. So this is one of her very early novels. This portrait of a woman bent on the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-destruction is in effect, a study of frustration and a woman's fate in society that has no use of her talents.

Huh. So she wrote that when she's like 18 years old, but like I said, didn't get published for a century. But since Austin's novels are so deeply concerned with love and marriage, there has been much attention and debate about her own personal life. Oh, yeah. It is a source of fixation amongst scholars, fans. Been there. They can't get enough. The Perkins story, tell us about it.

Tell us. 50 portraits of the wall. I won't. All marriages. All gone badly. All dead. Nothing suspicious. All ending in a large insurance payout for yours truly.

I'm doing very well. They're all dead. So Jane Austen, she remained unmarried throughout her life, although I had a few admirers and at least one proposal. Okay. First up was an Irishman called Tom Lefroy, who visited Steve. Very Irish name. Tom Lefroy.

Lefroy. Beautiful. Very Irish. Who visited Stephen. The Dublin Lefroys. Yes, we all know the family. You know them well. He visited the house where she lived when Austin was about 20.

He had moved to love. to study law and was spending the Christmas holidays with his uncle and aunt who lived nearby. Lafroy and Austin would have been introduced at a ball or another neighborhood social gathering of some such, and it is clear from Austin's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together. She writes, I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. What is profligate? Yeah.

Can you look up the dictionary definition of profligate? Recklessly extravagant or wasteful in the use of resources. Oh. Okay. So they were being really extravagant in sitting down together. Okay. And really extravagant in dancing. In the way of dancing.

Whoa. But she's implying more there. Yeah, I think so. And sitting down to you. Yeah. She's fucked this guy. I've seen Bridgeton. I'm reading more into it.

Oh my gosh. It's not proper to be seen doing those things, but if you can go but quiet. That's right. If you just fuck on the stairs. That's right. Where the servants certainly won't as a walk in on you at any moment. And the servants are they zip lip. And the servants who almost certainly have to clean it up.

Yeah. Awful stuff. Awful stuff. But they're just servants, Dave. So who cares? Don't worry about them. Don't worry about them. They forgot their place.

Yeah. So that's Tom Lafroid. They saw each other a few times over a couple of months, but he moved back to London to study. Unfortunately, so they moved apart. Jane Austen House Museum describes the parting. He returned to London and in 1796 became engaged to a Miss Mary Paul. Paul.

Paul! Wow. Okay. It all connects. She must be great. Who was the sister of a friend. They married two years later. He rose through the ranks to become Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

Wow. Very high up. Years later, when asked about Jane Austen, he said that he had. loved her, although he qualified this by saying it was a boyish love. Oh, wow. I've matured. No, what he means is I wanted to fuck Jane. Yeah.

Now I'm a man, I understand that I need to marry this woman from this family or whatever. Yeah, and probably his wife Mary was elbowing him like, what the hell? Excuse me. You loved her. It was a boyish, it was just a crush. Jeez, nothing. Not like you, babe. You're my everything.

Babe, you're my forever home. Okay. You're my whole world, baby. Baby, you're my whole world. Mary, baby, I love you. Mary. Mary, baby. Mary, get me a kiss, baby.

Come here. Mary. Stop being so crazy. Mary, come here. Mary. So that's Tom LeFroy. As for the marriage proposal I mentioned. Oh, yeah.

Austin received one from Harris Bigwither. No. Shut up. This is why I haven't read the books. These names are the dumbest fucking dumb. I almost glossed over her personal life because I was like, you know, it's one of those things. that people speculate about who really cares. It's not that important.

But Harris Bigwether came up, and I needed to mention this man's name. Mr. Harris Bigwether. He was a 21-year-old six years her junior. Okay. Oh, fuck, yeah. Go off. Jane was feeling the pressure of having no financial security,

and Harris Bigwither was due to come into a large fortune. Yeah. So she accepted the proposal, but got cold feet and withdrew her acceptance the following day and ran away to lay low at a house. Oh, that rules being like, yes, I would marry you. What am I doing? It's like in primary school when Alex gave me a note and I had a ring in it.

Oh. And I gave him back the ring the next day. Yeah. But he kept the note. I kept the note. The most precious part. He could have saw on that note from his mom, Jess. You shouldn't have kept the note.

That was crazy. I should have kept the ring. You should have kept a ring. That could have been worth something. Yeah. Where did he get that from? definitely stole it from his mom. He stole it, yeah.

That's a stolen ring. A full on rock. What could have been? This is his mum's engagement ring. Mom's freaking out. Insurance claim. I got $5,000. Oh my God.

That's how mom's to. Oh my God. Oh my God. Where's it gone? Now be the mom like asking Alex if he stole her ring. Alex. Now I need to sit you down and ask you a question now. You tell me the truth, young man.

Did you or did you not steal Mummy's engagement ring? She's 25. She's a young mom. Please, I need to know where it is. If your father finds out, he'll absolutely crucify me. We can't afford a replacement. Dave has a drama degree, and I love to just give him an opportunity to use the space. I'll use the whole space.

What was your favorite thing about doing a drama degree? Probably lying on the floor for half an hour pretending to be a starfish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I really became that. Yeah, they're so nice. It's really beautiful, yeah. I love that. That's awesome. Did you ever do that Starfish?

Oh, I did Starfish. We actually had this class that was like Alexander Technique, but I think the teacher was just kind of like, oh, who cares? And we had this bit where like you'd kind of just do yoga for a bit. And then you'd get in pairs and the other person would cradle your head. Oh, that would be nice. Like they would take the weight of your head in their head. You'd lie down and they would just take the weight of your head in their hands.

And it was magnificent. And I was like, I love to be an actress. So to every set I go on, they do that. Guys, should we do the Alexander thing? Should we just do a bit of Alexander technique to warm up? Sorry, I'm a bit of a serious actress. Yes, thank you five, but if we could just do it quick. You're there, Sam Worthington.

Hold my head. Hold my head. Sam, do you want to hold my head first or do you want me to go for hold your hand? Sam, Worthington. Hello? Hello? Oh, Mr. Hemsworth. We're going to do a little...

I'm going to go ahead for head. If you're not holding my head. Those big arms are yours. So, we're not 100% sure why she knocked back the marriage proposal. There's no, like, real documented evidence of the reasoning. But we get some impression about how Jane felt about marriage from an 1814 letter to a niece, Fanny Knight. Who had to... This car.

All right. Go on, my niece. Come on, guys. It's Fanny Knight. I hope. I always got through it. Fanny night. Valentine's doing.

The most important part about a relationship is keeping things interesting. So we've got, we go out for dinner on Tuesdays. Thursdays is Fanny Night. Saturday night, we've got movies. That means different things for American and British listeners. I think that's fun too. That is beautiful. I think actually it's funnier if you're American, maybe.

Yeah. Fanny night. It's a real privilege. Fanny night. It's Fanny night. And then, yeah, we go to the local picture house for a Saturday night. It's nice. So this is 1814, her letter to Fannie Knight.

This is so many years later, but this is her talking about marriage. To her niece. Sorry, yes, her niece. Sorry, what did I say? Oh, no, I'm just confirming for myself. To her Fanny. To her Fanny. She's saying to her Fanny.

I'm all hot and flustered, okay. Sorry, I'd talk about Fanny Nards. And that's private. How did you know what Thursday? Also, podcast. After the podcast. I'm always very horny. It's a big day.

It's a big day Thursday for us. So Fanny had asked advice about a serious relationship and Jane wrote back telling her that having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around and entreat you not to commit yourself father and not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without affection. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, you know, that's pretty advanced.

So she's still loving him. Married for love. Yeah. At least like it. At least, yeah, at least like, you got to like the person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's possibly says that her proposal from Big Wither. Big Wither.

It wasn't to her like it. It doesn't matter how big your wither is. It matters who the person is. That's right. And he was 21, so she was like 27. Yeah. That's a big, at that age of life, that's yuck. That's a big difference.

That's yuck. You know what I mean? Now, like, even you go like 41 and 47, nothing. Who cares? You're the same age. You're the same age. 21 and 27 is that you have a lot of growing to do in that time. Maybe she was just like, I think I've got to leave Harris to just like do some growth.

He needs to do a kentiki. He needs to move out of home. He needs to get in a sharehouse for a bit. Learn to cook a couple of meals for yourself. Make some mistakes. Yeah. Make some mistakes. Get some dumb tattoos that you regret.

Yeah. Yeah. Join a drama club. Join someone hold your head. That's right. Have someone hold your head. Learn the Alexander technique. Learn to explain.

Except someone holding your head, learn to hold a head in your hands. Just a lot of head. Go get head. Go get head. Fanny night. Set up your own fanny night and then come back when you've got some experience. Yes. So they never got together.

Jane never married. Her sister slash bestie Cassandra also never married. She was engaged to a former pupil of her father, a guy called Thomas Fowl. No. Who sadly... Mr. Fowl. No. And it went badly for him.

I'm afraid. He sadly died of yellow fever whilst they're engaged, but before they could be married. Oh, shit. Oh, okay, so she loved him. Yes, apparently, I think he was working in the Caribbean somewhere. He got ill. And by the time, she found out, like, it had been months. Like, you know, he was dead and buried, sadly, I think so.

Oh, that's so sad. So, yeah, so from then on, the two sisters were pretty inseparable and lived together a lot of their lives, which is also another reason why some of it's not documented, because you're not writing a letter to someone that you're sharing a bedroom with. I just got so excited. I was like, oh, my God, they lived together. Okay, maybe they were to be. Then it was like their sisters.

They're just genuine. It's not that classic story of, yeah, my aunt Dot actually, I'm never married. She just lived with this lady Heather in their one bedroom place. Yeah,

they did everything together, Heather and Dot. Yeah. I basically thought of Heather as another auntie. Yeah, lovely lady. Lovely lady. It's not that.

Sad they never found me. Yeah, it's so sad, but, you know, at least they had the campaign. Four decades alone in one way, but.

Heather, they never had a fanny night. They went on cruises together. All kinds. Lots of rainbow flags on their cruises. Yeah, a great time, those too.

Lovely time. I think we should bring back lavender marriages, don't you think? I'm not sure if I know the term. Which is a lavender marriage? A lavender marriage is a marriage between a lesbian and a gay man. Oh,

okay, right, yes. I just think that's so fun. Yeah, that's nice. That's fun for me. Like, that's fun.

Like, I loved him, but I reckon the house would be cleaner if he was gay. Like, I think about my, my best friend, and that's a huge stereotype, but I'm stereotyping because my best friend,

James, very like he cooks he cleans he's the bet and I sometimes think should have married James could have married James but what's in it for James? We live together well no he gets to like have sex with whoever he wants and I'm there for fun I'm like good vibe like Lady Gaga has a new album yes that's right and he'd be plus one for each other if you have thing yeah it's all you're describing is a friendship but we live together

yeah you could live with you live with friends no you don't have to marry I want a lavender marriage. Slightly bigger place. I want a lavender. I want him to marry me. Okay. Oh, okay. I want him to.

