by Jane Austen
14. Before 'a beautiful spot', the phrase 'We shall soon catch the roof of my new house; my real home' has been erased. Later in the paragraph, Mr Parker refers to the battles of Trafalgar (1805) and Waterloo (1815).
15. 'This gutter' has replaced 'this pit'.
16. Nankin boots - see note 18 on The Watsons.
17. Venetian windows, like French windows, came into fashion at the end of the eighteenth century.
18. 'in sunshine and freshness' replaces 'under a sunshiny breeze'.
19. Mr Parker originally accused his sisters of being not merely 'subject', but 'at times martyrs' to their serious disorders.
20. A leech, as is doubtless well known, is a large aquatic blood-sucking worm, which was much used in medicinal practice for the purpose of drawing off blood, often with disastrous consequences. They were popular till well on in the nineteenth century.
21. The words 'West Indian' were used to describe both the indigenous population of the West Indies, and the European settlers. Here we are clearly speaking of a wealthy settler. Large fortunes were made in the West Indies at this period, and the mingled contempt and awe with which the gentility of Sanditon speak of West Indians is characteristic - though there were also highly respectable ancient families, like the Bertrams of Mansfield Park, who had interests and property there. The fiance of Jane's sister Cassandra died in Santo Domingo of yellow fever in 1797.
22. The words 'idle and indolent' were erased after 'one and twenty' In Jane Austen's second thoughts, Mr Parker is less harsh about his strange siblings.
23. 'Smart trinkets' was substituted for 'ornamented combs'.
24. Camilla, a novel by Fanny Burney, appeared in 1796, eighteen years after her first great success, Evelina. In Volume I, at the beginning of the story, the heroine is only nine years old.
25. There is some confusion about the phrase 'chamber-horse'. The 1871 version has it spelt thus, but Chapman believes Jane Austen wrote 'chamber-house'. However, Southam has reverted to the earlier impression. The Oxford Dictionary suggests that a chamber horse might be a rocking-horse, but it seems more likely to me to have been some kind of exercising machine. The dictionary quotes Wesley, in a phrase that might support either view: 'Those who cannot afford this (riding), may use a chamber-horse.' (Works,1872, XIV, 268.) I would like to think it was some kind of eighteenth-century machine for invalids to exercise their limbs, an interpretation which would be in keeping with the hypochondriac atmosphere of Sanditon.
26. Sir Edward quotes from Sir Walter Scott's Marmion, published in 1808, and The Lady of the Lake, published in 1810. Robert Burns (1759-96) addressed love poems to several women, including Alison Begbie in 'Mary Morison' and Mary Campbell in 'To Mary in Heaven'. Burns's wife, whom he met in 1785 and married in 1788, was Jean Armour. 'Montgomery' is presumably James Montgomerie (1771 - 1854), Scottish-born poet and philanthropist who wrote much religious, missionary and anti-slavery verse, including The West Indies (1810), which had considerable success in London. By the time of Sanditon's composition, William Wordsworth's reputation stood very high. The Excursion was published in 1814 and his Miscellaneous Poems were published in two volumes in 1815. The Pleasures of Hope by Thomas Campbell (1777 - 1814) was published in 1799, and was very popular. Sir Edward's lavish use of prefixes (hyper-, pseudo-, anti-) was a vogue of the period.
27. 'I do not think we have had an heiress here, or even a co-heiress since Sanditon has been a public place'. Austen wrote: 'or even a co--... since Sanditon.' 'Co-heiress' seems the most probable meaning here and has therefore been inserted.
28. 'Anti puerile' has been substituted for 'sagacious'.
