CAROLINE JANE KNIGHT - JANE AUSTEN FAMILY MEMBER & AUTHOR

This Is the Interview NO Broadcaster Should Miss!

For Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, there is no more exclusive, authentic, or compelling guest than Caroline Jane Knight - Jane Austen’s fifth‑generation niece and the last Austen descendant to grow up at Chawton House, the “Great House” Jane herself wrote about.

Caroline is the last living bridge between Jane Austen’s private family world and the global literary icon she has become. Your audience will not just hear about Jane Austen; they will step inside her world.

Honoring Jane’s advocacy for education, Caroline is the founder and chair of the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation, supporting literacy projects in at‑risk communities.

This year, in honor of Jane’s 250th, she launched the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation North American Friends, allowing U.S. donors to support literacy while receiving tax benefits.

Caroline delivers raw, emotional, and breathtakingly vivid stories from a living voice who grew up inside Jane Austen’s family home; stories no one else on earth can tell.

She lived in Chawton House — Jane’s brother’s Hampshire manor, built in 1588, on the estate where Jane lived, wrote, and published her most beloved works.

She ate from the same Wedgwood dinner service when Jane accompanied her brother Edward in 1813, described in a surviving letter to Cassandra.

She walked the same paths, lived in the same rooms, and read from the same family library Jane knew.

She grew up surrounded by Austen family heirlooms, artifacts, traditions, and stories passed down through generations.

She is the last Austen niece to ever reside in Chawton House, which has not been a family home since her family left in 1988.

As a teenager, Caroline worked in her grandmother’s tearoom at Chawton House, meeting thousands of visitors — especially Americans — who traveled across the world to connect with Jane Austen’s legacy.

She grew up hosting the Jane Austen Society’s annual gatherings, watching the fandom evolve over 55 years into the global phenomenon it is today.

She has seen — up close — how Jane Austen became a superstar. These stories are cinematic, intimate, and historically priceless.

Caroline’s memoir, Jane & Me; My Austen Heritage, chronicles this extraordinary upbringing and has become the definitive personal account of what it means to inherit — and ultimately lose — the Austen family home.

Suggested Interview Questions

1.You didn’t just study Jane Austen — you walked the same paths, lived in the same rooms, and read from the same family library. Can you describe what it was like to grow up literally inside Jane Austen’s daily life?

2. Chawton House hasn’t been a residence since your family left in 1988. What was it like to watch your ancestral home transform from a private family estate into a public historic site visited by thousands?

3. You are the only close Austen family member who speaks publicly. Why have you chosen to take on this role, and what responsibility do you feel in carrying the Austen legacy forward?

4.Your memoir, Jane & Me, shares your childhood inside the Austen world. What is one story from your upbringing — perhaps involving family traditions, heirlooms, or artifacts — that readers are most astonished by?

5. If Jane Austen could sit with you today — her fifth‑generation niece — what would you want to tell her about the world she helped shape, and the millions of readers whose lives she continues to touch?