All right. Okay. I'll let him know. Thank you. I message him and out. Will you lavender marry me? So in 1796, at about 20 years old, Jane began writing the novel that later became sense and sensibility.

One of the big ones. One of the big ones. It was first called Eleanor and Marianne. Oh, sense and sensibility is better. Because it was written as a series of letters. between the two characters, Eleanor and Marianne. Oh. She also began to work on what would become pride and prejudice,

originally titled First Impressions. Huh. What do you think about that one? I like Pride and Prejudice better. Pride and Prejudice is better, especially once you've written sense and sensibility. Yeah. Pride and Prudence is such an intriguing title. Yeah, I'm like, I don't understand what this means.

I'll read the book. I'll read the book. Yes, but first impressions, you're like, well, I've had one of those. Yeah. Yeah. And they're really good. My first impression of this book, boring. Boring.

Yeah. Put it down. But Pride and Predators, I'm booked by the title alone. What do you mean Pride? What do you mean prejudice? Who? She read the works in progress aloud to her family, and first impressions, later, P&P, became a family favourite. Her father, George, tried to get it published and wrote to a famous London publisher named Thomas Cadell.

Cadell published some of the other most famous writers of the 18th century, including Samuel Johnson, the philosopher and economist Adam Smith, the poetry of Scottish poet Robert Burns. Oh, wow. And Edward Gibbons' decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which is a very big historical text at the time. I want to be in Scotland for Burns Day 1. One day.

That's what I want. Or burn night or whatever they have. Friday night. Thursday. Fanny night. That's what I'm thinking of. The Fanny night. Where they celebrate.

If it's gone badly. That's right. That's right. Oh my gosh. We've got to examine our Alexander technique because that was really painful. Please continue. The publisher. The publisher, so he's a big deal publisher

Mm. Georgia sent his daughter James manuscript that later became Pride and Prejudice, but the publisher didn't even open it, marking it declined by return of post. Wow. What a c-a-dog. Didn't even read it.

What an absolute dumb shit? Maybe it's one of the things where it's like, I get hundreds of submissions, I can't possibly read them all. So sorry, but it just... No, fuck off. But unfortunately, I don't think he would ever know

how big a deal Pride and Prejudice would become, but what a fucking idiot. Yeah, yeah. You said no to pride and prejudice. Yeah. Anyway. I do think about that with the people who, like, rejected Walt Disney, getting loans for Disneyland or the people who, there's multiple publishers who said no to Harry Potter.

Yeah. Like, you'd feel like an idiot. One of these things, would you be telling people? Because it's kind of a funny story to say, I actually rejected Harry Potter. Or do you feel like such an idiot? Yeah, hard to say. Hard to say. Ah, yeah.

Yeah. Do you want the proximity or do you? Is it too shameful? Yeah. Or is it like one of those things where you're like, you got to meet Henry. You got to meet. Hey, Henry, yeah.

Remember when you said no to Harry Potter? Exactly. Fucking idiot. Yeah, exactly. Maybe friends make fun of them. So it's rejected, not even open. So she went back to Eleanor and Marianne and rewrote it without the elements of letters back and forth

and told the story from third person, which was pretty revolutionary and something definitely that she pioneered at the time. Oh, wow. A lot of stories and novels from the time. were told from the first person perspective of one character, but by introducing an omnipotent narrator, the audience, of course, was able to hear the feelings and innermost thoughts of multiple characters rather than just one. And I know this sounds so obvious to us, but it was pretty new and exciting at the time. Wow. So they weren't doing that before. Not a very common thing,

like it would be like, blah, blah, the story of a man from his perspective, that kind of thing. But this, and like I said, this became sense and sensibility. It remained at the time, however, unpublished. Right. A year or two later, so she writes these full novels and then goes, well, no one wants this up on the shelf, but she loves writing, so she goes on. A year or two later, she began working on another novel. This one called Susan. Susan. And it would later become North Anger, Abby, a coming-of-age story, which was the satire of a gothic novel, which was also popular at the time.

Oh, cool. And this was the first of her novels to be fully completed. In 1803, the manuscript of Susan was sold to the publisher Richard Crosby for 10 pound. Whoa. He promised to immediately publish it and even advertised the book publicly as being in the press. But for some reason, he never published it.

What? So he's bought the rights. He bought it and didn't do anything with that. Didn't publish it. Do you get the, because this is the early 1800s, 10 pound is a lot of money? It's okay money. It's okay money.

It's not like it wouldn't be a year's salary. Yeah, yeah. But it's all right. It's like, yeah. Is it half a year's salary? I don't think so. when I, because I go through some figures later on that let's remember 10 pounds and compare it.

Okay, let's remember 10 pounds. Because I don't think it's that much. But I think she's most excited about the, that she's going to be published. Yeah, it's like a dream. She's been writing her whole life up this one. She's still very young, but it's like a dream of hers. And he just doesn't print it.

And from, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but like this time, women aren't being published. No. So that's huge. I mean, there are some female writers, but it's like a very small percentage. Yeah. So it's a real dash to her dream. Not like now, they're writing all those bloody, horny mills and bones.

Horny dragon. That's the only thing women read. Oh, my gosh. I want to get my hands on those horny dragon books, actually. My wife loves the horny dragon. What are they called? The Onix Storm? Onyx Storm.

That's one of the... That's the most recent one. The Onyx Storm, we've got Fanny Knife. Rebecca Yarris is the writer. I trust your wife's taste in just about everything. It's funny because she's also read every single, book that's ever won the Booker Prize since like the 1960s. Wow.

It's funny that she's very well read with very hard to read stuff, but also loves the horny dragon stuff. And she tells me about it. I think that's good. You've got to have a bit of variety. Yeah. You know, I love to watch, I don't love to watch high cinema. I take that back.

I do. But I also love Dumphing Furious. Yeah. Fass and Furious. And one of our favorite films is Paddington 2. Yes, Paddington 2. Magnolia by Paul Thomas Anderson, Marcel the Shell. and fast seven.

If you have a problem with that top four, take it up with my fucking lawyer. Yeah. So yes, that's the Imperian series is the name of those ones. But they're gigantic books. And I say that like that's daunting. I read on a Kindle.

I think it would be okay. It doesn't make any difference to you. Yeah, but then the percentage is down the bottom and I get a bit frustrated if I'm not far enough through. I got to take that off, I think. The Empirian. Imperian, yeah. In the first week, Onyx Storm sold 2.7 million copies.

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm going to read these. I'm going to read them and I'm going to write some fucking horny fucking books. Fuck. Keep going. Nice. Okay. So it was a real dust to her dream of being published.

We're not sure why Thomas didn't publish it, but when she wrote him an angry letter demanding the return of the copyright, because she's not able to publish it why he owns that. No. He asked for the return of the 10 pounds. Fuck off. But that point, she no longer had it, probably spending it on her life. for her family. Yes, right.

She went straight to strand bags. Oh, gosh, she's gone. Stran bags and then Mecca. We're fucked. I literally went to Strandbags and Mecca yesterday. And then Lulu Lemon. What are you doing in Strandbags? Isn't that crazy? I was with Mum.

Oh. What fuck are you doing? I was talking with Mum. Inside of a strand bags. Mom love strand bags. To be fair, we bought matching purses. Yeah, listen, there's nothing wrong with the strained bags. I'm just surprised that a girl with absolutely stalked to the island.

was with July because you're game-recognised game. What are you doing in a string bag? I'm a July girlie who wandered into strand bags. Is July another brand? Yeah, the luggage. July luggage. Sorry, more a strand bag kind of guy. I know you are.

My work bag over there is a July bag. Oh, yes, you love that brand. I do know. It's a great brand. It's very functional. Yeah. Fantastic. Very expensive.

Great customer service. Really? I love them. But the customer service at Strandbag would have been second to none. Hello. Can I help you? Hello, dear. Oh, I do.

What are you going overseas? Are you shopping with Mama? That's nice. My daughter takes me shopping sometimes too. It's nice. I love it. Mums love strand bags. Mum's love Pandora.

Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. My mum got me a Pandora necklace for Christmas. And there's nothing I can do. There's nothing. I went to the Pandora. I said, you're not going to take this back off my hands without a receipt. They said, no.

And I said, well, I'm certainly not going to tell my. my mum that I do not like this Pandora necklace. So don't worry about it. So don't worry about it. Now I've got this. It looks beautiful. How did we get on to that? 10 bucks.

10 pounds. She said, give me my copyright back. If you're not going to publish it, he said, we'll give me my 10 pounds back. And she said, well, I don't have that kind of money anymore. So she wasn't able to buy it back until 1816, which is years later. Wow. So for years, Susan or North Anger Abbey remained unpublished. The first finished novel.

Yeah. She's like, damn it. That sucks. Being an unmarried woman, Jane lived with their parents up until this point, and the stability and supportive living with them at the Steventon rectory made it easy to write. But when she was 25 years old, this abruptly came to an end when her father announced his sudden retirement. Right.

All the sons had moved away to their own places, and George announced that he was moving to Bath in Somerset. Somerset. Bath. Bath. Bath. I've been to Bath once. I performed for about 30 people in a four year of the theatre they'd booked for me because

they misunderstood how many fans I would have in the bath area. It was the smallest show I've ever done in my life. So they capped it at 30. They put me in a foyer. They were like, you've not sold enough tickets. We're going to put this show in the foyer. It was insane. It was crazy.

And my managers, I had a meeting the other night. They were like, do you want to go back to Bath? I was like, no. Thank you so much. That's crazy. I was going like, the lights were kind of just on. Like, I was like, hey guys, sorry. I know this is crazy.

Thanks for coming to see me in this hall. Hey, like, I couldn't do the show. I don't actually people standing as well for some reason, but did they put chairs in there? They put chairs out. They put lights. You know, it was a real experience. It was a real, what am I doing? Did he would have been less weird than doing it in the theatre?

And it just being 30 people in the theatre? Yeah, well, I think it was about 50 people, but the theatre was for like 500 people. Yeah. Which in other places. I mean, in London, that's fine. Yeah. Because we can, that's where people who know who I am live. And Bath is a much smaller population.

Bath is tiny. And also, like, I'm going to all these towns near Bath. So a lot of people were like, just came to the other towns. Yeah. That were bigger. Anyway, it's a lovely venue, but I did not get to play it. And the staff seemed disappointed in me. And the barth and the guy left the reverb on my microphone for the entire.

Perfect. Just what you want. That's the... The sound, because he wanted to give you the full hall experience, but in the four years, he was like, let's beef up this reverb a bit. Bath, Jess, is where I drove down. We were driving in our hired van. Hard to drive in Bath.

Oh, so hard. Particularly hard. And I realized that I was driving down a pedestrian mall when I, in front of us, I drove up to the nativity scene. Oh. And I was like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. We can't be here. We can't be here.

