Those depths aren’t hard to find beneath the shimmering veneer of social comedy. ‘For example, you can diss Jane Austen because she doesn’t talk about world events such as the Napoleonic Wars,’ says Lucy. ‘But she does – just in a female domestic way. In Pride and Prejudice, when the silly sisters go off into the town and they come back with all the gossip, including the fact that one of the soldiers was flogged – that’s violence.’

Mansfield Park can be read as a coded critique of slavery, says Lucy: Fanny, the least powerful person in the community, is the one who finds the bravery to ask her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, about the slave trade. Whatever her question is – it is never revealed – we know that it was met by ‘such a dead silence! And while my cousins were sitting by without speaking a word, or seeming at all interested in the subject...’ Our hope is that the artwork not only aligns with the story but also enhances it. Folio books present a special opportunity for readers to encounter their favourite stories in an entirely new, beautiful and immersive form. This alchemy works best when we find an artist with an aligned style, as well as a deep passion and energy for the project.’

Look at Austen’s own life, too, and you’ll see those undercurrents of rebellion. In December 1802, she was offered marriage to a man with a mansion and a fortune: the ultimate goal in life for a woman of her social status. She turned him down. Lucy likes to think it’s because Austen had just sold her first novel, Northanger Abbey, for £10. Her writing was no gentle hobby for a spinster. ‘I write only for fame,’ she wrote to her sister.

‘She’s a very private person, which makes her a very elusive subject,’ says Lucy. ‘She never said she was a feminist: that would have been an alien concept to her. But if you read her actions, she seems to place writing above more conventional life satisfactions, like marriage, family, home and security – though it’s important to remember that as a member of the pseudo-gentry, she did have advantages. She wasn’t staking everything on this one roll of the dice. But she was staking something very significant, I think.’

Complementing these cover designs are monograms commissioned from Ruth Rowland. On the pages themselves, gilded edging on the Munken Pure paper – which allows the illustrations to be seen in all their glory – brings another little extra touch of glamour. As Kate says: ‘I think it’s quietly beautiful, without being OTT!’

‘She keeps appealing to new audiences,’ says James. ‘You can keep having different iterations of Austen, of the Austen characters, whether that’s a direct filming of the story or an adaptation. Everyone finds something to relate to, and everyone finds something different to relate to. Every generation finds a new path.