Memoir of Jane Austen

by Austen-Leigh, James Edward; Sutherland, Kathryn;

  Carlton House: the magnificent London house of the Prince of Wales (Prince Regent, 1811; George IV, 1820) from 1783. It was demolished in 1827.

  at that time in the press: permission to dedicate E to the Prince Regent was something of a two-edged compliment. JA hoped the knowledge might speed up production at the printers, but saw no evidence for this. On the other hand, she did become liable to costs which had to be paid out of her own pocket—an expensive red morocco presentation binding (see Gilson, A8, p. 68).

  Mr. Clarke… Dr. Clarke… Bishop Otter: the Prince Regent’s Librarian and Domestic Chaplain was the Revd James Stanier Clarke (1767–1834). His brother was Edward Daniel Clarke (1769–1822), a distinguished traveller (Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa (6 vols., 1810–23)). William Otter (Bishop of Chichester in 1836) published Life and Remains of E. D. Clarke in 1824.

  Nov. 15, 1815: a copy of JA’s letter to J. S. Clarke descended to Charles Austen and his family. It appears in Letters as no. 125(D), a draft preserved by JA for her own reference.

  Carlton House, Nov. 16, 1815: no. 125 in Letters, again descending from Cassandra to Charles Austen and his family.

  Beattie’s Minstrel… yet none knew why: from James Beattie, The Minstrel; or, the Progress of Genius (1771–4), book 1, st. 16, slightly misquoted by JEAL but not by Clarke in his original letter (see Letters, 297).

  Goldsmith… ‘Tableau de Famille’: the reference is to the sentimental portraits of clergymen in Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and in the French translation (Nouveaux Tableaux de Famille, ou la vie d’un pauvre ministre de village allemand et ses enfants (1803)) of August Lafontaine, Leben eines armes Landpredigers (1801).

  no man’s enemy but his own: in the comic ‘Plan of a Novel, according to hints from various quarters’, which JA drew up in 1816 as a direct consequence of her correspondence with J. S. Clarke, she there proposes to describe ‘a Clergyman, one who after having lived much in the World had retired from it… of a very literary turn, an Enthusiast in Literature, nobody’s Enemy but his own… ‘(Minor Works, 428–9). As she must have known when mimicking Clarke, his smugly self-referential phrase (‘no man’s enemy but his own’) is filched from Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, book 4, ch. 5, where it is a description of the hero. (For the verbal closeness of the ‘Plan’ and Clarke’s letters, see notes to pp. 97–9 below.)

  Dec. 11: no. 132(D) in Letters, again part of Cassandra Austen’s bequest to her brother Charles.

  Prince Leopold… Princess Charlotte: Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg (1790–1865) married the Prince Regent’s daughter, the Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796–1817), in 1816.

  ‘an historical romance… just now be very interesting’: a loose extract from no. 138 in Letters.

  Sir William Ross: (1794–1860), miniature-painter.

  ‘My Dear Sir… honoured…’: no. 138(D) (JA’s own draft) in Letters, where it is dated Monday 1 April 1816.

  But when his free course… With willing sport: Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 11. vii. 27–32, slightly misquoted (‘free course’ should be ‘fair course’).

  ‘should hardly like to live… confined houses’: from Charlotte Brontë’s correspondence with George Henry Lewes, an extract from a letter of 12 January 1848, quoted by Gaskell, Life of Charlotte Brontë, ch. 16.