So we had to like pull off the street as quickly as we could. But then we went to the baths and they're beautiful. Gorgeous. And the audio guide was Bill Bryson, which Matt was very excited about, one of the channels. And you can go into the big church. If you just tell them you're there to pray, they can't fight you. Oh, that's a good, good line. I'm smart.

I'm just here to pray. I'm not paying to go into a church. I'm sorry. Church has enough money. It's been here a while. I'm not fucking. Let me in. Fuck you.

Let me have a look. So her dad was like, I'm moving to bath. Yes. Nobody else is coming with him? It's like you either come with me or do whatever you can. They're like, we've got no money. I'm retiring. Fuck you.

Bath time. Bath time for the rest of my life. So Jane and her sister Cassandra removed too, but Jane was not happy and was reportedly shocked to be told that she was moving 50 miles or 80k away from the only home she'd ever know. Yeah, wow. She's like, this is my life. I love living here, love riding here. You can't ride anywhere.

That's the thing, Jane. They have paper in bath. So they went... I was going to say internet, but... You shouldn't have paper and bath. Oh, that's a bad combination. It would get wet. It's probably worse have, like, internet in bath.

Just saying. Yeah. It's probably worse have electricity in the bath. Yeah. So her productivity is a writer stalled. Before this, she'd written at least three novels in three years. But in Bath, she only edited Susan and started another novel called the Watson's that was later abandoned. There is disagreement, though, that if this lack of productivity reflects depression and stagnation after the family.

move, or perhaps being closer to a larger town, she was more engaged socially and had less time to write. There's two schools of thought, whether she's out partying or she's like, I'm not feeling it, I'm not happy. She was probably out partying. I hope so for her. That's more fun. Yeah, I think she's partying.

Yeah. She's probably... Social engagements. Yeah. She's dancing, and balls. Drinking, eating nice foods. Yeah. La la, loving it.

They got great bars in Bath. But it's a really nice place. Great. See, she's enjoying it. She's having a good time. Visiting the bath, going to the church. Going to the church, Sam, here to pray, let me in. Yeah, let me in.

Going to the foyer of a... Going to the foyer of the theatre. Fucking hell. That's great. It was so... It's a fun story now, but at the time, you would have been like, this, this sucks. Even at the time, it was a fun story. I couldn't stop laughing.

I was like, guys, what are we doing? They used to coming. Fuck, fucking, yeah. Rock on. It was real bad. Rock on bath. Yeah, felt bad. Felt bad.

Felt bad. at the time. So things became even harder when her father suddenly died in 1805, leaving Jane, Cassandra and their mother, also Cassandra, in a precarious financial position. Wait, where are all the other sisters? There's no other sisters. There's two sisters and everyone. Oh, the others are boys.

Yeah, six boys. So they're all off doing their own thing, living with their own families and houses because they can do that because they can work. Britannica writes, Jane had to be. put up with a succession of temporary lodgings or visits to relatives in Bath, then London, Clifton, Warwickshire, and finally Southampton, where the three women lived from 1805 to 1809. So it was a period of upheaval in her life. Brothers Edward, James Henry and Frank, which is four of six, pledged to make an annual contribution to support their mother and sisters. Oh, that's nice. Which is nice, but I've only realised, where are the other two?

Yeah. Where are they? You know what I'd do is I would, because you've got that many siblings. I would spend a month with each of them and just rotate around. Yeah. You're only visiting twice a year. Yeah, it's not bad. So it's not too much of a burden on them.

Yeah, that's good. You're just traveling around. Free house. I'll help with the kids or something. Witness. I'll be a witness. I reckon I could get some going. Yeah.

I'm not going to say it. Go on. It's been a while. No. And we don't know about the size of her naturals. We have no idea. I wouldn't want to speculate. Okay.

You don't want to speculate. Yeah. I wouldn't like to speculate. I don't even know if they were naturals. She could have had work done. We don't know. And that's fine. That's lost to the letters.

And I would respect that. So in Southampton, they shared a house with brother Frank Austin and his new wife. But it was the move in 1809 that finally brought back some stability into Jane Austen's home life when she and Cassandra and their mother moved into a large cottage on brother Edwards estate in Chorton in Hampshire. Chorten. This is back near Steventon where she had grown up. She's back in the same area. It was a quiet life, but now settled.

Jane had a renewed sense of purpose with her writing and began to prepare sense and sensibility and pride and prejudice for publication. So she's like, cracked that old volume back on the shelf and said, hey, I'm going to rewrite this and I'm going to get it published. Yes. Her brother Henry became a real champion for her work and acted as a go between her and the publishers.

It took two years, but Thomas Edgerton agreed to publish sense and sensibility. In November, 1811, this was almost 15 years after she'd written the first draft and she's now 35. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. Wow. It was published anonymously and simply the title page says, by a lady. Oh.

Wait. What? Okay. Yep. Buy a lady. It was common at the time for female. A book by a lady. Yeah, to publish anonymously.

How many books by lady? I like lady books. I don't like the men books, they're too complicated. Too many cars. They're all talking about war. I don't know what it means. Oh, I don't know what it means. I'm booked by a lazy about cleaning an house.

At the time, the ideal roles for women were as wife and mother. And writing for women was regarded at best as a secondary form of activity. A woman who wished to be a full-time writer was felt to be degrading her femininity. I'm saying that right. I love degrading. feminineity. Imagine if those people could see what we do to our femininity now. I'm on a Thursday night, on a funny night.

I tell you what, I'm degrading my femininity and Tim's. That's crazy. Fanny night. Fanny night. I don't know what I mean. Yeah, but so I was, I understood, like, it was published anonymously, sure. Then I'm going to put a lady's name on it. Nobody's going to buy that.

But then it says, buy a lady. I find that very interesting. It's like George Elliott, not her real name, because she wanted to appear like a male author. Yeah. But in this, it's just like by a lady. George Elliott, it's the Middle March is her most famous work.

What? And we don't know her name. No, we do know her name, but I escaped me, but that's what she's published. Because she's known famously as George Elliott. Real name, Mary Ann Evans. This is the first time I've learned that that is by a lady. Yes.

Yeah. By a lady. I also have to be honest with you I've never heard of the book Oh, Middle March I'd love to read it But it is literally A thousand pages

What? Oh And that wasn't a sign It was written by a woman Yeah La La Ra Ra

Right Probably four chapters on strand bags Oh And then the whole chapter Of her just trying to pick The right Lippy colour Oh this one's a bit

Brown for me I don't know about that But we're different skin tones I think I've got undertones. We're different colours, colourings. I think you're a spring. Olive tone. Yeah, you're an olive tone.

I'm very pink. I don't know. I mean, more of a coral brings out the eyes. You know? That's a whole chapter day. I can easily see why you get to a thousand pages. Yeah. Without the feminist of the pod here, I'm really, I'm really giving it to women today.

Yeah. They deserve it. They've had too good for too long, five years about, around about. Yeah, that's enough. We're taking it back. So, it's written and honestly. Having said that, there were some famous female authors before who did write under their own names, including Francis Bernie, who had influenced Jane particularly when she was younger.

Okay. But it was rarer. So it's more about, like, keeping your name off it so you're not, like, embarrassing yourself or your family. Yeah, particularly with your first book, you don't know how it's going to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. My friend changed their name for a stage name for their first ever show because they were really worried it was going to go shit

and then it went really, really well and now they have a stage name. And they're completely locked in and I met them as their stage name and then I finally like, I was like had to transfer them some money and I was like, I'm going to use a different name, but I was like, who the fuck is Wendy? Like I just didn't know. Like I was like, what do you mean? Are you incorrect bank details? Yeah.

Has this person been hijacked? Yeah, I was like, whose bank account is this? Like, what are you talking? about. Oh, man. Yeah, they have a totally different name. Their parents call them their stage name. Really?

Yeah. Oh, wow, because that's obviously, there would have been a full rebrand. Full rebrand. Because they would have known them by their original name. But they were quite young, so they were just like, oh, no, stage name. Pretty cool, actually. That is cool.

Yeah. So sense and sensibility came out. If you're not familiar, the novel follows the three Dashwood sisters. Three Dash Hound Sisters. Yeah. That's, keep, you, you guys. You can see why she changed it from writing letters back and forth because it was weird to have a couple of dash-hounds writing letters.

They wouldn't write. They wouldn't be. Woo-ph-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-hcetre. So three sisters and their widowed mother as they are forced to leave the family estate in Sussex and moved to a modest cottage on the property of a distant relative in Devon. Okay. They're the two eldest girls experienced love and heartbreak

that tries the contrasting characters of both. That's beautiful. There you go. It was published on a commissioned. deal, meaning at the author's financial risk. Oh. The publishers would advance the cost of publication and repay themselves as books were sold and then charge a 10% commission for each book sold, paying the rest of the

author. Yeah, okay. So they pay themselves back first, and then if we break even, then I take a 10% cut. She's getting 90% though. I'm pretty sure that's how books are. A lot of deals are like that. That's what my book was like. They gave me money and they're like, and then you get money once the book.

earns out the advance. Right. I think it's the same with recording deals, right? Often the way it's like, hey, you're on a million dollar recording deal. I'm going to need that money back. I'm going to need one million dollars. I'm going to need that. Yeah, it's crazy.

So, but I'm not sure this is the same with your book, Michelle. If a novel did not recover its cost through the sales, the author was responsible for them. Oh, no. It's not like that. No. Because that's quite a risk for you. No, but that's what, that's the fringe festival model. Yeah, that's true.

Oh, sorry, you've got to pay anyone. Yeah, if you don't have a manager or an agent to pay your costs, a producer, you're effed in the B. Fanny Knight. So. I didn't feel good about that one. Oh, coming up to some dollar figures here. Okay.

We're talking about 10 pounds earlier. We're going to put 10 pound in perspective now. So as it was sold on commission, the publisher Edgerton used expensive paper. Joel Edgerton. Or Taryn? Yeah. Sorry, I'm not a feminist. And use expensive paper and set the price at 15 shillings, which is equivalent to 69 pounds in 2023.

Very expensive for a book. Right. And not accessible to much of the population. Oh. You can't just like go and buy a paperback in these times. Okay. How much is a book? Normal.

Wait. That's what. Wait. Wait. What did you say? They're charging 69 per book? Yes, that's what the publisher set the price because they wanted to get their money back. Is that a normal price?

No, that's insane. 15 shillings. It was a lot because they used very expensive paper. But also, it's not like you couldn't go out and buy a book for $15 or $20 back then. Yeah. It's, you know, the higher earners were able to afford the books. Right. Books were not accessible or affordable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like dime books, not a thing. Reviews were favorable and amongst the people that could afford the novel. became fashionable amongst these young aristocratic opinion makers. The addition of about 750 was sold out by mid-1813, making Austin about 140 pounds profit, which is equivalent to almost 13,000 pounds today. Okay, okay.

