Jane Austen For Beginners

by Robert Dryden

  The Austens and the English Social Hierarchy

  During the early nineteenth century, the English social hierarchy was structured as follows: Next to the king’s court, the aristocracy was at the top, and it was comprised of a few hundred families of lords, dukes, viscounts, and earls, most of whom were part of the government. They derived their staggering wealth from both rents and their positions in power. They lived in sprawling country estates and huge city mansions. Since Jane Austen had no contact with members from this elite social class, aristocrats do not appear in the pages of her novels.

  Below the aristocracy was the gentry, and here is where we see the majority of characters who inhabit Austen’s novels. From the Elliots and Musgroves of Persuasion to the Bertrams of Mansfield Park and Tilneys of Northanger Abbey, these families are all in possession of estates that have been in their families for many generations. The ranking of the gentry is a bit complicated, but for the Austen beginner, suffice it to say that there are three social levels: the landed gentry, the lesser landed gentry, and the professional minor gentry. As Maggie Lane illustrates in her essay “Daily Life in Jane Austen’s England,” members of the landed gentry were titled in the ranks of either baronet or knight, and of those two, only the baronet’s title was passed down from father to son. Mansfield Park’s Sir Thomas Bertram and Persuasion’s Sir Walter Elliot are the two representatives in Austen’s novels from this class. Since the title of knight was bestowed during a person’s lifetime, it could not be passed down. Both Sir William Lucas from Pride and Prejudice and Sir Henry Russell from Persuasion are knights. Correspondingly, the wives of both baronets and knights are referred to by the title Lady.

  The lesser landed gentry was composed of many of the misters in Austen’s stories. Examples here include Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Knightly (who is a magistrate) from Emma, and Mr. Palmer (who is running for Parliament) from Sense and Sensibility. These are the higher-ranking members, but the lesser landed gentry also includes most of the families that have named estates, such as Longbourn in Pride and Prejudice, Hartfield in Emma, and Uppercross in Persuasion. The rank of characters in these mid-level gentry positions varies, but most of the patriarchs share in common that they are first sons living in their ancestral homes.

  Finally, the professional minor gentry consisted predominantly of offspring of the landed gentry (second and third sons), who did not stand to inherit property. These individuals derived their incomes from the three professions: the church, the armed services, and the law. Countless examples of this class exist in Austen’s world, and they include Austen’s own father, who was a clergyman, Admiral Croft from Persuasion, and the Vicar Elton from Emma.

  Jane Austen’s family has been described as existing in the ranks of the “pseudo gentry” (a term coined by scholar David Spring). Since George Austen held a position in the church and had family connections with members of the landed gentry, he and his family can technically be included in the professional minor gentry, but keep in mind that these borders between social stations are in many cases somewhat fuzzy. The main reason for this lack of clarity is that the middle class, the social station beneath the Austens, is competing with the gentry for prestige in society.

  The middle class—or the “new middle class” as it was called—consisted of successful, educated men who lacked breeding and connections to elite families. It comprised professionals like lawyers and doctors, officers in the army and navy (who were not from landed families), and merchants and businessmen. Due to the ambiguous boundaries between the lower level of the gentry and the upper level of the middle class, opinions differ about the extent of middle-class characters in the pages of Austen’s novels. Some critics argue that members of the middle class barely exist; others (including myself) view the cast of middle-class characters as substantial, however. As we will discuss at length in most of the chapters that follow, England is evolving into the globally powerful Great Britain, and the early nineteenth century brings with it war with France, the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, and colonization. As England evolves into the British Empire, there are all kinds of personal money-making ventures to pursue, and many members of the middle class are striking while the iron is hot. As Austen demonstrates so well in all of her novels, members of this emerging middle class are competing for status in society with members of the landed gentry. One of the best examples is from Persuasion, where wealthy naval officers are mingling with members of the gentry. Admiral Croft rents a familial estate that the baronet, Sir Walter Elliot, can no longer afford, and a middle-class naval captain (Frederick Wentworth) eventually climbs up the social ladder by marrying the daughter (Anne Elliot) of that same baronet. We also see in Pride and Prejudice another excellent example of blurring of boundaries between middle class and the gentry. Charles Bingley is a member of the middle class nouveau riche. He is not landed, and the source of his fortune is never revealed, but the fact that he is extremely well-monied enables him to mingle with the likes of Fitzwilliam Darcy. More likely than not, his fortune was made in the colonial realm, where opportunities were vast. For our purposes, however, suffice it to say that in the early nineteenth century, money is competing with social rank, and like it or not, members of the gentry are opening up their doors to newly affluent members of the middle class.

