After 200 years, why do we still love Jane Austen?

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death. Olivia Kelleher looks at why modern audiences are still very much enamoured with her.

THE world has never fallen out of love with Jane Austen because she had an ability to bottle a certain type of Englishness that is very attractive, according to Trinity College Dublin English lecturer Daragh Downes.

Dr Downes said there would not be the success of Downton Abbey or The Crown without Jane Austen’s creation of this micro world of the landed gentry and aristocracy.