13. “My garden is also a constant object of interest”: CEA to Philadelphia Whitaker, 6 Feb. 1833, AP, p. 289.
14. R. W. Chapman, Facts and Problems, p. 67.
15. Caroline Austen, My Aunt Jane Austen, p. 10.
16. The words are taken from a letter to The Times of 12 Feb. 1926, written by Mrs. Creaghe-Howard of Ottery St. Mary about Miss Sharp. “My aunt Miss Middleton [1817–94] knew her well and often spoke of her,” she explained. “From what she said I gather that Miss Sharp was a clever, rather dominant woman, much thought of in Everton society of her day. She was very reticent about her early life before coming to Liverpool, and also made a mystery of her age.” Miss Middleton is mentioned in Anne Sharp’s will.
17. Henry’s account at Hoare’s Bank actually shows payments to “Mr. Perigord” on 26 Mar. (£5) and 12 July (£20); the payment on 7 Dec. (£10) is to Mrs. Perigord. Later payments are sometimes to “M Perigord,” or to “Mrs. M Perigeux.” I suspect the variations are clerks’ errors, and all the payments are really to Madame Perigord.
18. All these payments can be seen in CEA’s account with Hoare’s Bank.
19. Cassandra’s will appears in Jane Austen Society Report (1969), p. 106.
20. I have been unable to trace the date or place of death of either Madame Bigeon or Madame Perigord.
21. Mary Augusta Austen-Leigh, James-Edward Austen-Leigh, a Memoir by His Daughter (1911), p. 164.
22. Caroline Austen, Reminiscences, p. 65.
23. James-Edward Austen-Leigh to Anna Lefroy, 29 Mar. 1845, AP, p. 294.
24. According to Maggie Lane, Jane Austen’s Family through Five Generations , p. 231, the destruction of the letters angered Sir Francis’s daughter Catherine, who had some of her aunt’s intelligence and spirit. Married to John Hubback, who became insane, she supported herself and her children by writing novels, first “finishing” The Watsons and going on to write nine more original ones. In her fifties she went out to California to help one of her sons, and died in America.
25. Lord David Cecil, A Portrait of Jane Austen (1978), p. 10.
26. Barry Roth and Joel Weinsheimer, An Annotated Bibliography of Jane Austen Studies 1952–1972 (1973).
“An African Story from Fanny Austen’s Pocket-book, 1809: Centre for Kentish Studies U951 F24/6.
Short Bibliography
To list all the studies of Jane Austen’s work, the books, the articles, the prefaces read over the years, would be ridiculous. Similarly, the works of her contemporaries—novels, plays, letters and essays—which I began to read systematically in the early 1970s, when researching a book on Mary Wollstonecraft, are not listed here; the notes should sufficiently indicate references to them. This bibliography is therefore a short and basic one.
UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL
In the Hampshire Record Office: the Austen-Leigh Archive; poems of Jane Austen; diaries of Mrs. James Austen; letters of Eliza de Feuillide on microfilm; diaries and letters of Mrs. William Chute and her mother; Heathcote papers
In the British Library: the letter-book of Tysoe Saul Hancock; the Hastings papers; letters from Henry Austen to Richard Bentley; letters of Sir Francis Austen and Charles Austen
At Hoare’s Bank: ledgers relating to accounts held by members of the Austen family and by Philadelphia Hancock
In the Kent County Archives: diaries and letters of Lady Knatchbull (Fanny Austen, later Knight)
Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Quai d’Orsay, L 20
At the College of Arms, London: thesis by Joan Corder, “Jane Austen’s Kindred” (1953)
Papers in possession of Mr. Alwyn Austen
Hampstead Burial Register
Caplan, Clive, “The Military Career of Captain Henry Thomas Austen of the Oxfordshire Regiment of Militia, 1793–1801,” forthcoming issue of Persuasions (magazine of the Jane Austen Society of North America)
PUBLISHED MATERIAL
Austen, Henry, “Biographical Note,” prefaced to first edition of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1818). He revised it and added a little extra information for Richard Bentley’s edition in 1833.
