Elizabeth Knight: A Woman to be Reckoned With
Channel: ChawtonHouse
Date: 16/05/2020

Elizabeth Knight (1674-1737): the only female squire to have presided over the Chawton House estate, eventually inherited by Jane Austen’s brother.Wealthy, powerful and very much in the mould of Jane Austen’s great landowning women such as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Knight was a woman who refused to relinquish control of her land holdings in an age when wives had no legal identity of their own. This talk introduces audiences to a real-life woman who may have been the inspiration for some of Austen’s best-known female characters. 

Alison’s talk will be followed by a Twitter Q&A.

Join the Conversation #ChawtonLitFest

Alison Daniell is a PhD researcher at Southampton University, working on the lived experiences of women under coverture during the long eighteenth century and how those experiences were re-imagined in female-authored fictions of the period. A former matrimonial lawyer and novelist, Alison is a writer, tutor and lecturer who currently teaches on the highly-successful ‘Jane Austen: Myth, Reality and Global Celebrity’ MOOC run by Southampton University.