The story of a woman who was born in 1775 in a country village in Hampshire, England, who had less than two years of formal education, who died at just 41, and who wrote some of the greatest novels in the English language that have endured in popularity across centuries, could be the plot of a fantasy novel. It is not, but rather the biography of literary icon Jane Austen (1775–1817). This year is the semiquincentennial of her birth, and the occasion is being commemorated by special exhibitions, events, and festivals worldwide.
At the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, the exhibit “A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250” is on view through Sept. 14, 2025. This museum is an ideal venue for the display, since its permanent collection includes 51 of Austen’s own letters, which accounts for nearly a third of her surviving correspondence.
