SMILING AT GRIEF with John Wiltshire

Persuasion Jane Austen's last novel, and Sanditon, the unfinished work that followed it, are both concerned with health - not surprisingly because Jane was herself seriously ill while she was writing them. What is surprising, even astonishing, is how critical both works are of people who claim to be ill. Mary, the heroines in sister in Persuasion, is an endless complainer, while Sanditon is a savage and hilarious satire on a whole family of hypochondriacs and devotees of what we now would call 'alternative' medicine. Reading these stories can only make us honour the courage of their author.

JOHN WILTSHIRE is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University where he taught English Literature for about forty years. He is the author of numerous books about Jane Austen and has edited Mansfield Park for the authoritative Cambridge edition. His most recent publications are The Cinematic Jane Austen (2009) and The Making of Dr Johnson (2009) and Hidden Jane Austen (2015). His most recent book, Frances Burney and the Doctors: patient experiences then and now was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. He has given talks in England, the USA, India, and Australia and has enjoyed speaking at TJC since 2008.

This lecture is supported by The Colin Holden Charitable Trust

Image: still from Persuasion (2007 film) directed by Adrian Shergold and featuring Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliot and Amanda Hall as Mary Musgrove, Anne’s sister