1 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:11,480 In our modern world, there's an idea that fills our dreams and desires. 2 00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:14,560 Something we've all searched for. 3 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:16,520 Romantic love. 4 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:21,880 Ooh! 5 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:27,120 # Love is the sweetest thing 6 00:00:27,120 --> 00:00:31,800 # What else on earth could ever bring... # 7 00:00:31,800 --> 00:00:34,600 What's fascinating is that 8 00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:38,040 so much of romance isn't about spontaneous feeling. 9 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:42,760 All of love's rituals had to be invented. 10 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:49,680 # Love is the sweetest thing. # 11 00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:53,760 Even the way that we feel can be traced back to specific 12 00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:55,240 historical moments. 13 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:04,480 In this series, I'm going to tell the story of three centuries of romance. 14 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:10,200 Romance changed us from a society where courtship was controlled 15 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:14,200 to one where the romantic possibilities seemed endless. 16 00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:18,480 It crossed barriers of class and sexuality 17 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:22,280 and transformed the way women and men relate to one another. 18 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:27,320 And none of this would have happened without 19 00:01:27,320 --> 00:01:29,600 the invention of the romantic novel. 20 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:33,160 This was literature that 21 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:36,160 was as revolutionary as a political manifesto. 22 00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:38,760 By focusing on love, 23 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:42,800 it drove readers to seek new forms of romance in their own lives. 24 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:46,200 No other artform has 25 00:01:46,200 --> 00:01:51,480 so utterly transformed the way the British think and feel. 26 00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:52,880 SHE SIGHS 27 00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:56,160 In this first programme, I'm taking you back to the Georgian age, 28 00:01:56,160 --> 00:02:00,320 when romance as we would recognise it first appeared. 29 00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:03,720 People started reading romantic novels. 30 00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:08,360 Fashionable love letters were full of tears and purple prose. 31 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,240 And with moonlit flits to Gretna Green, 32 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:15,920 romantic adventure started to enter the lives of ordinary people. 33 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:21,880 There were new ways of feeling and flirting and expressing your love. 34 00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:25,400 Welcome to the first blossoming of British romance. 35 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:31,280 # I only hope that fate may bring 36 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:35,360 # Love's story to you. # 37 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:45,600 I confess. 38 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:50,800 I do love a good costume drama, but for me, the business of getting 39 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:56,960 together in real life in Georgian times is surprisingly unromantic. 40 00:02:56,960 --> 00:03:01,160 Let's start with a true story. Just think to yourself - 41 00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:05,560 what are the ingredients of a great 18th-century romance? 42 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:12,520 Well, probably a big house like this, a spirited heroine, like this, 43 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:15,240 and perhaps a handsome hero. 44 00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:20,080 Unfortunately, for Mary Granville, an exceptionally beautiful Georgian 45 00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:24,440 teenager, she wasn't to get the happy ever after that she'd hoped for. 46 00:03:28,160 --> 00:03:33,760 In Mary's own account of her life, she remembers how naive she was 47 00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:39,360 when she went in 1717 to stay at the house of her rich uncle, 48 00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:42,840 little realising that she'd been invited 49 00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:46,920 as potential wife material for his rich friends. 50 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:52,120 The house was busy, it was full of guests. Mary was out in society. 51 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:54,760 She was as happy as she could have imagined. 52 00:03:54,760 --> 00:04:00,760 But then, an old friend of her uncle's arrived, Mr Pendarves. 53 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:06,840 According to Mary, Mr Pendarves was 54 00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:10,240 "a person who was more disgusting than engaging". 55 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:15,640 Over three times her age, his face was crimson 56 00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:18,000 and he was excessively fat. 57 00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:23,480 His clothes were shabby and he was ridden with gout. 58 00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:29,360 The days turned in to weeks and Mary came to the horrific 59 00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:33,600 realisation that Mr Pendarves was staying for her. 60 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:38,520 She did her best to put him off. She was rude to him. 61 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:42,280 When he walked in to the room, she'd walk out again. 62 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:44,840 She even slammed the door on him. 63 00:04:44,840 --> 00:04:48,800 But Mr Pendarves would not be deterred. 64 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:52,800 HE BURPS LOUDLY 65 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:56,000 Too late, Mary went to see her uncle, 66 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:58,400 who told her to stop being so childish 67 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:03,000 and commanded her to marry her geriatric Romeo. 68 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:05,280 Now, if this had been a Jane Austen novel, 69 00:05:05,280 --> 00:05:07,960 things would have worked out for poor Mary. 70 00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:11,040 A handsome young man with good prospects would have come along 71 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:12,480 and rescued her. 72 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:18,120 But Mr Pendarves' land and influence were valuable to Mary's uncle, 73 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:19,720 so the marriage went ahead. 74 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:32,480 Married life for Mrs Pendarves would be mercifully short. 75 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:36,720 Her husband's heavy drinking saw to that. 76 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:42,560 One morning, she woke up in their bed, had a look at him, 77 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:44,760 he was black in the face. 78 00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:47,280 He had died in the night. 79 00:05:47,280 --> 00:05:51,680 As Mary herself put it, being a widow was not unwelcome. 80 00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:59,440 The predicament of Mary Pendarves, coerced into marrying for the 81 00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:04,480 benefit of her family, was a common one at the start of the 18th century. 82 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:08,680 And not just among the aristocracy. 83 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:17,400 Out on the street, the newly-emerging commercial 84 00:06:17,400 --> 00:06:21,080 and trading classes had started to reshape society. 85 00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:28,800 Here, life was precarious, with bankruptcy 86 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:31,120 and debtors prison a constant threat. 87 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:35,040 Marriage offered a strategic way for families 88 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:39,960 and the community to pool resources and safeguard the future. 89 00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:43,920 In the 18th century, your choice of who to marry wasn't 90 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:47,280 just your own business, nor even just your family's. 91 00:06:47,280 --> 00:06:50,200 It was a matter for the whole community. 92 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:52,120 People's jobs and their businesses 93 00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:55,160 and their status could all be affected. 94 00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:59,320 And this meant that everybody wanted a say in your choice of spouse. 95 00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:08,320 Recent historical research emphasises the high level of interference 96 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:11,560 that couples could expect from those around them. 97 00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:16,120 A talented apprentice might be encouraged to 98 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:19,320 court his master's daughter. He got a step up, 99 00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:23,720 while the long-term prospects of the business were protected. 100 00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:27,920 Where a couple couldn't provide for future children, the community 101 00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:31,680 might step in and collude with the vicar to stop the wedding. 102 00:07:33,640 --> 00:07:37,880 Even if you thought that your choice was your own, it very often wasn't. 103 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:44,600 The families and the friends of young courting couples would help them out. 104 00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:48,080 They'd deliver messages and arrange social occasions 105 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:50,720 and get-togethers for the young people to meet. 106 00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:53,920 They'd be ever so helpful, but really, 107 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:57,280 they were keeping an eye on what was happening and, in some cases, 108 00:07:57,280 --> 00:08:01,320 they were trying to bend the young lovers to their will. 109 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:10,840 We can see just how blatant this manipulation could be 110 00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:13,800 when we look at a forgotten form of literature - 111 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:18,480 letter writing manuals, like this one from the 1740s. 112 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:23,480 Ostensibly, the book teaches you how to write a good letter, 113 00:08:23,480 --> 00:08:25,640 but it does two other things as well. 114 00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:28,920 Firstly, it provides entertainment, it's enjoyable, 115 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:33,800 and, secondly, it ends up being a guide to good behaviour. 