Sept. 9: extract from a much longer letter, written 9–18 September 1814 (no. 107 in Letters).
Sept. 28: extract from a longer letter (no. 108 in Letters), already quoted from at p. 72.
Hans Place (Nov. 1814): again to Anna, within the last few weeks married to Ben Lefroy—hence the appositeness of the joke about suitors being in love with aunts. JA writes from her brother Henry’s London address (no. 113 in Letters).
your husband: JA wrote ‘Ben’ (Letters, 284).
spilikins… cup and ball: like the reference below to the neat appearance of her letters and her sewing, these examples of JA’s dexterity are from Caroline Austen’s recollections (MAJA, 171). In the game of spilikins, thin slips of wood were thrown in a heap and the player had to pull them off one at a time without disturbing the rest. In the game of cup and ball, the ball was attached by cord to a stick having a cup at one end and a spike at the other. The aim was to toss the ball in the air and catch it either in the cup or (more difficult) on the spike.
specimen of her… handwriting is here given: at this point in Ed.1 JEAL included a lithographic facsimile of the autograph manuscript of the verses on Mr Gell and Miss Gill. This was replaced in Ed.2 with the last few lines and signature of a letter to Anna Lefroy (Letters, no. 112), facing the opening of ch. 3. Here as elsewhere I have restored the Ed.1 illustration.
satin stitch: an embroidery stitch, repeated in parallel lines to give a satiny appearance.
housewife: JA gave the ‘housewife’ to her friend Mary Lloyd in January 1792 when the family moved from Deane parsonage to Ibthorp. Mary did not become Jane’s sister-in-law until 1797. A ‘housewife’ was a cloth sewing case for needles, pins, thread, etc., and was a common home-made gift between women friends. ‘Minikin’ needles, as the word suggests, would be very small. The accompanying poem is dated ‘Jan:ry 1792’. For a description of the manuscript and its slight variants from the text printed by JEAL, see David Gilson, ‘Jane Austen’s Verses’, Book Collector, 33 (1984), 30. Both bag and manuscript are still in the Austen-Leigh family.
Two of her nieces were grown up… one of them was married: James Austen’s elder daughter Anna was 24 and married since November 1814 at the time of JA’s death in July 1817. Caroline, his younger daughter, and JEAL’s other chief assistant in the Memoir, was only 12. But Fanny Knight, Edward Austen Knight’s eldest child, a few months older than Anna, was also 24 and as yet unmarried. As Lady Knatchbull (she married Sir Edward Knatchbull in 1820), she inherited the bulk of JA’s letters to her sister Cassandra.
her religious principles: it was her brother Henry Austen who in his ‘Biographical Notice’ (1818), first presented JA as ‘thoroughly religious and devout’ and with opinions according ‘strictly with those of our Established Church’. The novels offer little evidence of this, but Henry’s views were quickly absorbed into JA’s nineteenth-century appraisal (see his ‘Biographical Notice’ in this collection). After several changes of career, Henry Austen had become a Church of England clergyman in 1816.
so little: Ed.1 reads ‘nothing’.
was completed: Ed.1 reads ‘was written’. Here and in the change noted above we see JEAL revising his text between editions to take account of the light shed by the unfinished manuscript of The Watsons on JA’s presumed creative inactivity during her residence in Bath. See note to p. 59.
between February 1811 and August 1816: the dates are probably taken from Cassandra Austen’s brief note on composition. See note to p. 44 above. What JEAL implies here has been of great significance to how critics have viewed JA’s creative life. He suggests, in combination with his earlier statement at pp. 43–4, that the novels as we know them were the productions of two distinct creative periods—JA’s early twenties and her late thirties—and that they were divided by a largely fallow interlude. But another interpretation of the same evidence and dates might be that, with the exception of NA (sold to a London publisher in 1803 under the title of ‘Susan’), all the finished novels were the products of her mature Chawton years, and that this intense burst of creative completion was preceded by some twenty years of experimentation.
She was careful… when anyone was coming: an important detail on JA’s working habits added in Ed.2. Cf. Caroline Austen’s recollections, in MAJA173.
Mrs. Allen… ‘… to answer her or not’: an edited and not wholly accurate quotation from NA, ch. 9.
