(Gyles) From the epic sweep of the Yorkshire moors.

(Johnny) This is the landscape that sits at the heart of the Bronte story.

(Gyles) To the cobbled sprawl of Victorian London.

I can just imagine Dickens walking down this very street.

And the jagged beauty of the Jurassic coast.

Talk about a cliffhanger.

Join me, Gyles Brandreth, as I travel the country, to uncover the real life stories... Go on!

I am liking the goss.

And places... -But where are we now?

-We're in Mad Mary's room.

Good grief.

That is amazing!

That inspired some of our most famous authors.

Charles Dickens, The Bronte Sisters, Thomas Hardy, and Jane Austen.

(Kathryn) We have Jane Austen's writing table.

(Gyles) Wow!

With the help of some friends.

Good afternoon.

I'll unlock the secrets behind their unforgettable novels.

Oh, I love it!

Delve into their lives and uncover the true life events that inspired the greatest stories ever told.

-The sale of a wife.

-Oh, this is literally detective work.

They may be gone, but their tales live on, brought to our screens by some very familiar faces.

So come with me, as I discover Britain, just as it was written.

That's what I call a story.

(orchestral music) ♪ Today, people love to binge on a romantic comedy for 90 minutes of escapist pleasure.

But all these plots, conflicts and characters were pioneered, not by Hollywood screenwriters, but someone far closer to home.

The queen of the ironic put down, and mistress of the social satire herself.

Jane Austen was born in 1775, and completed just six novels during her short lifetime, and yet, almost two hundred and fifty years later, she's a literary phenomenon, a global brand, such a British institution, she even features on our bank notes.

♪ Jane Austen's greatest contribution is changing the way millions of us worldwide, read and enjoy novels.

With a string of unforgettable stories, from Emma, to Pride and Prejudice.

And her own life story starts here, in rural Hampshire.

♪ When I was a teenager, and I first read Jane Austen, I think I pictured the author living in a kind of stately home with servants, gardens, the works, not in a small country cottage like this, charming, as it is.

♪ Sadly, the house in the village of Steventon, where Jane grew up, was demolished long ago.

But another of its ancient buildings still stands.

Saint Nicholas Church was where Jane's father, George, was rector and where she herself spent much of the first 25 years of her life.

♪ Showing me around this sacred ground is avid Austen aficionado and church warden, Marilyn Wright.

Oh my!

(Marilyn) Welcome to St. Nicholas Church.

(Gyles) It's a beautiful church.

How old is it?

(Marilyn) It was probably built about 1200.

(Gyles) And when was George Austen the rector here?

(Marilyn) So, he'd have been here about 1761.

And was rector for about 40 years.

-Forty years?

-Forty years.

(Gyles) So he and the family knew this church so well.

-They would have done.

-So, the local, grand family, they'd have been at the front, sort of away from prying eyes, being kept warm by the fire, and then, further back, you get the humbler, humbler and humbler.

I mean, the class system, was exemplified in the church.

(Marilyn) Definitely.

The Austen's would have been fairly near the front of the church, and then you'd have servants and the common villagers at the back of the church.

(Gyles) I can picture her in the pews, thinking naughty thoughts.

(Marilyn) Oh, definitely and--and wicked wit.

(Gyles) When I was at church, we used to-- when I was in the choir, we used to get half a crown for weddings, five shillings for funerals, and so we used to, be there, apparently praying, but actually sizing up the old people in the congregation, and willing them to die.

Do you think she ever did anything naughty like that?

(Marilyn) She certainly did, and we have got an example of it here, actually, I can show you.

Late in the 18th century, priests started recording banns of marriage and-- (Gyles) The banns of marriage is to announce the forthcoming-- (Marilyn) To announce the forthcoming marriage and you will see that Jane has somehow got hold of the book.

Now she would have been quite young at the time and she started writing in here.

The banns of marriage between Henry Frederick Howard Fitzwilliam of London -and Jane Austen of Steventon.

-How wonderful!

-It's a fantasy engagement.

-But it's wonderful that she has used the name Fitzwilliam.

(Gyles) Of course, which is one of the names of Darcy.

-Darcy, yes.