  ‘Plan of a novel… from various quarters’: the manuscript, in JA’s hand, is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. It clearly dates from the period of the Clarke correspondence (Nov. 1815-Apr. 1816). But to appreciate the full flavour and sharpness of JA’s comedy, the ‘Plan’ needs to be read with the complete text of Clarke’s letters. JEAL’s selective extracting of both almost perversely obscures their interconnection, by omitting from the edited correspondence most of the points which appear in the ‘Plan’, and from the ‘Plan’ most of the suggestions incorporated verbatim from Clarke’s hilariously self-preening letters. The ‘Plan’ along with Clarke’s correspondence was in Cassy Esten’s possession at this time and available to JEAL. Writing to her brother after the Memoir’s publication, Caroline Austen comments on his handling of these materials: ‘I see you have been very merciful to Mr. Clarke in omitting the most ridiculous parts of his letter’ (see the Appendix, p. 192). Clarke’s letter, no. 132 in Letters, is the vital missing link and is itself as funny (in its complete misunderstanding of JA’s novelistic talents) as anything in the ‘Plan’. He advises her thus: ‘Pray continue to write, & make all your friends send Sketches to help you—and Memoires pour servir—as the French term it. Do let us have an English Clergyman after your fancy—much novelty may be introduced—shew dear Madam what good would be done if Tythes were taken away entirely, and describe him burying his own mother—as I did—because the High Priest of the Parish in which she died —did not pay her remains the respect he ought to do. I have never recovered the Shock. Carry your Clergyman to Sea as the Friend of some distinguished Naval Character about a Court—you can then bring foreward like Le Sage many interesting Scenes of Character & Interest’ (Letters, 307).

  names of some of those advisers: see Minor Works, 428–30, for a complete text of the ‘Plan’, including JA’s original marginal notes (there printed as footnotes), indicating the source of each suggestion.

  chaplain to a distinguished naval character about the court: JA writes at this point in her manuscript the marginal note ‘Mr. Clarke’. A comparison with the extract from Clarke’s letter of 21 December 1815, no. 132, quoted in the note to p. 97 above, shows that JA is here drawing on it virtually verbatim. Clarke was, of course, weaving autobiographical details into his proposals—he had been a naval chaplain from 1795–1799.

  tithes: literally ‘tenths’, the tithe being estimated at one-tenth of the produce of the land in a parish, to be paid for the support of its church and clergy. In practice, it was a specific assessment landholders paid to constitute the clergyman’s income. It could lead to serious inequalities between rich and poor parishes and between curates, who might do most of the work but be paid very little, and the rector who enjoyed a good income. Again, see Clarke’s letter quoted in note to p. 97 above.

  Often reduced to… work for her bread: JA is glancing slyly at the fashion for sensational adventure in the contemporary female novel. Ellis-Juliet, the heroine of Fanny Burney’s The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (1814), undergoes various sufferings in a downward spiral of poverty, trying to earn her living as a music teacher, performer, and seamstress. A more direct comparison can be found in Mary Brunton’s Self-Control (1810), where the heroine Laura Montreville resolves somewhat impractically to earn a living for herself and her invalid father by selling sketches: ‘Could she but hope to obtain a subsistence for her father, she would labour night and day, deprive herself of recreation, of rest, even of daily food, rather than wound his heart, by an acquaintance with poverty’ (ch. 15). Laura’s many sufferings eventually culminate in escape by canoe from a wilderness confinement in the region of Quebec. For JA’s humorous response to this novel, see her letter to Cassandra, quoted in the note to p. 75 above.

  Kamtschatka: modern Kamchatka, a peninsula at the eastern extremity of Asia, acquired by Russia in the eighteenth century. The setting is chosen for its improbability—even surpassing the remoteness of Quebec. Doody and Murray (Catharine and Other Writings, 361, note to p. 232) suggest that JA is here alluding to Madame Sophie Cottin’s Elizabeth; or, Exiles of Siberia (1806), another tale concerned with the heroine’s unlikely sufferings for the sake of her father. It was translated into English in 1809.

  and living in high style: in Ed.1, Chapter 7 ends at this point.

  Mr. Murray of Albemarle Street: John Murray III (1808–92), son of JA’s publisher (for whom, see note to p. 82 above). JA’s own estimate of Murray is somewhat more qualified than JEAL’s. In her letter of 17 October 1815 to Cassandra, she describes him as ‘a Rogue of course, but a civil one’ (Letters, 291).

  Hans Place… (1815): no. 126 in Letters, the original being in t
he John Murray Archive, 50 Albemarle Street, London.

  ‘Waterloo’: Walter Scott’s poem, The Field of Waterloo, jointly published by Murray in October 1815. It commemorated the allied victory against Napoleon in June 1815 and its profits went to the Waterloo subscription.

