Jane Austen’s Alchemy: Cosmetic Artifice in Austen’s 'Persuasion'

Join Helen Thompson, Northwestern University Professor of English and The Huntington’s Dibner Distinguished Fellow in the History of Science & Technology, for a lecture on Jane Austen’s commentary on cosmetics.

How does the history of science help us interpret Jane Austen? How do Austen’s marriage plots, balls, and carriage rides relate to the domain of flasks, distillation apparatus, and laboratory techniques? This talk explores the fascinating practice of cosmetic chemistry in early modern England. By examining recipes for make-up and exposés of the women who used them to fake both beauty and virtue, Helen Thompson shows how women’s illicit chemical and sexual knowledge traveled through literary history to shape the meaning and narrative form of Austen’s novel Persuasion. 

This is the Dibner Distinguished Fellow lecture and is part of The Huntington Research 2025-2026 "Active in the Archive" lecture series.