-So this is when she's only 12, 13 years of age, she is already--she is having a fantasy engagement to a Fitzwilliam.

-Oh, it's fantastic.

-But then later on, and this is the entry for marriage-- (Gyles) She follows it through with a marriage?

(Marilyn) Uhm, but she is actually marrying Edmund Arthur William Mortimer of Liverpool.

(Gyles) So she's broken off the engagement to Fitzwilliam.

-It would seem like it.

-Get thee behind me Darcy.

I've got fresher fish to fry.

Oh, I love it.

I think it's completely amazing, I had no idea.

And in a way, this is almost the closest she--well, this is the closest she gets, to getting married.

-This marriage certificate.

-Certainly.

(Gyles) You've got a little Austen novel in a sense, in this small church, we've got the class structure, with the pews, you've got the Anglican faith, -at the center of their lives.

-Yes.

(Gyles) And you've got all the goss you could possibly hope to want, -in the register.

-In the register, that's right.

-Yes.

-It's fantastic.

Coming up, sex.

(Gaby) "I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved."

(Gyles) Ah, go on.

I'm liking the goss.

Money.

So, this is fabulous wealth?

(Emma) This is multi millionaire status.

(Gyles) And shocks.

Ah!

Good grief!

♪ It's not possible to explore the world of Jane Austen, without dipping a toe into two subjects close to her heart.

Dancing and courtship.

In fact, balls appear in each of her six novels.

(Bidisha) Balls and parties are the most exciting thing to happen to Jane Austen's women characters ever.

Because you get within touching distance of a man.

And everybody knows it's a chance to flirt.

(Gyles) Austen's most famous novel Pride and Prejudice is a masterclass in flirtation.

And she uses dancing to expose the simmering sexual tension between Elizabeth Bennet and the man she thinks she despises, Mr. Darcy.

Clearly for Jane Austen, dancing and courtship were inextricably linked.

And today, I've come to the splendid Ash House in Hampshire to discover how her formative years attending parties here, may have inspired her fiction.

♪ It's cold and wet today.

I don't know what the weather was like, on January 8th 1796, but I do know, it was a very special day for Jane Austen, because romance in the air.

That night was no ordinary dance for her.

It was the birthday party of one Thomas Le Froy, a man Austen devotees believe was her one true love.

♪ -Welcome into the party room.

-My goodness.

So, this is where Tom Le Froy had his birthday party?

-Yes.

-What happened at a party -like this?

-Well, you would have had the dancing and there would have been some drinking.

-Drinking?

-Yes.

Jane liked a glass or two of wine, and the parties went on for hours and hours.

(Gyles) So, this is drinking, dancing.

-This is a regency rave.

-It is.

(Gyles) And how do we know what happened that night?

(Gaby) Well, Jane herself has told us, in a letter that she wrote, the very next day, to her sister.

"You scold me so much, in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you, that I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish and I behaved"" -The Irish friend being?

-Thomas Le Froy.

(Gyles) The young Tom Le Froy?

Ah, go on.

I'm liking the goss.

(Gaby) "Imagine to yourself, everything most profligate and shocking, in the way of dancing and sitting down together."

She describes him as very gentleman-like, good looking-- -Good looking.

-"Pleasant young man, I assure you, but as to our having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much, for he is so excessively laughed at about me, at Ash that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon and ran away when we called on Mrs.

Le Froy a few days ago."

(Gyles) Sadly, this budding romance fizzled out before it could even properly start.

In the 18th century, a potential match like Jane and Tom, required more than just mutual attraction, they needed wealth.

Something that neither one possessed.

So, what she lacked was money?

Had she had a fortune, she had everything else going for her.

(Gaby) Yes, if she'd had money and connections, if there had been just that something extra, then perhaps it would have been a different story.

"It came the day on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Le Froy, and when you receive this, it will be over.

My tears flow, as I write at the melancholy idea."

(Gyles) Oh, my goodness.

Tom Le Froy, the one that got away.

Well, he missed out.

He missed a good-- -He certainly did!

-Absolutely!

-Didn't he just?

-Wow!

-He really did.

-Men, they're all the same, you know complete idiots.

