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Janet Todd
Jane Austen and Money
Hay Festival 2013,
Jane Austen knew the value of money, what it could and could not buy. ‘A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of,’ says a charming but tainted character. Austen marketed herself as a solitary writer, but great wealth could only come from the professions, trade and speculation-- from which women were barred. The books display bitterness at women’s dependence on men but also ambivalence over any female control of money.
