Jane Austen's Real-Life Locations Quiz

Answer: Mansfield Park

Fanny Price left her home in Portsmouth to go and live with her rich relatives at Mansfield Park when she was just ten years old and had no chance to return until she was eighteen. Her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, arranged her visit to Portsmouth with the intention of reminding Fanny of the poor circumstances of her family and changing her mind about rejecting the marriage proposal of Mr Crawford (an unprincipled but rich man who she wasn't in love with). However, Fanny was excited about the opportunity to see her family again and her disappointment only set in when she realised that her younger siblings didn't really remember or care much about her and that neither of her parents were particularly bothered about seeing her again. Her father, a retired lieutenant of marines, spent most of his time at the naval dockyard and her mother's time and thoughts were dominated by her sons rather than her daughters.

Portsmouth is a city on England's south coast and while the size of the Royal Navy is now only a fraction of what it was in Jane Austen's time, it remains a major naval port and dockyard. Jane Austen had close connections to the navy as two of her brothers were Admiral of the Fleet Sir Francis Austen and Rear Admiral Charles Austen.

Answer: Pride and Prejudice

The heroine of 'Pride and Prejudice', Elizabeth Bennet, had angrily rejected Mr Darcy's first proposal of marriage because of both her prejudice against him and the fact that his pride had led him to insult her family. So when they unexpectedly met again while she was touring his estate in Derbyshire, their conversation was understandably somewhat awkward. Elizabeth was eventually able to start the safe topic of her recent journey through the county and they then "talked of Matlock and Dovedale with great perseverance".

Matlock is the county town of Derbyshire and had a thriving spa in the 19th century. Dovedale is a scenic valley in the Peak District that remains a popular tourist destination. It was also mentioned that Elizabeth had visited Chatsworth House, the grand residence of the Dukes of Devonshire, during her tour of Derbyshire - Chatsworth was the building that 'played' Pemberley (Mr Darcy's estate) in the 2005 film 'Pride and Prejudice'.

Answer: Sense and Sensibility

The heroine in question is Elinor Dashwood, the "sense" in 'Sense and Sensibility'. Elinor had fallen in love with Edward Ferrars (her half-brother's brother-in-law) only to discover that he was secretly engaged to Lucy Steele, the niece of his former schoolmaster. When the Dashwoods' servant reported seeing a newlywed Mr Ferrars and Lucy together in Exeter, Elinor understandably assumed that her love for him had become hopeless. However, when Edward turned up on her doorstep it turned out that Lucy had abandoned him and married his younger brother, Robert, instead - the servant simply hadn't thought to clarify which Mr Ferrars he had seen!

Exeter is the county town of Devon in south-west England. The Dashwood family - Mrs Dashwood and her three daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret - had been forced to move to a small cottage near Exeter after the death of Mr Dashwood.

Answer: Northanger Abbey

Bath was a prominent location in two of Jane Austen's novels - 'Persuasion' and 'Northanger Abbey' - but it was in 'Northanger Abbey' that the young and slightly naïve heroine visited the city as the guest of her parents' wealthy neighbours. The heroine in question was Catherine Morland who got great enjoyment from her visit as it provided her first experience of being out in society; her first chance to dance at balls and assemblies and make new friends; and - most importantly - the opportunity to meet the man she later married. This contrasts strongly with Austen's portrayal of Bath in 'Persuasion', where Anne Elliot had a strong dislike of the city that stemmed from having been sent to school there after the death of her mother.

Austen's own experience of living in Bath more closely matched Anne Elliot's experiences than Catherine Morland's. She lived there from 1800 to 1805 and ended up in somewhat reduced circumstances after the death of her father.

Answer: Pride and Prejudice

In Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' Mr Darcy revealed the reasons behind his hatred of his former childhood friend, George Wickham, in a letter to the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. Aside from Wickham's "vicious propensities" and "want of principle", it turned out that he had followed Darcy's teenage sister to Ramsgate for the sole purpose of making her fall in love with him so that he could gain control of her fortune of £30,000. He succeeded in getting Georgiana to agree to elope with him - an act that would have been a major scandal in the early 19th century - but his scheme ultimately failed when Darcy visited his sister unexpectedly and saved her.

Ramsgate, a seaside town on the east coast of Kent, was a popular and fashionable resort in the early 19th century, which explains why it was deemed a suitable location for a rich young girl to go and visit. Other famous 19th century visitors to the town included the future Queen Victoria in the 1830s and the painter Vincent van Gogh in the 1870s.

