The Real Jane Austen
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29 Letter 32, Jan 1801.
30 Letter 29, Jan 1801.
31 Letter 37, May 1801.
32 Family Record, p. 120.
33 Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life (1997), pp. 167–9.
34 Cassandra remembered ‘Susan’ as being written in 1798, but various allusions indicate redrafting in the Bath years – for instance the reference to Maria Edgeworth’s novel Belinda, which was only published in 1801.
35 Letter 3, Aug 1796.
36 Northanger Abbey, 1.10.
37 Anstey, New Bath Guide, p. 26.
38 Northanger Abbey, 1.3.
39 Ibid.
40 Letter 36, May 1801.
41 Ibid.
42 Letter 37, May 1801.
43 Northanger Abbey, 1.10, 1.11.
44 Emma, 2.14.
45 Northanger Abbey, 1.10.
46 Setting aside the possibility that she was Sophia Sentiment.
47 Northanger Abbey, 1.1.
48 Ibid., 2.9.
49 Ibid., 2.15.
CHAPTER TEN: THE MARRIAGE BANNS
1 Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, 71M82/PR3.
2 Memoir, p. 133.
3 Letter 1, Jan 1796; Letter 25, Nov 1800.
4 Letter 1, Jan 1796.
5 Ibid.
6 Letter 2, Jan 1796.
7 Family Record, pp. 251–2.
8 Memoir, p. 186.
9 Pride and Prejudice, 2.1.
10 Letter 2, Jan 1796.
11 Letter 11, Nov 1798.
12 Letter 15, Dec 1798.
13 Letter 46, Aug 1805.
14 Letter 55, June/July 1808.
15 Letter 57, Oct 1808.
16 Letter 61, Nov 1808.
17 Letter 90, Sept 1813.
18 Letter 94, Oct 1813.
19 Letter 14, Dec 1798.
20 Quoted from Francis Austen’s autobiographical memoir by Honan, Jane Austen: Her Life, p. 156.
21 Letter 11, Nov 1798.
22 Ibid.
23 Letter 155, Mar 1817.
24 Letter 86, July 1813.
25 Memoir, p. 188.
26 Quoted, R. W. Chapman, Jane Austen: A Study of Facts and Problems (1948), pp. 67–8.
27 Family Record, p. 122.
28 Catherine Hubback (Frank’s daughter), reporting on a letter – presumably to Frank – that is no longer extant (ibid.).
29 Ibid.
30 Letter 114, Nov 1814.
31 Letter 25, Nov 1800. In 1802 Mrs Lefroy wrote that Harris Wither’s hand ‘is still very lame and I now fear he will never recover the use of it’ – Letters of Mrs Lefroy: Jane Austen’s Beloved Friend, ed. Helen Lefroy and Gavin Turner (2007), p. 69.
32 Letter 18, Jan 1799.
33 http://addictedtojaneausten.blogspot.co.uk/ (accessed 25 July 2012).
34 Pride and Prejudice, 1.22.
35 Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), ch. 9, ‘Of the Pernicious Effects which arise from the Unnatural Distinctions established in Society’.
36 Pride and Prejudice, 3.4.
37 Ibid., 3.10.
38 Mansfield Park, 1.10.
39 Pride and Prejudice, 3.5.
40 Ibid., 3.14.
41 Ibid., 3.6.
42 Letter 13, Dec 1798.
43 Letter 56, Oct 1808.
44 Letter 155, Mar 1817.
45 Ibid.
46 Letter 153, Mar 1817.
47 Letter 109, Nov 1814.
48 Memoir, p. 188.
49 Burney’s draft introduction to Cecilia, ed. Peter Sabor (1992), p. 945.
50 Letter 109, Nov 1814.
51 Letter 151, Feb 1817.
52 See Glenda Hudson, Sibling Love and Incest in Jane Austen’s Fiction (1992). The classic examples are Byron’s The Bride of Abydos and Shelley’s Laon and Cythna.
53 Emma, 3.13.
54 Mansfield Park, 3.17.
55 Persuasion, 2.11.
56 Cancelled chapter of Persuasion.
57 Caroline Austen to Anna Lefroy, quoted, Constance Hill, Jane Austen, p. 236; Memoir, p. 188; Emma, 1.8.
58 Juvenilia, p. 142.
59 Quoted, Chapman, Facts and Problems, p. 67.
60 Letter 135, ?Dec 1815/Jan 1816.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE IVORY MINIATURE
1 Ledger of Richard Crosse, transcribed Walpole Society, vol. XVII (1929), p. 72, quoted http://www.historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=ItemandItemID=1483andDesc=Anne-Lefroy,-by-Richard-Crosse-|-Richard-Crosse (accessed 27 Sept 2012).