  Hans Place, December 11 (1815): no. 130 in Letters, again in the Murray archive.

  all unbound: that is, in publishers’ boards, a temporary covering until the book should be leather-bound by the purchaser. Murray allowed JA twelve presentation copies of E in addition to the copy for the Prince Regent. His three-volume set was presented already bound in red morocco leather, at JA’s own expense. JA published E on commission, a method she used for S&S and MP—that is, she as author was responsible for paying all the expenses of publication (paper, printing costs, etc.) out of profits, while the publisher distributed the copies and took a percentage commission on what was sold. In this way JA reserved copyright in the work to herself—hence her freedom to publish a second edition of MP with Murray rather than with Egerton, its first publisher, a detail mentioned at the end of this letter. But publishing on commission meant that she also took upon herself the risk of financial loss and, as this letter suggests, she still had to rely heavily on her publisher’s sense of the market. The best account of JA’s dealings with her publishers is to be found in Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life. For precise details of the printing of E and MP (2nd edn.) see Gilson, 59–60 and 66–9.

  Hans Place, December 11 (1815): no. 131 in Letters. JEAL’s copy in the Memoir is the source for all other printings, the original being untraced.

  the proper place for a dedication: Murray must have pointed out immediately that dedications are not normally printed on title-pages.

  Chawton, April 1, 1816: no. 139 in Letters, the original now in King’s College Library, Cambridge.

  Reviewer of ‘Emma’: this was JA’s first major critical review. The anonymous reviewer was Walter Scott, in the Quarterly Review, 14 (dated October 1815, but published March 1816), 188–201. The Quarterly was Murray’s own periodical and it was he who asked Scott to promote the novel: ‘Have you any fancy to dash off an article on “Emma”?’ (see Gilson, 69). We do not know whether JA knew that Scott was the ‘clever’ reviewer.

  the late event in Henrietta Street: JA wrote, ‘the late sad Event’, a reference to Henry Austen’s bankruptcy, declared 15 March 1816. 10 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, housed the offices of the banking business of Austen, Maunde, & Tilson. The best family account of the circumstances surrounding the bankruptcy, and its effect on the Austen family and on JA’s health, is to be found in Caroline Austen’s Reminiscences, 47–8.

  the Countess of Morley: Frances Talbot (1782–1857), second wife of John Parker, second Lord Boringdon, created in 1815 first Earl of Morley. Lady Morley was a witty woman, with literary interests, and for a time was thought to be the authoress of both S&S and P&P. It is not known how JA became acquainted with her, but the likeliest explanation is that it was through her brother Henry’s London society contacts. See W. A. W. Jarvis, ‘Jane Austen and the Countess of Morley’, Jane Austen Society Report (1986), 6–14. In Ed.1 this interchange of letters was placed at the end of Chapter 6. They are nos. 134(A) and 134(D) in Letters, and were bequeathed by Cassandra to Charles Austen. JA had sent the Countess one of the twelve presentation copies of E. See Letters, 302, where she jokes to Cassandra of her ‘near Connections—beginning with the P.R. & ending with Countess Morley’. For the Countess’s less favourable opinion of E, as expressed to her sister-in-law, see Fam. Rec., 208.

  Woodhouse family… Norrises: Emma Woodhouse and her father in E; the Bennets in P&P; the Bertrams and Mrs Norris in MP.

  Archbishop Whately… review of Madame D’Arblay’s: for Richard Whately, see note to p. 28 above. Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–59), politician, essayist, and historian, and early JA enthusiast. He associates her talent for characterization with that of Shakespeare in his unsigned article, ‘Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay’, Edinburgh Review, 76 (Jan. 1843), 523–70 (at pp. 561–2). His claim is taken up and repeated by several major mid-century critics, including G. H. Lewes and Julia Kavanagh.

  Horace’s ‘satis est Equitem mihi plaudere’: Horace, Satires, 1. x. line 76: ‘It is enough if the knights applaud me’ (part of Horace’s defence of an exclusive readership).

  the following letter to Mr. Cadell: Thomas Cadell, of the reputable London firm Cadell and Davies, well established as novel publishers. In her letter of 1 April [1869?] offering materials to her brother for the Memoir, Caroline Austen provides a copy of the letter to Cadell, observing shrewdly: ‘I do not know which novel he would have sent—The letter does not do much credit to the tact or courtesy of our good Grandfather for Cadell was a great man in his day, and it is not surprising that he should have refused the favor so offered from an unknown—but the circumstance may be worth noting, especially as we have so few incidents to produce. At a sale of Cadell’s papers & c Tom Lefroy picked up the original letter—and Jemima [Anna Lefroy’s daughter] copied it for me—’ (see the Appendix p. 185, for a longer extract from this letter). The manuscript of JA’s father’s letter is now in St John’s College Library, Oxford.