♪ Jane wrote her major novels, during the reign of the Prince Regent.

Better known as the Regency Period.

♪ During this time, Britain's upper classes flourished.

And though Jane herself didn't come from great wealth, her attendance at parties allowed her to observe them at play.

And one close relative offered an even more intimate insight.

Her brother, Edward.

He was seven years her senior, the owner of this magnificent estate and a man who could have stepped out of any of her novels.

This is Chawton House.

Built in the 1580s, by the Knight family.

And looking much as it did when all those stories of hers were being written.

Oh my!

Now, this is the sort of house, I think, Jane Austen's novels are set in.

Much more like it.

Let's see if Mr. Knightley is in.

Aged twelve, Jane's brother Edward, was introduced to the wealthy, but childless, Thomas and Catherine Knight.

To avoid their family line coming to an end, they adopted him and made him Lord of the manor.

Lucky Edward.

♪ He is magnificent, was he a magnificent fellow?

Was he a good fellow?

Do we like him?

(Emma) All accounts of Edward Austen are that he was a very amiable fellow.

-Oh, good.

-He is known to have a good temperament, which is why it seems that the Knight family picked him, and he was always known to be -very generous to his family.

-How wealthy did he become?

(Emma) So, it's estimated that Edward Austen's income was around 8,000 pounds a year.

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy who was fabulously wealthy, is described as having an income of 10,000 pounds a year.

(Gyles) So, this is fabulous wealth?

(Emma) This is multi-millionaire status.

(Gyles) And of course, Jane is a middle class girl.

The daughter of a parson and, this is her gateway to the world of the landed gentry.

(Emma) Very much so, so when Edward ascends and takes on this huge estate, it's the first time that Jane Austen really has this sustained and in-depth place in the world of the landed gentry, which she talks about so often in her novels.

(Gyles) For Jane, observing Edward's life of opulence was the perfect way to experience the higher echelons of Regency Britain, including the latest 18th century fad, health tourism.

(sneezing) Bless me.

Bath.

One of the best preserved and most elegant cities of Georgian Britain.

And in Jane's day, this was the place to be seen.

Like any self respecting Georgian gent, Jane's brother, Edward, suffered terribly from the disease of kings.

Better known as gout, and to find a cure, well, you made your way here, to the city of Bath to discover the celebrated spa waters.

It was Edward's fondness for red wine that brought on his condition.

And in 1799, he and a 23 year old Jane, travelled to Bath, hoping for a cure.

An experience that some believe inspired her first completed novel, Northanger Abbey, written that same year.

In an early scene, heroine Catherine Moorland, accompanies a wealthy family friend, to take the waters, at the famous pump room.

In the hope of curing his painful gout.

And today, I am going to try it myself.

One 17th century visitor, described the waters, as tasting, and smelling like boiled eggs.

So, wish me luck.

Interesting.

It's warm.

But I'm feeling better already.

♪ Below the pump room, is the original Roman Spa, one of the most important ancient sites in Britain.

♪ Jackie Herring, is director of the Jane Austen festival.

And a fountain of knowledge when it comes to Edward Austen's search for a remedy for his crippling gout.

What was the range of cures available to Edward?

(Jackie) Well, of course, there was blood letting, that you could get anywhere, there was leeches, there was the waters, which you drank, or you bathed in, or you had pumped at you.

Jane writes, in a letter to her sister Cassandra about Edward going to try the waters and then try electricity.

(Gyles) And that was a bit of an electric shock put through you?

(Jackie) Electric shock put through you.

Put through the part that was hurting, that sort of thing.

Yes but Jane and the rest of the family, they were really dubious about it.

(Gyles) In the 18th century, static electricity was a treatment of choice for dodgy doctors.

Including, notorious quack James Graham, inventor of the celestial bed.

Who charged a whopping four and a half thousand pounds, in today's money to zap couples in need of a boost to their sex lives.

I've not spent that much today, but after a bit of late night internet shopping, I've got my hands on this replica of an 18th century static electricity machine.

Let's see what happens.

Oh my goodness!

I can see the spark.

I can see it, you can hear it.

Oh my gosh, I hope this isn't dangerous?

Do you think I hold on to it here--Ah!

