About the display

Marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, Dancing with Austen explores how important dance was to Austen’s gentry society and its crucial role in her creativity.

Dancing moves the plot in all of Jane Austen’s novels. Whether the scene of a private ball or a ticketed assembly, the dance floor measures the course of novels in which readers and characters ‘are all hastening together to perfect felicity’ (Northanger Abbey).

This display brings together items from the Bodleian's collections and from Jane Austen’s House. See a reconstruction of Austen’s writing space at Chawton Cottage, Hampshire – now Jane Austen’s House – and details from a ball imagined through music, word, and dress.