116 00:08:33,800 --> 00:08:38,520 It suggests the correct way to go about something like courtship 117 00:08:38,520 --> 00:08:43,120 and more than half of the letters are devoted to that topic. 118 00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:47,160 Reading all of these readymade letters, I'm surprised at how 119 00:08:47,160 --> 00:08:51,320 acceptable it was to poke your nose into somebody else's love life. 120 00:08:53,120 --> 00:08:57,800 So, here's a model letter to a gentleman of fortune who has 121 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:01,880 children, dissuading him from a second marriage with a lady 122 00:09:01,880 --> 00:09:03,640 much younger than himself. 123 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:06,960 If you know someone in that situation, 124 00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:10,040 this is the letter that you should write. 125 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:13,560 Then we have a letter from a father to his daughter, 126 00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:17,880 recommending that she should accept an offer of marriage from a man 127 00:09:17,880 --> 00:09:20,680 who is a bit older than her. 128 00:09:20,680 --> 00:09:24,320 She writes back saying - I don't want to, do I have to? 129 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:26,880 But then we get his reply, 130 00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:30,640 "urgently enforcing her compliance with his desire." 131 00:09:30,640 --> 00:09:32,440 Poor girl. 132 00:09:32,440 --> 00:09:35,720 And then there's my favourite letter of all, which is 133 00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:42,360 from a father again to his daughter against a frothy French lover. 134 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:43,960 "His frothy behaviour," 135 00:09:43,960 --> 00:09:48,320 this letter goes, "may divert well enough as an acquaintance, 136 00:09:48,320 --> 00:09:53,000 "but is very unanswerable, I think, to the character of a husband." 137 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:56,360 In other words, don't marry him, he's just too French. 138 00:09:59,520 --> 00:10:02,720 All of these letters and the characters in them 139 00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:04,880 were created by a single writer, 140 00:10:04,880 --> 00:10:07,400 who in this case was also the printer of the book 141 00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:12,440 and one of these letters, number 138, from a father to 142 00:10:12,440 --> 00:10:17,160 a daughter in service, would change literature for ever. 143 00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:20,920 Here is the germ of an idea that would become Pamela, 144 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:22,920 the first classic romantic novel. 145 00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:30,960 The writer of both the letters and Pamela was Samuel Richardson. 146 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:35,680 I find it almost impossible to exaggerate 147 00:10:35,680 --> 00:10:39,800 the importance of this tubby middle-aged man. 148 00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:45,320 Samuel Richardson was the fairy godfather of British romance. 149 00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:51,280 The son of a wood worker, by 1740s, 150 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:55,920 Richardson was one of the most successful printers in London. 151 00:10:58,200 --> 00:11:03,160 He was well aware that there was a market for what were termed Romances. 152 00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:07,640 Imported from France, this fledgling genre of fiction knew its audience. 153 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:15,160 Targeted at the 40% of women who could now read, 154 00:11:15,160 --> 00:11:19,840 the stories were rambling, but punctuated with racy incidents, 155 00:11:19,840 --> 00:11:22,960 involving aristocratic heroines in far off lands. 156 00:11:23,960 --> 00:11:30,040 Pamela, though, was to be a new species of writing. 157 00:11:30,040 --> 00:11:33,560 It followed a single event, a courtship, 158 00:11:33,560 --> 00:11:37,200 and was gripping, realistic, and believable. 159 00:11:43,160 --> 00:11:48,560 Samuel Richardson set his Romance in the grubby world of the present day. 160 00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:52,640 His readers felt that the characters in Pamela were perhaps people 161 00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:56,960 they'd seen on the street, or even people that they knew. 162 00:11:56,960 --> 00:12:00,720 And if you look at the title page of the novel, you'll notice that 163 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:04,920 there's no mention even of Samuel Richardson as the author. 164 00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:09,000 He was that keen to maintain the illusion that this really was, 165 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:13,480 as it says, a collection of "letters from a beautiful young damsel 166 00:12:13,480 --> 00:12:15,560 "to her parents". 167 00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:20,280 The letters of Pamela Andrews take us 168 00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:23,880 into the world of the invisible serving class. 169 00:12:23,880 --> 00:12:28,680 Pamela is vulnerable, she's living away from her family, and she's 170 00:12:28,680 --> 00:12:33,840 flattered but wary of the attentions of Mr B - her rich, young employer. 171 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:40,120 "Don't be frightened," she reassures her parents, "I am honest, 172 00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:44,200 "but if my head and my heart will let me, you shall hear all." 173 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:49,760 I think it's completely extraordinary that a corpulent 174 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:52,920 man of business in his 50s was able to get 175 00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:56,640 convincingly inside the mind of a 15-year-old girl. 176 00:12:58,800 --> 00:13:02,800 It helped that Richardson clearly liked and understood women 177 00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:06,080 and he wasn't afraid to ask their opinion. 178 00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:09,760 Samuel Richardson used what we'd call a focus group to check 179 00:13:09,760 --> 00:13:12,480 that his story really was riveting. 180 00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:16,960 It consisted of his wife and a young lady who was staying with them 181 00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:20,800 and, every night, their heads would appear around the door 182 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:26,320 of his study and they'd say, "Mr R, we've come for a little more Pamela. 183 00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:28,080 "How is Pamela getting on?" 184 00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:36,560 Pamela was the first modern romance novel and the first best seller. 185 00:13:36,560 --> 00:13:39,680 Many people also think it marks the moment 186 00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:42,680 when the novel itself was born. 187 00:13:42,680 --> 00:13:45,160 It was also a multimedia event. 188 00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:51,760 I've met up with Lynn Shepherd, novelist and Samuel Richardson 189 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:56,160 obsessive, to look at images created by the artist Joseph Highmore. 190 00:13:56,160 --> 00:13:58,320 So, Lynn, this is very clever. 191 00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:01,040 It's the whole story of Pamela, half a million words, 192 00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:02,920 condensed into 12 pictures. 193 00:14:02,920 --> 00:14:06,000 - Absolutely. It's the graphic novel of Pamela. - Ha-ha! 194 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:10,760 Visitors would come to Highmore's studio, 195 00:14:10,760 --> 00:14:15,000 peruse their favourite scenes, and order a set of prints. 196 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:21,040 To follow the story of Pamela, being left at the mercy of Mr B, 197 00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:25,280 who loses no time in attempting to take advantage of her. 198 00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:30,000 Pamela retains a soft spot for Mr B, 199 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:34,480 although today, his behaviour would result in an exclusion order. 200 00:14:34,480 --> 00:14:38,160 What's happening in this incredibly salacious scene down here? 201 00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:41,200 Yes, this is what Richardson referred to as a warm scene. 202 00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:44,280 - A warm scene. A sexy scene. - Basically, yes. 203 00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:46,120 As you say, extremely dramatic. 204 00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:50,160 Mr B attempting to have his way with Pamela and she's fainting 205 00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:53,360 - and this is what happens again and again in the novel... - She faints. 206 00:14:53,360 --> 00:14:56,880 She faints. Every time he gets anywhere near her, she faints, 207 00:14:56,880 --> 00:14:59,720 and he is sort of put off by this and withdraws. 208 00:14:59,720 --> 00:15:02,720 What do you think people's boyfriends felt about Pamela? 209 00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:06,160 Because presumably their girlfriends, as soon as they came up to them, 210 00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:08,240 they would go, "Oh, I've fainted away!" 211 00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:10,320 Well, it would be interesting to know 212 00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:12,400 whether she started a fad for fainting. 213 00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:13,600 A fad for fainting. 214 00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:16,560 And then we go to this one, which is again very interesting, 215 00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:18,920 - which is Pamela in the carriage. - What's happened here? 216 00:15:18,920 --> 00:15:20,320 He's taking her away. 217 00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:23,120 Well, she thinks she's going back to her parents, 218 00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:26,040 but actually what's happened is that he's put her in his carriage... 219 00:15:26,040 --> 00:15:27,800 - He's kidnapped her! - Basically, yes. 220 00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:30,880 He's having her carted off to his estate in Lincolnshire and what's 221 00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:33,400 interesting about this is it's another thing 222 00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:37,040 about the 18th-century novel, which comes out very strongly here, 223 00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:40,200 which is that men have physical freedom, men can travel, 224 00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:43,840 men can decide where they want to go and when they want to go. 225 00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:47,640 Women are moved about, literally as if they were objects. 