Good grief!

Well, certainly put me off drinking.

Next, on my travels, how Jane Austen faced a backlash against books.

(Dr. Ballinger) Reading novels was a kind of lesser thing, than say reading poetry, and could in fact, corrupt young women.

(Gyles) And I encounter 18th century fashion with fabulous frocks.

-Why are you smiling?

-That's why money is so important in the novels.

It's not about greed or wealth, it's about survival.

(lively music) (Gyles) I am in Bath.

Renowned for its Medieval Abbey, Roman Spa, and, of course, Jane Austen.

Each year, fans flock here for the annual festival in her honor.

Fitting as Jane lived in Bath for five years during her twenties.

But in reality, it was not a productive time for her.

She was still unpublished and almost gave up writing entirely while living here.

Maybe she was too busy reading.

Oh, this is rather special.

A sign telling us that in Jane Austen's day, this clothes shop was a circulating library and believe it or not, libraries like this were among the most controversial places in Georgian Britain.

The 18th century saw the birth of the modern novel but books were expensive to buy.

And if you wanted to read, the only solution was private lending libraries.

Most members were middle class women like Jane herself, and the most popular type of books were novels.

Something that men of a certain status detested.

For Jane, some of the contemporary criticism of novels was so ridiculous, it was ripe for satire.

As she explored in her first completed novel, Northanger Abbey.

Well, here we are in Bath where Northanger Abbey is set.

What is Jane Austen telling us about novels and novel reading in Northanger Abbey?

(Dr. Ballinger) She uses the opportunity, to say that actually the novel form, is one that is denigrated, when it should be celebrated.

(Gyles) Were people then snobbish about novel reading?

(Dr. Ballinger) Yes, absolutely, there was a sense, in which, actually reading novels was a kind of lesser thing, than say reading poetry, that it was kind of consumable literature, that was a bit rubbish, and could, in fact, corrupt young women, if they read the wrong type of fiction.

(Gyles) It may seem extraordinary today, but novels were the moral panic of the 18th century.

That once had the great and the good, clutching their pearls.

(upbeat music) All sorts of things have caused such panic in my lifetime, from rock 'n roll to the ever present smartphone.

Fueling our addiction to selfies and social media.

And was there an element of this being like the new media, you know today, um, because I find, on the whole that Twitter is more interesting than life and I have got my nose constantly in this.

Were there fears that people had their noses locked in a novel?

(Dr. Ballinger) Absolutely.

There was the concern that women, in particular, may be so busy reading novels that they're unfit for social interaction, for example, so we can think about how the novels themselves were this kind of new media that many feared, because they felt that it had these kinds of pernicious effects.

(Gyles) Sorry, I missed that bit.

What?

Sorry.

Quite interesting, sorry, would you say it again?

(Dr. Ballinger) That women, in particular, were reading novels, rather than actually interacting with others and generally, being part and parcel of ordinary life.

(Gyles) And was it controversial, for Jane Austen to champion -the novel in Northanger Abbey?

-Yes, yes.

This is quite an unusual thing to do, and, often, writers didn't want to put their heads above the parapet and try to defend the genre, so her doing this, I think is quite an assured thing to do.

For a young woman, who is writing this novel, essentially in the 1790s when she is only in her twenties.

(Gyles) Northanger Abbey demonstrates the author's gift for satirizing the gothic novel and sending up life in Georgian Britain.

Nothing escapes Jane's beady eye, and she is at her sharpest, wittiest, and most observant, when she is writing about her two obsessions, class and money.

(orchestral music) ♪ (John) Well, if you're a gentile woman, in the world of Jane Austen's novels, your relative poverty or affluence, are likely to depend on, whether you marry and who you marry.

And that is life.

That's why money is so important in the novels, it's not about greed or wealth, it's about survival.

♪ (Gyles) Jane Austen's obsession with money was shared by her characters.

In Pride and Prejudice, the first thing we're told about Mrs. Bingley and Darcy is that they are unattached.

The second, is that they're rich.

"What is his name?

Bingley.

Is he married or single?

Oh, single my dear, to be sure, a single man, of large fortune, four or five thousand a year."