Brydges, Sir S. E., Autobiography (1834) [Austen-Leigh, James-Edward, but published anonymously as] “by a Sexagenarian,” Recollections of the Early Days of the Vine Hunt (1865)
Austen, Caroline, My Aunt Jane Austen, a Memoir, written in 1867 and published by the Jane Austen Society in 1952
—Reminiscences, written in the 1870s and published by the Jane Austen Society in 1986
Austen-Leigh, James-Edward, A Memoir of Jane Austen (1870), the first biography, with material from his sisters Anna Lefroy and Caroline Austen
Pingaud, Léonce, Un agent secret sous la Révolution et l’Empire: Le Comte d’Antraigues (Paris, 1894)
Hill, Constance, Jane Austen, Her Homes and Her Friends (1904)
Hubback, J. H., and Edith C., Jane Austen’s Sailor Brothers (1906)
Bigg-Wither, R. F., Materials for a History of the Wither Family (1907)
Austen-Leigh, William, and Knight, George Montague, Chawton Manor and Its Owners (1911)
Austen-Leigh, William, and Austen-Leigh, R. A., Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters, a Family Record (1913). An edition with further hand-written notes by R. A. Austen-Leigh is held in the HRO; and see Le Faye, below
Austen-Leigh, Mary Augusta, Personal Aspects of Jane Austen (1920)
Chapman, R. W. (ed.), The Manuscript Chapters of Persuasion (1926)
—The Watsons, a Fragment (1927)
—Works of Jane Austen, 6 vols. (1923–54)
—Jane Austen’s Letters to Her Sister Cassandra and Others , 2 vols. (1932)
—Jane Austen: Facts and Problems (1948)
Tompkins, J. M. S., The Popular Novel in England (1932)
Jenkins, Elizabeth, Jane Austen: A Biography (1938)
Lascelles, Mary, Jane Austen and Her Art (1939)
Harding, D. W., Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen (1940; printed in Scrutiny, viii, 4)
Leavis, Q. D., A Critical Theory of Jane Austen’s Writings (1941–2; printed in Scrutiny, x, 1, 2 and 3)
Austen-Leigh, R. A. (ed.), Austen Papers, 1704–1856 (1942)
Jane Austen Society Reports from 1949 to 1996
Mudrick, Marvin, Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery (1952) Trilling, Lionel, The Opposing Self (1955)
Southam, Brian, Jane Austen’s Literary Manuscripts (1964)
—Critical Essays on Jane Austen (1969)
—Jane Austen, The Critical Heritage (Vol. I, 1968; Vol. II, 1987)
Laski, Marghanita, Jane Austen and Her World (1969)
Abbé Michel Devert, “Le Marais de Gabarret et de Barbotan,” Bulletin de la Société de Borda (1970)
Hodge, Jane Aiken, The Double Life of Jane Austen (1972)
Butler, Marilyn, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (1975)
Hardy, Barbara, A Reading of Jane Austen (1975)
Cecil, Lord David, A Portrait of Jane Austen (1978)
Piggott, Patrick, The Innocent Diversion (1979)
Gilson, David, A Bibliography of Jane Austen (1982)
Tucker, G. H., A Goodly Heritage—a History of Jane Austen’s Family (1983) Lane, Maggie, Jane Austen’s Family (1984)
—Jane Austen and Food (1995)
Tanner, Tony, Jane Austen (1986)
Grey, J. David, The Jane Austen Handbook (1986)
Honan, Park, Jane Austen: Her Life (1987)
Abbé Michel Devert, “La Dame du Marais,” Bulletin de la Société de Borda (1988)
Le Faye, Deirdre, Jane Austen: A Family Record (1989)
—(ed.), Jane Austen’s Letters (1995)
Wilson, Margaret, Almost Another Sister (1990)
Nicolson, Nigel, The World of Jane Austen (1991)
Collins, Irene, Jane Austen and the Clergy (1994)
1 This is one of the few early English references to baseball before its official invention in America in the 1860s.9
2 Note that the Austens pronou
nced “toil” to rhyme with “smile”; a much later poem of James’s similarly rhymes “join” with “thine.” This suggests the same usage as that of Pepys, whose shorthand renders “point” as “pint,” “boil” as “bil” (bile) and “join” as “jin” ( jine). Readers aloud of Jane Austen might like to take note: “Mr. Elton, in very good spirits, was one of the first to walk in. Mrs. Weston and Emma were sitting together on a sopha. He jined them immediately . . .”
3 Evelina was published anonymously in 1778. Its success was tremendous and its author quickly revealed as Miss Frances Burney, who had written it in secret, unknown even to her father. Dr. Johnson was one of its warmest admirers, preferring it to any of Fielding’s novels.
CLAIRE TOMALIN
Jane Austen
Claire Tomalin is the author of several prize-winning biographies—of Mary Wollstonecraft; Samuel Pepys; Katherine Mansfield; Dickens’s secret mistress, Nelly Ternan; and Dora Jordan, the actress who for twenty years was companion to the future William IV. Educated at Cambridge University, she served as literary editor of the New Statesman and The Sunday Times. Claire Tomalin lives in London and is married to the playwright Michael Frayn.
ALSO BY CLAIRE TOMALIN
The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley and His World
Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life
The Invisible Woman:
The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
Mrs. Jordan’s Profession:
The Actress and the Prince
Samuel Pepys:
The Unequalled Self
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, MAY 1999
Copyright © 1997 by Claire Tomalin
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.vintagebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42646-8
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