2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth and the world is throwing a party in her honor all year long. We’re kicking off our celebration with a round-up of Austen stories and resources for reading and watching Austen, many from scholars Janine Barchas and Kristina Straub who co-curated the Folger exhibition Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity.
Becoming Jane
Shakespeare is one of two British authors whom we call by their first names today. The other one, of course, is Jane Austen.
What turns a good writer into a superstar? 200 years and plenty of spectacle
Shakespeare had the theatrical entrepreneur David Garrick who launched the first celebration of Shakespeare as “the god of our idolatry” in 1769 with the Shakespeare Jubilee. In 1995, the BBC broadcast Pride and Prejudice and “the desiring gaze of Elizabeth Bennet (played by Jennifer Ehle) on the manly charms of a wet-shirted Darcy (played by Colin Firth) triggered a small tsunami of Jane Austen adaptations. It also sparked a new interest in Jane herself.”
Jane Austen’s Shakespeare
Because she lived two centuries after Shakespeare, Jane Austen had a chance to experience his early rise towards literary megastardom firsthand. She read and admired his work, referenced him in her own novels, and saw his plays performed.
Reading Jane
During her lifetime, Jane published anonymously although her authorship was an open secret among the fashionable set. The Prince Regent, who later became George IV, was a known admirer, with a set of Austen novels in each of his residences.
Jane Austen’s Works
Everything that Jane wrote, from the Jane Austen Society of North America.
Shakespeare and Austen in wartime
During World War I, the works of Shakespeare and Austen reached troops through the American Library Association’s “War Service Library” program. Heavy shipments of used books for camp libraries gave way during World War II to lightweight paperbacks designed to fit in the pocket of a uniform. Will and Jane were there, too.
Adaptations, modernizations, and fan fiction
Will and Jane have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous adaptations. In the 20th century, Austen joined Shakespeare in his entrance into modern media—film, television, and digital forms—as well as print spin-offs, fan fiction, radical modernizations, and even travesties.
Related | Shakespeare and Austen pairings
Watching Jane
Filmmakers have been adapting Austen’s novels since 1938 to the delight of audiences on big screens and little ones alike.
Austen on screen
The Jane Austen Society of North America list of films are all available to watch today.
From Much Ado to Love and Friendship in film
Actress Kate Beckinsale is one of the movie stars who links Shakespeare and Austen in popular culture. Her first feature film role was playing Hero in Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film of Much Ado About Nothing. In 2016, she turned to Austen in Walt Whitman’s smart adaptation of Austen’s epistolary novel, Lady Susan.
11 actors who have played Austen and Shakespeare
From Dame Judi Dench to Kate Winslet, Hugh Bonneville to Alan Cumming, 11 actors have given acclaimed performances in both Shakespeare and Austen roles in stage productions and film adaptations.
Related | Quiz: Can you pair these Austen and Shakespeare characters?
Coming up at the Folger this season
O.B. Hardison Poetry Series | The Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen Birthday Tribute
December 9, 2025, at 7:30pm
This year, our annual birthday tribute to American poet Emily Dickinson will also honor English novelist Jane Austen on her 250th birthday. Noted scholars Martha Nell Smith and Patricia A. Matthew will discuss the life, work, and legacy of Dickinson and Austen and how they continue to shape writers of today, highlighting well-known passages. The reading, which is co-sponsored by the Emily Dickinson Museum, will be followed by a book signing in the Great Hall. Emily Dickinson’s famous black cake, based on her own recipe, will also be served.
Keep exploring
Collecting Will and Jane
One of the stories told by the current exhibition Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity is that literary renown is as much about commodities as about books. Literary celebrity transforms authors into objects. Our exhibition traces…
Women painting Shakespeare in the time of Jane Austen and Queen Victoria
During the late 18th and early 19th century, professional women artists in England were becoming more prominent and turning to Shakespeare for material.
Recreating the Boydell Gallery
Riding the coattails of the 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee, an artistic entrepreneur named named John Boydell opened one of England’s first art galleries, devoted to paintings of scenes from Shakespeare plays. The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery has now been recreated online.
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