A few of the NYC Pemberlians who are JASNA-NY members attended an excellent lecture earlier this year given by an NYU Professor on the economy in JA's day. Naturally, I forget all of the facts. But I recall that the slides he presented underscored how bad inflation was during most of JA's life. The UK had very high debt when compared with other European nations (the US was bad then too as it was a new country and had much war debt) and inflation was high. It is ironic that the economy improved after JA's death, when her income from book sales would have really improved her disposable income.

I will try to find JulieP who sat next to me at the lecture. She may remember more.