226 00:15:47,640 --> 00:15:50,480 And she is here literally being moved, against her will, 227 00:15:50,480 --> 00:15:51,800 as she finds out, 228 00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:54,720 because she's not actually going where she thinks she's going. 229 00:15:54,720 --> 00:15:57,080 And we have Mr B here watching from the window. 230 00:15:57,080 --> 00:15:58,600 There's a lot of subterfuge 231 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:02,120 and spying going on in some of these pictures and that's a great example. 232 00:16:02,120 --> 00:16:05,000 At one point, she actually says, "I can't even leave the house 233 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:08,360 "in these fine clothes because people will think that I've stolen them." 234 00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:10,880 - Yes. - "They'll come after me." - Or that she's his mistress. 235 00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:14,200 - Or that she's a trollop. - Yes, quite. - So, the poor woman is trapped really. 236 00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:17,280 - Yes. Absolutely. - But it all ends up happily... 237 00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:19,400 - Here they are at the altar. - It does, yes. 238 00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:22,560 And the interesting thing about that is that one of the reasons 239 00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:25,280 he falls in love with her and decides to marry her... 240 00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:27,640 - As opposed to just raping her. - Absolutely. 241 00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:29,640 ..is by reading her letters. 242 00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:33,440 So the letters are not just the form of the novel, they are really 243 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:37,240 important, in terms of what's actually going on in the book. 244 00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:38,880 He reads her letters 245 00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:42,560 and is converted by her letters into virtue. 246 00:16:42,560 --> 00:16:46,000 So, exactly what Richardson wants to happen with his reader as well. 247 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,880 By reading her letters, we are converted to virtue. 248 00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:51,440 - It makes us a better person... - Absolutely. 249 00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:53,520 - ..to read Pamela's letters. - Mm-hm. 250 00:16:56,960 --> 00:17:00,840 The tale of the servant girl who won the lord was popular with all 251 00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:02,960 levels in society. 252 00:17:02,960 --> 00:17:06,640 And news of this remarkable novel travelled along the turnpikes 253 00:17:06,640 --> 00:17:09,160 and highways of Britain. 254 00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:13,480 The story of Pamela was so massively popular that, pretty soon, 255 00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:18,600 merchandising appeared. You could waft yourself with a Pamela fan. 256 00:17:18,600 --> 00:17:21,200 Or drink your tea from a Pamela cup. 257 00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:24,760 And the story was enjoyed at all levels of society. 258 00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:29,120 In one hamlet, the villagers were reading extracts of the novel, 259 00:17:29,120 --> 00:17:31,440 as it was published in the newspapers. 260 00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:35,360 When they got to the chapter with Pamela's wedding, they went wild. 261 00:17:35,360 --> 00:17:37,400 They got the keys to the church, 262 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:41,800 they flew a flag from the steeple, and they set the bells ringing. 263 00:17:41,800 --> 00:17:45,000 I imagine people going past and saying, "What's happening?" 264 00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:49,000 And the villagers all yelling, "Pamela's getting married!" 265 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:54,240 CHURCH BELL RINGS 266 00:18:09,360 --> 00:18:11,920 Our girl is married at last! 267 00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:15,760 Mr B has done the right thing. Yes, Pamela! 268 00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:27,880 After Pamela, the idea of a marriage across a class divide could 269 00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:30,080 appear in any young lady's fantasy. 270 00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:36,920 There's a rather telling incident in the early life of Jane Austen, 271 00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:41,120 who vandalised the marriage register here in her father's church. 272 00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:44,920 In the front of the book, she defaced blank forms for marriage banns 273 00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,720 with the names of imaginary future husbands. 274 00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:56,160 It's a fascinating insight into the daydreams of a Georgian teenage girl. 275 00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,760 First of all, she imagines herself, Jane Austen, getting married 276 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:05,440 to the very grand sounding Henry Frederick Fitzwilliam of London. 277 00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:08,160 That's almost Fitzwilliam Darcy. 278 00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:10,240 Then she has a go imagining herself 279 00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:14,640 the wife of Edmond Arthur William Mortimer of Liverpool. 280 00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:17,360 He sounds a bit less posh, doesn't he? 281 00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:21,960 And finally, she envisages her future as plain Jane Smith, 282 00:19:21,960 --> 00:19:23,960 the wife of Jack Smith. 283 00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:29,800 Fantasies about vastly unequal marriages should come as no surprise. 284 00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:33,520 One of young Austen's favourite writers was Samuel Richardson. 285 00:19:35,360 --> 00:19:38,560 Marriage was the perfect subject for early novelists. 286 00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:41,640 Getting your choice wrong was unthinkable. 287 00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:45,040 Not only was there no going back, under English law, 288 00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:49,320 when a woman married, she ceased to exist. 289 00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:51,800 If you got married as an 18th-century woman, 290 00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:56,080 you would lose everything - your land, your possessions, 291 00:19:56,080 --> 00:20:00,680 even your children, all become the property of your husband. 292 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:04,000 Even if your husband was nice, then, after his death, 293 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:06,240 the property would go to his heirs. 294 00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:08,600 That's just the way it was, legally. 295 00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:12,480 But a good Georgian husband, with access to good lawyers, might take 296 00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:16,680 the trouble to arrange some form of financial independence for his wife. 297 00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:20,080 A quarterly allowance, known as pin money perhaps, 298 00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:23,520 and something for her to live on should he die. 299 00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:27,120 In the story of Pamela, the whole of the last quarter of the novel 300 00:20:27,120 --> 00:20:31,120 is devoted to working this all out legally. 301 00:20:31,120 --> 00:20:34,840 It's only when we know that Pamela has financial independence and 302 00:20:34,840 --> 00:20:39,040 security that we really believe that she will live happily ever after. 303 00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:45,280 With Pamela's move from subordinate to equal via a marriage 304 00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:48,840 based on mutual respect, Richardson gave his readers 305 00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:53,480 a model for domestic happiness that for us feels rather modern. 306 00:20:56,760 --> 00:21:01,880 In his own life, he had borne his share of personal tragedy, 307 00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:06,760 including the death of his first wife and their six children. 308 00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:10,120 He believed that his health had been worn down by grief. 309 00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:14,120 This threw him into the arms of a physician 310 00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:17,480 with some rather bonkers ideas, 311 00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:19,480 including indoor equestrianism. 312 00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:25,480 Samuel Richardson's physician was Dr Cheyne, a famous nerve doctor, 313 00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:28,800 who thought that Richardson made his health worse 314 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:30,480 by his habit of worrying. 315 00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:34,480 Cheyne also thought that Richardson should get more exercise, 316 00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:37,760 using one of these - a chamber horse. 317 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:42,800 Giddy-up! 318 00:21:44,120 --> 00:21:47,200 You get all the benefits of being on horseback, 319 00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:49,440 without having to leave your own room, 320 00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,840 and Cheyne said that, if Richardson was worried about losing 321 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:57,320 the writing time, well, then he could dictate to somebody. 322 00:21:57,320 --> 00:21:59,640 Whoa! 323 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:03,960 This may all sound a bit like quackery, 324 00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:09,480 but Dr Cheyne was a hugely important figure in 18th-century medicine. 325 00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:11,680 In his book, The English Malady, 326 00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:16,320 he set out his ideas about the diseases of the nervous system. 327 00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,600 It would make having weak nerves fashionable. 328 00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:24,880 Dr Cheyne himself suffered from nervous distempers, which is 329 00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:29,040 perhaps why he gives the impression that all the best people do. 330 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:33,360 It seems that members of high society were particularly susceptible. 331 00:22:33,360 --> 00:22:37,800 Their sedentary lifestyle gave them extra sensitive nerves, 332 00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:40,960 a condition called sensibility. 333 00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:42,440 Over the next few decades, 334 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:47,240 this idea of sensibility would redefine Romance. 335 00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:50,040 The upside was that you were more alive, 336 00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:53,120 you experienced things more intensely. 