Jane Austen: The Woman Behind the Words

Caroline Sanderson is a writer and books journalist. She is Associate Editor of The Bookseller for which she has compiled the monthly New Titles preview of forthcoming non-fiction since 2000. Caroline is a Writing for Life Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, and is currently Writer in Residence at South Tees NHS Foundation Trust. Programme Director of Stroud Book Festival, Caroline is the author of six non-fiction books, including biographies of Jane Austen and the singer, Adele. Her memoir – Listen With Father: How I Learned to Love Classical Music – will be published by Unbound in July 2025.

Helena Kelly holds a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Oxford, where she was most recently a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Life Writing at Wolfson College. She has also taught at the university.
In addition to publishing numerous academic pieces, she is the author of The Worlds of Jane Austen, The Life and Lies of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, The Secret Radical. Her writing has been hailed as ‘sublime’ (the Observer), ‘unimpeachable’ and ‘energizing’ (The New York Times), and ‘dazzling’ (The New Yorker).

Lizzie Dunford has been the Director of Jane Austen’s House since 2020. She has spent her career caring for and sharing the stories of writers’ houses and historic house museums. She regularly writes and presents on Austen, literary houses and museum management, and is currently working on her first book The Lost Fairy Tales of Jane Austen.

Jane Austen’s House was the final home of the iconic writer Jane Austen, and the place from which all six of her novels came into the world. It has been open to the public as a museum since 1949, and over the decades has built up an astonishing collection of artefacts that tell the story both of Austen and her novels. Today it is a thriving independent charity cared for by a skilled, inspiring and dedicated team of staff, trustees and volunteers.