Curator Tours: ‘Jane Austen’s Reading’

We will be running two Curator-led tours of the 2019 exhibition: Jane Austen’s Reading.

The 2019 exhibition at Chawton House will focus on the books that Jane Austen had access to when visiting her brother Edward at Godmersham Park in Kent, many of which are now in Chawton House’s library collection.

A key feature of the exhibition will be an 1818 handwritten catalogue listing books housed at Godmersham Park. This document was used in the creation of a virtual library that went live in October 2018 (see http://www.readingwithausten.com/index.html)

The virtual library will be available to consult and will sit alongside a display of relevant books including a first edition of the copy of Mary Brunton’s Self-Control, we know Jane Austen read, plus texts that are referred to in her novels such as Fordyce’s Sermons and the Baronetage.