337 00:22:53,120 --> 00:22:57,280 The downside was that it opened you up to other maladies, 338 00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:02,360 such as long grief or dark melancholy, 339 00:23:02,360 --> 00:23:05,240 or even hopeless love, 340 00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:07,680 that would wear out your nervous system. 341 00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,800 When Richardson published his 1748 novel Clarissa, 342 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,800 he transmitted Cheyne's ideas to his vast number of readers. 343 00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:28,560 The heroine, Clarissa Harlow, is sensibility made flesh. 344 00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:33,320 Her ability to feel things deeply is a sign of her goodness. 345 00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:35,080 SHE SIGHS 346 00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:38,480 When her ambitious family try to marry Clarissa off to 347 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,440 a man that she doesn't love, 348 00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:45,360 she escapes with the help of a charming rake, Robert Lovelace. 349 00:23:45,360 --> 00:23:50,320 But Lovelace is danger, male sexuality at its most destructive. 350 00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:55,120 He installs Clarissa in lodgings which turn out, really, 351 00:23:55,120 --> 00:23:56,800 to be a brothel. 352 00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,680 It's just the start of an obsession which dooms them both. 353 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:05,480 And it's a slowly unfolding tragedy from which there's no escape. 354 00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:14,080 This novel is like a tool or a machine for drawing out 355 00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:15,960 emotion from the readers. 356 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,960 Richardson was arousing their dormant sensibility 357 00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:24,800 and, for some of them, it was a very intense and distressing experience. 358 00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:30,080 One lady wrote him a letter, saying, "I've cried a pint of tears. 359 00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:34,840 "In agonies, I would lay down the book, take it up again, 360 00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:39,080 "walk around the room, wipe my eyes, read again, 361 00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:42,640 "and then I would have to throw away the book, crying out. 362 00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:47,520 "Excuse me, Good Mr Richardson, I cannot go on!" 363 00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,800 But Richardson's readers persevered, identifying 364 00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,680 so closely with a fictional character with a new experience, 365 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:05,440 and for a million words, they endured Clarissa's extreme traumas 366 00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,840 and lingering death alongside her. 367 00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:12,680 The emotional impact of the book rippled out through 368 00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:14,320 society for decades. 369 00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:20,320 And by inventing Clarissa, a heroine of sensibility, 370 00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:24,040 Richardson helped to change the way the British felt. 371 00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,800 In Britain, the second half of the 18th century was 372 00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:46,600 dominated by what's been called the Cult of Sensibility. 373 00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,720 And its early acolytes could be found in fashionable Bath, 374 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:54,760 where couples wanted to show themselves in a more emotional way. 375 00:25:56,400 --> 00:26:00,680 The painter Thomas Gainsborough set up shop here in 1759. 376 00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:04,640 He'd come from rural Suffolk, where he created a celebrated 377 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:10,160 depiction of a traditional marriage, Mr and Mrs Andrews. 378 00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,200 Not much sign of affection between these two. 379 00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:17,360 But now, Gainsborough would have to adapt to the new vogue. 380 00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:24,840 Once he was in Bath, Gainsborough painted Mr and Mrs Byam. 381 00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,560 Now, he had made a stack of money out of owning slaves. 382 00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:30,880 Not the sort of person you'd necessarily expect to 383 00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,320 go for this touchy-feely self presentation. 384 00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,080 But it was beginning to be the Age of Sensibility. 385 00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:40,880 He wanted to be shown as a man of feeling. 386 00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:44,480 He and his wife are going for a country walk. 387 00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:48,960 They're saying - we are part of nature and they're a partnership. 388 00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,720 They're exactly the same height, they're walking along, arm in arm. 389 00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:54,720 The message is - we're in love. 390 00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:59,320 Feelings were being flaunted. 391 00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,320 Romantic relationships were something to show off about. 392 00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:05,000 Now, obviously, 393 00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,920 there had been loving relationships before this, 394 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,040 but in the 18th century, thanks to sensibility, 395 00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:15,040 Romance became fashionable, it became glamorised. 396 00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,080 The perfect showcase for your romantic feelings was 397 00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,560 the love letter, which became more and more emotional, 398 00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,800 as this fashion for sensibility took hold. 399 00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:32,280 I'm at the Library of Birmingham to meet historian Sally Holloway. 400 00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,440 We're going to look at a typical set of love letters 401 00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,200 written by the future social reformer Joseph Strutt. 402 00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:42,400 This son of a wheelwright made good clearly had 403 00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:44,800 something of a soppy side. 404 00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:48,320 These letters are kind of written at the apex of sensibility 405 00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,040 in 1770s and '80s. And he's writing 406 00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:55,080 - a love poem. - A poem. Very fancy. - To his sweetheart to impress her. 407 00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:59,720 So this is his big moment as the suitor. So, he says to her... 408 00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,560 She's got Isabella Douglas... He said - Douglas is the theme. 409 00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,720 "Oh, the powers divine inspire her soul with sentiments like mine." 410 00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:12,320 - It's very flowery and... - Gushing, more like! - Gushing, yeah. 411 00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:16,520 - It's dramatic. - Thoughts that can never change when she appears. 412 00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,120 I wish the hours were days and the days were years. 413 00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:23,920 So he's saying, swoon, ladies. Joseph is here. 414 00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:31,400 And also, he's using these kind of set kind of stock romantic tropes 415 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:35,440 that he would invoke to show he's the ideal lover. 416 00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:39,760 So, saying - when we're apart, time drags, you know, 417 00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:43,720 an hour feels like a day, but when we're together, time flies by. 418 00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:44,960 Right. 419 00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,960 So, he's kind of drawing upon these accepted romantic customs to 420 00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:53,560 show himself kind of as the ideal lover. 421 00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:56,480 And how did the relationship progress? 422 00:28:56,480 --> 00:29:00,880 Yes, so, it's not uncommon for couples to have kind of an emotional 423 00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,240 crisis, so at one point, 424 00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:08,520 he accused her of hanging out with kind of base flattering men. 425 00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:10,480 So, he's giving her a telling off. 426 00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:14,120 What's he going to feel when her next letter arrives? 427 00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:15,880 Well, so, he tells us here. 428 00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:20,000 He says, "When Mr Fox showed me your letter on Friday, my dear, 429 00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,960 "Isabella, a chilling coldness seized my whole frame. 430 00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:26,680 "My hands trembled as I received it. 431 00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:30,920 "I felt as I think I should feel if I had committed an atrocious crime." 432 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:32,800 An atrocious crime. 433 00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:38,600 So, Joseph is trying to portray himself as a man of sensibility 434 00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:43,680 and so all of his emotions are portrayed in bodily form. 435 00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:48,120 So, it's blushing, weeping, trembling, 436 00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:54,640 he's kind of got chills, and these are all physical manifestations 437 00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,840 of feeling to show his kind of innate 438 00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,680 sensitivity to the world around him, so, by the 1780s, it wasn't 439 00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:05,560 enough to just say you were sensitive, emotional... 440 00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:08,160 - You had to show it. - You had to show it. 441 00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,320 It had to be shown through the body. 442 00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:13,600 These love letters survived 443 00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,160 because they were treasured as objects in themselves. 