South West Authors & CollectionsJane Austen in the South West
Ashley Tauchert
Regency Sidmouth, thought to be the spatial backdrop for Austen's unfinished novel 'Sanditon',
from the 'Etched on Devon's Memory' project.
Lyme will not do. Lyme is towards 40 miles distance from Dawlish and would not be talked of there. - I have put Starcross [instead]. If you prefer Exeter, that must always be safe. Austen's letter to Anna Austen, 10 August 1814: giving feedback on a draft of Anna's novel.
From the instantly recognisable scenes at the Bath Pump and Assembly Rooms integral to Northanger Abbey, to the powerful aesthetic and narrative climax of Persuasion at the foot of the Cobb in Lyme Regis, Austen's narrative imagination is steeped in memories, associations and recreations of the time she spent with her family in Devon and Dorset as well as the time she spent living in Somerset before moving to the more famous cottage on the Chawton estate in Hampshire.
Jane Austen's extraordinarily popular and critically respected novels encounter the South West in some intriguing ways. 'Jane Austen in the South West' aims to explore these rich associations. The project will consider Austen as an important writer of the South West as well as aiming to add to the biographical information touching on her life in Bath and four visits to the South-West coastal resorts of Teignmouth, Sidmouth and Lyme Regis over the period 1801-04. I am currently looking for potential non-academic partners to extend the range of the project and to explore the regional links between academic and popular Austen. If you have interests in this area and have not yet been contacted by me please do get in touch. I am also planning to generate funding to establish a research assistantship attached to the project.
I will be aiming over the duration of the project to generate and make available detailed and exploratory information about Austen's associations with Exeter and the South West, through partnership with regional agencies and important sites of Janeite literary pilgrimage as well as through public lectures and workshops, web-based resources and new print materials.
Austen's realism is defined by a strong consciousness of landscape and architectural form specific to time and place. The 'Devon Cottage' which is central to Sense and Sensibility is narratively situated 'four miles north of Exeter'. One wing of the research towards this project will progress in as a more speculative account of Austen's missing years (1801-1804) which overlap with her Devon and Dorset experiences. This is currently progressing under the working title 'Looking for Allenham'.
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