This week in Jane Austen

Jane Austen’s momentous 250^th birthday—spoiler alert: it’s tomorrow!--can be celebrated anywhere, of course, but it must be extra special to celebrate it in a place steeped in authentic Regency history. In other words: Oh, to be in England this week, for events like these:

* Bath: The Jane Austen Festival’s Yuletide Jane Austen Birthday Ball was surely one of the most coveted tickets of the year, and no wonder: The ball was held in the storied Pump Room, a prime gathering-spot in Austen’s era; the period music was live; and Regency attire was mandatory.

Why do I refer to this delightful occasion in the past tense? Because it happened two days ago. But don’t bother gnashing your teeth in frustration: If you’d known in time, you still couldn’t have gone. Even the waiting list was sold out.

* Brighton: Austen’s contemporaries knew the seaside town of Brighton as the place where their notoriously louche and extravagant Prince Regent, the future George IV, built himself a fantastically ornate residence known as the Royal Pavilion. Austen’s readers know Brighton as the place where the notoriously louche and extravagant George Wickham seduces the teenage Lydia Bennet. (Coincidence? You decide.)

Famously, Austen disapproved of the Regent’s lifestyle but dedicated Emma to him when he asked/told her to do so. And this month, the Royal Pavilion, now a museum, is taking advantage of that connection to celebrate A Very Austen Christmas.

"He adored her books, and she barely tolerated him, but now they are together once more under the same roof in the Royal Pavilion,” Daniel Cox, head guide at Brighton & Hove Museums, told a local newspaper. “It is the reunion Brighton did not know it needed.”

It’s too late to attend the Austen Christmas Cream Tea, but there’s still time to hear a museum curator speak about Austen and Brighton, and to take a tour of the pavilion and its Austen-themed holiday decorations, under the wing of a costumed guide—um, I mean a guide “attired as befits a man of taste and distinction.”

* Chawton: The mecca of Austen pilgrims is of course, the Chawton cottage where she spent the last eight years of her life and where she wrote or revised all six of her completed novels. And this week, not surprisingly, that cottage—now Jane Austen’s House museum—is celebrating nonstop.

Starting last Friday and continuing through tomorrow’s Big Day, the program has been packed with talks, tours, craft workshops, and performances. There are online events and in-person events, free-with-admission events and pricey events, and many, many sold-out events. There’s a candlelit tour, a quilting workshop, a lecture on Regency fashion, and an opportunity to talk about Austen over tea and cake.

The extravaganza culminates tomorrow with an online birthday-party-cum-museum-fundraiser featuring live music and an array of speakers. It’s not the same as celebrating this milestone birthday in the places that shaped Jane Austen—but it might be the next best thing.