Queen Camilla can’t stop the Jane Austen jokes at The Queen’s Reading Room Festival

Queen Camilla was a surprise guest at the third annual The Queen’s Reading Room Festival at Chatsworth House on Friday. With the 250^th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birthday this year, the locale called back to the famous film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which was filmed at the estate.

Queen Camilla called back to this special anniversary in her speech, telling those gathered that “It is a truth universally acknowledged that books make life better.”

Among the authors in attendance this year are Jojo Moyes, Dame Jilly Cooper, Helen Fielding, Julia Quinn, Robert Osman and Natasha Brown. Other literary figures and entertainers confirmed to take part include Celia Imrie, Samantha Shannon, Joanna Cannon, Kristin Hannah, Lady Anne Glenconner, Gyles Brandreth, Helen Shaw, and Alan Titchmarsh.

During her visit, Queen Camilla also took part in a panel discussion on the effects of mental health and reading; and donated several books to The Queen’s Reading Room Book Donation box, which was open to the public from 20 September onward.

Queen Camilla continued: “[Books] allow us to see through another’s eyes, they comfort and encourage us, make us laugh, make us cry and free us to travel the globe without stepping outside our front doors. Moreover, scientific research by my Reading Room shows that books have significant benefits for both our brains and our emotions. Our aim is to unlock their transformative power to create a healthier, happier and more connected world – a world I hope that even Lizzie Bennet would have approved of.”

Jane Austen’s 250^th birthday was front and centre of the celebrations, and The Queen viewed an exhibit of the author’s works on display from the Jane Austen House and watched a performance of her work by Fiona Shaw and Gill Hornby.

She also paid a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, evoking the setting, Chatsworth House, which has been thought to have also been Jane Austen’s inspiration for Pemberley.

Commenting on the venue, Queen Camilla said “Who can forget the infamous scene of Mr Darcy emerging from the lake in the BBC version… Maybe, William [Lord William Burlington, chair of the Chatsworth House Trust], you could be persuaded to re-enact this memorable moment in the lake here a little later on—to add to the excitement of the day?”

The Queen also took the time to reminisce about the origins of The Queen’s Reading Room, which started during the pandemic as a way to engage with book lovers online. She called the venture a humble one that launched “in the face of several naysayers” as a list of nine of her favourite books that she scribbled onto a notepad before posting it to social media.

In the first list, shared over the Easter holidays in 2020, Queen Camilla—then the Duchess of Cornwall—recommended Restless by William Boyd; A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens; The Simon Serrailler series by Susan Hill; The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman; The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard; A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain; The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak; and Travels On My Elephant by her late brother, Mark Shand.

She also released a summer reading list a few months later, of five books, which included The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins; Girl by Edna O’Brien; the Roy Grace series by Peter James; The Queen’s Necklace by Alexandra Dumas; and The Island by Victoria Hislop. In January 2021, she formally launched her Reading Room as an online community hub. It rebranded following her change in title in September 2022.

“[The Queen’s Reading Room is] now an online community of over 180,000—with an annual audience of 12 million people from 183 countries—supported by a very special array of literary and literacy friends,” she said.

With one last Jane Austen quip before she ended her speech, Queen Camilla joked that she would stop before Lord Burlington “feels the need to interrupt me with a sardonic, ‘You have delighted us long enough,’” a quote from Pride and Prejudice.