Happy 250th Birthday, Jane Austen!

2025 is Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary! There have been many celebrations all year across the world, but here at Duke University Libraries we are celebrating with a small display in the Hubbard case on the first floor of Perkins Library near the Perkins Service Desk. This display will be up until December 31st, so please take a look if you have time!

Highlights in the case include a fun illustrated version of The Beautifull Cassandra, a collection of Austen family charades, Duologues and Scenes from the Novels of Jane Austen arranged and adapted by Rosina Filippi, and a published collection of the Chawton Letters.

A reproduction of a turquoise bead bracelet that may or may not have belonged to Jane Austen is also on display. It was purchased by me as part of a fundraiser for the Jane Austen Summer Program and was handcrafted by women earning fair wages in Guatemala. It is made of Japanese glass beads and silk thread.

Here’s the charade on display:

When my first is a task to a young girl of spirit,

And my second confines her to finish the piece,

How hard is her fate! but how great is her merit,

If by taking my whole she effect her release!

The answer for this charade can be found somewhere in the case!

If you want to learn more about some of what you can see in the case, here are some suggestions. If you want to read more of Jane Austen’s juvenilia, you might want to check out this third volume of the collected works or this collection Catharine and Other Writings. You may also enjoy this blog post series about the language used in her teenage work. You can read more examples of charades and learn about the significance in this blog post. You can learn more about the life and work of Rosina Filippi in the monograph The Making of Jane Austen by Devoney Looser. If you’ve never explored Jane Austen’s letters that we are lucky to still have, you are in for a treat! You can learn more about the language used in her letters in In Search of Jane Austen: The Language of the Letters by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. Finally, you can find out more about the bracelet in Hilary Davidson’s recent Jane Austen’s Wardrobe.

As mentioned earlier, there have been many different celebrations this year for Jane Austen! I’ve especially enjoyed learning about some of the major exhibits at museums and libraries. In many cases you can see online some of what was on display:

The Morgan Library & Museum had an exhibit called A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250. You can see digitized images from the exhibit, listen to an audio guide, and watch a short video.

Harewood House had a major exhibition called Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter.

Jane Austen’s House had a lovely exhibit called The Art of Cassandra. You can see images from it on their website.

Hampshire Cultural Trust has an exhibit called Beyond the Bonnets: Working Women in Jane Austen’s Novels.

Chawton House still has their exhibit Sisters of the Pen: Jane Austen, Influence, Legacy up until February 2026. Check out this behind the scenes video of the installation!

It’s been a great year to be a Janeite! You’ll find many online tributes today, and many recordings from some of the events that have been happening all year. Today at 11:00am on WAMU, an NPR station, you can catch a segment called “The Enduring Legacy of Jane Austen.” And I’ll leave you with this recent CBS segment about Jane Austen at 250.