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Janet Todd

Jane Austen and Money

Hay Festival 2013, Sunday 2 June 2013

Jane Austen knew the value of money, what it could and could not buy. ‘A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of,’ says a charming but tainted character. Austen marketed herself as a solitary writer, but great wealth could only come from the professions, trade and speculation-- from which women were barred. The books display bitterness at women’s dependence on men but also ambivalence over any female control of money.

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