And provided her with some financial and physiological independence. Yeah. But so if we take that back before... To 10 pounds. She only was making about 1,000 pounds. on the first deal. So like I said, not enough to keep going. No, not enough to pay rent.

No. The success, however, also meant she could publish more books, and this is the important part. And remember, she already had a few up her sleeve. Yeah. So she went, here's one I prepared earlier. You can really jump on the bandwagon, yeah. And just slapped Pride and Prejudice down on the table.

Yeah, nice. It being published in 1813, pretty much immediately. And if you're not familiar with Pride and Prejudice, I have covered it on bookchew. Can listen. With my wife. Gabriella was on that episode. Yes.

Cool. It's great and it opens with one of the most... With my wife. With my wife. We've actually... She has said she loves these dragon books, these Onyx stormed books so much. She's like, why don't you do a spin-off show?

Because she wants me to read them as well so I can talk about them with her. She's got something to chat about it. It's not so that that's not why. That's not why she wants you to read them. The books are horny. She wants me to fuck a drag. And I'm cool with it.

She wants you to learn how to fuck like a dragon. But she's like, you could do a spin-off series where we do a book cheat of these series, me and her. Shut and spicy. Does anyone want that? Let me know. I want it. So you don't have to read the...

Because there's like five or six hundred pages each other. Yeah, I'm not reading that. So I'll have to read that. I don't want all I said. Are you guys talking about sexy dragons? I don't want to hear Dave talking about it. I'd happily hear Gabriele and talk about it. I don't think I would go into much detail about the Fanny Knights.

Well, then what the fuck's the point? In the dragons. Oh, maybe I'll listen. I could listen to them maybe, an audiobook maybe. Really long books, I'm like, oh, too much. Well, yeah. Yeah, but then you have to hear someone describing Fanny Knight. Oh, no.

If you're into it or not. Oh, no. That's terrible. Fanny Knight. Don't tell me. Don't. What? Don't act it out.

What? I will say, my wife claims that she's like, I skip through those bits. No, she doesn't. This is a quote from her. anyone can have sex but not everyone can ride a dragon get back to the fucking dragon honestly honestly

I have read a long time ago the um 50 shades of grey and skipped the sex scenes yeah well that's a very specific case surely nah like in all the books that's a lot of it though isn't it

yeah but it really missed a lot of the plot it depends on it's okay Mitch Wichrop and I were talking about this just recently the language used in the sexy scene is very important and can be a total, I'm saying turn off in a literary way, not like a,

oh, I don't want to, I don't want to masturbate to this. Yeah, but it could just be like, oh, this is not, this is not for me. So I was just skipping. Yeah, some really crazy things that make you cringe and go, oh. I had to write a sex scene recently. And I was like, oh, this is hard because I was not just writing by myself. I was writing it with my writing partner, Sam, Lingham. who I famously don't have sex with.

And I was like, oh, I'm revealing myself. It's just like, and it's also, it's a lesbian sex scene. So I was like, don't worry, I got this. It was like, I'll take it from here. But it was just really... So it's like, Michelle, take the day off. Okay, it was just like me just writing, like, so this is what I have in my personal experience,

and then you sort of, you just, note, you can just give notes, I guess. It's so uncomfortable. Yeah, it's very strange. So I do understand Ella being like, I skip those. Yeah. Not into it. And I understand why she would lie to you. Yeah, absolutely.

So. Sorry, Pride and Prejudice. Oh, we're going on tangents today. Oh, yes, we're after Pride. It's my fault. I've got an iron fiction. Maybe. I don't know. Now, Pride and it's great. It really is.

And it opens one of the most famous lines in all of literature it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Famously. Yeah. Michelle knew that word for it.

Michelle's, she's an actor. She's, you know, she just, she sees the world in scripts. I see the world in words. I see stories in the holes and walls I see. Yeah. She sees poetry in tea leaves, you know, like, It's just how Michelle sees the world.

So the novel follows Elizabeth Bennett, who is a... Kieran Knightley. A great character. Yeah. Famously so. Very... People love Elizabeth. She's one of five daughters, like I said, of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, who live in an entailed house,

meaning that because she is... Because the father only has daughters, it will pass on to a male relative. It becomes imperative that at least one of the daughters marry rich to support the others. Fucking hell. and enter Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy Mr. His first name's Fitzwilliam. I'm pretty sure.

I've heard the word Fitzwilliam, but is that just from Bridget Jones? Tits pervert. Fitzherbert. Yep. That's what I'm thinking. And that also has the same actor. That's right. Who is named Colin Firth.

Mr. Darcy as a joke. Mr. Darcy as a reference. That's right. This time, Pride and Prejudice, wasn't sold by commission, but she sold it by selling the copyright, which means she received a one-time payment from the publisher. This time, she received 110 pounds, which is actually less than she made from the last book. Shit. Jane Austen was, but it also means you've got a guarantee, so you've got a way out whether you think it's going to sell better or you can take the money now.

Do you do a buy-in, do you do your Adelaide Festival, or do you do your Adelaide fringe? Yeah, that's right. Will they pay you a one-off guarantee or will you risk it all and try and sell it out? Risk it all, try and sell it out. Jane Austen was still unnamed as the author, but the title page simply says, By the author of Sense and Sensibility. A lady in brackets. By the lady author.

It received good reviews, was heavily advertised by the publisher who knew he was under a hit and sold even better than Sense and Sensibility, becoming the big hit of the summer, again amongst people that could afford to buy books. They're not selling millions of copies back then. Yeah. So is it just the upper class that can buy these books making fun of the upper class? Yes. That's so interesting.

Yeah. Crazy that books were so inaccessible. Yeah, just the printing, the publishing cost was too much. Critic, Robert Irvine calculated that if Austin had sold Pride and Prejudice on commission, she would have made a profit of 475 pounds. I remember she only took 100 pounds. or 110, which was twice her father's annual income or four times what she'd got paid up front. Wow.

So unfortunately, she didn't get a good deal that time. Damn. It has since sold over 20 million copies and is one of the most popular and influential books in English literature. It wasn't quite that big at the time, but 10 months after the initial run of the book went into a second edition. Okay. And I'm not sure, I think they must have had to pay her again for a second edition.

So hopefully she's making a bit more money. The big part about it was the success, again, made it so that she could keep publishing. And Mansfield Park, her third novel, came out in 1814. Again, the title page of each book referred to one or two of Boston's earlier novels, capitalizing on a growing reputation, but it didn't provide her name. So it's like, by the author of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, but still doesn't have her name. Her books by this point were being read in high places,

including by the Prince Regent, who was acting king during his father, this is George III's mental illness, and he himself would become future King George the 4th. So for all intents purposes, he's the king. Austin discovered that the prince was a big fan and kept a collection of her books at each of his residences. Wow.

So he's buying multiple copies. Love that. James. That's like Barack Obama's Spotify playlist. Getting on there. Yeah, that's huge. There are some books. that I own a physical copy of and their Kindle or I've, you know, I've done audiobook as well as...

That's beautiful. Yeah, I just support the out. And do you keep the Kindle at a separate house? Of course. At the summer house. I keep the Kindle at my summer house. That's when I read. Summer.

Summer. That's when you know you're rich. If you've got multiple kindles and you can't be bothered carrying the Kindle. The Kindle. The 300 grams or whatever it is from house to house. They're very bulky. Yeah. I've got one in the car.

That's like car, Kindle. James Clark, the regent's librarian, contacted Austin to invite the author to Tua Carlton House, which is the Prince Regent's London residence. Now, at the time, I'm going to say, the Prince Regent was pretty controversial, not a well-loved figure, eating and drinking excessively, having multiple mistresses, gambling, getting into debt, getting into trouble. He was a popular joke in the British tabloids, with some even portraying him as a stuffed sausage. Oh, my God.

That's fun. A common representation. I like that. Yeah. I mean, Donald Trump, we see as a big Cheeto, so. Yeah. Similar sort of parody levels going. And when she was invited to tour his house, digital austin.org writes, despite her hatred for his royal highness, due to his debauchery and mistreatment of his wife.

Austin accepted the invitation. Kind of thing, you can't say no. You can't really say no. Yeah. Whilst at Carlton House, Stania Clark, this is the librarian, informed Austin that the Prince Regent, I don't think he was home, but this is the reason that she was invited. She was advised that the Prince Regent kept a set of Austin's novels at each of his residence,

and by his permission, Austin was, quote, at liberty to dedicate any future novel to him. Austin recognized the commercial value of such a dedication, and also you can't really say no again. Yeah. The Prince is asking you dedicate your next novel to me. So in her publication of her next novel, which was Emma, in 1815, she wrote to His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent. This work is, by His Royal Highness's permission, most respectfully dedicated by His Royal Highness's dutiful and obedient, humble servant, the author. Again, not naming herself.

This pretty over-the-top dedication mentions his Royal Highness no less than three times, and has since been interpreted by some as being a mockery or a bit of a piss take of the Prince. Yeah, it feels like it. His Royal Highness and His Royal Highness and His Royal Highness and His Royal Highness. And he asked for this basically. Wow. Your most humble servant. Yes.

Yeah. Is it about like the Royal Family or no? No. So Emma is a comedy of manners. It's a slightly different. So she does slightly different genre of stuff commenting upon the manners and social conventions of a greatly sophisticated and yet artificial society. Oh, Emma's clueless, isn't it? Oh.

Is that right? Yes, I've got a note at the end here. Clueless is Emma. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Clueless, perfect movie. Great movie.

Emma centers on Emma Woodhouse, a wealthy, pretty, self-satisfied young woman who indulges herself with meddlesome and unsuccessful attempts at matchmaking among her friends and neighbors. So I'm not sure. Have any of these jumped out to you more than others for your first Austin experience yet, Michelle? Well, maybe I'll read Emma because I love Clueless. There you go. Yeah. That's a good entry, I think.

Yeah. Austin continued to write but in early 1816. So she's on this run where she's writing one, publishing one every year. That's crazy. For three or four years in a row. But in early 16, she became ill. By the middle of that year, her decline was unmistakable, and she'd begun a slow, irregular deterioration.

No. How old is she? She's 40 at this age. Oh, my God. Only just 10 to 40. As her illness progressed, she experienced difficulty walking and lacked energy. by mid-April, she was confined to her bed. No.

In May, Cassandra brought her to Winchester for treatment. Still, she continued to write, and until August of that year, worked on what would become her novel Persuasion. Again, cover on Book Cheat with Jess Perkins and Broden Kelly. Episode 10, check it out. Yep. Know it well. Where were we? The old studio, maybe?

Yeah, I think the second studio. No, no recollection. I'm so sorry. This was the same year that she was able to finally get the copyright back for Northanger Abbey and also edited that. But sadly, neither that or persuasion were published in their lifetime because all good things must come to an end. Fucking hell. She's fucking died in a 40s. Jane Austen died in Winchester on the 18th of July, 1817 at the age of just 41. Jesus Christ. What? What off? Very suddenly, yeah.

