Author’s Note
Mary Austen suffered a stroke on 2nd August 1843 from which she never recovered consciousness. She died the following day. She is buried at Steventon, in James Austen’s vault.
Anne Sharp died on 8th January 1853. Before her death she passed Jane’s last letter to Dr Zechariah Sillar, physician to the Northern Hospital, Liverpool. He passed it down to his granddaughter and on 8th February 1954 it was auctioned at Sotheby’s. The purchasers were Mr and Mrs Henry G. Burke of Baltimore. On Mrs Burke’s death in 1975 it was bequeathed to the Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York.
On 3rd May 1948 a lock of Jane Austen’s hair was auctioned at Sotheby’s. It was bought by the same American couple who purchased Anne Sharp’s letter. The following year the cottage at Chawton where Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life was opened as a museum. Mrs Alberta Burke presented the lock of hair as a gift to be displayed alongside other artefacts collected by the Jane Austen Society. Before handing it over, however, her husband had the hair tested in a bid to discover the cause of death. It contained levels of arsenic far exceeding that observed in the body’s natural state.
Lindsay Ashford, Chawton, 2011
Acknowledgements
While this is a work of fiction, it grew out of a fascination with the factual material painstakingly accumulated by Austen scholars in the two centuries since her death. Much has been written but two sources require special mention: Deirdre Le Faye’s A Chronology of Jane Austen and Her Family (Cambridge University Press, 2006) was invaluable to me, as was Claire Tomalin’s excellent biography, Jane Austen, a Life (Viking 1997). The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen is my interpretation of the facts, interwoven with some sequences that are purely imaginary. I urge those wishing to dissect the novel to consult these sources directly.
This book could not have been written without the wonderful research material housed in Chawton House Library – the ‘Great House’ once owned by Jane’s brother, Edward Austen Knight. I am indebted to all the staff there for their help and encouragement – particularly Dr Gillian Dow, who cast a scholarly eye over the manuscript – and to Sandy Lerner, the American philanthropist who saved the house from ruin and restored it to its former glory. I have been lucky enough to spend the past three years living in part of the original medieval estate, thanks to Richard Knight, Jane Austen’s five-times great nephew, who still owns the dovecote (now a cottage), referred to in the book. I would also like to thank Fiona Sunley, who, with her late husband John, invited me to spend a delightful day at Godmersham.
I am grateful to Tom Carpenter and Louise West of Jane Austen’s House Museum for allowing me to examine records relating to the lock of hair donated by Mr and Mrs Henry G. Burke in the late 1940s. I am indebted to another American, Elsa Solender, for recounting the conversation she had with Harry Burke before his death, about the testing of the hair for the presence of arsenic. Thanks also to Nancy Magnuson and her team at Goucher College, Baltimore, for searching the Burke archive on my behalf.
Michael Sanders, former consultant at St. Thomas’ Hospital, London and a Chawton neighbour, took the trouble to investigate the prevailing medical theories about Jane Austen’s death and passed on insights from leading members of the medical profession, including Sir Richard Thompson, President of the Royal College of Physicians.
Thank you to my editor, Caroline Oakley, for rejecting several drafts of this book and challenging me to write something better. I’m grateful to all the staff at Honno for their unstinting support and to my mentor and great friend Janet Thomas, whose encouragement has played a crucial part in my writing.
Finally, huge thanks to my partner Steve Lawrence, without whom I would never have discovered Chawton, and to my children, for the nights they’ve had to spend in a house they swear is haunted.
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Copyright
First published by Honno in 2011
‘Ailsa Craig’, Heol y Cawl, Dinas Powys,
Wales, CF64 4AH
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
© Lindsay Ashford, 2011
The right of Lindsay Ashford to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without clearance from the Publishers.
The Author would like to stress that this is a work of fiction and no resemblance to any actual individual or institution is intended or implied.
ISBN 978–1–906784–34–8
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The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen Page 31
