Of pastimes and pleasures
Pastimes and Pleasures in the Time of Jane Austen
Sarah Jane Downing (Amberley, £15.99)
I POUNCED on this slim volume having just listened to Emma on Audible, beautifully read by Juliet Stevenson. Where and what exactly was Astley’s? Robert Martin was invited by John Knightley to join him ‘at Astley’s’, to which he was taking his two eldest boys, who were clearly excited at the prospect.
‘Away from the hushed drawing rooms, society had a cruel and reckless edge’
Well, among the wonderfully detailed illustrations in this picture-filled book is one of Astley’s Amphitheatre, by the river at Lambeth, from Ackermann’s Microcosm of London (1808); it was ‘one of a growing number of lesser or illegitimate theatres in London who avoided the licensing laws’.
When Jane Austen attended with her family in 1796, there were ‘performances from
