That was my reaction, too

I assume no one on the committee bothered to look at the context of the quote when they chose it from a list of inoffensive, unobjectionable, conveniently short quotations that a very junior member of staff had found on the internet. Senior people at the Bank of England are far too busy and important to read books themselves. Maybe that is the message they are intending to send to the British public: They are admitting that they haven't read all of Jane Austen's novels (*gasp*), but it is important to appear to be knowledgeable about famous books and to celebrate British literary heritage. So a Jane Austen bank note with a quote from Caroline Bingley making a show of pretending to like to read is totally appropriate for the Bank of England.

It is a nice picture of Jane Austen (although I wonder whether anyone who knew her in real life would recognize it as her), I like the writing desk part, and I will be happy to think of Caroline Bingley whenever I open my wallet. She is hilarious. "How can you contrive to write so evenly?" is one of my favorite lines from P&P.