As travellers flock to the English countryside to celebrate the renowned novelist, we asked experts to weigh in on the best Austen-themed festivals, reenactments and balls of the year. With bonnets and boarding passes ready, a brigade of Jane Austen fans from around the world is preparing to bombard Britain, eager to celebrate one of English literature's greatest writers throughout 2025 on her 250th birthday . From the dashing John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility to the spirited Emma Woodhouse in the eponymous Emma, Austen's characters have enchanted generations of readers, inspiring yearly pilgrimages to her home county of Hampshire and beyond to trace her footsteps.
This year, these journeys take on a celebratory air as travellers flock to the English countryside for literary festivals, reenactments and Regency balls designed to pay tribute to the author. Here are the year's most ostentatious events, according to Austen experts – the ones promising fans an unforgettable birthday bash for a writer who presciently wrote, "One cannot have too large a party." Although her vivid portrayals of English life now epitomise the extravagance of the Georgian era, Austen's own story began modestly.
She was born on 16 December 1775, in the village of Steventon , in Oxfordshire, England, the seventh child and youngest daughter of clergyman George Austen and his wife Cassandra. "It must have been a bustling household, with the large Austen family and the boys her father tutored," sai.
