The political being

In the third episode of Jane Austen's Paper Trail from The Conversation, we explore Jane's politics, and her views on slavery through the pages of Mansfield Park.

There are no strident political takes in Jane Austen’s novels, but many subtle and carefully crafted signals. Slavery was one of the biggest and most urgent public debates of Austen's times. It’s an issue most modern readers would like to see her coming down on the right side of. But she only ever wrote one black character, Miss Lambe in the unfinished work Sanditon, and her book which deals most with issue, Mansfield Park, only mentions slavery directly only once.

In this episode we visit Liverpool docks, which were at the centre of Britain's transatlantic slave trade, with Corinne Fowler, a professor of postcolonial literature at the University of Leicester. And then we sit down for a deep dive into Austen’s view of the slave trade in Mansfield Park with two more experts: Olivia Robotham Carpenter, a lecturer in literature at the University of York, and Markman Ellis, a professor of 18th-century studies at Queen Mary University London.

Jane Austen's Paper Trail is a podcast from The Conversation celebrating 250 years since Jane Austen's birth. If you have a question you'd like to pose to Jane Austen experts for an upcoming Q&A special, please email us on podcast@theconversation.com.

You can also sign up to receive a free Jane Austen 250 ebook from The Conversation, bringing together a collection of our articles celebrating her life and works.

Host: Anna Walker

Reporter: Naomi Joseph

Senior Producer and Sound Design: Eloise Stevens

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Artwork: Naomi Joseph and Alice Mason

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