Jane Austen’s novels, including Pride and Prejudice and Emma, continue to grip readers (and viewers) in her semiquincentennial year. Her enduring appeal may come from the comfort her stories bring, with much of the action taking place in drawing rooms and manicured gardens. To be an Austen heroine is usually to win the literary lottery, when looked at outwardly at least. You get a spouse, money and a secure home, things that many modern readers find harder to come by.

But off the page there was turmoil in Austen’s world. A couple of years before her death, she and her family were struck by a climate event that changed everything. Her experience remains relevant today.

In April 1815, some 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) away from Austen’s Hampshire home, Mount Tambora, a stratovolcano in Indonesia, erupted. The blast was the most powerful in recorded history. It killed an estimated 11,000 people directly and as many as 90,000 more died as the islands of Lombok, Sumbawa and Bali were struck by famine and disease in its aftermath. But the destruction didn’t end there.

Tambora released huge amounts of sulfur dioxide and ash into the stratosphere, cooling the planet by somewhere between 0.4C and 0.7C. This was a calamity for the Northern Hemisphere, leading to what became known as the “Year Without a Summer.” It’s hard to overstate how bad the weather was in Europe and North America. There........

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