Friday 15th November 2024 - Sunday 23rd February 2025

In Training for a Heroine: Jane Austen's Travelling Writing Desk 

on loan from the British Library

Exhibition: In Training for a Heroine, Jane Austen’s Travelling Writing Desk 

Event details

  • God's House Tower Town Quay Road SO14 2NY
  • 2025-01-09 10:00 to 2025-02-23 16:00

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Exhibition: In Training for a Heroine, Jane Austen’s Travelling Writing Desk 

2025-01-09 10:00 to 2025-02-23 16:00
9th January 2025

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Exhibition: In Training for a Heroine, Jane Austen’s Travelling Writing Desk 

2025-01-09 10:00 to 2025-02-23 16:00
9th January 2025

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Friday 15th November 2024 – Sunday 23rd February 2025

From November 2024 – February 2025, Jane Austen’s travelling writing desk is being exhibited at God’s House Tower, on loan from the British Library. Jane Austen’s travelling writing desk is at the heart of a year-long celebration of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday in Southampton, and across the world.

In Training for a Heroine begins with the story of Jane Austen as a young, ambitious writer at the very start of her career. The exhibition takes its title from a passage in Northanger Abbey, in which Austen describes the protagonist, Catherine Morland, at the age of ‘fifteen to seventeen’ – the same age Jane Austen would have been when she began writing the novel.

At the age of nineteen, the author was gifted a travelling writing desk by her father, Rev. George Austen. The portable mahogany desk was designed to fold into a case for ease of travel and has a secret drawer where Austen stored her most treasured possessions. The author’s surviving manuscripts, ink recipes, and writing tools expose the practicalities and processes involved in writing novels and sending letters in the Regency era.

Extracts from Austen’s letters provide an insight into her life and her time in Southampton, where she lived from 1806-1809. Her writing is full of witty observations, humorous anecdotes, and scandalous gossip, as well as comments and reflections on her own published works and a passionate defence of the novel as a literary form.

This exhibition is part of the Jane Austen at GHT programme, which also includes a new contemporary art commission, No Notion of Loving by Halves by Jocelyn McGregor. You can read more about the commission here.

This exhibition is free to attend.

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Stories Behind the Stones

Visit Stories Behind the Stones where each floor of the Tower takes you on a journey through time. Discover centuries of history retold with immersive installations, fascinating displays and stunning rooftop views across Southampton Water.