“This is a transformative opportunity to scale our work and reach even more children and adults who need literacy support.”
Our founder and chair, Caroline Jane Knight, the last of Jane Austen’s nieces to grow up at Chawton House, shares a very special and important milestone 50 years in the making.
As Americans gather with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, I'm filled with gratitude as I share news that connects my childhood at Chawton House to a transformative new chapter for the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation.
Thanksgiving is about gratitude, community, and bringing people together—values that lie at the heart of both Jane Austen's work and our literacy mission. And today, I'm thrilled to announce that the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation North American Friends is officially open.
Before I share what this means for our American supporters, let me take you back to where this dream began.
Chawton House, formerly owned by Jane Austen’s brother Edward, on the ancestral estate where Jane herself lived and wrote.
When I was a girl growing up at Chawton House, one of the most exciting events of the year was the Jane Austen Society of the UK Annual General Meeting. A few days before the gathering, an enormous white marquee—a large ceremonial tent—would arrive and be erected on the south lawn of our ancestral home.
My cousin and I could barely contain our excitement. We'd rush into that vast canvas space and transform it into our private adventure, pretending we were pirates aboard a great sailing ship. The day before the event, workers would build a proper stage, and we'd sneak up to accept imaginary awards. Then came our favourite task: earning pocket money by helping arrange five hundred wooden folding chairs in perfect rows stretching back from the stage until the entire marquee was filled.
The Jane Austen Society of the UK’s AGM, held annually on the lawns of Chawton House.
On the day itself, five hundred Jane Austen scholars and devoted readers would gather, mainly from across England and America. This was the early 1980s, long before the modern Jane Austen phenomenon we know today which draws visitors from around the world. There were no film adaptations appearing every few years, no internet connecting fans worldwide, few if any Jane Austen festivals or Regency balls to attend. In my entire eighteen years living at Chawton House, I never once saw anyone dressed in Regency costume.
What I did encounter, year after year, were American visitors whose love for Jane Austen had brought them across an ocean. I was utterly in awe of this devotion—that people in America cherished my great aunt Jane enough to travel to England for a single day's event. Some truly did fly in just for that Saturday gathering, then returned home. Even as a child, I understood Jane's extraordinary reach across cultures and continents.
Caroline Jane Knight, aged 15, at Chawton House.
I also experienced something that I'll never forget. American visitors would reach out and touch my shoulder when they learned I was related to Jane. It wasn't a casual touch—it was deliberate, lingering for a moment with a gentle but firm squeeze before they let go. I was never frightened; even as a young girl, I understood they were touching Jane's family, to deepen their connection with her.
Today, those shoulder touches have largely been replaced by selfies with arms linked or wrapped around each other's backs, but the sentiment remains the same. When I recently completed an East Coast speaking tour in the United States, being surrounded by American Austen enthusiasts felt completely natural to me. These connections, begun on our south lawn decades ago, have come full circle today.
I had no idea then that I would one day establish a literacy organization in honour of my famous aunt. I couldn't have imagined that Jane would evolve from a beloved classical author into the global cultural icon she is today, inspiring countless adaptations, fan communities, and scholarly works that continue to multiply with each passing year.
Yet the United States is home to the largest Jane Austen community in the world, and the response from American supporters to our Foundation has been nothing short of remarkable. Thousands of American donors, volunteers, and supporters have embraced our literacy mission with extraordinary generosity and enthusiasm.
A few years ago, when we began planning for 2025—this monumental milestone year marking Jane's 250th birthday—we dared to dream big. Among all our ambitious goals, one wish captured my imagination most powerfully: to establish the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation in America.
Today, the little girl who once pretended to accept awards on that marquee stage can hardly believe she's writing these words: The Jane Austen Literacy Foundation North American Friends is officially open.
Created to support and promote the mission of the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation, this new independent organization enables American supporters to make tax-deductible donations and volunteer locally to extend our global literacy impact. This isn't simply an administrative achievement—it’s a transformative opportunity to scale our work and reach even more children and adults who need literacy support.
Building Our American Foundation
Our first priority is assembling a dedicated team of volunteers who will help us build and grow this organization. We have a foundational Board of Directors that helped with the necessary incorporation requirements and meeting first year goals. And as our vision and strategy expands, we’ll look to add to that governing group.
More immediately, we are in need of someone with financial and/or bookkeeping expertise who can contribute approximately two hours per month to help us maintain the rigorous tax and financial reporting standards required of a U.S. charitable organization. If you, or anyone you know, has the financial skills and would like to support the expansion of our literacy mission and Jane Austen’s legacy, please send your details and resume to info@janeaustenlfnaf.org
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, as we expand our reach across North America, we'll need volunteers with skills in:
Administration
Marketing and Social Media
Website Development
Fundraising and Donor Engagement
Project/Campaign Coordination and Management
Event Management
Early in 2026, we'll host a volunteer information session via Zoom to share our plans for the United States, provide detailed information about volunteer roles, and answer your questions. If you're based in America and would like to help extend Jane's legacy through literacy work that changes lives, we invite you to express your interest through our volunteer page and we will contact you in the new year.
We also invite our American friends to make a founding donation to the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation North American Friends. Your support will help us scale our literacy impact both within the United States and in the developing communities we support around the world—from young readers in Delhi, Ghana, Lebanon and Syria to Indigenous children in Australia and beyond.
Every donation becomes part of Jane Austen's continuing legacy of connecting people across boundaries and creating opportunities through the power of literacy and storytelling.
My deepest thanks go to everyone who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to establish this new organization. This represents a phenomenal milestone not only for the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation but for me personally. When I think of those summer days on the south lawn, watching American visitors arrive with such devotion to Jane, I never imagined I would one day be inviting Americans to join me in leading literacy work inspired by her legacy. It is an extraordinary honour to lead this literacy mission in Jane's name, and I thank you for your support at every stage of our development.
Please click here for more information about the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation North American Friends:
Jane's words have the power to bring people together across any distance, which is why our mission is to Connect Through Literacy. We believe that literacy connects us to each other, to the world around us, and to a world of imagination and possibilities.
And here we are, reaching across nations to come together to support literacy, in the name of Jane Austen.
This is a very good day indeed.
With gratitude and excitement for what lies ahead,
Caroline Jane Knight
Founder & Chair, Jane Austen Literacy Foundation