You see, it's all about the pound, shillings and pence.

♪ When it came to social class, Jane was firmly in the middle.

A position that allowed her to observe one of the most fascinating developments of the 18th century.

A changing status of the gentlemen.

Originally a term for the aristocracy, it gradually came to include the likes of merchants, clergy and naval officers.

And when it came to fashion, Georgian gentlemen took their appearance very seriously.

With fabulous frocks, locks and wigs galore.

In fact, 21st century males look rather bland compared to the colorful dandies of Austen's era.

♪ Unless your name is Zack Pinsent.

♪ A tailor by day, Zack is a real-life Austen man about town.

♪ -Hello, Zack.

-Ah, hello.

-Good to see you, Gyles.

-Well, it's very good to see you, you look the business.

-Oh, thank you very much.

-Stylish.

Now, what, I say the business, what year are you dressed in?

(Zac) So, this is the outfit of a gentlemen, from about 1810.

(Gyles) And, do you wear this normally in the 21st century?

(Zack) Indeed, I don't own or wear really any modern clothes at all.

-And why is that?

-I suppose life is far too short to be boring and not enjoy what you're wearing.

And, if the clothes of nowadays don't excite enthusiasm in you, then why not try and look at the past and see what that has to offer.

(Gyles) Well, that's me convinced.

Not that I ever need too much of an excuse to dress up.

Oh, this is marvelous!

Because the chins disappear.

-Exactly!

-Oh, I am liking this already!

(Zack) Throughout history, clothes have always had something to say, but nowadays, I say that clothes are completely silent, -they have nothing to say.

-And what were they saying -at the time of Jane Austen?

-I am a man of fashion.

I am a man about town, I can afford a horse and carriage.

All of that sort of thing, and this, which is quite lovely, is a banyan, this is the sort of thing -that Mr. Bennett might wear.

-Banyan?

(Zack) Because of course, he is referred to -as wearing his powdering gown.

-Oh, a powdering-- that's what he wears around the house, isn't it?

-Indeed.

-These robes are wonderfully comfy but I'm after something more Darcy-like, Oh, this is quite nice.

Oh, yes.

(Zack) Not too far off.

-Why are you smiling?

-No reason.

-No reason.

-Darcy's supposed to be smoldering.

♪ -Good morning.

-Good morning.

(Gyles) Good morning, nice to see you.

-Then I put my hat back on?

-Indeed.

(Gyles) Have I got it at the right angle?

-Bingo.

-Jaunty?

-Perpetually.

-Thank you.

♪ You know, Zack, we're a couple of cool dudes.

This is 1810 and I feel very much at home here, I think you and I can now step into the pages of a Jane Austen novel.

-After you.

-Thank you, sir.

-Get you some boots next time.

-Thank you very much.

With buckles, I hope?

Fancy clothes were not the only way the middle class flashed their cash.

Austen with witness to the huge explosion in domestic tourism.

No longer was going on holiday the exclusive preserve of the elite.

But rather than the grand tour through Europe, that the likes of Mr. Darcy might enjoy, the new middle classes, like Jane, and her parents, came here, to Lyme Regis in Dorset.

To enjoy all that the town had to offer.

Sun, sand, and skinny dipping.

♪ Seaside resorts like this were an 18th century British invention.

And for the 27 year old, Jane, they offered a pleasant diversion from the struggles of trying to get published.

Boasting her favorite attraction, the sea itself.

She just had to find a way to get into it.

♪ When Jane and her family first came to Lyme Regis in 1803, swimming costumes hadn't yet been invented, so she had to hitch a lift in a bathing machine.

♪ These were miniature mobile modesty wagons, that a lady could step into, and be pulled into the sea away from prying eyes.

We know from Jane's letters that she was an avid fan of bathing machines and swimming, and in those days, ladies swam in the nude.

Given that, her first visit here was in November, she was certainly a braver soul than I am.

♪ (John) Somebody goes to the seaside in every Jane Austen novel because the seaside is a kind of, sort of liberated zone in the world of her fiction.

The seaside can either be a place of disillusion and sexuality and bad behavior, or as in Lyme Regis, which you have in a beautiful novel of hers called Persuasion.

