Jane Austen: A Partial and Prejudiced Historian

On the 250th anniversary of her birth, Jane Austen still has lessons for readers of history.

Detail from The History of England, including portraits of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1791. British Library/Bridgeman.

Henry IV ascended the throne of England much to his own satisfaction in the year 1399.

As opening lines for a history go, this is an excellent one. Its author was the teenage Jane Austen, in a lively short piece she wrote for the entertainment of her family: The History of England from the Reign of Henry IV to Charles I, by – as Austen gleefully proclaims herself – ‘a partial, prejudiced and ignorant historian’.

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