麻豆社

As Jane Austen turns 250, Austen biographer and writer Dr Paula Byrne is joined by prominent thinkers, writers, directors who tell her about their encounters with the famous author. Each of her guests has been shaped, changed, and inspired by Austen. The guests' experiences will inspire Paula's own reflections, drawn from the places that held special meaning for Austen. Today's guest: Katherine Rundell.

Katherine is an award-winning children's writer and she's spent a lot of time reading young people's writing. She says that Jane Austen's own writing as a teenager is unlike anything she's ever read. Austen left behind three books of what's known as her juvenilia - a collection of short stories, sketches and plays. The works are personal, comedic, and sometimes violent. Katherine says from from her very first short story, Austen seemed to understand how character was the motor behind a plot, that she's hilarious from a young age, but also that from her first pages, she understands the constraints on women in Georgian society. Katherine first met Austen in audiobook form - hearing the works performed by Prunella Scales - and she and Paula reflect on how Austen would perform her work as a young girl to her big family. One volume of the juvenilia is in the British Library in London - and Dr Alexandra Ault shows it to Paula.
Credit: Jane Austen, Emma, Read by Prunella Scales, ARGO classics, HarperCollins publishers

Presenter: Dr Paula Byrne
Reader: Gemma Whelan
Producer: Camellia Sinclair