“I am to flirt my last”: Jane Austen’s twenties

Today on the History Extra podcast, we're going to return to Lauren Good with our latest Sunday series exploring the life and works of Jane Austen. We might assume that Jane Austen led a quiet life, writing dramatic plots instead of experiencing them herself, but this is far from the truth. I'm Lauren Good and in this second episode of a four-part series exploring Jane's life and writing, Dr. Lizzie Rogers and I will be covering a more dramatic period of the writer's life, her twenties, where she experienced romance, major life changes, and sudden loss. Lizzie, last episode we explored Jane's upbringing and her earlier influences, and now we find ourselves in December 1795.

Jane is 20, and a neighbour's nephew, Tom Lafroy, makes a visit to Steventon. What do we know about the relationship that developed between the two of them? Tom Lafroy is a really interesting episode in Jane's life because he's actually mentioned in that very first letter that's preserved. So automatically that's exciting. And as you mentioned, he's a nephew of a neighbour and the Lafroy family were big friends with the Austins.

Madame Lafroy, as she was known, was a really close friend of Jane's and she was actually would write too. She had literary ambition as well. So They were pretty close, which I think also kind of helps magnify the situation a little bit. But Tom Lafroy grew up in Ireland.

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