Egerton… Murray… seven hundred pounds: Thomas Egerton, of the Military Library, Whitehall, London, was JA’s first publisher, chosen partly perhaps from a connection established through James and Henry’s much earlier publishing venture, The Loiterer, for which Egerton had been the London distributor. John Murray II (1778–1843) of 50 Albemarle Street, London, was a hugely successful publisher and businessman with a far more impressive imprint than Egerton. He was at this time at the height of his powers, as Byron’s publisher and co-publisher of several of Scott’s works. As well as issuing E, NA, and P, he brought out in 1816 a second edition of MP. During her lifetime JA received around £250 from S&S and P&P together, £310 from MP, and £71 partial profits on E and a second edition of S&S. These were nothing like the big profits some of her contemporaries were making, but nor were they unrepresentatively modest. (See Jan Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life (1991), 193, n. 90, for totals of payments.)
no record… ‘Sense and Sensibility’: several letters descending from Cassandra Austen to her niece Fanny, Lady Knatchbull, and therefore unavailable to JEAL, mention the publication of S&S. They were first published in Letters of Jane Austen, ed. Edward, Lord Brabourne (1884). These are nos. 71, 95, and 96, in Letters. See also nos. 86 and 90, two letters to Frank Austen, both first published in Sailor Brothers, 233–50.
Chawton… (1813): a discreetly edited extract, removing the gossip and homely detail about headache, jelly, and sweet pears that would undermine JEAL’s representation of JA at this point as a serious novelist. The complete version is no. 79 in Letters, the original bequeathed by Cassandra to Charles Austen. ‘[M]y own darling child’ is JA’s first copy of P&P.
Falkener: JA wrote ‘Falknor’, possibly the local manager or coachman of the London to Southampton coach service. See the humorous reference to ‘the Car of Falkenstein’ in JA’s letter to Anna Austen, 29–31 October 1812 (Letters, 195).
my stupidest of all: in January 1813, when this letter is written, MP was well on the way to being finished, though E was not yet begun. It is tempting to speculate that ‘my stupidest of all’ might refer to the recent revival (1809) of JA’s hopes of buying back and seeing in print the novel eventually published after her death as NA.
typical errors: meaning ‘typographical’ or printing errors.
‘I do not write for such dull elves’: based on a couplet from Scott’s verse romance Marmion (1808), canto 6, st. 38: ‘I do not rhyme to that dull elf
| Who cannot image to himself.’ JEAL spoils the wit of JA’s free appropriation by failing to set it out as verse. See Letters, 202.
Chawton… (1813): an edited extract from a longer letter, no. 80 in Letters, again bequeathed to Charles Austen.
to you for all your praise: JA wrote ‘to you all for your praise’ (Letters, 203).
The following letter… in February 1813: what is presented here is an edited conflation of extracts from two letters, of 24 January and 9 February 1813 (nos. 78 and 81 in Letters), spliced together randomly and out of chronological sequence. For the correct ordering of the various sections, see Letters, 198–201, and 204–6. The letters, both to Cassandra, continue a discussion of the same people and books, which may account for JEAL’s confusion of their details. Both were inherited by Charles Austen and lent to JEAL by Charles’s daughter Cassy Esten.
Fanny’s: Fanny Knight, JA’s eldest niece.
the rejected addresses: [James and Horatio Smith] Rejected Addresses: or, the New Theatrum Poetarum (1812), a collection of parodies of well-known and contemporary poets. JA wrote ‘Mrs Digweed’ and ‘Mr Hinton�
�� (Letters, 199).
Sir John Carr’s… Capt. Pasley of the Engineers: Sir John Carr, Descriptive Travels in the Southern and Eastern Parts of Spain and the Balearic Isles, in the Year 1809 (1811); Sir Charles William Pasley, RE, Essay on the Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire (1810). A ‘Society octavo’ is a book in octavo format (technically, one printed so as to produce eight leaves to each sheet, the commonest size at this time for new fiction and non-fiction) borrowed from the Chawton Book Society or Reading Club. In Letter no. 78 JA writes: ‘The Miss Sibleys want to establish a Book Society in their side of the Country, like ours. What can be a stronger proof of that superiority in ours over the Steventon & Manydown Society, which I have always foreseen & felt?’ (p. 199).
