Dr Lucy Powell contributes to BBC’s Austen 250 celebrations

Trinity’s Dr Lucy Powell and leading Austen scholar Professor John Mullan of UCL will join producer and writer John Yorke for two forthcoming BBC Radio 4 programmes exploring Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The broadcasts form part of BBC Radio 4 and 4 Extra’s season marking the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, celebrating the life, legacy, and enduring literary brilliance of one of Britain’s most cherished authors.

Across the two programmes, the contributors examine how Austen’s most popular novel - described by the author herself as “too light, and bright, and sparkling” - has maintained its special place in the history of English literature.

Pride and Prejudice has captivated generations of readers and helped reshape the development of the novel. Its beloved tale of Regency-era romance, centred on the quick-witted Elizabeth Bennet and the aloof Fitzwilliam Darcy, introduced new levels of psychological depth, granting readers intimate access to characters’ thoughts and emotions. This narrative sophistication set a precedent for much of the fiction that followed.

The novel’s celebrated opening line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”, stands among the most recognisable in literature. The characters’ ambitions, anxieties, and choices, often oriented towards securing a favourable match, offer vivid insight into a society in which women’s security and social standing were largely determined by marriage.

Dr Lucy Powell is a Lecturer in English. Her work investigates the relationship between narrative form and larger social change in the long eighteenth century, and between material and literary culture.

The two Pride and Prejudice programmes will air on BBC Radio 4 on 13 and 14 December and will be available on BBC Sounds afterwards.