What from? Oh my God. There's a lot of speculation about what Jane Austen died from. Fuck, so we don't fucking know. Fuck, Dave, this is a terrible ending. Oh, you've taken this so hard. Which is gone? You started with like, never read a, don't, not interested, whatever. And they're like, Dave, how dare you kill her? I really like her now.

Yeah, she seems cool. People have said it's possibly Addison's disease, possibly Hodgkin's disease. Oh. But, yeah, this is all looking back. And that's still debated. Some other people say, it's tuberculosis. That's a classic. Which can cause Addison's disease.

Oh, God. But then there's other hypotheses. Stomach cancer, because she had digestive disorders towards the end. Pernicious anemia to explain other symptoms. Yes, it's not sure. Did it say anything about her eye watering? Yeah, did it say a left eye actually. Were her eyes okay?

No. Oh, no. Sorry. Oh, no. Addison's disease. I'm just Googling. I'm just going to try and figure out what it was. You'd talk amongst yourselves.

I mean, you'll be there for a while because there are so many conflicting theories. Henry, her brother, through his clerical connections, arranged for his sister to be buried in the North Isle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. The epitaph composed by her brother, James, praises Austin's personal qualifications. qualities, expresses hope for her salvation, and mentions the extraordinary endowments of her mind, but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer. Wow. So she must have, what, was she trying to keep it to herself? No, she was pretty happy to be published, and the family absolutely knew about it.

Wow. But the question is, how are we still talking about her over 200 years later? Yeah, great cue. In the months after Austin's death in 1817, Cassandra and Henry Austin, arranged for the publication of Persuasion and North Anger Abbey as a set. We came together. A biographical note on the author was included, and finally Jane Austen was named as the writer of our own work. But only after she passed, unfortunately.

Sales were pretty good, but with the death of the author, by 1820, her novels went out of print. A few educated literati types from the literary elite were fans. and advocated for the importance of her work over the decades following. But in the mainstream, they were largely ignored. She was forgotten for a few years. People needed pictures. The first illustrated... That's when the Marvel ones came in, comics and shit.

The Hulk as Emma. And that's the Bronti sisters, isn't it? They were doing the Marvel ones. Yeah, the Brontys are famous for the Avengers. Yeah. The MCU. They were the original MCU, the three sisters together. It's incredible, really.

It's amazing. The first illustrated edition of Jane's work appeared in 1833 in Richard Bentley's standard novel series, which put her titles before thousands of readers across the Victorian period. As time goes by, or it went by, it became cheaper to print.

And now there's illustrated editions. The masses, it's a bit more accessible. But she was really put on the map a few decades after that when in 1869, Austin's nephew, James Edward O'S. Austin Lee published a book called A Memoir of Jane Austen. Huh. The memoir gained widespread attention, introducing the broader public to her works,

and gradually this led to her novels being reissued again. It also introduced her to the wider public as an appealing personality, quote unquote, Dear Aunt Jane. Probably how you imagine her wearing a bonnet with a personality of a lady who didn't want publication of fame in her lifetime, despite the fact that she wrote and pushed for publication her whole life. It was like her dream. sort of this sort of portrayed her in a different way. Wow.

I was a bit like, oh, who me? I'm just, I'm just little dear old Aunt Jane. Just a nice little lady. I don't like that. I wouldn't write sassy letters and bitch about people. Yeah. So that was, and she's still seen that way in a lot of contemporary portraits of her wearing the bonnet. Austin's novels were taken to the next level when they fell out of copyright, of course,

and were able to be mass printed for cheap and sold for pennies, becoming one of the first successful paperback novels. During World War I, her novels were sent out to soldiers in the trenches to offer them some distraction from the horrors of war. Wow. God. They should send us all novels to distract us from the horrors. I love a little, love a novel. Yeah, there's an election coming up soon.

Albanesey, if you listen. Alba, send us a novel. Let's get some novels happening. And her allegiance of fans began to grow over each of those incidents over the decades. And if I had done this as do go on the quiz show on Jane Austen, I would have asked you this question. Multiple choice. What do you think devotees and fans call themselves?

Oh, Austeniers. That's good. That's good. Jane heads. Ostentatious. Ostentatious. Oh, God. You've got multiples.

Jay Nights, Austenauts, JAs or jars, or tations. Ostentations. I thought that was. Any of those. It's going to be Austenauts or something, isn't it? It's actually J-nites. Jay-nites. Which I thought is so funny.

So we got Wednesday night, it's J-night. Thursday's Fanny Night. And the history of the term is actually so funny. It's really tickled me. So Jane, and it's also called Jainitism. Janeitism did not begin until after the publication of her nephew's memoir, when the literary elite felt that they had to separate their appreciation of Austin from that of the masses. Members of the literary elite who had claimed an appreciation of Austin as a mark of culture

reacted against this popularization of her work. They refer to themselves as Jainites to distinguish themselves from the masses who, in their view, did not properly understand the work of Jane Austen. So she got popular after death and people were like, okay, but you're not a real Jainite. Name one of their songs. Yeah, huh? Yeah, name them all. What was sense and sensibility originally called?

Yeah. But you don't even know. It was originally letters. You don't know that, did you? Crazy. Take off that t-shirt. Take off that Jane Austen T-shirt. People do not change.

I know, it's so fun. We're the fucking same. Yep. So funny. We're the worst, but we're also like, sometimes there are things that humans do and you go, that's just, that's silly and cute. Wasn't Matt telling us about people applauding a sunset?

Yes, he was up in Darwin. He was up in Darwin. The sunset. And everyone applauded. And I was like, what the fuck is wrong with you? But it's so cute. Well, we did a whole bonus episode about telling the bees and a whole cultural practice for a very long time of letting the bees, the bees know when somebody in the family dies.

You have to go down and tell the bees. What? And within, if it's within 24 hours or they may become depressed or possibly stop making honey and leave. Yeah. You got to tell the bees. You got to warn them. He's like, I'm so sorry to let you know that you won't be seeing Aunt Mary anymore because she's passed.

And it's one of those things. If you're in the right, it depends on your mood. Sometimes you'd go, what the fuck is wrong with you? But other times you're like, oh, that's cute. I think that's so beautiful. Yeah. Humans are so cute and weird. But we also have been the same for such a long time. Oh, you like this thing now?

Oh, so now this is hugely popular. Yeah, well, I actually liked it before you liked it, which means I'm better. I'm better and you don't even like it. I was ready about sexy dragons way before you. Okay. Way before you. So by the mid-20th century, she was recognized and accepted in academia as a great English novelist, worthy of the untold studies, reviews, and reimagininges of her work.

Jane's books have since been translated into almost 50 languages, and their work has inspired countless adaptations, biographies, documentaries, and reimaginings. And these pop culture adaptations continue to introduce her work to new audiences, new generations. By 2000, there were over 100 printed adaptations of Austin's work. And to name but a few of the pop culture screen adaptations, it starts way back in 1940. It was an American Pride and Prejudice film starring Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennett and Lawrence Olivier as Mr Darcy.

And Brave New World Writer, Aldous Huxley, co-wrote the screenplay. So there you go. In 1995, Emma Thompson's adaptation of sense and sensibility for Columbia Pictures directed by Ang Lee came along, starring Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant. It was nominated for seven Oscars. And it was a big year 1995

because Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth in a wet white shirt in a lake came out and sparked Darcy Mania across Britain. Seriously? So they went wild for it. Yeah. But it's just funny because, like,

I love Colin Firth, but I don't want to fuck Colin Firth. I think we're too young. I think he's always seemed like a dad to me. Yeah, yeah, he was always a bit older, and he's quite sort of like reserved and he feels a bit repressed, but he's warm.

Yes, yeah. I think to me he feels like his character in Bridget Jones where he's like quite proper and blah, but you break through a little bit and he's warm and lovely. Yeah. But I'm not like, oh my God, look him in that wet shirt. Invite him around on Thursday night, my gosh. Yeah, actually, it's not the age.

It's the awkward, it's the bumbling. Yeah. Yeah, but it went wild for him. No, I love it. The series sparked an explosion in the publication of printed Austin adaptations. This and it really kicked off a Zenith for screen adaptations as well because in 1996, Emma was adapted twice in one year.

Wow. One with Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead and the other was a TV movie with Kate Beckinsale. Oh shit. And co-starring Mark Strong, aka Merlin from Kingsman. Country Roads. Take me home. He's doing John Denver in a Scottish accent. Very good stuff.

That is pretty good. I saw a rumor online that he's going to possibly be Dumbled during the Harry Potter. I saw that too. I saw that, yeah. Wouldn't that be great for him? Love that guy. Love you much strong. They're also looking at, is it John Lithgow or something like that?

Get fucked. Really? Yeah. Great. Great actor. Love John Lithgow. I know. It's going to be, it's a good, it's a good get for character actors, the old Harry Potter franchise.

Yeah. And it's because obviously so many characters, it's. Yeah. Wow. So many. I might get the call up for Harry himself. I reckon you'll get the call for Harry. I'm about Daniel Radcliffe's age.

I could do it. Yeah. You could. He was good enough. What's wrong with me? Yeah. What? He did it?

He did it? We're the same age. With the same age. Some other movies inspired by Austin Swaggy. You've already mentioned Clueless in 1995. Hell yeah. Emma in a Beverly Hills high school. Richard Jones' diary borrowed its basic plot elements from Pride and Prejudice and again starred Colin Firth as Mark Darcy.

Oh. Named in deliberate homage to the original character. Okay. Okay. Hugh Grant's in that franchise as well. Yes. I love Hugh Grant. Hugh Grant.

Hugh Grant. See, I want to have sex to Hugh Grant. 100%. Oh, okay. I don't think. So he's not too old. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, it's not an age.

And that's what made me realize. It's not age. That's just fine that offensive to Colin. No, there's nothing wrong with Colin Firm. I'm going to marry Colin Fir. Oh, good one. Fuck Hugh Grant. Fuck Hugh Grant.

He's going to kill. Not Mark Strong. Don't kill Mark Strong, please. No. No. I'm going to kill. Well, Jane Austen's already dead. Yeah, so kill her off.

Feel her off. No offense. But I did really get upset when I found out she was dead, even though she is obviously dead. Sorry. Sorry to be the bearer. But you wanted to die at like a hundred years old. 41, it's awful. You know, yeah.

And in that, she already wrote six absolute bangers, six classics. So incredible. Imagine what she might have given us. I wish that people didn't have to diet. Like Jane Goodall, she's 90, I think. I'm like, can we keep her going? Can we sort that out before she goes? Because I really like her.