It's a time when, you can be free and emotions come loose and you can relax a little bit, so the seaside is where morals get a bit--get a bit loose.

(Gyles) Lyme Regis certainly made an impression on Jane, with these stunning cliffs and beaches, amongst only a handful of real places, that she wrote about, in any of her novels.

I suspect she loved it so much because, like the novels that she read so avidly, it was an escape for her.

An escape from worries about money, about settling down, about who she was going to marry.

Isn't that what holidays are supposed to be about?

Next... Good afternoon.

I discover the roots of Austen's humor.

She is properly funny.

And quite mean and I quite like that about her, as well.

(Gyles) And explore the secrets of her real life inspiration So, Jane takes real people and then adds that little bit extra?

(Sophie) Eliza really is the most glamorous and exotic person in her life.

It's not surprising to think that she might have been inspired by that.

Humor is at the heart of every Jane Austen novel.

To understand more about the roots of Jane's comedy, I am returning to Hampshire, the county where she spent most of her life.

From the outside, cottages like this one, might not look particularly special.

Until you walk through the door.

♪ Welcome to the house where Jane lived from the age of 33.

A humble home, for an incredible imagination.

Well, it's not nearly as grand as I expected.

-Oh, it's not grand at all.

-Pemberley, this isn't.

(Kathryn) It's a very modest cottage, in which Jane and her sister, Cassandra, their lifelong friend, Martha Lloyd, and her mother all lived, so it was a four women, household.

(Gyles) This is the home, where Jane finally became a published author.

Completing and creating all six of her truly timeless novels, over an eight year period.

Writing in the corner of this very room.

(Kathryn) In this space, we have Jane Austen's writing table.

Wow!

-Which is-- -This is the table... -Tiny, yes.

-...On which we know what works -were written on this table?

-Well, at this table, we know that she wrote from scratch Mansfield Park and Persuasion -and she wrote here Emma.

-At this very table?

-At this very table, yes.

-That's amazing.

If there's one characteristic of all those famous novels, well, they are funny.

I just love Jane Austen's wicked sense of humor.

And I am on my way to meet a couple of people who really understand her kind of comedy.

Since 2011, Austentatious!

have been electrifying Edinburgh and the West End with the brilliant idea of staging an entirely improvised comedy play in the style of Jane Austen.

(actress #1) I was just talking to God and Jesus.

(actress #2) I've just come to speak to them both too.

Do you ever speak to the Holy Spirit?

-I never bother with that.

-No.

Too transparent.

(actress #1) Yes.

-Hello, ladies.

-Hello.

(Gyles) Oh, I like that!

Very gracious.

They told me this was Comedy Courtyard.

-Yes.

-And how does it work?

How does your--when you do your show -what happens in Austentatious?

-So we ask the audience, in fact we ask them to fill in something like this which is a title slip and they have to choose the title for the novel they would like to see performed.

(Gyles) Oh, I love this!

"Please write up a made up book title below" and somebody's wrote Strictly Come Darcy.

-That's right.

-So you then do an improvisation that is both in this case Pride and Prejudice and a touch of Strictly Come Dancing?

-That's it.

-I love it.

What do you think Jane Austen would have made of your show?

-I think she'd have loved it.

-Yeah, I do.

(Rachel) Not just like being conceited there, but we know from her early writings that she loved putting plays on, just for fun, you know, not as a great, huge work of art, so I think she didn't take drama or herself too seriously and that's all we're trying to do, so I like to think she'd have enjoyed it.

(Gyles) I don't know if I can take part or do you just-- -Do you ever have men in it?

-Oh, absolutely, yes.

-Yes, we do.

-You do allow men in it.

Well, I think it's time to bring on the show, don't you?

-Let's do it!

-I want to be part of this!

Let's go into the house.

♪ At last it looks like I'm going to achieve my ambition of being Mr. Darcy.

Better remind myself of how others did it.

Should I play him with the ravish charm of Laurence Olivier, in this classic 1940 version?

Or like the rather smoldering Colin Firth, in the BBCs definitive adaptation?

Hmm, it's a tough one.

(gasping) -Good afternoon.

-Good afternoon, sir.

