The music collection of novelist Jane Austen and her family is being made freely available to access online as part of a University digital library project.
© Jane Austen’s House Museum
The Austen Family Music Books is a collection of 18 albums of music containing around 600 pieces that belonged to the 19th century writer and her relations. The imaging of the books was carried out at the Hartley Library in its state-of-the-art Digitisation Unit.
Professor of Music, Jeanice Brooks, who led the project, says:
“Jane Austen’s novels are full of musical scenes, and this collection will help literature scholars and Austen fans to better understand the real musical environment that fed the novelist’s imagination. Just as importantly, the collection provides music historians with a unique glimpse of the musical life of an extended gentry family in the years around 1800.”
Austen herself played the piano and sang throughout most of her life. She and her family carefully copied music by hand into personal albums, and collected the sheet music that poured from London presses.
These albums of individually copied or purchased sheet music items, bound together, show the personal tastes of their owners – just as a digital music collection on a mobile phone or MP3 device would today. In addition to Austen herself, other women in the Austen family, including her sisters-in-law and nieces, all contributed material to the collection.
Read the full press release here.