444 00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:22,120 They were love tokens that could be touched or held to trigger emotions 445 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,360 and to feel close to your lover. 446 00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,640 Love tokens could take all sorts of forms. 447 00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:32,280 They could be cheaply produced, or they could be luxury artefacts. 448 00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:37,720 In the late 18th century, there was a craze for eye miniatures. 449 00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,800 These tiny little portraits are tantalising, 450 00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:42,440 because they're anonymous. 451 00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:47,640 You can't tell who it is, unless you've spent an awfully long time 452 00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:51,520 looking into their eyes and can recognise them. 453 00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:54,400 So, people used them to tease their friends. 454 00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:59,280 You might wear one of these and say, "You'll never guess who my lover is." 455 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:04,280 Sadly, that means that we will never know which Georgian lovers 456 00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:06,680 these eyes belonged to. 457 00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:10,800 During the Georgian period, 458 00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:14,240 it became progressively easier to meet people, 459 00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:17,800 as places to flirt, like concert halls, pleasure gardens 460 00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,520 and, above all, assembly rooms were being built. 461 00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,840 And the wealthy could now fish in a bigger pond, 462 00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,560 a national marriage market. 463 00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:32,560 During the summer season, they would congregate in Bath. 464 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:37,840 Here, the gouty took the water, while their young companions 465 00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:41,840 ventured to the Upper Assembly Rooms, in search of romance. 466 00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:51,160 Ladies arrived at the Assembly Rooms by sedan chair. 467 00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,520 They were better in Bath than carriages because of all the hills. 468 00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:58,400 In fact, that Colonnade out there was like a taxi rank for the chairs 469 00:31:58,400 --> 00:31:59,520 and the chairmen. 470 00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:03,960 Next, the guests checked their cloaks, they could go on into the 471 00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:09,000 card room for gambling, but the main event was the ballroom through here. 472 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:13,240 Now, the rooms today seem all calm and elegant, 473 00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,640 when in fact they would have been packed with people. 474 00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:21,040 Jane Austen used to come here and she has one of her young heroines rather 475 00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,960 disappointed by the experience of a ball at the Assembly Rooms 476 00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:27,960 because of all the crush and the crowd. 477 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:33,000 It was only by a continual exertion of strength and ingenuity that the 478 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:37,200 young lady was able to get to a spot where she could see any dancing. 479 00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,040 In addition to the marble fireplaces 480 00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:46,560 and the candles lining the walls, there were five crystal chandeliers 481 00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,840 illuminating the room with an explosion of light. 482 00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:55,000 Add beating hearts to the scene and it must have seemed magical. 483 00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:12,400 This fantastic little thing is my Georgian jealousy glass. 484 00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:16,800 Now, it wasn't uncommon for people to carry spyglasses or miniature 485 00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:22,120 telescopes to say hello to their friends across the ballroom. Yoo-hoo! 486 00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:24,000 I'm over here! 487 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,120 But this one has a secret mirror hidden inside it, 488 00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:32,360 which means that I can see over here. 489 00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,040 I can see the tip of my finger 490 00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:37,960 and all this area of the ballroom behind me. 491 00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:41,200 Which means that, if my boyfriend was talking to another young 492 00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,760 lady behind my back, I could catch him at it. 493 00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,640 Now, obviously, these weren't totally secret. 494 00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,240 Lots of people knew how they worked, 495 00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:56,960 but they provided an extra frisson of fun to the flirtation. 496 00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:01,680 Some people actively enjoyed being spied on through a jealousy glass. 497 00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:10,040 But assembly rooms were policed by a master of ceremonies who would 498 00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:12,960 make introductions and vet new arrivals, 499 00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:17,800 sometimes even barring the likes of shopkeepers and other working people. 500 00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:21,880 So patrons were unlikely to run into anybody of whom their parents 501 00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:23,680 would disapprove. 502 00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:25,680 For all the sense of freedom, 503 00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:28,360 flirting here was quite strictly controlled. 504 00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:36,840 To play the game of romance, it helped first to know the rules. 505 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:43,720 In 1778, a novel appeared, Evelina, that told the story of a young 506 00:34:43,720 --> 00:34:47,840 girl's journey through the pitfalls of this emerging marriage market. 507 00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:54,040 Evelina is beautiful. She's a girl of great sensibility. 508 00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:55,520 But she's an outsider. 509 00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,640 She survives a series of social embarrassments... 510 00:35:02,720 --> 00:35:06,720 ..and preposterous escapades, finally to win the hand 511 00:35:06,720 --> 00:35:08,640 of the handsome Lord Orville. 512 00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:13,840 Crucially, the book takes us into the private lives of young women 513 00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:17,160 and it details the industry that went into becoming 514 00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:18,280 an eligible catch. 515 00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:21,560 When Evelina is about to go to a ball, 516 00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,440 we follow her around the London shops, as she chooses 517 00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:26,800 ribbons and accessories. 518 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:30,240 And then, there's the hair! 519 00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:36,360 Ooh! 520 00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,240 - Another feather? - Yes. Let's have another feather. 521 00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,520 1778, the year that Evelina was published, 522 00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,320 coincided with Georgian peak hair. 523 00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:56,120 Ladies went for these immensely-tall hairstyles - three or four feet - 524 00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:58,400 and decorated with crazy things, 525 00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:00,160 like ships or burrs 526 00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:02,160 or jewels, like mine. 527 00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,880 Evelina herself goes to the hairdressers 528 00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:08,080 to get one of the new do's. 529 00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:14,200 "How oddly my head feels," she says. "Full of powder and black pins 530 00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:18,720 "and a great cushion on top. I cannot tell when I will be able 531 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:23,160 "to make use of a comb again, my hair is so entangled. 532 00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:25,520 " 'Frizzled', they call it." 533 00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:34,600 The novel had been published anonymously... 534 00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:38,840 ..which made Evelina even more intriguing. 535 00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:45,680 Evelina gave the philosopher Edmund Burke a sleepless night, 536 00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:49,080 while the painter Joshua Reynolds missed meals to be with her. 537 00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,440 Everyone wanted to know who Evelina's creator was. 538 00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:58,760 Few guessed that it was 539 00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,320 this shy 24-year-old, Fanny Burney. 540 00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:07,520 Richardson's heroines, a generation earlier, had been trapped 541 00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:08,720 in domestic spaces... 542 00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,480 ..but Burney shared, with Evelina, her own experience 543 00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:15,240 of a society that was loosening up. 544 00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:21,040 'I'm hitting the town with Claire Harman - Fanny's biographer - 545 00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:25,200 'for a night out in the London that Burney so memorably described.' 546 00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:29,080 Here we go. I have brought you a bottle of mineral water. 547 00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,920 - Yes! Soho-style. - Soho-style, yes. 548 00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:34,200 Here we go. Yay! Are we ready to pop? 549 00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:37,080 - Yes. - Whoo! Oh, slope it up, 550 00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:38,120 slope it up! 551 00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:43,120 So, here we are on our big night out in the year 1778. 