Another adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was released in 2005, starring Kira Knightley, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her betrayal of Elizabeth Bennett. Kieran Knightley. I might re-watch that. I want to re-watch it. Matthew McFadens also, he's Mr. Darcy with big sideburns. Yeah. He's a real brooder.

Yes. And that's why I was like, I don't get the Mr. Darcy thing. Maybe I have to read the book. No, people are going to come for me at that. It's fine. I might have opinions. Read the book or listen to the book sheet. You're allowed to have opinions?

No, Michelle, that's not true. Well, Dave's allowed. Dave's allowed. Thank you. And I share all of Dave's opinions, all of them. Thank you. And that's Mr. Darcy. There's an absolute stunner.

2004, a Bollywood style film called Bride and Prejudice came in. I've seen Bride and Prejudice. Oh, really is fun? Yeah, I love it. I love a Bollywood vibe. Yeah, posts are looks really fun. Lots of colours. Yeah, the post is so.

Colors and movement. I'm like a dog. You're like a toddler. Yeah. Like I'm not, you know, I want a movie that's set in the sunshine. Yeah. I'm not interested in like snow. It's true.

I'm with you. What am I going to do? Watch what? A snow movie. Fuck. Fuck off. Snow dogs? No.

Starring Paul Walker. No thanks. Oh, God. Fucking Paul Walker. You're rice and peas. I feel like Dave's close to the end. Oh, I'm so close, actually. Going close to the edge.

In 2016, the parody, comedy, comedy, horror film, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out. It's also based on a book. Is it just Pride and Prejudice, but there's also Zombies? It's the same story. Yes, I'm pretty sure it's very similar to that. And that the book, I'm going to get the author's name here. I think that's very fun. Because it says Pride and Prejudice and Zombies novel by Seth Graham Smith and Jane Austen.

Okay. She gets the... I hope she's getting some royalties. Yeah. That rules. Which is a bit of fun. I haven't seen it, but, you know, now I'm interested. There's honestly so many, and I did hear an academic say that nearly all of the adaptations

use bigger houses and give the people way more money than the middle class people that the books actually supposed to betray. Okay. There's often a few people with very large mansions, but then they give everyone like a homestead. Yeah, okay. And the academics like, oh, I don't believe that. I guess because, like, we don't know. understand that having just like a house back then was very fancy. Yeah, having a house and like

having one made one cook or something. Yeah. Versus where I were like, oh, must have been Buckingham bloody palace out there. Yeah. So Jane Austen's legacy lives on in 1967. She was commemorated with a plaque in the famous Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. In 2007, on the 200th anniversary of the author's death, she was unveiled as being on the new English 10 pound notes, becoming the first female writer. That's cool. Following in the steps of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens to feature on a bank note.

Now, a quote is included on the note, and it's from Pride and Prejudice, and it says, I declare, after all, there is no enjoyment like reading, which the Guardian remarks, at first, seemed like a good choice. However, the words were spoken

by one of Austin's most deceitful characters, Caroline Bingley, who has no interest in books. She is just so, rattling up to Mr Darcy, who she would like as a husband. Yeah. And he is reading a book, so she's his next to him and it's a bit like, oh, what you're doing? I love reading.

Oh, you're reading? Me too. I love to read. I'm prolific. So if you're not ironic that that is the quote that is included. That's really fun. From this amazing author. In 2003, the BBC conducted the big read to find out the UK's most loved books and

pride and prejudice came second only behind the Lord of the Rings. That's pretty good. The Lord of the Rings. I will never read that. No, too long. Too long. It's for boys. It's for boys.

And there's movie. And I've watched that. And I fall asleep every time. But the music is so beautiful. Yeah, great music. And the landscape, I'm like, oh, I'm safe, I'm warm, I'm going to sleep. It's so nice. It's too nice.

Too nice. Too nice. Yeah. Never made it up to the wall bit. Yep. You wake up and there's like millions of people fighting. Oh my God. Oh, my God, there's a big volcano.

Turn it off. Sadly, like many of the greats, Jane Austen never knew the true extent of the enduring legacy she was leaving behind. Her works continue to be discussed, debated and, of course, enjoyed. Austin's writing stands out for its comedy, self-awareness and realistic detailed portrayals of characters and their relationships. Britannica sums up her achievements.

Although the birth of the English novel is to be seen in the first half of the 18th century, primarily in the work of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding, it is with Jane Austen that the novel takes on its distinctly modern character and the realistic treatment of unremarkable people in the unremarkable situations of everyday life. Stanford English Professor Alex Wallach writes, Austin is one of the biggest literary figures in English. At this point, she is somewhat like Shakespeare, her centrality is so established. Therefore, it is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen rules.

The end. Yay. Well done, Jane Austen. Well done, Jane Austen. There you go. Wow. Yeah. So that's a bit about it,

but there's also a lot of facets of her life we don't know much about because it is undocumented person of life. Which is kind of cool. Yeah, a little bit of mystery, a little bit of intrigue in there as well. In this day and age where we document everything, it's kind of nice to be like,

we don't know much about it. Yeah. I like that. Private. She's beautiful. But we know how prolific she was. Yeah. And in a way, thank goodness she was that she wrote so much at an early age.

So she could publish those books because she wouldn't have known this, of course, but she was going to die so young. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder if that was young back then. Maybe it wasn't. I think it was still young, but it's probably not crazy notable, you know? And maybe it's like dying at 60 now. Like, it's like, oh, that's so young, but it's not like dying at 20. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Look up I think we're still At this point We're still at a tragic age to die Oh yeah It's tragic

It's trage It's trage It's trage It would be trage Trudge wife In the 1850s The average age of death Was 42

But more than 25% of children died before the age of five Oh so that's why it was the average Yeah For those who survived The average of death Was close to 57 Yeah

Okay yeah So she was young Yeah But um that's sad. Very sad. But, you know, her works live on and like, there would probably, it's a crazy thing to think about

there probably wouldn't be a moment ever now where someone's not reading her work somewhere in the world. Yeah, that's crazy. Which is wild. That is. Yeah, wow. That's cool. Good for her.

Good on her. Good for her. Well, I'm going to read one of these little books. Get on to it. Everyone thinks is so bloody good. I'll be the judge of that. See if you get hooked. Yeah.

I'm excited. Nice. There's so much for you to discover. I know. It's so nice. I'm going to do another one on bookcheats soon. Have you done unrelated? Have you done Little Women?

I haven't, no. I've got a copy of it, though. Who is that by a Bronte sister? Louisa May Alcott, I believe, the name is. There's more of these women. It's not Bronte. No, Little Women is American. Is it?

Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I've never watched Little Women. Never seen Little Women? I don't. like anything from before 1981.

Okay. As in watching. Yeah. Yeah. I'll set the setting. Yeah. I'm always like I'm the same but I did love Greta's little women. Yeah, I should watch it. That one's great. Oh yeah. I watched it. That's good. It's really nice. I don't know why I'm so biased. I need to

I need to sort it out. I know I'm wrong. I just want to say that. I know I'm wrong. One thing I struggle with is I can't help, be watching it obviously through a modern lens and the whole like, I'm just a woman and I can't, I'm lost without a man. I'm like, oh, I have no interest in this. Yeah, the stakes don't feel real. I also don't like the language and I don't like

what you're wearing and something. I'm always like, come on. Let's come on. There's not a lot left if you don't like the characters, what they're wearing or what they're saying. I don't like the look of the scenery. I think you possibly would enjoy Pride and Prejudice a bit more because they are making, she's making fun a bit of that stuff.

Yes. I'm going to watch. I'm going to watch it too. Not going to read it, but I'll watch it. I'm going to watch Pride and Prejudice. I'm going to read Emma. Yeah, good one. That sounds like a good order. That's my pledge.

That's my pledge. I'll hold it to that. Okay. And maybe I'll do sense and sensibility on bookcheat. Yeah. There you go. We've done it. Beautiful.

We've done Jane Austen. We did it. Move on. Let's do the Bronte sisters next. Do the Bronti sisters. How about before we get to everyone's favorite section of the show, we're going to tell everyone that Michelle, you are on tour. On tour.

on two, as the French say. Yeah, that's how they say it. That's how they say it. Yeah, you've got shows in various places. Tell us about them. I'm doing a show in Adelaide. I'm doing several shows in Adelaide, actually. One of them is at the Adelaide Fringe, very, very excited.

And I'm an ambassador for Adelaide Fringe, so please get along to the Adelaide Fringe. Love the Fringe. Absolutely adore it. I'm very excited. And then I am going to Perth and Canberra. And then the other Adelaide shows are secret, but you'll find out about them if you go to my newsletter. Oh, very excited. And to sign up.

But you could, as always, get my book and give it five stars on good reads. That's an activity, that's just an activity suggestion. And sign up for my newsletter. Yeah, you got a quiet weekend and you're like, what am I going to do this weekend? Get Michelle's book, give it five stars. And newsletter. Yeah, go. Sign up for the newsletter.

Absolutely do that. Stream my music on the internet. Just generally contribute to my income streams. Yes. and general well-being and sense of confidence. Yep. That would be great. That would be great.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit much for me to mention that I'm also on tour. It is a bit much. Yeah, we are going to have to move on. No, go on. Tell us about it. I'm also going to be in Adelaide for the fringe.

Yes. Hell yeah. And also for the Adelaide Festival, I'm doing a live book cheat for writers week on... Oh, that's great. Isn't it a bit of fun? Yeah. Thursday March the 6th. And I might even tell you.

about the Day of the Triffids. I've decided what I'm going to do that, but I have been... So you can get tickets for that at the Adelaide Festival, but I'm going to be the same week at the Fringe Festival doing my new show with Sammy Peterson. Dave Warnocky dates to the entire audience. Fun. An interactive show where you are on your phone. Tell us what you want to do next and see if we fall in love.

That's beautiful. So that's in Adelaide. And then there's one night only in Sydney. That's on March the 15th. And then I'm doing the first two weeks with Sammy at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. And I'd love to see you there. Can't wait. Would I be, do you think I'd be one of like, what I was about to say was going to sound really rude.

I wanted the few people to see the show 10 years ago. Yeah, but that's not what I meant. I meant like to see both. Like I, you know, I've been a fan of yours for 10 years. Yeah, that's lovely. Most of your fans drop off at about 5-year mark. Most of them are dead. Most of them did.

Earlier on, you were really appealing to 90-year-olds. Yeah, really. That was my demographic and I thought, because I thought, these people have money. Yeah. But unfortunately. Who's got money? Few of them left me in their will, which has been nice. That's good.

But now the income has stopped. Yeah, yeah. So I need to go to a younger audience. Yeah, but not too young because I will be dating them. 18 plus, please. 18 plus please. We want these dates to be appropriate. Can I also say for Melbourne International Comedy Festival,

I will be doing on the 19th of April, comedians on stage auditioning for musicals. It's one night only. It always sells out. It's fucking packed. If you don't get a ticket, there's nothing I can do, but it will be at the festival club. It's really fun.