2 The Autobiography, Times, Opinions, and Contemporaries of Sir Egerton Brydges, 2 vols (1834), 1.137.
3 Ibid., 1.5.
4 Ibid., 1.137.
5 ‘On seeing some school-boys’, ‘Poetical Epistle to Miss KB’, ‘Poem to Miss D.B.’, in The Poetical Register and Repository of Fugitive Poetry (1801); Carmina Domestica; or Poems on Several Occasions (The Majority Written in the Early Part of Life), edited by her son Christopher Edward Lefroy (1812).
6 Brydges, Autobiography, 1.137.
7 Ibid., 1.11.
8 Quoted, Letters of Mrs Lefroy, p. 20.
9 Ibid., p. 8.
10 The admiration did not extend from Jane to Egerton: she later professed disdain for his writings, particularly his novel Arthur Fitz-Albini, which she read with her father in November 1798: ‘We have neither of us yet finished the first volume. My father is disappointed – I am not, for I expected nothing better.’ She added, ‘Never did any book carry more internal evidence of its author. Every sentiment is completely Egerton’s’ (Letter 12, Nov 1798). Here is Austen, not yet twenty-three but fully confident in her own literary judgement, even if it means speaking bluntly of her mentor’s brother. She knows already what makes a good novel: balance, elements of impersonality, the voicing of different sentiments for different characters.
11 Letters of Mrs Lefroy, p. 44.
12 Ibid., pp. 139–40.
13 Ibid., p. 114.
14 Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 96 (1804), p. 1179.
15 Minor Works, pp. 440–2.
16 Ibid.
17 Letter 40, Jan 1805.
18 Letter 41, Jan 1805.
19 There are three prayers in all, copied in two different hands, probably Cassandra’s and Henry’s. Two of Charles’s granddaughters sold them, along with other Austen papers and memorabilia, in 1927. They are now in the Heller Rare Book Room of the F. W. Olin Library at Mills College, Oakland, California. See Bruce Stovel, ‘“A Nation Improving in Religion”: Jane Austen’s Prayers and their Place in her Life and Art’, Persuasions, 16 (1994), pp. 185–96.
20 Letter 60, Oct 1808.
21 Mansfield Park, 1.9.
22 Letter 106, Sept 1814.
23 Letter 53, June 1808.
24 Memoir, p. 141.
25 Juvenilia, p. 186.
26 Evangelical Joseph Milner, decrying Locke, quoted by Irene Collins in her excellent Jane Austen and the Clergy (2003), p. 44.
27 Letter 145, Sept 1816.
28 Edward Cooper, Two Sermons Preached in Wolverhampton (1816), p. 15.
29 Letter 67, Jan 1809.
30 Letter 55, Oct 1808.
31 Letter 65, Jan 1809.
32 Letter 67, Jan 1809.
33 Letter 109, Nov 1814.
34 Letter 114, Nov 1814.
35 Quoted, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, ed. Brian Southam (1968), p. 95.
36 The Watsons, quoted from Oxford World’s Classics edition of Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon, ed. John Davie (1990), p. 301.
37 Minor Works, p. 439.
38 Letter 108, Sept 1814.
39 Gilson, Bibliography, p. 445.
40 Ibid.
41 Pride and Prejudice, 2.13.
42 Sense and Sensibility, 3.10.
43 Mansfield Park, 3.5.
44 Ibid., 1.9.
45 Ibid., 1.11.
46 For an excellent account of Austen and the ‘reasoned’ religion of the eighteenth century, see Peter Knox-Shaw, Jane Austen
and the Enlightenment (2004), which persuasively places her in a very English religious and political ‘middle road’.
47 ‘Opinions of Mansfield Park’, in Minor Works, pp. 431–5.
48 Mansfield Park, 1.11, 1.9.
49 Ibid., 1.9.
50 Ibid., 3.16.
51 Letter 79, Jan 1813.
52 Mansfield Park, 3.17.
53 ‘Opinions of Mansfield Park’, in Minor Works, pp. 431–5.
54 Mansfield Park, 3.13.
55 Sense and Sensibility, 2.6; Pride and Prejudice, 2.4; Persuasion, 1.12.
56 Persuasion, 1.11.
57 Memoir, p. 178.
58 Letter 159, May 1817.
59 Letter CEA/1, Sun 20 July 1817.
60 Charles Austen’s weather note in his pocketbook (Chronology, p. 577) – he was at Eastbourne, but the Gentleman’s Magazine weather report for the day records heavy rain across southern England.
61 ‘When Winchester races’, in Minor Works, pp. 451–2.