552 00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:46,600 In the novel Evelina, would you say we get a girl's-eye view 553 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:47,720 of Georgian London? 554 00:37:47,720 --> 00:37:52,520 We certainly do. It's completely a fresh, lovely, girlie view 555 00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:54,320 of the city. Nobody had written 556 00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:59,640 a novel of that period that had so much of a finger on the pulse 557 00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:04,800 of the time. And what Burney was able to do in her novel was show 558 00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:08,240 all the different strata of society. She showed the aristocrats, 559 00:38:08,240 --> 00:38:11,080 she showed the middle classes, which she was very much a member 560 00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:13,240 of herself, and she also showed the lower classes, 561 00:38:13,240 --> 00:38:16,720 so it is a, kind of, melding of the classes, which is, of course, 562 00:38:16,720 --> 00:38:20,080 what Jane Austen did later, too, with Pride and Prejudice. 563 00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:22,480 But Fanny Burney did it first. 564 00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,920 There is a Mr Darcy in this story, isn't there? Lord Orville. 565 00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:27,440 Yes, Lord Orville. Very much. 566 00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:30,080 He is the, kind of, godfather of Mr Darcy. 567 00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,880 He is posh and he is rich and he is gracious. 568 00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,400 He has got sensibility, though, too. He is a new young man. 569 00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:39,120 But initially, there is a misunderstanding, isn't there? 570 00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:40,880 Initially, they don't hit it off. 571 00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,640 Yes. They don't hit it off, although he is the very first person 572 00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:46,920 she ever dances with out of school. She says she has only danced with 573 00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:49,840 schoolgirls before. The very first bloke she ever dances with is... 574 00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,960 - BOTH: ..Lord Orville! - So, that is, kind of, ker-ching. 575 00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:56,600 But because she is so tongue-tied, she is so incapable 576 00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:01,360 - of knowing how to behave... - Yes. - ..in society, she doesn't know 577 00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:03,920 what to do or what to say to Lord Orville. 578 00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,520 So, she says nothing and she feels like an idiot. 579 00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:09,520 Burney's genius is being able to express 580 00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,120 how a girl would feel, like that. 581 00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:14,800 And it really gives the novel a, sort of, freshness. 582 00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,600 - Evelina, surely, IS Bridget Jones? - She is Bridget Jones. 583 00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,000 I think if you did a DNA test of Bridget Jones and Evelina, 584 00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:26,880 you would find that they were related, because Bridget Jones was, 585 00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:30,360 as Helen Fielding said, based on Pride and Prejudice. 586 00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,800 And Pride and Prejudice, lo and behold, was based on Evelina - 587 00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:38,240 - or, at least, it owes a huge debt to Evelina. - So, you have got 588 00:39:38,240 --> 00:39:41,320 a young girl enjoying London, getting herself into all sorts of 589 00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:46,080 - embarrassing situations? - Yes. I mean, the unattainable man, 590 00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,720 the one you feel, every time you are in this company... 591 00:39:48,720 --> 00:39:51,960 - You make a fool of yourself. - Exactly. You do something absolutely stupid. 592 00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,840 How could it ever work out all right? But, hey, he has just got 593 00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:57,720 that ability to see through your blundering and your stupidity. 594 00:39:57,720 --> 00:40:00,680 And it has a happy ending, for Lord Orville and everything. 595 00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:02,520 Of course. It's wedding bells. 596 00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,320 You can, sort of, hear them distantly, right at the beginning 597 00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,280 of the novel, but, yes, of course, they get married. 598 00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:10,920 They have many, many a slip betwixt cup and lip, as it were. 599 00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:12,640 - Cheers to them. - Cheers. 600 00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:14,400 THEY GIGGLE 601 00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:21,360 Toward the end of the 18th century, 602 00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:24,120 the number of women writers exploded 603 00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,680 and Evelina's success had placed Fanny Burney in the vanguard. 604 00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,880 But nearly all of her profits were going to her publishers, 605 00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,360 so she took matters into her own hands. 606 00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:40,720 This is Fanny Burney's third novel, Camilla, and, by this time, 607 00:40:40,720 --> 00:40:44,320 she decided that she wanted to earn a bit of money from her writing. 608 00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:48,880 So, rather daringly, she published it by subscription. 609 00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,000 And if you look at the list of people 610 00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,920 who have contributed financially, 611 00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,000 it is lovely, because it is like Fanny's being supported here 612 00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:01,200 by a sisterhood of female Georgian novelists. 613 00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:03,640 We have got here Mrs Ann Radcliffe 614 00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:10,120 and Maria Edgeworth and, perhaps nicest of all, a young lady 615 00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:15,160 who was only 20 at the time, "Miss J Austen", of Steventon. 616 00:41:20,240 --> 00:41:23,200 The romance novel made people think about the importance 617 00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:28,560 of romantic love and, by shaping stories around courtship, 618 00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,760 its writers were changing what people expected in their own lives. 619 00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:37,240 Some anecdotes from the time suggest a growing understanding 620 00:41:37,240 --> 00:41:39,720 of matters of the heart by the public at large. 621 00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:42,560 There's the curious case 622 00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:46,480 of a certain Richard Bignall, a bright boy of humble origin, 623 00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:50,560 who was working for a well-to-do Oxfordshire lawyer. 624 00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:53,280 He fell in love 625 00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:55,120 with the boss's daughter. 626 00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:59,120 And when Bignall himself qualified as a lawyer, in 1770, 627 00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,200 he asked her to marry him. 628 00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:04,760 But her father said, "No way!" 629 00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:09,600 The young couple got married in secret and, when this was revealed, 630 00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:12,120 her father chucked her out of his house. 631 00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,360 Now, you might think, that is perfectly reasonable behaviour 632 00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,080 for any responsible Georgian paterfamilias, 633 00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,720 but in this case, something rather curious happened. 634 00:42:21,720 --> 00:42:26,240 All the people thereabouts took the part of the young lovers 635 00:42:26,240 --> 00:42:30,280 and, gradually, they withdrew their legal business from the father 636 00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,000 and they gave it, instead, to the newly-qualified, 637 00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,720 newly-married Mr Bignall. 638 00:42:35,720 --> 00:42:38,320 I think that probably all the people in that part 639 00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:41,200 of Oxfordshire must have been reading romantic novels. 640 00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,280 They may also have been reading the newspapers, 641 00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:51,920 which were filled with eloping couples defying parental authority. 642 00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:58,760 One of the most famous was the elopement of the under-age heiress, 643 00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,120 Sarah Anne Child and her lover, the 10th Earl of Westmoreland, 644 00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:03,480 in 1782. 645 00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:10,280 After drugging her chaperone, Sarah Anne escaped from her parents' house 646 00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,760 and headed north with the Earl, in his carriage. 647 00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:17,760 The couple travelled 300 miles from London, 648 00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:19,520 with her father and all of his servants 649 00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:21,400 chasing along behind. 650 00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:23,520 At one point, one of the servants 651 00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:26,240 very nearly caught up with the carriage, 652 00:43:26,240 --> 00:43:28,800 so the Earl stuck his gun out of the window. 653 00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:32,240 But then, he hesitated. It was Sarah Anne who said, 654 00:43:32,240 --> 00:43:34,080 "Shoot him, my Lord! Shoot him!" 655 00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:35,280 GUNSHOT 656 00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:38,480 The Earl fired, but with a great piece of good luck, 657 00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:42,240 the bullet went through the horse and left the rider unharmed. 658 00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,280 They were aiming for Scotland and were successfully married 659 00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:51,160 just over the Border, in a tiny village called Gretna Green. 