A Walk With Jane Austen

...by Lori Smith

Smith takes readers along for the ride as she travels to Jane Austen’s England; visiting all the significant locations in Austen’s novels, as well as to where Jane spent her real life. This read very well, as Smith wrote of her own life’s journey as it unfolded along the way. With wit and insight, she explores the landscape of Austen’s life and those in her novels; looking for Jane, but finding pieces of herself along the way. Beginning in Oxford, Smith travels through English countryside, from Steventon, where Jane’s father was a rector, on through Lyme, Bath, and Pilsley (what Jane Austen fan could help but go in search of Mr. Darcy’s home…), among others. What I like most about this (aside from all the Austen-y stuff), is that we are along for the ride of Smith’s life. We watch her grow as a person, becoming surer of herself. She starts out on this journey, not really knowing who she is, or why she’s found herself in sort of a funk, and as she travels, and looks at Jane’s life, it helps her sort out her own. Historically, I learned much about Austen the author, and intimately, I learned much about Smith the author. Her search for life’s meaning, love, good health, and faith are familiar to me.


I was able to relate to this in a few ways, as I am usually in a funk of sorts (it’s my normal state, really), and I still have no idea who I really am, or who I’m meant to become. It was very much a sort of “girl-bonding” in an unusual way. Not so much with your best “living” friend, but with one who lived in another era, to whom you are relating just by following her footsteps and looking at life through her eyes…but not in a creepy way.