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Article: Jane Austen and Winchester Cathedral (1).(Miscellany)
- Article from:
- Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal
- Article date:
- January 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Jane Austen Society of North America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IT IS ENTIRELY FITTING that Jane Austen--one of our greatest writers, "next to Shakespeare," as some admirers have said--should be buried in Winchester Cathedral. Born and bred in Hampshire the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman, and dying a mere stone's throw from the Cathedral, it seems wholly in the order of things that her last resting-place should be within the Cathedral itself, beneath a massive ledger-stone in the North aisle, nearby the beautiful chantry of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, founder of Winchester College, Lord Privy Seal and twice Chancellor of England. (1) There was no exaggeration in the claim of a Winchester historian that "Of all the ...