660 00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:54,920 Because she was under 21, it would have been virtually impossible 661 00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,360 for Sarah to marry in England without her parents' consent, 662 00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,520 but Scotland had different marriage laws.... 663 00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:06,200 ..and many couples from the north of England would cross the River Esk 664 00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:10,480 to get to Gretna Green and reap the benefits of a Scottish marriage. 665 00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:15,040 Here, you could get married by declaration. 666 00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,800 It simply meant exchanging vows in front of witnesses. 667 00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:22,080 So, marriage in Scotland was quick, it was cheap 668 00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:25,880 and it was secret! By the time your disapproving relatives worked out 669 00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:26,960 what was going on, 670 00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:28,000 it was too late! 671 00:44:31,360 --> 00:44:34,200 This cross-Border traffic was busiest at the time 672 00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:35,920 of the annual hiring fairs, 673 00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:39,240 when agricultural workers, with a few days between jobs, 674 00:44:39,240 --> 00:44:42,720 would flock into Gretna Green and other Border towns, 675 00:44:42,720 --> 00:44:44,560 in order to get married. 676 00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:49,240 Here, they could engage the services of a self-styled priest. 677 00:44:49,240 --> 00:44:51,280 Now, these weren't proper priests. 678 00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:55,640 They were just cobblers or fishermen, or sometimes smugglers, 679 00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:57,840 who wanted to make a bit of extra money. 680 00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:02,200 For a fee, they would offer you a one-stop service for all your 681 00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:05,720 wedding needs. They would preside over the ceremony 682 00:45:05,720 --> 00:45:09,720 and sort out your accommodation. "Maybe a barn for your party, sir?" 683 00:45:09,720 --> 00:45:12,440 Or a bed chamber for your wedding night. 684 00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:15,040 Since the 1770s, 685 00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,120 a Scottish marriage had been accessible to everyone, 686 00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:20,880 thanks to the expanding network of turnpike roads. 687 00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,720 Even London was now only three days away. 688 00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:30,280 And just next to the road, the first place eloping couples arrived at 689 00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,400 would have been the Blacksmith's Forge. 690 00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,800 As stories about Gretna Green circulated, 691 00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:41,080 the idea that it was the blacksmith who performed the wedding ceremony 692 00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:45,240 took hold... and in plays, prints and novels, 693 00:45:45,240 --> 00:45:48,880 the blacksmith forged lovers together just as easily 694 00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,000 as he did two pieces of metal. 695 00:45:56,240 --> 00:45:58,960 It was a story that had it all. 696 00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:01,720 There was romance - the triumph of love, 697 00:46:01,720 --> 00:46:04,240 the defiance of parental authority. 698 00:46:04,240 --> 00:46:07,240 Then, there was adventure - the dash through the night. 699 00:46:07,240 --> 00:46:12,000 But then, in this crazy modern world of high-speed travel 700 00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,480 and coaching inns and turnpike roads, 701 00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:18,920 there was the comforting traditional figure of the friendly blacksmith. 702 00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:24,040 What could possibly go wrong, if there was a blacksmith involved? 703 00:46:25,240 --> 00:46:28,920 The public were well aware of Gretna's Green's dark side. 704 00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:32,960 There were well-publicised abductions, along with many 705 00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,800 unhappy marriages, once desires had cooled. 706 00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:41,920 Writers like Fanny Burney used "the Gretna plot" as a warning. 707 00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:47,560 A question was being asked over and over again - 708 00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:50,040 could all this romance actually be harmful? 709 00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:56,520 In 1799, a letter appeared in a magazine, purporting to be 710 00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,560 from the mother of a teenage daughter. 711 00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:01,720 This mother was complaining that the daughter did 712 00:47:01,720 --> 00:47:06,280 nothing in the world but read novels, from morning to night. 713 00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:10,360 Two or three times a day, 714 00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:14,560 the daughter would send the maid to the library to get new books 715 00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,960 and during the course of the week, she'd read novels with titles 716 00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,120 like Excessive Sensibility, 717 00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:23,200 Refined Delicacy 718 00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:25,720 and Sentimental Beauty. 719 00:47:25,720 --> 00:47:29,040 The mother's point was that sensibility may originally 720 00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:33,240 have been a genuine, heartfelt outpouring of emotion, 721 00:47:33,240 --> 00:47:37,240 but it had become nothing but an artificial self-indulgence. 722 00:47:37,240 --> 00:47:41,200 "We've had enough sensibility," she was saying, "let's get over it." 723 00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:47,760 At the end of the 18th century, sensibility was coming to be seen 724 00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:51,800 as a distraction from the real dilemmas that women faced. 725 00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:57,720 The philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft claimed that an overstretched 726 00:47:57,720 --> 00:48:02,480 sensibility prevented women from being rational and useful. 727 00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:08,120 But a more nuanced critique occurred in the debut novel 728 00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:10,760 of a spinster from Hampshire - 729 00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:12,040 Jane Austen. 730 00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:18,520 Two centuries ago, you could have encountered Jane here - 731 00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,680 Chawton House Library is in a home originally owned 732 00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:23,680 by her brother Edward. 733 00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:28,480 This little book is an early edition of Jane Austen's first 734 00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:32,760 published novel from 1811, Sense And Sensibility. 735 00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:35,240 It's a tiny little thing, isn't it? 736 00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:37,560 It's gentile, it's petite, 737 00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,160 and there's no indication of the dynamite that lies within. 738 00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:47,120 The novel follows the courtship trials of two sisters. 739 00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:50,560 Elinor is Sense, the voice of pragmatism, 740 00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:55,440 while Marianne is a disciple of romantic Sensibility. 741 00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,160 We encounter them at a moment of crisis - their father has died 742 00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:02,240 and they've been left £10,000. 743 00:49:02,240 --> 00:49:07,720 They, their mother and their younger sister will all have to live on it. 744 00:49:07,720 --> 00:49:11,440 The whole plot hinges on what this inheritance was going to mean 745 00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:14,200 to the four female Dashwoods. 746 00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:17,360 Jane Austen's readers would have known at once exactly 747 00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:22,160 what standard of living £10,000 represented. 748 00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:27,360 Invested in government bonds at 5% a year, it would have meant 749 00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:30,200 an annual income of £500 - 750 00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:33,360 not a particularly lavish lifestyle. 751 00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:37,800 The Dashwoods' nasty sister-in-law took malicious pleasure 752 00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:42,240 in imagining their reduced circumstances. 753 00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:44,120 "They will live so cheap," 754 00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:48,280 she says, "their housekeeping will be nothing at all. 755 00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:53,160 "They will have no carriage, no horses and hardly any servants. 756 00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:57,320 "They will keep no company and have no expenses of any kind. 757 00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:00,680 "Only conceive how comfortable they will be." 758 00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,960 Sense And Sensibility subtly shows how the sisters' feelings 759 00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:10,440 are shaped by their precarious situation. 760 00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:19,240 They do find love, but only when it's balanced with financial sense. 761 00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:34,880 Elinor falls in love with sensible Edward Ferrars. 762 00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:38,400 At the start of the novel, he is the heir to a large estate, 763 00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:40,640 but then he gets disinherited. 764 00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:44,080 When he and Elinor declare their feelings for each other, 765 00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:47,040 they decide that they're not quite enough in love to get married 766 00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:51,160 on £350 a year - their combined income. 767 00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,280 It's only when Edward's mother gives him £10,000 768 00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:58,640 that it's all back on and we hear the ringing of wedding bells. 