-Do you wish to sit, Mr. Darcy?

-Would you wish for -a cup of tea, Mr. Darcy?

-Thank you for asking.

It's quite tedious here in the country, isn't it?

(Amy) Why, we find many things diverting here.

(Gyles) Do you?

May I ask, is your sister here?

(Rachel) She is indisposed, sir.

(Gyles) She is indisposed.

Well, I think I am not disposed to stay much longer.

(Amy) Why, I am sure that we could, uh, Mary could play the piano?

-Yes, I would be glad to.

-Thank you for the suggestion.

Good afternoon, ladies.

Hold on.

Good afternoon, ladies.

I think it's more Darcy-like.

Good afternoon, ladies.

I shall be taking a bath upstairs, feel free to catch me-- (laughing) Well, that's what they do now, don't they!

He has to strip off, the poor fellow.

Cut!

(laughing) Characters like Darcy feel so three dimensional, so familiar, so real that I have often suspected they were based on actual people... and it seems, I was right.

Curator, Sophie Reynolds, has been delving into the family secrets to uncover the real life inspirations for Austen's most famous creations.

From Jane Austen's cousin, the Reverend Edmund Cooper, who apparently inspired the pompous Reverend Collins in Pride and Prejudice, to her rather wonderfully named first cousin, Eliza de Feuillide.

(Sophie) People are always looking to Eliza and wanting to pinpoint who she is.

She was definitely a big influence on Jane Austen.

She loves the attention, she loves flirting she loves gossip, she loves parties so they get balls going, you know, she is kind of driving having lots of fun.

(Gyles) And does she become a specific heroine in Jane Austen's work or is she a type?

(Sophie) I think we can see Eliza in Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park.

They're not the same person.

Jane Austen was definitely inventing a character, in Mary Crawford, there are lots of other things going on there, but there are some really specific traits, particularly this love of theatricals, love of being center stage, the idea of, you know, flirting with somebody, as part of your part in the play that really is also something that Eliza would have really related to.

(Gyles) So, Jane takes real people and then adds that little bit extra?

(Sophie) Eliza really is the most glamorous and exotic person in her life.

It's not surprising to think that she might have been inspired by that.

(Gyles) Next, Jane gets political.

(Oke) There is definitely a sense within her novels of what is and what isn't appropriate for women to be doing and saying.

(Gyles) Jane Austen loved nothing more than poking fun.

In her books, she gleefully took pot shots at any aspect of society she didn't like.

Her cheeky style earned her millions of fans but she also had her critics.

Some accused her of focusing on small closed worlds and ignoring the major events shaping English life.

From war, to revolution.

History appears to be curiously absent.

But Austen did try to tackle one major issue through the perspective of one of her characters and it was the most controversial of all.

Slavery.

In Mansfield Park, heroine, Fanny Price, is sent to live with her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram.

But all is not well financially.

And he is soon called away to Antigua to manage his sugar plantations.

In one now, much discussed scene, Fanny tells her cousin how she questions Sir Thomas on his return from the West Indies.

"Did not you hear me ask him about the slave trade last night?

I did and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others, it would have pleased your uncle, to be enquired further.

And, I long to do it.

But there was such a dead silence."

This short passage has become one of the most talked about in all Austen's fiction.

She herself lived in Bath, a city built on the profits of slavery.

Indeed, these beautiful Georgian streets were developed by Sir William Pultney, Britain's richest man, who, like the fictional Sir Thomas, made his fortune from slavery.

He also just happened to be Jane's landlord.

(orchestral music) This is Sydney Place.

Built by Pultney, and this is the house where Jane Austen lived with her parents, for four years, from 1801.

And interestingly around the corner, was the home of William Wilberforce, the most prominent campaigner for the abolition of slavery.

So, Jane was literally living at the heart of the most hotly debated issue of the day.

But did she actually have an opinion on it?

If she did, she kept it hidden.

At least, according to writer and Austen fan, Oke Nzelu.

Oke, you're a novelist.

What do you make of Jane Austen?

(Oke) I've always loved her novels actually.

The way that she writes dialogue between characters as a way of getting to know them, the way she uses marriage as a lens through which to see the world and to discuss all sorts of things like money and family and parenting.

