Jane Austen Open Day at King’s College Library

King’s is taking part once more in Open Cambridge, the initiative that offers special access to the extraordinary spaces and places in Cambridge that are normally closed to the general public or charge admission. 

On Wednesday 17 September the College Library and Archives will host an exhibition to mark two hundred and fifty years since the birth of Jane Austen. The free exhibition will showcase first and early editions of the author’s well-known novels, the autograph manuscript of her unfinished novel Sanditon, and various documents that highlight the Austen family’s connection with King’s.

Wednesday 17 September, 10.30am-4pm 

King’s College Library

*

Earlier this year, the autograph manuscript of Jane Austen’s final novel, Sanditon, went on loan to Harewood House in Yorkshire as part of their exhibition Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter.

The Sanditon manuscript was given to King’s College in 1930 by Jane’s great-great niece Mary Isabella Lefroy, in memory of her sister Florence and Florence’s husband, the late Provost Augustus Austen Leigh (1840-1905), who was one of Jane's great-nephews.