Fight to claim Jane Austen's true home
It is the village in which Jane Austen spent the last years of her life and produced some of the best-loved novels in the literary canon. But Chawton in Hampshire is fighting to retain its rightful place in history after the city of Bath laid claim to be the author's "true home".
Organisers of Bath's Jane Austen Festival say the city is now "internationally recognised" as the writer's home because it features so heavily in her books.
This is no small affront to the residents of Chawton, where Austen lived from 1809 until her death in 1817. It was in Chawton Cottage that she completed all of her novels, including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion.
The cottage is now run as Jane Austen's House Museum and attracts 30,000 visitors each year. However, it is in danger of being overshadowed by Bath, where the festival opens this weekend for the seventh year running.
"I think of Bath as Jane Austen's true home and people who come here year after year from all over the world certainly recognise it as such," said David Lassman, festival director until 2007 and a leading authority on the novelist.
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Organisers of Bath's Jane Austen Festival say the city is now "internationally recognised" as the writer's home because it features so heavily in her books.
This is no small affront to the residents of Chawton, where Austen lived from 1809 until her death in 1817. It was in Chawton Cottage that she completed all of her novels, including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion.
The cottage is now run as Jane Austen's House Museum and attracts 30,000 visitors each year. However, it is in danger of being overshadowed by Bath, where the festival opens this weekend for the seventh year running.
"I think of Bath as Jane Austen's true home and people who come here year after year from all over the world certainly recognise it as such," said David Lassman, festival director until 2007 and a leading authority on the novelist.