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Maps of the Novels

A defining characteristic of Jane Austen’s fiction is its realism, which is manifest in details of speech, manner, lifestyle, and even geography.

In each novel her “3 or 4 Families in a Country Village” are situated in a specific part of England. Austen always names the county in which a novel’s action is set and often mentions cities and landmarks, though her villages and estates are invented. 

She also uses geography to make a point about her characters. For example, Sense and Sensibility begins, “The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex.” Austen uses the removal of the Dashwood women from Norland Park in Sussex to Barton Cottage in distant Devonshire to underscore both their exile from a cherished home and their displacement from an established social position to a modest life among strangers.


Sense and Sensibility


Map of Sense and Sensibility

 

Pride and Prejudice


Map of Pride and Prejudice

 

Mansfield Park


Map of Mansfield Park

 

Emma


Map of Emma

Hypothetical Map of Highbury

 

Northanger Abbey


Map of Northanger Abbey

 

Persuasion


Map of Persuasion

Map of Bath  (Persuasion sites darkened on map.)

 

Jane Austen's London


Map of Jane Austen's London

Key to Map of Jane Austen's London

 

Other Maps and Articles


Map of English Counties

 


Map Credits:
• Maps of the novels from Where’s Where in Jane Austen . . . and What Happens There, by Patrick Wilson, published by the Jane Austen Society of Australia.
• Hypothetical Map of Highbury created by Penny Gay, published in Persuasions On-Line 36.1, (Winter 2015).
• Map of London created by Jane Axelrod, JASNA-New York Metropolitan Region member.

“. . . from politics, it was an easy step to silence.”

Northanger Abbey