The Pleasure Dome

Brighton, England, 1817. After Jane Austen.

“It seems I have been invited back to The Brighton Pavilion by design.

The more I ignore him, the more that man (if I must I will address him as The Prince Regent) sends his courtiers and letters. Lately there have been suggestions, delicately phrased naturally, that my next publication might become dedicated to him. Why is it that one person by the accident of his birth should have the power of being able to receive anything he requests.

I quietly write that the last party at that pleasure palace I found fascinating but suffocating. I recall the first moments I entered the ballroom and I was struck with awe and wonder. But slowly the interior induced some sort of vertigo as I recognised the Chinoiserie madness of the situation I found myself.

The humid air with an underlying mustiness was lifted to the top of the interior dome by the heat of a cathedral worth of candles. Then it was only to be snuffed out by the breath of a lacquered Chinese dragon hidden above around the chandelier, leaving me gasping and tight chested under its vacuum.

Brighton Pavilion, Photo by author

Perhaps I was still not used to my corset. I wandered outside to find some wind from the sea and had a sense that in the depths off the lightly lit garden paths there were indiscrepancies and liaisons taking place. I wanted to leave and look out from the nearby stoney shore but as much as I have been chastised for my refusal to follow social norms, when it comes to the Prince Regent I feel I have no choice but to play this societal game and it was not an appropriate hour to depart.

He looks terrible these days. There is an ease with which the wealthy transform medicine into luxury but the laudanum in excess has affected him. I suspect he wears a stay to hide his corpulence. Yet I am beholden to pressure from my family who truly believe that if I stare straight back into his rheumy eyes, I will unlock some special access for them all.

Despite my heart wanting to help them, I cannot think of anything more grotesque than entering that pleasure dome once again. The sweet burning of attar and spice has no ability to overlay having to tolerate another evening, even if I get to hear Rossini play.

Back inside, that evening I noticed the small crystals from the glorious chandelier reflected every shard of discontent from a crowd with more than they need. All trying to be as fashionable as possible in the most subtle way they could, but the result was a muddy dip dye because of the combination of smugness with insecurity.

Brighton Pavilion, Photo by Authir

I am resigned to surrender to all of this, as my dear clergy father is ill and lamenting that I have not yet found a spouse. I have no option but to return to the palace and give up on any thoughts of the financially unsuitable Thomas, now in Ireland, who actually now it turns out is financially suitable. But he was not enough for the insatiable needs of my family who seem to only be content with a future bellicose heir to the throne. My pen has become my weight of influence where it once was my wings.

The addition of exotic birds in gilded cages is, I hear, a new addition to the palace. An aviary for spectators. I fear witnessing a creature in such a state as it will force me to face fears that I might myself become the same caged being. I also fear I might have an urge to unlock the hooks of those cages and set the magnificent birds free. Only to watch them fly upwards into the silken heights to hit another ceiling.

Brighton Pavilion, Photo by Author

The scent of the last event comes back to me and it is one small comfort. Beeswax burning in crowded rooms, attar warming beneath silk, orange water rising from my muslin dress. Interrupted by the faint intrusion of the gunpowder from fireworks from outside, melded into the sea salted air. It all clings to my memory like a perfumed handkerchief that has been muddied by a spoilt child’s snotty face. Even the moon must be confused by the such going ons in a humble seaside village.

Before I left the last occasion a vial of orange flower water from Floris was offered by a simian courtier, their gift to me balancing off the fringed velvet cushion edge. The masks of their toothy grins and curled tails were not presenting me this with kindness, but as a symbol of power and excess.

I gave the scent to my mother as a gift and she is now pressing it into the seams in the way of an Ouroboros, sealing it into my clothing as I write; perfume into my shawl linings, ribbons and gloves with an excitement that makes me feel inclined that she shall end up disappointed.

And all the while Lord Byron is off on the continent, free to do as he wishes (an aristocrat does not even have to sit an exam while I must toil my pen for a heir).

I refuse to be consumed. Even though after this next party I will dutifully go home to reluctantly pen my novel in dedication to The Prince Regent, I shall write another one after that, especially for him, and call it Sandition. At this point a second more honest dedication will be written in invisible ink between every line.

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NOTE FROM AUTHOR: This piece was written not long after the 2026 Met Gala, and shortly after I visited the Brighton Pavilion. Walking through the now empty rooms I tried to imagine what it would have felt like to attend one of the Prince Regent’s events during the Regency period.

In his private chamber the stain of pipe tobacco was still ingrained into the wood and carpets, centuries later.

At the time, the Prince Regent had asked Jane Austen to dedicate her next work to him. She made her reluctance clear in her letters. She dedicated Emma to him anyway.

It says something about institutions and the trust they must maintain. Queen Victoria, finding the Pavilion surplus to requirements, gifted it to the people of Brighton in 1850. It is because of that act that it is possible to walk through those rooms today.

In 2026 the Met Gala passed to a tech oligarch as host and chair. The criticism it received felt familiar. The same tension Austen navigates in this imagined letter: what happens when the most visible cultural institutions become the private pleasure domes of the very wealthy, and what it costs those who are invited to attend.