Hello again, dear readers! This year, we’ve begun a blog series highlighting Austen-lovers around the world—sharing how they first discovered Austen’s fiction, why they love Austen, how they’ve contributed to the Janeite community, you get the picture. Fans, who cultivate and engage in discourse surrounding Austen’s life and fiction, participate in workshops and conventions, host book clubs, and don I ❤️ Darcy merchandise with pride (but hopefully not prejudice—wink, wink), are the reason Jane’s spirit survives in the twenty-first century. We deserve a shout-out! And we deserve the chance to connect with like-minded individuals across the world. This Spotlight features Susan Tailby, a life-long member of “Team Brontë” who has learned to appreciate both Austen and the Brontë sisters in her adult years.
Susan Tailby is a woman of many talents. A self-described “Lady—who never tells her age (eternally young!),” Susan is a keen blogger with a passion for arts and culture. Over the course of her life, she has also been a student (three times!), tutor, teacher, administrator, e-learning trainer, and even the CEO of her own business.
“And who knows what’s next?” she asks. “Always a creative.”
However, “Janeite” is one particular hat Susan never thought she’d wear. When she was a teenager completing her A-levels (for those of us non-UK residents, that’s basically the last few years of high school), her class was assigned to read both Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights and examine the two in analytical comparison essays. Compared to Austen, who seemed—at the time—emotionally stilted and reserved, Team Brontë emerged as the clear winner: “cinematic, bigger than big emotions, naturalistic, vivid, wild, accessible. (Though I could never imagine the enclosed box bed).”
However, while Susan initially found Austen’s writing style unappealing and her characters unrelatable, she returned to her fiction years later with brand new eyes. “Film and TV adaptations helped a lot,” she says, “as did radio versions. Lucy Worsley's exploration of Jane Austen's life was fascinating, particularly in terms of how it influenced her writing. More than bonnets!” Susan eventually came to appreciate Austen’s complex characters and their various motivations, as well as the larger roles they play within their society. Her favorites are the “naughtily funny” Lady Susan and Northanger Abbey, as well as Austen’s letters, which reveal that the beloved author was “fierce[,] and not a sweetly retiring lady.”
Susan also enjoys Austenian adaptations, but she believes it’s a shame when modern fashions and hairstyles take center stage. Among her favorite adaptations of Austen’s work is the recent Guilford Shakespeare Company four-person production of Pride & Prejudice.
As a resident of Jane Austen’s homeland, Susan regularly passes by the Winchester house in which Austen last resided until the time of her death, and the late author’s flower-laden grave in Winchester Cathedral. She has donned bonnets with friends at Chawton, explored “Mr. Darcy’s Lake” at Lyme Park, and visited Chatsworth House (a commonly used filming location for Pemberley in film and television adaptations of Pride and Prejudice) in the Peak District, although she regrets to inform our readers that Mr. Darcy himself was not spotted on either of the latter two premises. Susan enjoys taking advantage of the many attractions of Bath—the theatre, the Fashion Museum, the Roman Baths, and the Royal Crescent—and walking the same streets Austen used to traverse. She also follows Chawton House’s online lectures, as well as Instagram content regarding Regency fashion.
If she has learned anything on her Janeite journey, it is that the world is large enough for both Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. Going forward, Susan is looking forward to seeing greater diversity within Austen fandom, but also greater unity as a global community. Her favorite Austen character is Mr. Bingley, who—though gullible and often easily persuaded by more commanding figures—is “affable, kind, appreciative and generous, and nice to everyone. In these heated and hate-filled times, the world needs more Bingleys.”
Connect with Susan via Cultural Capital, her online blog.
Excepted from email correspondence with Susan Tailby, April 24, 2024.
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