  Childhood and Education

  When Jane Austen was born, her parents obeyed a custom (albeit a dying one) whereby infants were not kept at home, but with a wet nurse. Thus, for the better part of her first two years of life, Austen was kept in a cottage in the village where she was nursed and cared for. Her parents would visit on a daily basis, and they would often bring her home for short periods of time, but her primary care was elsewhere until she could walk and begin to talk. Reasons for the practice varied. Lawrence Stone in The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 states that on the one hand, mothers were freed of the drudgery of breast feeding and the demands it placed on their bodies, but another more compelling reason stemmed from husbands who wanted to maintain sexual access to their wives and did not want to compete with a nursing child.

  As for education, it is not surprising that Jane Austen’s was far superior to that of her peers. With older brothers, a highly intelligent mother, and a father who was a teacher, it is also not surprising that Austen’s education began very early. Austen-Leigh tells us, “In childhood every available opportunity of instruction was made use of. According to the ideas of the time, she was well educated, though not highly accomplished, and she certainly enjoyed that important element of mental training, associating at home with persons of cultivated intellect.” Since males exclusively received a formal education and went on to study classical Greek and Latin, there were limits to Austen’s progress as a scholar; however, by the time she was a teenager, she was well versed in the practice of writing. She wrote stories, a few poems, and some plays. Many of these are available, collected in a volume referred to as Jane Austen’s Juvenilia. They include Love and Friendship, Catherine, and The History of England from the Reign of Henry the 4th to the Death of Charles the 1st. Her family home at Steventon was the location where Austen eventually blossomed as an author. In her early twenties, Austen wrote her most successful novel, Pride and Prejudice (which she began and finished in a period of about ten months during the years 1796 and 1797), and she also wrote drafts of Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey.

  Romance for Cassandra and Jane

  Much has been made in the last decade about possible romances that the Austen sisters might have had during their lifetimes. Considering the tiny size of the communities where the Austens lived, the world of romance was limited at best. Since romantic options consisted of members of a few families that lived in neighboring houses within a small community, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that neither Cassandra nor Jane married during their lifetimes. But for both women, there were a few close calls.

  When the family still lived in Steventon, Cassandra received and
accepted a proposal of marriage from a clergyman in the area, Tom Fowle, who had been a student of Mr. Austen’s and had grown up with their family since childhood. Like some unfortunate characters in Austen’s books, this young man was endowed with neither land nor money, but he did have a patron, a Lord Craven, who would have assisted the young Fowle in establishing himself to be a suitable groom for the marriage. Tragedy struck, however, when he followed Lord Craven to the West Indies (serving his master as a chaplain of the regiment), contracted yellow fever, and died. The news devastated Cassandra. And this was, as far as is commonly known, her sole opportunity for marriage.

  Jane had never been engaged in her life, but she did have a few opportunities for marriage that never came to fruition. It is widely known in the Janite community that, like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (who rejects a marriage proposal from the character Mr. Collins), Jane herself rejected a marriage proposal from a prospective suitor whom she didn’t care for. Austen-Leigh reports: “In her youth [Jane] had declined the address of a gentleman who had the recommendations of good character, and connections, and position in life, of everything, in fact, except the subtle power of touching her heart.” The Austen reader easily comes to understand Jane’s decision when we take into consideration that true love should be the ultimate criterion for marrying. However, in Austen’s time most women did not have the luxury of marrying for love. You might say a woman’s duty was to get married, and there were serious social consequences if she did not. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, Charlotte Lucas jumps at the chance to marry Mr. Collins after he had been rejected by Elizabeth Bennet. Charlotte is not in love with Collins, but (like women of the time) she is practical. It’s fair to say that the majority of women in early nineteenth-century England were conditioned to think like Charlotte Lucas, not like Elizabeth Bennet or Jane Austen.

  Austen-Leigh also recalls another story of prospective romance for Jane that evolved briefly when the family had been vacationing at a seaside location (possibly Devon). As he puts it, the Austens “became acquainted with a gentleman, whose charm of person, mind and manners was such that Cassandra thought him worthy to possess and likely to win her sister’s love. When they parted, he expressed his intention of soon seeing them again; and Cassandra felt no doubt as to his motives. But they never again met. Within a short time they heard of his sudden death. I believe that, if Jane ever loved, it was this unnamed gentleman.”

  In addition to these accounts of near-romance in Austen’s short life, there is another possible romantic encounter that is depicted in the 2007 film Becoming Jane, where the author falls in love with a man named Tom Lefroy. According to the Jane Austen Society of North America, there is some merit to the story depicted in the film. Apparently Austen and Lefroy met when they were each twenty during a visit Lefroy made to Hampshire to visit his aunt and uncle. Lefroy, an Irishman, was on break from studying law in London. Austen wrote a letter to her sister about her experience with Mr. Lefroy and their interaction during the course of three balls. On January 14, 1796, she writes, “I look forward with great impatience to [the ball], as I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening.” The engagement never came to fruition, however, and there is evidence that Mr. Lefroy became engaged two years later to a woman in Ireland, and they married the following year. They did name one of their daughters Jane (as the film depicts), but Jane was also the name of Mr. Lefroy’s mother, so make of that what you will.

