August, 2019. Postdoctoral Fellow Kim Simpson writes the first of a new monthly blog series I’ve spent the last three days on a single paragraph, reading and re-reading, trying to pick out the words from a barbed wire fence [...]
When young Edward Austen was adopted by Thomas Knight II and his wife Catherine, he inherited more than just the three estates of Godmersham Park, Chawton House, and the Steventon Manor House – he also inherited the Knight family [...]
Alison Daniell is studying for a PhD at the University of Southampton, researching attitudes to married women’s property ownership in female-authored fiction of the long eighteenth century. Here she talks about her experiences of researching at Chawton House: "I am [...]
Francesca Kavanagh, PhD Candidate and Teaching Associate, English and Theatre Studies, University of Melbourne. In August this year, with the generous support of the British Association for Romantic Studies’ inaugural Chawton House Travel Bursary, I spent two weeks in [...]
In the summer of 2015, Professor Peter Sabor from McGill University, Canada, came to Chawton House as a Visiting Fellow for a month. He spent most of his time in the vaults researching the Knight book collection, many of [...]
Following the success of the ‘Stinking Fish of Southampton’ festival in 2017, speakers at Chawton House discussed life in the Georgian Spa Resort of Southampton. Perception of Jane Austen’s time spent in Southampton is often relegated to a brief [...]
For the last two weeks I have been lucky enough to do an internship at Chawton House, working both with the librarian Darren on the upcoming new exhibition on women’s rights, and helping out with the daily running of [...]
One of our library volunteers, Judith Hepper, writes about one of our rare books she discovers in the reading room ... Climb up the high ladder to a top shelf in the Lower Reading Room and you will find [...]
Back in June 2016 I was lucky enough to spend a month working at Chawton House as a library intern. During the cataloguing and conservation work I saw what a fantastic collection of women’s writing is held here, and [...]
I started off the week with an interesting and detailed tour of the House and its beautiful Gardens – this took many hours, as the property and wider estate is huge. The House consists of many interesting features from [...]