From unwanted proposals and lingering looks across ballrooms to a wet-shirted Mr Darcy emerging from a lake, the romantic stories of Jane Austen – and their countless adaptations – have captured the hearts of many of us. But, if we turn to the real historical record of the Regency era, how much truth is there to these tales of happily ever after? As a nod to Valentine's Day, Lauren Good speaks to Rory Muir about the reality of love and marriage in the age of Jane Austen, from engagements and elopements to going on honeymoon with your mother-in-law.
(Ad) Rory Muir is the author of Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen (Yale University Press, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Marriage-Age-Jane-Austen/dp/0300269609/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty
The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Medieval Stalingrad: The siege of Calais
The First Crusade | 5. The end or the beginning?
The Munich Putsch: Hitler’s bungled revolution
Women’s history: from 1066 to Margaret Thatcher
Ancient Egyptian pyramids: everything you wanted to know
Scotland’s last witch
The First Crusade | 4. Besieged
Fighting racism in postwar Britain
Horror films: a chilling cultural history
The history of Jamaica: everything you wanted to know
Killers of the Flower Moon: The real history
The First Crusade | 3. Crossing into the unknown
Disease killers: the black nurses who conquered TB
Who moulded Winston Churchill?
The Second Barons’ War: everything you wanted to know
Renaissance eugenics
The First Crusade | 2. On the road
1960s Britain: smashing the status quo?
Life of the week Trailer
Disney at 100
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Dan Snow’s History Hit
Gone Medieval
Not Just the Tudors
History Daily
The Ancients