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE DAUGHTER OF MANSFIELD
1 The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, 2 vols (1884–6), vol. 2, p. 277, entry for August 1779.
2 Letter 45, Aug 1805.
3 Sanditon, ch. 11.
4 Somersett v Stewart, King’s Bench, 22 June 1772.
5 William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book 2.
6 Emma, 2.17.
7 Though to be fair to Mr Suckling, the name ‘Maple Grove’ does have abolitionist overtones: the anti-slavery lobby advocated maple as an alternative to the sugar produced on the West Indian slave plantations.
8 See Gabrielle White, Jane Austen in the Context of the Abolition (2006), p. 149.
9 Southam, Navy, p. 189.
10 Letter 78, Jan 1813.
11 Thomas Clarkson, History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, 2 vols (1808), vol. 1, ch. 7.
12 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 154.
13 Family Record, p. 54.
14 For a copy of the map, see ‘Jane Austen and the Antigua Connection’ on the website of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, http://www.jasa.net.au/antigua.htm (accessed 21 Aug 2012).
15 Austen-Leigh, Austen Papers, pp. 26–7.
16 Persuasion, 1.8.
17 Emma, 2.4.
18 See Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (1944), p. 151.
19 See Robert Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery (1998), pp. 303–4.
20 Mansfield Park, 3.17.
21 Clarkson, History, vol. 2, ch. 2.
22 Mansfield Park, 2.3.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE CRIMSON VELVET CUSHIONS
1 Mansfield Park, 1.9.
2 Family Record, p. 138.
3 See Mairi Macdonald, ‘Not Unmarked by Some Eccentricities: The Leigh Family of Stoneleigh Abbey’, in Robert Bearman, ed., Stoneleigh Abbey: The House, its Owners, its Lands (2004), p. 151.
4 Stoneleigh archive (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Records Office, Stratford-upon-Avon), DR 18/17/27/171.
5 It was rebuilt in the tradition of Chatsworth, with all four ranges around a courtyard on the model of Hampton Court. See Andor Gomme, ‘Abbey into Palace: A Lesser Wilton’, in Bearman, ed., Stoneleigh Abbey, p. 82.
6 ‘Epistle to Joseph Hill’, line 62 (1785).
7 Part of this letter is printed in Family Record, pp. 139–40.
8 Ibid.
9 Austen-Leigh, Austen Papers, p. 247.
10 See the excellent essay by Gaye King, ‘The Jane Austen Connection’, in Bearman, ed., Stoneleigh Abbey, p. 173.
11 Mansfield Park, 1.9.
12 Ibid., 1.9.
13 Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Lord secretly married a poor Lieutenant Wentworth who went on to make a fortune in the navy and was finally accepted into the family. See King, ‘The Jane Austen Connection’, pp. 174–5.
14 Mansfield Park, 1.9.
15 Pride and Prejudice, 3.1.
16 Emma, 3.6.
17 Mansfield Park, 1.5.
18 Letter 86, July 1813.
19 Mansfield Park, 1.9.
20 Pride and Prejudice, 3.1.
21 Letter of 12 Jan 1848 to George Lewes, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, ed. Margaret Smith, vol. 2: 1848–1851 (2000), p. 10 – though in the same letter Charlotte Brontë gave high praise to Austen’s style: ‘with infinitely more relish can I sympathise with Miss Austen’s clear common sense and subtle shrewdness. If you find no inspiration in Miss Austen’s page, neither do you find mere windy wordiness; to use your words over again, she exquisitely adapts her means to her end; both are very subdued, a little contracted, but never absurd.’
22 Stoneleigh archive (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Records Office, Stratford-upon-Avon), DR/18/17/32.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE TOPAZ CROSSES
1 Letter 38, May 1801.
2 Mansfield Park, 2.8.
3 ‘And by the bye – shall you object to my mentioning the Elephant in it, and two or three other of your old Ships?’ Letter 86, July 1813.
4 Mansfield Park, 3.7.
5 See Southam, Navy, p. 32.
6 Letter 27, Nov 1800.
7 John Marshall, Royal Naval Biography (1828), p. 74.
8 Letter 69(D), July 1809.
9 Mansfield Park, 2.6.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Mansfield Park, 2.7.
13 Lefroy Letters, pp. 30, 63.
14 Jane Austen mentions a connection to Sir J. Moore. Her godfather’s physician was Sir John’s father, who was also a novelist. See Southam, Navy, p. 69.
