Did Jane Austen even care about romance?
Arts & Culture Did Jane Austen even care about romance? Scholars contest novelist’s ‘rom-com’ rep as 250th anniversary ushers in new screen adaptations Eileen O’Grady Harvard Staff Writer July 7, 2025 5 min read Illustration by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff Deidre Lynch thinks everyone should read “Mansfield Park.” Jane Austen may be best known for the romantic and witty “Pride and Prejudice,” but Lynch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature in the Department of English, wants readers to see the 19th-century novelist as more than a “rom-com writer.” “The marriage plot is not the thing Austen is most interested in,” Lynch said. “She’s interested in how difficult it is to be a good person. She’s interested in inequality and domination, and power. She’s interested in how people who don’t have a lot of power nonetheless preserve their principles. What is independence of mind even if you don’t have financial or political independence?” This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth —...