When Josh Pullinger opened Jane Austen’s Persuasion for the first time earlier this year, he was surprised to find he related to the book more than he thought.
“It feels very much like a queer experience that I had when I was younger,” Pullinger, 26, says. “Like: I sort of really like this person, but I know that it's not what I'm supposed to do or I feel like it's not what I'm supposed to do.”
“I said that to my friend who did her dissertation on Austen the other day and she was like, ‘Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense for you.’” He laughs. “I was like, ‘Great. I’m nothing if not a cliché.’”
He’s not the only one finding modern meaning in the work of a person centuries dead. Persuasion was published in 1817, but clearly it still has lessons to teach us. And 250 years after she was born, in a little parsonage in Steventon, the queen of the rom-com is still going stronger than ever.
A new Pride and Prejudice film written by Dolly Alderton (and starring Emma Corrin) is in the works. The heavily Regency-coded Bridgerton is romping back to screens in January. And that’s without all the classic adaptations we know and love, which have been cemented into modern pop culture: Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, Emma Thompson as Marianne. Gen Z reading app Fable is full of Jane Austen book clubs, while sites like Mrs Bennett’s Ballroom host dancing classes and Regency-style balls around the UK.
It seems we can’t get enough of Austen. Streams of her most famous work, Pride and Prejudice, spiked 75 per cent on Spotify after news of the new adaptation was announced; many of those were listeners coming to her works for the first time. And a lot of them are Gen Z.
A quick look on TikTok will bring up around 137,000 posts related to Jane Austen; most of them are young women either showing off their limited-edition book covers or dissecting how relatable it is. “When people think I’m smart because I read Jane Austen, but it’s literally just 19th-century Gossip Girl,” one post reads, another declares that Emma is “basically about a girl gossiping and creating chaos in Highbury because she’s being delusional.”
Clearly, Gen Z see something in Austen’s stories. “On Spotify, it's been a bubbling thing that we've all been aware of,” says Roshni Radia, who heads up the platform’s European content. Over the past few years, she says, streams of Austen’s audiobooks has taken off – as well as the soundtracks to beloved adaptations of her films.
Though there’s quite a wide spread of ages in who actually listens she says, “what's fascinating is that it skews much younger than it does for other [book series].”
“I did the promenade, and wore a burgundy dress with a hat that I had specially made”
The ways people come to her books are diverse. Pullinger’s first contact with Austen’s works was by watching a Bollywood spinoff called Bride and Prejudice at university.
“That was my first real foray into it,” he says. “Before, I thought it was quite stuffy and a bit out of date. I watched that film and was like, ‘Oh, this is amazing.’ I read Pride and Prejudice and then I read Persuasion this year. I'm making my way through it.”
Rebecca Williams, on the other hand, picked up her first Austen book during lockdown – and ended up joining the Jane Austen Society as a result.
“This year, because of the anniversary, I've tried to do bits of everything,” she says. That includes taking part in the anniversary festival in Bath, where “I did the promenade, and wore a burgundy dress with a hat that I had specially made.”
But Gen Z’s fascination with Austen goes deeper than dressing up. Pullinger runs a bookclub – called It’s Hardback Out There – with two friends, which bills itself as ‘London’s favourite bookish community for 20-somethings’. While last month marked the first time they tackled an Austen novel, he says demand for it has been consistently high among their members.
Why? “I have suspicions, but I can't say for sure,” Pullinger says. Part of the appeal, he suggests, is how “I feel like people are just a bit sick of modern dating and how much more complicated it has somehow become.”
“There's the huge nonchalance thing at the minute. Everyone's got to be so nonchalant and so chill and you've got to keep things open and not put all your eggs in one basket. And I feel like people are starting to see through that. Everyone wants something that feels a bit more visibly interested and I think that that is something that Jane Austen does very well.” No one does yearning like Austen.
“There is something there for everybody regardless of background, income, status, any of that stuff”
In addition to the dating, it’s also the relatability of her stories. Pullinger points out that of the three members of It’s Hardback Out There, each of them have their own favourite stories: clearly, people are drawn to her books for lots of different reasons.
“I think it's her stories, which are timeless. [It’s about] finding love. And that never goes away,” Roshni adds. “But more than that, I think it's how she portrays women, how she portrays men, how she portrays parental pressure. And those three things are really stationary, no matter how we as a society change or grow.”
Recently, Spotify also hosted a Jane Austen listening event geared towards Gen Z fans, which Radia says was attended by a surprising amount of solo attendees – many of whom, by the end of the night, had made friends with like-minded fans.
“What stood out from the event was genuinely how diverse the audience was,” she adds.
“I think it's so interesting that Jane Austen's works don't appeal to a specific demographic. They really do appeal to everybody from so many cultural backgrounds. And that to me is a gift. And that is not something many storytellers can do.”
“There is something there for everybody regardless of background, income, status, any of that stuff,” Pullinger agrees. “I think that's probably why she remains as popular as she is today.” And one thing’s for sure: we’re all going to be watching that Dolly Alderton adaptation next year.