15 Robert Gardiner, Memoir of Admiral Sir George Moore (1912).
16 See Honan, Jane Austen: Her Life, p. 160, Mss Nat. Mar. Mus., log of London, 27 Aug 1798.
17 Mansfield Park, 1.6.
18 Letters of Jane Austen, ed. Brabourne, vol. 1, p. 37.
19 Letter 86, July 1813.
20 Quoted, J. H. and Edith C. Hubback, Jane Austen’s Sailor Brothers (1906), p. 85.
21 Persuasion, 1.4.
22 Letter 18, Jan 1799.
23 Letter 55, June/July 1808.
24 Family Record, p. 143.
25 Verses, in Minor Works, p. 446.
26 Letter 64, Jan 1809.
27 Letter 66, Jan 1809.
28 Letter 67, Jan 1809.
29 Mansfield Park, 3.6.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 3.15.
33 Ibid., 3.7–3.8.
34 Minor Works, p. 435.
35 Persuasion, 2.1.
36 Ibid.
37 Mansfield Park, 3.17.
38 Persuasion, 1.4.
39 Mansfield Park, 1.16.
40 India Office Library, Ms. EUR B151, quoted Southam, Navy, p. 98.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE BOX OF LETTERS
1 Alphabet blocks, English, 1800–40, Victoria and Albert Museum, ref. E.1739–1954.
2 Emma, 3.5.
3 Letter 64, Jan 1809.
4 Emma, 3.8.
5 Ibid., 3.15.
6 Ibid., 3.13.
7 Letter 50, Feb 1807.
8 The best account of this subject is David Selwyn’s excellent book Jane Austen and Children (2010).
9 Ibid.
10 Letter 60, Oct 1808.
11 Letter 30, Jan 1810.
12 Letter 112, Nov 1814.
13 Emma, 3.3.
14 Caroline Austen, ‘My Aunt Jane Austen’, in Memoir, p. 167.
15 Ibid., p. 168.
16 Quoted, Family Record, p. 178.
17 Letter 105, Aug 1814; Letter 9, Oct 1798; Letter 60, Oct 1808.
18 Letter 148, Jan 1817; Letter 97, Mar 1814.
19 Letter 123, Oct 1815.
20 Letter 91, Oct 1813.
21 Letter 117, July 1815.
22 Ibid.
23 Quoted in Deirdre Le Faye, Fanny Knight’s Diaries: Jane Austen through her Niece’s Eyes (2000), p. 6.
24 Minor Works, p. 434.
25 Letter 102, June 1814.
26 See 1851 census, Parish of Ever
ton. Her school was at 124 York Terrace.
27 Letter 72, Apr 1811.
28 Letter 86, July 1813.
29 Persuasion, 2.11.
30 Letter 53, June 1808.
31 Sense and Sensibility, 1.21.
32 Emma, 1.18; Sense and Sensibility, 3.6.
33 Emma, 1.12.
34 Mansfield Park, 1.3.
35 Emma, 3.17.
36 Persuasion, 1.9.
37 Ibid.
38 He later admits ‘he had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry’, ibid., 2.11.
39 The Watsons, quoted from Oxford World’s Classics edition of Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon, ed. John Davie (1990), p. 289.
40 Ibid., pp. 289–90.
41 Ibid., p. 291.
42 Letter 67, Jan 1809.
43 Letter 153, Mar 1817.
44 Letter 155, Mar 1817.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE LAPTOP
1 Chronology, p. 171.
2 George Austen also recorded a second purchase of a writing box at another time, so we cannot be absolutely certain that the one in the British Library is Jane’s.
3 Letter 9, Oct 1798.
4 Letter 10, Oct 1798.
5 Letter 9, Oct 1798.
6 Letter 89, Sept 1813.
7 This myth springs from the family memoir (Memoir, p. 81). Tomalin goes even further. ‘For ten years she produced almost nothing,’ she claims (p. 167), hinting at writer’s block and even clinical depression.
8 Flowers of Literature 1801–1802 (1803), p. 462. On Crosby’s record of novel publishing, see Anthony Mandal, Jane Austen and the Popular Novel: The Determined Author (2007).
9 Letter 121, Oct 1815.
10 Lady Susan, Letter 4.
11 Ibid., Letter 7.
12 Ibid., Letter 14.
13 Ibid., Letter 25.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., Letter 16.
16 For example ibid., Letter 24.
17 Elizabeth Jenkins, Jane Austen: A Biography (1938, repr. 1949), p. 156.
18 ‘Biographical Notice’, in Memoir, p. 138.
19 Biographers write of the manuscript being sold to Richard Crosby in 1803, but at that time the firm was ‘B. Crosby’ – Richard had taken over the family business in the intervening years.
20 Advertisement ‘by the Authoress’ to Northanger Abbey (1818).
21 Save for a verse letter to Frank, congratulating him on the birth of a son in July 1809.
22 Letter 70, Apr 1811.
23 Letter 71, Apr 1811.
24 See Jan Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life (1991), p. 131. Fergus offers an exceptionally good account of Austen’s professional career.
25 Chronology, pp. 324, 328. Though Cassandra also had her legacy from her late fiancé.
26 Letter 49, Jan 1807.
27 Letter 71, Apr 1811.