29. Jane Austen herself greatly admired Richardson's novels, though we see her here deploring some of their effects on their followers. Her nephew wrote: 'Her knowledge of Richardson's works was such as no one is likely again to acquire, now that the multitude and merits of our own light literature have called off the attention of readers from that great master. Every circumstance narrated in Sir Charles Grandison, all that was ever said or done in the cedar parlour, was familiar to her...' (J. E. Austen-Leigh, Memoir). Perhaps she had greater reservations about Clarissa, over which Sir Edward here enthuses, and with whose hero, Lovelace, he identifies himself. Lovelace, a dashing, witty, emotional rake, abducts Clarissa, who had found herself in the usual plight of the eighteenth-century heroine, that of being obliged by a disagreeable family to marry against her wishes. She escapes with Lovelace to a yet worse fate. Lovelace tries through volumes to seduce her, and finally rapes her: the event drives her into a decline, and she dies a Christian death. One cannot entirely blame Sir Edward for his attitude to the characters in this novel: many have noted the ambivalence of Richardson's attitude when he writes about sex. Many have drawn the wrong moral conclusions from Pamela and Clarissa, and even Sir Charles Grandison is not without its ambiguities.
30. 'Only too much disposed for food' appears in erased versions both as 'is much more likely to eat too much than too little' and 'eats enormously'.
31. 'Lessons on eloquence and Belles Lettres' have been substituted for more prosaic 'lessons in botany'.
32. 'A spirit of restless activity', in keeping with other emendations, has been substituted for 'the disease of activity'.
33. I cannot help but comment on the extraordinary effect of the phrase 'half mulatto, chilly and tender'. It is as though one had entered another world. Who would ever have thought that Miss Lambe would prove to be half mulatto? And yet Jane Austen states the fact with the utmost calm. As for 'chilly and tender', the words refer presumably to her state of health and response to the English climate, but if they were also intended to describe her emotional nature, what an interesting character she might have proved.
34. The 'clusters' were originally of 'vigorous elms, or old thorns and hollies'.
35. In one of his few emendations, Chapman has given us, surely correctly, 'the foot of man' for 'the foot by man', which must have been a slip of the pen.
36. 'Portly' has been erased, and 'stately' substituted.
CHRONOLOGY
1775 Jane Austen born on 16 December, the second daughter and seventh child of the Revd George Austen and his wife, Cassandra Leigh. Her father was rector of the village of Steventon in Hampshire. The family was well-connected although not rich. Two of her brothers entered the navy and rose to the rank of Rear-Admiral.
1776 American Declaration of Independence. 1778 Frances Burney published Evelina.
1785-6 Austen, with her sister Cassandra, attended the Abbey School, Reading.
1787 Austen started to write the short, parodic pieces of fiction known as her Juvenilia.
1789 French Revolution broke out.
1792 Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
1793 Britain at war with revolutionary France.
1794 Ann Radcliffe published The Mysteries of Udolpho.
1795 Austen wrote 'Elinor and Marianne', a first version of Sense and Sensibility.
1796 Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte in France.
1796-7 Austen wrote 'First Impressions', a first version of Pride and Prejudice.
1797 'First Impressions' offered to a publisher, who refused it.
1798-9 'Susan', an early version of Northanger Abbey, written.
1801 Austen's father retired and the family moved to Bath.
1802 In France Napoleon appointed Consul for life.
1802 Austen accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, but changed her mind the following day 1803 'Susan' sold for PS10 to the publisher Crosby, who did not publish it.
1804 Austen wrote unfinished novel, 'The Watsons'.
1805 Austen's father died. Battle of Trafalgar.
1807 Austen moved with her mother and sister to Southampton.
1809 Austen moved with her mother and sister to a house in the village of Chawton in Hampshire, owned by her brother Edward, which was her home for the rest of her life.
1811 Sense a
nd Sensibility published.
1811 Illness of King George III caused the Prince of Wales to be appointed Prince Regent.
1813 Pride and Prejudice published.
1814 Mansfield Park published.
1815 Wellington and Blucher defeat French at the Battle of Waterloo, bringing to an end the Napoleonic Wars.
1815 (December) Emma published and dedicated at his request to the Prince Regent.
1816 Austen's health started to deteriorate; she finished Persuasion. 'Susan' bought back from Crosby. Walter Scott reviewed Emma flatteringly in the Quarterly Review
1817 Jane Austen died on 18 July in Winchester, where she had gone for medical attention, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
1818 Her brother Henry oversaw the publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, with a biographical notice of the writer.
