Jane Austen was a brilliant observer of Georgian Britain But she couldn't speak for everyone

The author's books depict an evocative slice of early 19th-century life, but many aspects of the Regency era are only hinted at in her novels, as Lizzie Rogers reveals

- Lizzie Rogers

Ever felt like you could be Elizabeth Bennet? You're not alone. Entering Jane Austen's world can feel like an immersive experience. Reading her books (or watching television or film adaptations, or the many spin-offs and lookalikes), it’s easy to believe that somehow we've really got to know her England - and, by extension, the people who lived in it.

That feeling is encapsulated in the 2008 ITV series Lost in Austen, which follows the adventures of 21st-century heroine Amanda Price. Stepping through a portal into the world of Pride and Prejudice, Price (played by Jemima Rooper) finds herself in the bosom of the Bennet family, messing up episodes in the novel, trying - with varying degrees of success - to fix them and, inevitably, falling in love with Mr Darcy (Elliot Cowan). Her opening voiceover declares that “I've read [Pride and Prejudice] so many times now the words just say themselves in my head and it’s like a window opening. It’s like I'm actually there - it’s become a place I know so intimately... I can see that world, I can touch it.”

This is far from a new sentiment. In March 1826, after reading Pride and Prejudice for the third time, the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott wrote in his journal that Austen “had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with... the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment... What a pity such a gifted creature died so early.”