Wild About Jane Austen

Livestream from the British Library with Professor Devoney Looser, Bee Rowlatt and Kate Evans

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Wild About Jane Austen
Livestream from the British Library with Professor Devoney Looser, Bee Rowlatt and Kate Evans

We know Austen’s novels, but how well do we know their author? Presented for generations as a quiet spinster, this session introduces Jane Austen the ambitious writer, with insights into her relationship to the abolitionist movement and women's suffrage. In celebration of Austen’s 250th anniversary this evening brings together bold new interpretations and studies of her work in a questioning light, asking - who was Austen, what did she care about and what does her work mean to us in 2025?

Speakers

  • Bee Rowlatt

    Author and Events Producer

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  • Devoney Looser

    Devoney Looser is the Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and the author of several books.

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  • Kate Evans

    Kate Evans is a celebrated cartoonist, illustrator and public speaker with 30 years’ experience.

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Bee Rowlatt

Author and Events Producer

Bee Rowlatt works in the British Library's Cultural Events team. Her In Search of Mary (2015) was a ‘biography of the year’ (Independent) and she co-wrote the bestselling Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad (2010) which was dramatised by the BBC. She is one of Virago’s Fifty Shades of Feminism.

Devoney Looser

Devoney Looser is the Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and the author of several books.

Her books include Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës and The Making of Jane Austen (2017).

A Guggenheim Fellow and an NEH Public Scholar, Looser has published essays in The Atlantic, New York Times, Salon, Slate, and The Washington Post. She is a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America and played roller derby under the name Stone Cold Jane Austen.

Kate Evans

Kate Evans is a celebrated cartoonist, illustrator and public speaker with 30 years’ experience.

Her previous books include the highly-acclaimed Red Rosa and the Orwell Prize–longlisted Threads. Patchwork: A Graphic Biography of Jane Austen is her eighth work of graphic non-fiction. It is already hailed as a major new work of graphic biography for its ability to marry drama, comedy, and historically im­mersive detail, bringing Austen’s story to life with fluid, dynamic artwork – at times embroi­dered onto cloth itself.