Clarkson or Buchanan… the two Mr. Smiths of the city: Thomas Clarkson, History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade (1808); probably Claudius Buchanan’s very popular Christian Researches in Asia (1811). For the two Mr Smiths, see note to p. 84 above.
‘Mrs. Grant’s Letters’: Anne Grant, Letters from the Mountains (3 vols., 1810).
lie on her table: JA wrote ‘lay in her House’ (Letters, 206).
where you now are: JA wrote ‘at Manydown’, the home of their good friend Alethea Bigg, whom Cassandra was visiting.
I detest a quarto: a book size (see note to p. 85 above). A quarto is printed so as to produce four leaves to each sheet of paper and is therefore usually larger and more splendid than an octavo. The quarto is a size often reserved, as JA’s joking comment suggests, for a scholarly and less portable work. Cf. Crabbe, The Library (1781), ‘Then quartos their well-order’d ranks maintain, | And light octavos fill a spacious plain.’
no Government House… alter it to the Commissioner’s: a reference to a detail in MP, ch. 24, the novel JA was then writing.
The following letter: from this point to the end of the chapter is an addition to Ed.2.
curricle: a light, two-wheeled carriage, drawn by two horses abreast and with a seat for the driver and one passenger.
Sloane Street… May 20 (1813): again extracted from a letter bequeathed to Charles Austen (no. 84 in Letters). JEAL’s main omissions are of the homelier details of JA’s London visit—of food eaten and plans for shopping trips.
the Hog’s-back: ‘A narrow ridge of bare chalk hills between Farnham and Guildford’ with ‘extensive views over six counties’ (Letters, 416, n. 1).
full of modern elegancies: JA did not finish here, but continued: ‘& if it had not been for some naked Cupids over the Mantlepeice, which must be a fine study for Girls, one should never have Smelt Instruction’ (Letters, 211).
Henrietta Street… March 2 (1814): no. 97 in Letters, again bequeathed to Charles Austen.
different: JA wrote ‘very different’ (Letters, 255).
the ‘Heroine’: Eaton Stannard Barrett, The Heroine; or, Adventures of A Fair Romance Reader (1813). As JA explains later in this letter, Barrett’s novel was a burlesque on the style of Gothic romance made popular by Ann Radcliffe in the 1790s and later parodied by JA in NA.
peace was generally expected: March 1814 saw the fall of Paris to the allies; Napoleon abdicated in April.
the two-penny post: a reference to the local London letter post, dating from the late seventeenth century and doubled in price from a penny to twopence in 1801. In S&S, ch. 26, Marianne Dashwood uses it to send a letter to Willoughby.
Md B.: Madame Bigeon, Henry Austen’s housekeeper, to whom JA was to leave a legacy of £50 (see Letters, 339, JA’s will).
the rage for seeing Kean: JA wrote ‘Keen’ (Letters, 256); Edmund Kean (1787–1833), Shakespearean actor. He made his first appearance at Drury Lane in January 1814 and was an immediate huge success. JA is to see The Merchant of Venice.
little Cass… bed comfortable last night: JA’s sentence goes on: ‘& has not filled it with fleas’ (Letters, 256). ‘Little Cass’ (JA wrote ‘little Cassandra’) is Charles’s daughter Cassy Esten (b. 1808), and in 1870 the letter’s owner.
Dr. Syntax… Gogmagolicus: References included to amuse little Cassy Esten—William Combe, The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque (1812), a comic poem, hugely popular owing to its engravings by Thomas Rowlandson of the be-chinned cleric, Dr Syntax, in preposterous situations; and Gogmagolicus (JA wrote ‘Gogmagoglicus’), a legendary giant who according to one tradition was captured and made to serve as a porter at the Guildhall in London, where his statue was still to be seen.
