A revealing, spirited and fascinating account of what life was really like in Jane Austen's England.

Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England explores the real England of Jane Austen's lifetime. It was a troubled period, with disturbing changes in industry and agriculture and a constant dread of invasion and revolution. The comfortable, tranquil country of her fiction is a complete contrast to the England in which she actually lived. From forced marriages and the sale of wives in marketplaces to boys and girls working down mines or as chimney sweeps, this enthralling social history reveals how our ancestors worked, played and struggled to survive. Taking in the horror of ghosts and witches, bull baiting, highwaymen and the stench of corpses swinging on roadside gibbets, this book is a must-read for anyone wanting to discover the genuine story of Jane Austen's England and the background to her novels.