Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England

The comfortable, tranquil world of Jane Austen’s fiction is a complete contrast to the England in which she actually lived. It was a troubled period with disturbing changes in industry and agriculture and a constant dread of invasion and revolution. From forced marriages and the sale of wives in marketplaces to boys and girls working down mines or as chimney sweeps, this enthralling social history reveals how our ancestors worked, played and struggled to survive.