Alice Krige reads from Claire Harman's exploration of Jane Austen's rise to pre-eminence from humble family scribblings to Hollywood movies.

The 19th century taste for the great, sprawling novels of Dickens, Thackeray and others left Jane Austen in relative obscurity for some decades. But public interest flared up again with her nephew's publication of the first biography in 1870, and gained a momentum that was now unstoppable.

A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4. Show less