It's really fun. It's really fun. Be there. Be there or B square. Absolutely. So, it's time now, I believe, to move on to everyone's favorite section of the show. The moment that people have been waiting for, they've waited through all this Jane Austen bullshit. To get to the Patreon section of the show, which I believe Jess has a jingle that might go a little something like this.

Fact quote or question. If we were auditioning, would we have got the job? No. Damn it. We are not good singers. but we are very attractive. Everyone can technically sing. No, I'm not.

She is. Well, I am if I've heard the harmony many, many times and I can copy it, but then if Michelle harmonises with me, I then follow Michelle. So I'm, you know. I think you're really good at holding your own on a melody when I take a harm. And not everyone can do that. Again, only if I know the song very well. That's fine.

That's something. Anyway. A bit of practice. Honestly, when Michelle says I've done well singing something, I go like, but inside I'm going, yes, yes, yes. I go home, I tell Aiden about it. I don't do that. I feel so fucking good right now.

I feel so fucking good right now. I want to be a great singer and I do nothing about it. So yes, this is a section where people get to submit facts, quotes, questions, brags, suggestions. What do we have recently that was a first? We had a definition. We've had anecdotes. We've had banter. We've had anything.

So this is really up to the people who support us. I do go on pod. no at patreon.com slash do you go on pod on the Sydney Shineberg level or above is that correct

for a shoutout or for this for this? Yes Sydney Shyneberg the deluxe package that is that's right so we've got three

do you want to take turns Dave or do you want to read them sorry I've got it open I'll kick us off our first fact quote our question comes from Colin Wright Colin is given themselves the title of

oh you also get to give yourself a title Colin's title Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy and one half of the Bragg brothers. Ooh. It's exciting. Bragg away. And Colin has given us a farewell. Interesting.

Oh. Is he leaving the Patreon? No. It looks like it says in brackets move to Dreamboat. I think he is downgrading on Patreon. Which is absolutely fine. It's also fine to leave Patreon. I don't think it's fine.

My gut feeling was also dying and I felt bad about that. So that's why I was like, oh, is he leaving? Patreon? Yeah, because imagine if you said, is he dying? And then his whole thing is about how he's been given months to live and you'd feel like that out. We would have to. Take it out.

We would edit that out. Yeah, you're right. Okay. But, oh, it's a long one. Here we go. Hi, gang. This fact quote a question comes to you in three, mostly brief parts. Number one, over two years ago now, I bragged on here that I'd gotten into a very

competitive marriage and family therapy master's program. Since then, I think I've been too busy to write in much. But as you may have surmised from the title, I am now done with the program and I am a licensed practicing therapist. Congrats. You guys and the pod have provided a lot of much-needed levity after managing some tough stuff in my work. Number two, this will be my last fact-quota question for the foreseeable future.

So thanks for all the great times and shout out to Lee, the other half of the Bragg brothers, who got me on to the pod with the Annie Oakley episode back in the day. Oh, a little bit short shot. I'll miss being on the Sydney-Shineberg Memorial, rest in peace level, but I will still be in the Triptitch Club since I can never leave. But why would I want to? Correct.

Exactly, Colin. And three, finally, since I love you guys in the most healthy parisocial way possible, will you tell us about a childhood memory from each of you that always brings some warmth and joy into your soul when you think of it? We always ask people to answer their own question, and Colin has done that. One of mine is playing Lego with my brothers in our old farmhouse in Wisconsin. Every mini figure we owned was a unique individual with a complicated backstory and narratives that intertwined and spanned generations. Those stories helped us become as close as we still are today. Oh my gosh, how nice.

Sweet. Wow. Okay, does anybody have a childhood memory that brings you warmth? Just because of the toy factor there, I've got one of, we had an action man. Remember action man? Yeah. Kind of like a G.I. Joe, sort of Kendall-sized guy. He just reminded me of one of my, yep, go.

And I have a memory of me and a friend from primary school. Sticky taping string to Action Man and Sticky Taping String to the Fan in my bedroom. I'm putting it on high and just watching him by. Like so dangerous. I could have smashed the window. They're just going, woo! Yeah, Action Man! And I haven't thought about that Colin's memory made me think of that.

So thank you because I hadn't thought it at a long time. That's really nice. Your memory reminded me. I had one ready to go. But another one is, they're both about my brother, but I had a lot of Barbies and I only had one Ken, I was less interested in Ken. But Ken's head popped off. Oh, no.

And we couldn't, try as we might, we couldn't get Ken's head to stay on. So we had a funeral for Ken. Oh, my brother's seven years older than me too. So you have to remember he's probably like preteen or almost a teenager. Oh, that's so nice. And we've gone out to the backyard and he's buried Ken in the backyard but stuck his arm out. So there was just a little Kendall arm sticking out in the backyard. Very funny stuff.

That's so good. Very cute. I love that. Michelle, do you have a memory you would like to share? I spent my childhood in the willow trees around the lake, which is true. But yeah, I was literally just sitting there trying to think of like, what's a nice childhood memory? And I was like, you literally spent it in the trees on your own, which is strange and odd and has forced me to sort of confront some stuff about why. I'm in such an attention-seeking profession.

But I think we're like, the best one is like when I was, I don't know, like nine years old, my brother snuck me into the cinema. My brother's a lot older than me. And he snuck me into the cinema to see Austin Powers. Oh, that is, yeah, baby. That's awesome. And I was like, what? I had no idea anything could be this cool.

And it was one of the happiest moments of my entire life. Being the younger sibling rules. Yeah, it's really good. It's the only way to do. it. I wouldn't do it anyway. We're three youngest here. Yeah. But Michelle and I being, well, Michelle's siblings are a lot older and my brother's 70s. 15 and 12 years older than me. Your sister and you are a bit closer in age. So it's still the youngest is absolutely the best, but having quite a lot older siblings, it means you get to do stuff that you shouldn't be able to do,

but your parents also kind of allow it. They're just like, oh, whatever. My sister took me to see Cruel Intentions in 1999. I was like, Like, I don't know, eight. Like, I was very young. Had a lot of questions coming out of the cinema. Yeah. No, I had no questions. I was like, I get it.

I get sex now. This all makes complete sense to me. And perhaps that's why I spent the rest of my childhood in those willow trees. And wise beyond my ears. That's so nice. Thank you, Colin. Dave, do you want to read one? Do you want me to keep going?

Yes, now I've got one from Sophie Tudor here, who has given themselves the title of group mom, obviously. We love Sophie's work. We love Sophie. In the group as the group mom. Now, it's a question. The question is, I asked this in the Facebook group and got so many replies, so I thought I'd ask you guys too. If I was coming to your local area, what would you recommend I do slash see, and where would you recommend I go for a meal? I love this.

So if you're answered their own question. My answer is, my actual town has nothing, but in the surrounding areas, there are stunning countryside walks, a transport museum with a Concord. Whoa. Oh, yes. Which Matt and I have actually been to with. Sophie, which is very exciting. It was awesome. Quaint villages, more countryside, and I'm only half an hour by train to central London. Dude, that's pretty awesome. For food, I'd suggest Valentina in Webridge,

absolutely delicious pastors, along with all other Italian foods and drinks and desserts. Delightful. Wow. Gorgeous. Yeah, I love that. Fentina and Weybridge, that sounds very nice. I struggle a little bit with Melbourne because I feel like there are cities. you go to and there's like landmarks you have to go see and I feel like we don't really have many of those unless you're like into sport and you want to see the MCG that's really cool even if you're not into sport it's kind of interesting I guess but like I think it's more a city to just

kind of walk around yeah it's just about being in it yeah I'll take you to um de graves street I'll take it to flinders lane like that's yeah I take you the laneways I'm taking in the tagal gardens NGV NGV I fucking love national gallery of Victoria beautiful yeah that's a great spot beautiful stuff. I'm taking you on a walk near Collingwood Children's Farm visit the cows, look at the waterfall, look at the beautiful time,

sometimes there's sheep. My dog tries to fight the sheep. Yeah, I've seen it. And what were you going to say? Sorry, I'm thinking of, I went back to my childhood memories again. I think I'd be taking you to the one action man. We're getting one action man, one piece of strength and a fan.

I'll be taking you to the Yarra River in Warrondite where you can have a little swim and then because I went to school in this area and then go to the Warrondite bakery and I'd buy you a steak and onion pie or if you don't eat meat, a spinach and ricotta roll. They're both absolutely fantastic. Watchdown with a chocolate nippies milk.

Yum, I love nippies. I've never had a nippies. Haven't you? Do you like flavored milks? I love it. Listen, the most important thing to me in the entire world is Coco Bella coconut water cacao flavored. Oh, I really love that stuff.

It's so important and special to me because it tastes like a milkshake. But it's like lower in calories and I can have more of it. Oh, I can't guarantee you the lower calories for nippies, but I can guarantee a fantastic creamy chocolate taste. I love a fantastic creamy. Can we try and get a nippies after this? Fuck yeah. You can be, you can get a nipies.

Oh, Bar Margo is where I'll take someone actually. Bar Mago. You can get a beggars banquet between. I think it's 5 and 7 p.m. They used to do it between 10 and midnight, which is so sad that they don't do that anymore, but you get two glasses of champagne, a bunch of, like, you get chips, you get, they do some sort of something

if you eat meat, but if they don't, they do, like, other stuff. They do vegetarian options. They do different ones all the time, but they also do oysters. So it's like oysters, chips, and a glass of actual champagne, and it's 40 bucks each. Oh, that's really good. That's very good. And it's a beautiful place, and the service is gorgeous.

I really like it. Oh, gosh. Whereabouts is that? It's at the top end of, um, like it's near the comedy theater. Yeah, great. Oh, man, I can't check that out. It's awesome. It's a good question.

Yes, great. Mm-hmm. Can't think of where else. But yeah, just for, cumulous ink for a glass of orange wine. Always do that. Just walk around. Walk around. It's a beautiful city.

Go around. You like it. Go around. Thank you, Sophie. Finally, our third and final fact quota question for this week comes from Adam. Chapitinski, Traptinsky. Adam's given themselves a title, official record holder for longest do-go-on fact-quoted question title holder,

FKHAA, mover, shaker and producer and current father to do-go-on's cutest baby, as stated in previous fact-quoted question. And Adam has a brag. Okay. Hey guys, not sure if this can be categorized as a brag, but I was listening to the Genghis Khan episode, and you guys mentioned nine years of doing the show. I don't know why I never connected this before,

do go on almost perfectly lines up with my wife and I's relationship. The first episode was released on November 10, 2015, and I asked my now wife to be my girlfriend on November 15th, 2015. Oh my gosh, we did that. How crazy is that? I've listened to this show almost as long as my relationship now. Now it's time to find out who lasts longer, you guys or her. So the competition starts now.

