Book cover of Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England: How Our Ancestors Lived Two Centuries Ago

Book description

Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England explores the real England of Jane Austen's lifetime. It was a troubled period, with disturbing changes in industry and agriculture and a constant dread of invasion and revolution. The comfortable, tranquil country of her fiction is a complete contrast to the England in which she…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

What were the lives of ordinary people like during Austen’s day?

They were far removed from the elegant folk depicted in her novels. The authors look at topics such as child miners, chimney sweeps, crime and punishment, personal hygiene, and how to do the laundry.

True stories look at the horrors of surgery and childbirth in those days of no anesthesia and little understanding of infection. 

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