Fanny Burney, afterwards Madame D’Arblay: referred to already in this Memoir, as a novelist much admired by JA and as an important critical comparison for her growing reputation (see note to p. 20 above). Through her father Charles Burney, author and musician, as well as by her own early literary success (her first novel, Evelina, appeared in 1778 when she was 26), Burney was able to mix in London’s intellectual circles. Hester Thrale (see note to p. 12 above) attracted many eminent figures to her social gatherings in Streatham, among them the actor and playwright David Garrick (1717–79) and the society painter and writer on aesthetics Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92). Himself a literary patron, Reynolds was a long-standing friend of Charles Burney. Samuel Johnson was Mrs Thrale’s lodger at Streatham. An assiduous diarist throughout her life, Burney recorded her early meeting with Johnson and the Thrales in an entry for 27 July 1778. From the same time she has left a vivid account of her first visit to Reynolds’s splendid house in Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square). (See The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. 3, ed. Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke (1994), 66 ff.)
Anna Seward: sentimental poet and letter-writer (1747–1809), known as ‘the Swan of Lichfield’, where she lived for most of her life. Despite rarely travelling, she managed, by tactical flattery and determined correspondence, to situate herself at the centre of an extensive literary circle, which included Johnson (born at Lichfield), the Edgeworths, Hester Thrale, and Walter Scott, to whom she bequeathed her literary works.
Joanna Baillie and Maria Edgeworth: Joanna Baillie (1762–1851), Scottish poet and dramatist, who enjoyed some commercial success and much educated admiration; she moved to London in 1784 and numbered Walter Scott and the intellectual Anna Barbauld among her friends. For JA’s admiration of Maria Edgeworth, see note to p. 72 above. For most of her life Edgeworth lived in the family home at Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland.
Crabbe… Campbell, Moore, and Rogers: for JA’s admiration of the poet George Crabbe, see notes to p. 71 above. His best-known poetry was written in rural Suffolk and Leicestershire, where he was a clergyman. His acquaintance with the fashionable society poets Thomas Campbell (1777–1844), Thomas Moore (1779–1852), and the banker-poet Samuel Rogers (1763–1855), famous for his literary breakfasts, can be dated to 1817, when he absorbed himself for a time in the London social life of his publisher John Murray and the liberal circles of Lady Holland at Holland House, Kensington. He recorded his experiences in his ‘London Journal’, subsequently published in the posthumous Life (1834), by his son, also George Crabbe.
Scott’s guest… George IV… in that city: Crabbe had met Scott in London, through John Murray, though the two were already correspondents. Crabbe visited Scott in Edinburgh in August 1822, coinciding with the ludicrous tartan extravaganza of George IV’s triumphal state visit at which Scott was master of ceremonies.
a new term, ‘Lakers’: a term coined by Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850), the critic and chief voice of the influential Edinburgh Review (see issue 24 (1814)), to denote the coterie of Lake District poets Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Robert Southey.
Charlotte Brontë’s life: Charlotte Brontë (1816–55), longest lived of the three Brontë sisters, all of whom were novelists and poets. After the remarkable success of her novel Jane Eyre (by ‘Currer Bell’) in 1847, she devoted herself to writing and remained much of the time in the isolated solitude of Haworth parsonage, West Yorkshire. Her fellow novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell, wrote her biography immediately after her death, making
public its melancholy details. Brontë’s ‘kind publisher’ was George Smith, of Smith, Elder, and Co., and the incident in Willis’s Rooms, where Brontë attended a lecture given by Thackeray, is described in Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857), ch. 23. Gaskell’s biography is a point of reference to which JEAL returns.
Miss Mitford: see note to p. 13 above. Her plays Julian (1823), Foscari (1826), and Rienzi (1828) were all performed in London. She had published her collected plays in 1854, with an autobiographical introduction.
Milman and Talfourd: both significant men of letters to JEAL’s generation. Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868), minor poet, playwright, biblical and classical scholar; Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795–1854), essayist, editor, and biographer of the poet and essayist Charles Lamb.
to know where she was buried: the incident is subsequently related in the Autobiography of Mrs Elizabeth Fletcher, 1770–1858, ed. Lady Richardson (1875), 299.
one of the Prince Regent’s physicians: identified by Deirdre Le Faye as possibly Dr Matthew Baillie of Lower Grosvenor Street (Fam. Rec., 202). Henry Austen’s illness in October 1815 was serious enough for JA to fear for a while that his life was in danger. It may have delayed the publication of E, for which she was negotiating with Murray at the same time as nursing her brother.
Memoir of Jane Austen Page 31