  Bath, England

  The town of Bath was England’s premier vacation and social destination during much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Bath was a social hot spot, where fashionable people came to see and be seen. It is known for its fifteenth-century cathedral, Roman baths, natural hot springs, and beautiful Georgian architecture. Bath’s culture was urban and sophisticated. There were ballrooms, a modern theater, shops, restaurants, and access to professional services every bit as good as what you could find in London. Many elders and retirees were advised to “take” the healing waters of Bath for a wide variety of illnesses. Along with this aging population, younger, unmarried men and women came to Bath to find a partner.

  In 1797 Jane visited Bath for the first time, staying with an aunt and uncle. She also came for a visit in 1799. During her second visit, Austen came with her mother to see her brother Edward Knight and his family. As a vacation destination, she didn’t see much wrong with Bath, and it inspired her to create the characters Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney from Northanger Abbey, who meet at a ball in Bath and eventually go on to marry and live happily ever after. Austen thought differently, however, when it came to the prospect of living in Bath. In the year 1800 she received word from her father that at the age of seventy he was ready to retire, leave Steventon for good, and move the family to Bath. Having married in Bath, Jane Austen’s parents viewed the town as a place of romance and fond memories. After forty years of service as a country parson in Steventon, Mr. and Mrs. Austen were ready for a change. Unfortunately Jane and Cassandra didn’t share their enthusiasm; they were astounded and depressed by the announcement and had no desire to live there. As evidence of Austen’s unhappy attitude about moving to Bath, biographer Claire Tomalin notes that Austen wrote four letters during her first weeks in Bath, and the tone and content suggest “a mind struggling against low spirits.” The family’s time in Bath came to a conclusion in 1805 with the death of Austen’s father.

  Following George Austen’s death, Mrs. Austen, Cassandra and Jane left Bath for Southampton, where they resided for three years, living first with Francis Austen and his new wife and then in a house in Castle Square. Speculation has it that this Southampton period prolonged Jane’s unhappiness. Essentially the three women were at the mercy of the Austen brothers for money and lodging. Several of the brothers pitched in to help their dependent female family members. This situation provides a good example of the kinds of difficulties unmarried women faced during this time in history. Widows and unmarried women were a charge to their families for care and necessities. At this time in their lives, Mrs. Austen and Cassandra had a total of £200 combined, and Jane, who had not yet begun to make money from her writing, had nothing to contribute. It’s also worth noting that during the seven or so years between leaving Steventon and arriving at Chawton Cottage, Austen produced little writing. Undoubtedly Austen was inventing characters and plots in her imagination, but she was not putting pen to paper. Her lack of literary output might suggest that Austen was consistently depressed, but the beginning Austen reader should keep in mind that this hypothesis is based mostly on speculation.

  Chawton Cottage

  In 1809, following the three years in Southampton, Austen’s brother Edward (the son who had been adopted into the Knight family) had the opportunity to offer his mother and sisters two different living options: one was a house on his property in Kent at Godmersham Park, the other a cottage in Chawton, just down the lane from Edward’s occasional residence, Chawton House. Due to its location in Hampshire and close proximity to Steventon, the women chose Chawton Cottage and never looked back.

  In terms of literary creation, these years at Chawton Cottage were the most productive for Austen, and they rivaled her time in Steventon for happiness. As Austen-Leigh says, “Chawton may be called the second, as well as the last home of Jane Austen; for during the temporary residences of the party at Bath and Southampton she was only a sojourner in a strange land, but here she found a real home amongst her own people.” As Tomalin puts it, “The effect on Jane of this move to a permanent home in which she was able to re-establish her own rhythm of work was dramatic. It was as though she were restored to herself, to her imagination, to all her powers: a black cloud had lifted. Almost at once she began to work again. Sense and Sensibility was taken out and revisions began.”

  The red-brick cottage at Chawton was built in roughly 1700 as a farmhouse, and later served as an inn. As they had done at Steventon, Jane and Cassandra shared a be
droom, and the two sisters lived harmoniously with their mother. Life in Chawton was quiet, picking up only when family members had the opportunity to visit. Jane became intent on making progress with her writing, which was going extremely well. During the first year at Chawton, Jane was able to complete revisions on both Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, and between the years 1811 and 1816 she began from scratch and completed Mansfield Park, Emma, and then finally Persuasion. This output is impressive, especially in light of the way that Austen had to work. She had no special office or specific quiet time for concentration and productive writing. Male writers of Austen’s day would have had all the resources needed for composition, and their time and space would have been respected by family members and visitors. But lacking a room of her own (as Virginia Woolf would say), Austen had to piece together her sentences and paragraphs amidst distractions and interruptions. By the early nineteenth century, women were making strides to be taken seriously as authors, but they still had a long way to go. Thus, Austen, who did most of her writing in a general living area, wrote on small sheets of paper that could easily be concealed from the eyes of servants and guests to the house.