769 00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:02,600 Elinor's sister Marianne is a woman of sensibility, 770 00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,880 which is why she falls for the dashing John Willoughby. 771 00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:10,440 He is awfully handsome and he thinks he's going to be rich too. 772 00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:13,320 He and Marianne enjoy a torrid romance, 773 00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:17,080 but then Willoughby unexpectedly loses his prospects. 774 00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:21,080 He dumps her and he runs off instead with a rich heiress. 775 00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:23,760 Willoughby, you're a heartless cad. 776 00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:30,160 Which leaves Marianne with this gentleman, Colonel Brandon. 777 00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,840 Now, there's a problem here - he's more than 35 years old, 778 00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:40,680 positively ancient. But he loves Marianne like a faithful hound. 779 00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:42,800 And his property's not bad either, 780 00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:46,320 although it's a bit boring for a flighty young thing. 781 00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:49,200 The best entertainment is watching the carriages go past 782 00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:51,280 on the nearby turnpike road. 783 00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:54,960 But he is a decent chap with £2,000 a year. 784 00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:57,960 The lesson for Marianne, as it must have been for many 785 00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:02,960 women like Austen, is that Sense - wealth and security - come first. 786 00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:07,560 Sensibility and feelings and romance will hopefully follow on afterwards. 787 00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:15,720 All of this could make Jane Austen seem mercenary and unromantic. 788 00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,760 But, when faced in real life with a similar choice to Marianne's, 789 00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,160 what did she do? 790 00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:25,160 Reader, she didn't. 791 00:52:27,720 --> 00:52:31,360 Details of Austen's own emotional life are scarce, 792 00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:35,880 but we do know about an intriguing episode that happened late in 1802. 793 00:52:37,160 --> 00:52:39,040 While staying with his family, 794 00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:43,560 Jane caught the attention of the amusingly-named Harris Bigg-Wither. 795 00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:48,000 He was a bit awkward, he had greasy hair and he was six years younger, 796 00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:51,480 but he was the heir to a large house and estate. 797 00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:57,480 One evening, Harris proposed to Jane and she accepted him. 798 00:52:57,480 --> 00:52:59,600 There must have been celebrations. 799 00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,120 The two families were very friendly 800 00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:05,800 and perhaps Jane's relations felt a bit of relief. 801 00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:09,240 After all, she was now 27 - getting on - 802 00:53:09,240 --> 00:53:10,960 and this was a very good match, 803 00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:13,800 the best that she could have hoped for. 804 00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:18,080 But the next morning, presumably after a sleepless night, 805 00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:22,080 Jane sent for Harris and she broke it off. 806 00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:25,280 She'd realised that she just couldn't love him, 807 00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:28,480 despite the fact it meant turning down a life like that. 808 00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:31,440 But as Jane herself put it, 809 00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:37,360 "Nothing can be compared to the misery of being bound without love." 810 00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:44,280 Even though she portrayed a world in which sense seemed to win out 811 00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:49,000 over sensibility, Austen would not consider a marriage for herself 812 00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:51,200 that was not based on romantic love. 813 00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:56,160 Jane returned to Bath, where she'd ended up living. 814 00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:02,520 Jane paid a heavy price for her choice because now she was embarking 815 00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:07,040 upon middle age still financially dependent upon her own family. 816 00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:12,920 Austen's own situation is echoed in her last complete novel, 817 00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:15,760 which is largely set in Bath - Persuasion. 818 00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:21,640 In Persuasion, we meet somebody who has lost the game. 819 00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:26,200 The heroine, Anne Elliot, is a casualty of the marriage market. 820 00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,440 She has squandered her chance of romance 821 00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:31,480 and now she bitterly regrets it. 822 00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,960 Years before, Anne Elliot had been persuaded to 823 00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:39,840 break off the engagement to a young naval officer. 824 00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:43,480 Now she's almost an old maid. 825 00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:49,160 To make matters worse, the captain she'd spurned is back on the scene, 826 00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:53,680 now with a lot of money, and Anne is still in love with him. 827 00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:58,760 Austen gives us aching, broken-hearted love through 828 00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:02,120 the experience of a woman who thinks she's lost her chance. 829 00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:08,080 Anne Elliot would often find herself trapped behind the piano at parties. 830 00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:11,360 She'd have to provide the music while everybody else danced. 831 00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:14,120 This was the fate of the old maid. 832 00:55:14,120 --> 00:55:17,680 People would give her patronising little put-downs. 833 00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:19,480 "Oh, well done, Miss Anne. 834 00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:23,680 "Lord bless me, how those little fingers of yours do fly about." 835 00:55:28,240 --> 00:55:32,640 But Persuasion's greatness isn't just this comedy of manners. 836 00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:36,560 It goes beyond anything that romantic fiction had achieved before. 837 00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,600 It's not a novel about the thrill of courtship, 838 00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:45,320 it channels the quiet desperation of a woman who has known love, 839 00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:50,320 and is deeply in love, but has to persuade herself that she's not. 840 00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:54,520 As readers, we're taken right inside these complex emotions. 841 00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:02,120 The book is Austen's most romantic and, wonderfully, 842 00:56:02,120 --> 00:56:05,440 she does allow Anne to get her naval officer in the end. 843 00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:10,920 A consolation, perhaps, for women like Jane herself - 844 00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:13,680 it's never too late for a second chance. 845 00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:28,400 Austen's own fate was to be the unmarried spinster. 846 00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,200 The burden, shared around by her married relatives. 847 00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:39,080 Persuasion was written while Jane Austen was living here, 848 00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:41,200 in a cottage owned by her brother. 849 00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:48,520 This is where she found the stability to write her novels 850 00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:50,680 and create her universe. 851 00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:57,800 It was at this insignificant-looking little desk that Jane Austen 852 00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:02,080 created the imaginary world in which she had all the choice 853 00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:05,480 and control that she lacked in the real world. 854 00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:08,600 But I think that the desk is more significant than that, 855 00:57:08,600 --> 00:57:10,880 more than just empowering Jane, 856 00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:14,360 because I believe that Jane Austen and Fanny Burney 857 00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:15,880 and Samuel Richardson 858 00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:19,400 and the other novelists of this first great Georgian flowering 859 00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:24,360 of British romance were changing the world in which they lived. 860 00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:28,280 They'd nurtured a new literary form - the romantic novel - 861 00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:32,600 that revealed women's uncertain situations and their interior lives. 862 00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:37,480 They wrote about new ways of feeling and having fun and, in the case 863 00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:42,800 of Austen, found a way to articulate sincere romantic love. 864 00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:46,280 By putting this out there, they encouraged people to seek 865 00:57:46,280 --> 00:57:51,520 these things in their own lives and they still do. 866 00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:56,080 Ever so many people, even today, have got their own ideas about love 867 00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:59,640 and romance from the books written at that desk. 868 00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:03,960 And if you were to ask me who was the most influential Georgian, 869 00:58:03,960 --> 00:58:09,760 I wouldn't say Nelson or Wellington, I would say Aunt Jane. 870 00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:11,080 Spinster. 871 00:58:13,760 --> 00:58:19,320 Next time, the Victorians go back to the future as chivalry brings 872 00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:21,920 romance into the middle-class home. 873 00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:26,720 But can the romantic ideal survive industrialisation, 874 00:58:26,720 --> 00:58:31,520 changing desires and women's growing self-confidence?