Six Weeks by the Sea

A Novel

Paula Byrne

A vivid historical novel about Jane Austen that explores a question that has fascinated Janeites for years—Austen wrote some of the greatest love stories in existence, but did she ever fall in love?

When Jane Austen hears the news that her family is to leave their beloved country home for the city of Bath, she faints with surprise and horror. But there is one compensation: the promise of a six-week holiday by the sea while their new lodgings are being prepared. She relishes the bracing air and beautiful surroundings, takes pleasure in sea bathing, and shares laughter with her sister Cassandra and best friend Martha Lloyd.

To her joy, brother Frank arrives, fresh from naval exploits in the war against Napoleon. His friend Captain Parker seems to be making a play for Jane’s affections, but her sharp emotional intelligence tells her that something is not quite right. Meanwhile, she assists the eccentric Reverend Swete in finding a home for his bi-racial granddaughter who has arrived from the West Indies.

Jane initially takes against another visitor to the seaside resort of Sidmouth, the lawyer Samuel Rose, but as she gets to know him, a wholly different feeling begins to blossom. . . .

Written with a same wit and style that echos Austen herself, Paula Byrne expertly interweaves her deep knowledge of Austen and her world to imagine and give voice to the most romantic summer of the beloved author’s short life.

Paula Byrne is the critically acclaimed author of five biographies, including Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice, The Real Jane Austen, The Genius of Jane Austen, and Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead. She lives in New York City with her husband, the academic and biographer Jonathan Bate.

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Endorsements & Reviews

Praise for The Real Jane Austen

“Vividly persuasive. The Real Jane Austen is excellent, particularly on the dissonant topics of theater and slavery. Byrnes section on slavery is better still, establishing links between Austen’s protagonists and contemporary figures, her pointed references and contemporary events, which highlight her supposedly oblivious fiction’s sharp views on the slave trade.” The New York Times Book Review

“Byrne breathes yet more life into Austen and her works by considering the objects that populated her days. The thematic approach offers a revealing picture of Austen and a lively social history and paints a fresh and vivid picture of an inimitable woman.” The Economist

"Byrne’s aim is to show how these objects, many of them reproduced in her book in lush color plates, reveal a much more cosmopolitan awareness of the world than is commonly credited to Austen." Maureen Corrigan NPR

“Biographer Paula Byrne has taken objects from Jane Austen’s real life and times and used them as if we were dropping in on Austen on any given day...a dynamic new biography in which Austen lives and breathes.” NPR, All Things Considered

“Byrne takes Austen seriously as a writer...[she] brings to life a woman of “wonderful exuberance and self-confidence,” of 'firm opinions and strong passions.; Little wonder that every other man she meets seems to fall in love with her.” Michael Dirda The Washington Post

“Brilliantly illuminating. Riveting. Again and again, Byrne opens out Austen’s story with a novelist’s persistent probing of the evidence.” Simon Callow The Guardian