Whoa. And he says in Capitals, keep me entertained. Loll, thanks for laughs and have a nice Christmas, New Year's, or even Easter. I don't know, depending when this is read out. Yeah, it will be a nice. Easter, thank you. Interesting. Can we outlive their relationship?

Yeah. Wow. I mean, do we have to focus on our longevity or focus on trying to split them up? Try to split them up. Yeah, I think that's probably the smartest move, yeah. Yeah. Because I've actually heard from Adam's wife and she said she's not happy. She's not, yeah.

She's been talking about Mr. Darcy. I think there's somebody at work she's really interested in, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. She was saying that. Anyway, we probably shouldn't say that on the pod. Sorry, that was just girl talk. Edit that out, AJ.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Just between us, girls. Just between us, girls. Yes. It's not even my podcast. Thank you so much to our fact quarter questions. The next thing we need to do is give people a shout-out.

Now, this is for people on the shout-out level or above, and we read the names out. We usually come up with a bit of a game. Maybe could we name their book? Yeah, let's name their book that they've written. Love it. Or should we give them a Jane Austen name? Like what? Like Terence Featherby

Oh, that's fun Yeah, let's give him Jane Austen names Love it. That's better. Thanks. Do you want to go one for one here? Let's do it. All right, you kick it off.

Okay, first of all, I'd like to thank from a location that is withheld from us. Can I think I imagine it's deep within the fortress of the malls. Thank you to the Wild Eagle. Okay. The Wild Eagle. Are you looking up Jane Austen name generator? Yeah.

The Wild Eagle That's so funny if you could The Wildebeest Eagleton Downs Yes Sir Wildebeest Eagleton That's actually

From Eagleton is incredible Yeah thanks I'm really fucking good at my own game I'm a writer You're a writer Premier's Literary Award nomination Oh my goodness She can't be stopped

Can't be stopped I'll stop if I don't win Oh my God, when do we find out? March something Okay Exciting There's a people's choice But it's not the big one

But can we still vote now? Yeah, you can still vote, please do Next up from Myeland in South Australia I would love to shout out Violetta Or Violetta That's already a really good one What about

Lydia Deberg Any relation to Chris? Yes. Lydia Deberg. Yeah. I love that. And is that the maiden name

or has Lydia become a deburg? Oh, she's married into the Deberg. Married into the DeBerg. Who cares about her maiden name. Oh, the upper de Berr? Oh, my goodness. Thank you, Violetta. I would like to thank from Cows, Victoria.

Philip Ireland. Yes. Oh my gosh. Thank you to Cat. Cats. Cats. Cats. Oh.

That's with a Z. Yes. I've got one here. Yep. Catherine. Cammleford. Oh, that's good. Married into?

No, that's maiden. It doesn't want to change, so not going to get married. Oh, yeah. Go off. That's back then. Unacceptable. Now, very cool. Or do whatever the fuck you want.

Who cares? Who cares? Um, old people care. Next up, trust me, they won't fucking stop talking to about it. Next up, I'd love to thank from Arbuckle, incredible. California, Beth Richardson. Oh, great. So she can say Beth.

Yeah, Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Uh, what about Wentworth of Highbury? Oh, my God. Elizabeth Wentworth of Highbury. That's pretty good. You know, lady. Elizabeth Wentry, I present to you.

Elizabeth. Wentworth, re of Hybron, I forgot what you said. Wentworth of Highbury. I've lost my job as a town prior. That does seem like a hard job. Because in the movies they just kind of like, it gets whispered to them and then they shout it out. Yeah. Are you serious?

That's crazy. I'm like, how do you? What? Yeah. Are you sure? Yeah. Isn't that how Robert Downey Jr. does his lines or something? Whispered to him.

Like an earpiece or something? It's just a man. Yeah, I think it was like an earpiece because he doesn't want to know. ahead of time what happens? Is that him? There's like an actor who has that. I'm like that sounds really fun. We've talked about it on the show back in the day,

Marlon Brando when he was old. Yeah. Maybe it's Marlon Brando. Couldn't be bothered. Like people were just whispering his ear. That's amazing. Couldn't be bothered. No.

It's completely over it. Stuff this. Incredibly difficult to work with. Toors Ian. I would like to thank from a location also withheld from us. People trust us. We're not going to use your address. I would like to thank R.E. Fields.

What about, Marian? McWilloughby Marion McWilloughby I like that I like that That's pretty good That's pretty good

That's maiden And she is going to upgrade Yeah Because McWilloughby They don't sound rich No that's very rich The McWilloughby is a farmers Yeah

Yeah yeah yeah And like the farm's doing okay There's food on the table Yeah that's right But they're not buying 69 pound books Yeah unfortunately they have to work for a living Which is obviously disgusting

Yuck Yuck Yep How embarrassing I would like to thank from Concord in New Hampshire I assume in the US.

Katrina, boyajane. What a lovely name, boyajian. Do you reckon that's how, that looks how that might be? So let's say, Catarina or Catherine. Yep. De Bourgian. Benedict Cumberbatch. Yes, Catherine Benedict Cumberbatch.

I think that's it. Wow. Yeah. No relation. She hyphenated. She was Catherine Benedict. And she married. A guy, whatever.

She married. Benedict Cumberbatch. Nelson's great. Not back then. Do they have Nelson's back then? She married Benedict Cumberbatch and she was like, that's funny because my last name is Benedict. So I'm going to hyphenate and then I've got your name in my name. That's romantic.

I would like to thank from Cerritos, Cerritos California. It's Megan or Megan Young? Megan. They're not going to be a Megan back then, I reckon. Did they have Meg? Maria. Oh yeah, but Meg would be... Oh yeah.

No, I don't think they had a Meg. We're going Maria. Rushworth. Rushworth Long. Maria Rushworth Long. I like that a lot. I like that. Well done, Megan.

Megan, thank you so much. What is this one? I would love to thank from Forrester's Beach in New South Wales. Bicky Wang Chang. Wow, that's the best name I've ever heard. That is really good. I don't think we need to change that.

That feels very Austin. That sounds Austin. That sounds ostentatious. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to say, Biky Wang Chang. Biky Wang Chang, ostentatious. Perfect. That's such a good name. Bikki Wang Chang, ostentatious, I presume.

That rules. The lady Biky Wang Chang ostentatious. Finally, I think, from Edinburgh, thank you to Alex Perry. Famous sunglasses designer. Yeah. So it's got to be Alexandra. I don't know why we've made them all female, but we have. It's just easier.

Alexandra Alexandra Perry Winkle Oh that's good Perfect Absolutely nailed that Final thing Oh no no it's thank you once again Before I move on

To Alex Bicky Wang Chang Megan Katrina R E Fields Beth Katz Violetta and the Wild Eagle Final thing we need to do

is welcome some people into the trip ditch club Now this is for people who have supported us on Patreon for three consecutive years I was about to say 10 consecutive years. That's crazy.

That's crazy. Three consecutive years on the shoutout level or above. It's a cool, fun lounge. We have everything you could possibly need. Yes, it's awesome in there. It's actually pretty great, and we are doing some renaos. Can we make it even better? Making it better.

Yeah. I did break one of the toilets, so we're fixing that up, and then... She doesn't like to talk about it. I don't like to talk about it. It was a whoopsie-dazee. Let's not dwell on it. I'm fixing it. But it is broken, and it stinks.

But let's not dwell. I got myself there. That's funny. So we have a few people to welcome into the Trip Nitch Club. Normally I'm behind the bar and I come up with sort of snacks and drinks, but actually Michelle's taking over this week because I'm going to be Matt and I've got the clipboard. I can't do two things at once.

So yeah, Michelle, I gave you heaps of notice on this. Have you prepared any kind of snacks or beverage specials or something? Yeah, when you announce the person, I'll tell you what cocktail I've prepared. for it. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, great. That's even easier. Dave, you normally book a band as well? Yes, you're never going to believe it, Michelle. Oh. You're never going to. I obviously book these bands months in advance.

Obviously. And I don't think they are even a band anymore, but Jane's Addiction are here. Oh, that's crazy. No, I got it. Jane's Addiction. That's crazy. What a coincidence because we talked about Jane Austen. It's such a coincidence. Wow. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to read out the names.

Dave, you hype them up. Michelle's going to give him a cocktail. That's her way of hyping you up as well. Yep. Oh, great. You're going to hand them a cocktail and say, hey, here's something. And they're each getting an individual cocktail, which I think is really cool. Are we ready to welcome some people in?

We have five inductees. So first up, from Address Unknown, Fortress of the Moles, Kathleen Kaiser. I don't despise her. It's Kathleen Kaiser. Here's your pinocaladas. Save one for me, please. No, Dave. From London in Great Britain, it's Raina Ramirez.

When it rainers and pours. Raina, here's your Pina Collada. From Underdale in South Australia, it's Ryan Standing. My Ryan Outstanding. Yes. A pinacallada for the land. From Croydon in Victoria, it's Matt Sparkman. I felt the sparks were flying tonight, Matt Sparkman.

Strong pina collada. A strong one. And finally, from Eighty. Elkhart in Indiana, I'm guessing, James Roskos. More like James Roskos and Roll, baby. It's a pinocalado with no cherry. Okay, no cherry for James. Thank you and welcome James, Matt, Ryan, Raina, Kathleen.

Welcome in. Make yourself at home. The toilet that is blocked off, you cannot use that one. Don't use that. There are three others. Stop asking me about this toilet. There's nothing going on in there. Stop asking.

But give it a white berth. It stinks. It stinks. It stinks. Because of a big poo. I don't know why it stinks. I think it smells like poo. That's why I have to make these overpowering pinoculars.

It's just a general stink. It could be something else. Anything could have caused that red smell. And at the same time, damage the toilet beyond repair. Not beyond repair, but the repair bad says it's going to take a while. He did say we need to, like, you bull-lose this thing and start again. He said it would be easier. He said it would be easier.

But he didn't break any promises about the smell. Look, Michelle, thank you so much for joining us on this insane episode. We love you so much. Where do you want people to go to find information about all the shows, your book, all the wonderful stuff that you do? Michelle Brazier on Instagram, Michelle Brazier on TikTok, Michelle Brazier on my newsletter, on my substack, and go to your local bookshop and ask them for my book.

So grow up. Grow up. Figure it out. You're an adult. Get the audiobook. Don't say, I don't reach. Get the audio book. I read it out loud for you.

I read you a bedtime story and it's my whole life. If you're listening to this, you can listen to an audio book. Yep. If you want to suggest a topic, you can. There's a link in the show notes where you can also find our website where you can find merch and live shows and our other podcasts that we do on this beautiful network that we've created. You want to double down and get some Jane Austen to you? There's a couple of book cheats are ready to go.

that I remember. You're going to go back at listening. I know you will. Cook in. So Dave, boot this baby home. We will be back next week with another fantastic episode.

The main man, Matt's tour will be back. But until then I'll say, thank you so much for listening. And goodbye! Goodbye! Bye! Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list

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