  author’s risk… the property of it: that is, publication on commission or through the author’s sale of the copyright to the publisher. For JA’s preferred method of publication, see note to p. 100 above. Fanny Burney’s Evelina (1776) had been an unexpected runaway success; it is also mentioned in order to give some idea of the length of the offered manuscript and therefore the likely cost (in paper, type-setting, etc.) involved in publishing it.

  to a publisher in Bath: though JA was at that time living in Bath, the manuscript of ‘Susan’, a version of which had been written, according to Cassandra’s memorandum, in 1798 and 1799, was in 1803 offered to and bought by the small London publisher Crosby and Co. However, it seems likely that Crosby had provincial connections with booksellers in Bath (Gilson, 83); so JEAL’s information is not necessarily inaccurate. JA enquired after her manuscript in April 1809 when Crosby informed her, somewhat oddly, that its purchase had not bound his firm to publish the manuscript, and that she might have it back on repayment of the £10 (see Letters, 174–5). It is not known exactly when JA bought it back—perhaps not until early in 1816. At this time she changed the heroine’s name and the working title to ‘Catherine’; but the novel was only published posthumously, under the title Northanger Abbey, which by family tradition Henry Austen gave it (Fam. Rec., 210–11 and 233).

  old fishing-tackle in Scott’s cabinet: Walter Scott himself tells this story of the interrupted composition of Waverley (1814) in the ‘General Preface’ (1829) written for the collected edition of his novels. There he claims the work was begun in 1805 but ‘laid aside in the drawers of an old writing desk’, and only rediscovered several years later when he ‘happened to want some fishing-tackle for the use of a guest… and, in looking for lines and flies, the long-lost manuscript presented itself’ (Waverley, ed. Claire Lamont (1981), 352–4).

  One of her brothers: Ed.1 reads ‘Her brother Henry’.

  for that which had cost her nothing: JEAL is here drawing on Henry Austen’s words in his ‘Biographical Notice’ (1818). Writing to Frank Austen on 3–4 July 1813, JA noted with pleasure that the first edition of S&S had sold out and earned her £140 in profits (Letters, 217).

  extracts from two of her letters: both to Anna Lefroy (nos. 111 and 118 in Letters). Both were given by Anna to JEAL for use in the Memoir, and both are since lost (see notes to Letters, 438 and 443).

  Mr. C. ’s opinion… in my list: in Letters, 282, ‘Mr.C’ reads ‘Mrs Creed’. The list, which survives, records ‘Opinions of Mansfield Park’, and is in Minor Works, 431–5, with Mrs Creed’s preference of S&S and P&P over MP at p. 435.

  a close imitation of ‘Self-Control’: for JA’s anxious preoccupation with the success of Mary Brunton’s Self-Control and the popularity of its highly decorous he
roine, see note to p. 75 above and her own humorous ‘Plan of a Novel’ (pp. 97–9 above).

  ‘Rosanne’ in our Society: Laetitia Matilda Hawkins, Rosanne; or, a Father’s Labour Lost (1814), a novel written to illustrate ‘the inestimable advantages attendant on the practice of pure Christianity’. ‘Our Society’ is the Chawton Book Society or Reading Club.

  Two notices… in the ‘Quarterly Review’: see notes to pp. 28 and 101 above.

  ‘as tiresome in fiction as in real society’: the three preceding references are to Walter Scott’s anonymous review, in the Quarterly Review, 14 (Oct. 1815), 188–201, at pp. 194, and 200. Of Elizabeth Bennet’s change of heart, he wrote: ‘The lady… does not perceive that she has done a foolish thing until she accidentally visits a very handsome seat and grounds belonging to her admirer.’

  Wilkie’s pictures: the Scottish painter, Sir David Wilkie (1785–1841), noted like the Dutch painters of the Delft School for the high degree of realism in his domestic representations.