But, when it comes to, perhaps bigger more controversial topics, like slavery, that's when it starts to become problematic and disappointing.

(Gyles) She seems to share that disappointment because certainly in Mansfield Park, the character almost wants to talk more about slavery, but nobody else did.

(Oke) Yes, one can understand why Jane Austen would have put that question in the mouth of Fanny because she is the protagonist, but she is also very meek and quiet and she doesn't really have the personality for forcing that conversation, if nobody wants to have it.

(Gyles) But did it reflect what was happening at the time?

There were people who did want to talk about the problem of slavery but there were many people who didn't.

(Oke) Yeah, I think that's definitely true.

It's poetry and God, essentially, that Fanny Price gets to talk and think about so it's not surprising that this wouldn't have been a topic of popular conversation at dinner parties at the time.

(Gyles) Well, I'd rather talk about poetry and God than most things.

(Oke) I suppose it depends which poems and which God.

(Gyles) Yeah, very good.

In the final part of my Austen odyssey, the world wakes up to her genius.

(Emma) He starts to actually reveal the novels -are written by Jane Austen.

-Oh, how intriguing.

And I found out how Jane still inspires story tellers even today.

♪ In 1816, aged just 40 years old, Jane Austen fell ill, beginning with a pain in her back, she soon lost the ability to walk, even short distances.

She thought it was rheumatism and by January 1817 believed that she was getting better, claiming that sickness is a dangerous indulgence at my time of life.

On March 18th, she was struck down by fever.

And had to stop work on her latest novel.

She would never write again.

After four more months, suffering from this mysterious, undiagnosed illness, Jane passed away.

Yet, despite good sales, Jane, like many female writers, published anonymously, so how did her celebrity take off after her death?

So Jane Austen never saw her own name on the title page -of any of her books?

-That's correct.

But it's interesting, after Jane Austen dies in 1817, she has these works that were unpublished and her family decided to publish them and that's how we get Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

Now, this is a first edition of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, they were published together.

(Gyles) Still no name of the author on the title page.

(Emma) Exactly, but if I turn the page here you will see we have biographical notice of the author, and this is written by her brother, Henry, and you will see here, that he starts to actually for the first time reveal that the novels that we are seeing on these title pages, are written by Jane Austen.

(Gyles) "The hand which guided that pen is now moldering in the grave, perhaps a brief account of Jane Austen will be read, with a kindlier sentiment, than simple curiosity."

So, this is the first time we know that the author of these hugely successful novels is Jane Austen.

(Emma) This is the first time it's confirmed and printed in a work with her novels.

(Gyles) Love for Austen gathered momentum throughout the 19th century and into the 20th.

And Jane's stories of young heroines, navigating Georgian society, soon found a rather surprising fan base.

Soldiers.

During the First World War, millions of books were sent to the front line and Jane Austen's was so popular that in 1924, Jungle Book author Rudyard Kippling, wrote the short story The Janeites.

About a group of soldiers bonding over Austen, just as they prepare to go over the top and face certain death.

Kipling's nickname for Austen devotees has stuck ever since, and if you are a Janeite, hungry for more from your favorite author, novels inspired by Jane's novels are hugely popular.

Sales of Pride and Prejudice with zombies have topped two million.

And it's even been made into a goretastic movie.

No surprise as Jane Austen is one of the most bankable names in Hollywood.

(upbeat music) If Jane Austen wrote it, somebody's filmed it and millions upon millions of us, have been to the cinema to watch it.

As our seemingly never ending appetite for Jane Austen proves, she will always be a writer close to our hearts.

(Bidisha) Jane Austen's legacy is absolutely huge, both as a writer and a storyteller.

Everything Austen was writing about in the very early 1800s is still being written about in the 21st century.

(Gyles) Austen's stories of adventurous young women, coming of age have been a constant source of comfort to later generations as they have grown up.

We have fallen in love with her characters, been sucked in by her humor and got lost in her imagination.

Jane Austen the clergyman's daughter who wrote her books in a small village in Hampshire and then went on to conquer the world.

The films are one thing and they are wonderful but what I have discovered on our journey, is that the books are even better.

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