Answer: Emma

The trip to Box Hill was not exactly as enjoyable or successful as the eponymous heroine of 'Emma' had hoped it would be. She was initially bored by the conversation of Frank Churchill and then she got caught up in flirting with him because she was "less happy than she had expected". Her bad mood probably contributed to her lack of patience with the incredibly talkative but somewhat inane Miss Bates and led her to make a sarcastic remark about the woman being unable to limit herself to saying just three "dull things" at a time. Emma's day was then completely ruined when Mr Knightley, a man that she highly respected and was subconsciously in love with, pointed out her cruelty, described her behaviour as "badly done, indeed!" and left her to realise that "never had she felt so agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life".

Box Hill, which is owned and managed by the National Trust, is part of the North Downs and located in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In addition to being a popular tourist spot, it was also part of the route used for the road cycling events at the 2012 London Olympics.

Answer: Persuasion

The town of Lyme (or more properly, Lyme Regis) is located on the south coast of England in the county of Dorset. The town's distinctive harbour wall - known as "The Cobb" - dates back to at least the 14th century but has been rebuilt many times over that period. The curving wall has two levels along which people can walk, which are connected by steep and uneven sets of steps.

In Jane Austen's 'Persuasion', the heroine, Anne Elliot, visited Lyme along with her sister, Mary Musgrove; Mary's husband, Charles, and young sisters-in-law, Henrietta and Louisa; and her former fiancé, Captain Frederick Wentworth. The group had an enjoyable stay in the town until they decided to walk along the Cobb and Louisa Musgrove slipped out of Captain Wentworth's grasp while jumping down a set of the steps between the Cobb's two levels. Louisa was left unconscious from a head injury and it took her several weeks to recover.

Answer: Pride and Prejudice

In 'Pride and Prejudice' Mr and Mrs Bennet had five daughters - Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia. While the eldest two were well-respected and sensible young women, the younger girls had less admirable characteristics and the youngest, Lydia, was described by Elizabeth as being likely to become "the most determined flirt that ever made herself or her family ridiculous". So it was somewhat unsurprising that Lydia's visit to Brighton to stay with Colonel Forster's wife ended in disaster when she ran away with Mr Wickham under the mistaken impression that he intended to take her to Gretna Green to get married. In the end, the reputations of both Lydia and her whole family were only saved when Elizabeth's suitor, Mr Darcy, basically paid Wickham to marry her.

Brighton became a popular seaside resort during the Georgian and Regency periods, largely thanks to the influence of the future King George IV who was responsible for the construction of the city's striking Royal Pavilion.

Answer: Mansfield Park

In 'Mansfield Park' Edmund Bertram, the younger son of Sir Thomas Bertram, was initially educated at the famous Eton school before "going up" to Oxford to attend university and be ordained in preparation for his planned career in the church. In Jane Austen's time, the decision to become a priest was more of a financial one than a calling or a vocation, as the church was one of the few respectable careers available for the younger sons of both the gentry and the nobility. Owners of grand estates like the fictional Mansfield Park often controlled their local parishes and had the power to employ clergymen by granting (or selling) them 'livings'.

While the church provided Edmund with a decent income and his own home close to Mansfield Park, it didn't quite meet the expectations of Mary Crawford - the young woman with whom Edmund had fallen in love. She was wealthy and had been brought up in London society, so becoming the wife of a country parson was not the life she had envisaged for herself. Through much of the novel her feelings for Edmund appeared to battle with her desire to have a wealthy and important husband.

Answer: Emma

Weymouth was mentioned numerous times in Jane Austen's 'Emma' but not actually visited during the course of the events of the novel. Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax had both been born in the fictional village of Highbury where the novel was mainly set, but left the area after being informally adopted by other families during their childhood.

They had met again as adults while visiting the seaside town of Weymouth in Dorset and fallen in love, but were unable to marry due to his fear that he would be disinherited by his wealthy aunt if she knew he wanted to marry a penniless orphan.

They settled for committing themselves to a secret engagement and after Jane returned to stay with her family in Highbury, Frank soon followed her. However, in an effort to avoid any suspicion of a relationship between them, Frank flirted heavily with the novel's heroine, Emma Woodhouse, and left Jane distraught.

Their future happiness was only saved when the death of Frank's aunt allowed him to acknowledge the engagement and eventually marry her.