logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2017
28m 32s

Jane Austen

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

In the 200th anniversary year of the death of one of Britain's finest novelists, Ernie Rea considers the religious world of Jane Austen and how it is reflected in her novels.

Ernie is joined by novelist and priest Marie-Elsa Bragg, the social and architectural historian William Whyte, Oxford University lecturer Freya Johnston and Rev Paula Hollingsworth, author of "The Spirituality of Jane Austen."

Producer Rosie Dawson.

Up next
Apr 22
Cultural Religiosity
Giles Fraser meets columnist Giles Coren, who was raised in the Jewish tradition, became an atheist and who now feels at home in a Christian church, to explore what it means to be culturally religious.Is cultural religiosity an oxymoron and totally untenable? Is it on the rise or ... Show More
27m 29s
Apr 15
Claiming Christianity
Giles Fraser meets the Revd Canon Fr Phil Harris, of the Anglican Church in North America, to discuss defending Britain’s Christian heritage.Christianity has been deployed as a tool by those who have been labelled as far-right by their opponents, or by people supporting far-right ... Show More
27m 14s
Apr 8
Faithful Food
We hear from the volunteers serving an average of 1,500 meals a day at the Gurdwara Siri Guru Singh Sabha in Hounslow and explore the significance of langar in the Sikh and wider community. Mona Siddiqui and the panel explore the role food plays in religion. Do all religious trad ... Show More
27m 20s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2013
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
This month in a very special edition, we’re celebrating that most English of novelists Jane Austen. It’s two hundred years this month since the publication of Pride and Prejudice and we’ve invited bestselling British novelist and Jane Austen aficionado PD James, along with Anglo- ... Show More
52m 58s
Jun 2015
Jane Eyre
The story of Jane Eyre is one of the best-known in English fiction. Jane is the orphan who survives a miserable early life, first with her aunt at Gateshead Hall and then at Lowood School. She leaves the school for Thornfield Hall, to become governess to the French ward of Mr Roc ... Show More
45m 37s
Jun 2015
Jane Eyre
The story of Jane Eyre is one of the best-known in English fiction. Jane is the orphan who survives a miserable early life, first with her aunt at Gateshead Hall and then at Lowood School. She leaves the school for Thornfield Hall, to become governess to the French ward of Mr Roc ... Show More
45m 37s
Apr 2015
Fanny Burney
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the 18th-century novelist, playwright and diarist Fanny Burney, also known as Madame D'Arblay and Frances Burney. Her first novel, Evelina, was published anonymously and caused a sensation, attracting the admiration of many ... Show More
44m 25s
Jul 2021
Saint John Henry Newman
Catherine Pepinster, Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley and New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel join Rana Mitter to look at the poet, theologian and now Saint John Henry. The programme explores Newman's conversion from the high church tradition of Anglicanism and the Oxford Movemen ... Show More
44m 39s
Oct 2023
Jane Austen
Jane Austen is arguably the most famous female writer in history. Her novels have gone on to inspire countless films, plays, and dramas all over the world, and have been translated into almost 50 different languages. But how did an 18th Century woman create stories that are still ... Show More
48m 42s
Feb 2023
John Donne
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Donne (1573-1631), known now as one of England’s finest poets of love and notable in his own time as an astonishing preacher. He was born a Catholic in a Protestant country and, when he married Anne More without her father's knowledge, Donne lost h ... Show More
51m 47s
Jan 2023
Persuasion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen’s last complete novel, which was published just before Christmas in 1817, five months after her death. It is the story of Anne Elliot, now 27 and (so we are told), losing her bloom, and of her feelings for Captain Wentworth who she was ... Show More
50m 49s
Jan 2023
Persuasion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen’s last complete novel, which was published just before Christmas in 1817, five months after her death. It is the story of Anne Elliot, now 27 and (so we are told), losing her bloom, and of her feelings for Captain Wentworth who she was ... Show More
50m 49s
Apr 2022
Teaching and Inspiration
Anna Barbauld's Lessons for Children (1778-79) set off a new conversational style in books aimed at teaching children. She was just one of the female authors championed by Joseph Johnson, who was also responsible for publishing Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of W ... Show More
44m 57s