The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen

Citation preview

JANE AUSTEN Edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster

Leading scholars present a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to Jane Austen's works in the contexts o f her c o n t e m p o r a r y world, and o f present-day critical discourse. Beside discussions o f Austen's novels and letters there are essays on religion, politics, class-consciousness, publishing practices, d o m e s t i c e c o n o m y , style in the novels and the significance o f her juvenile works. A c h r o n o l o g y provides b i o g r a p h ­ ical i n f o r m a t i o n , and assessments o f the history o f Austen c r i t i c i s m highlight the m o s t recent studies in a vast field o f critical diversity.

C h r o n o l o g y o f Austen's life

D E I R D R E

T h e professional w o m a n writer Northanger

JAN

Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, R A C H E L

Mansfield

Park, Emma,

T h e short fiction T h e letters

M.

Money

M A R G A R E T

F.

Austen cults and cultures

W I L T S H I R E

A N N E

DOODY

F L Y N N

C O P E L A N D GARY

KELLY

B U R R O W S

Jane Austen and literary traditions F u r t h e r reading

Prejudice

MCMASTER

E D W A R D

JOHN

JOHN

H O U L I H A N

JULIET

Religion and politics Style

Pride and

B R O W N S T E I N

Persuasion

C A R O L

Class

L E F A Y E F E R G U S

ISOBEL

CLAULTIA L. B R U C E

G R U N D Y

JOHNSON

STOVEL

Cover illustration: Samuel C o l m a n , St James's

Fair.

By permission o f Bristol M u s e u m s and Art Gallery

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY

ISBN 0 - 5 2 1 - 4 9 8 6 7 - 8

PRESS

H

n

9 780521 498678

In The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen leading scholars from around the world present Austen's works in two broad contexts: that of her contemporary world, and that of present-day critical discourse. Beside discussions of Austen's novels there are essays on religion, politics, classconsciousness, publishing practices, and domestic economy, which describe the world in which Austen lived and wrote. More traditional issues for literary analysis are then addressed: style in the novels, Austen's letters as literary productions, and the stylistic significance of her juvenile works. The volume concludes with assessments of the history of Austen criticism and the develop­ ment of Austen as a literary cult-figure; it provides a chronology, and highlights the most interesting recent studies of Austen in a vast field of contemporary critical diversity.

THE

CAMBRIDGE

COMPANION

TO

JANE AUSTEN

CAMBRIDGE COMPANIONS TO The

Cambridge

Companion

to Old

English

The

LITERATURE

Cambridge

Companion

to

Beckett

edited by J o h n Pilling

Literature edited by M a l c o l m G o d d e n and The

Michael Lapidge

Cambridge

Companion

to T S. Eliot

edited by A . D a v i d M o o d y The

Cambridge

Companion

to

Dante The

edited by R a c h e l J a c o f f

Cambridge

Companion

to

Renaissance

Humanism The

Cambridge

Chaucer

Companion

edited by Jill K r a y e

edited by Piero Boitani and Jill M a n n The The

Cambridge

Companion

English

to

Cambridge

Companion

Medieval

to

Joseph

Conrad

Theatre

edited by J . H . Stape

edited by R i c h a r d Beadle The The

Cambridge

Companion

to

Cambridge

Shakespeare

Companion

to

Faulkner

edited by Philip M . Weinstein

Studies The

edited by Stanley W e l l s

Cambridge

Companion

to

Thoreau

edited by Joel M y e r s o n The

Cambridge

Companion

Renaissance

to

English

The

Drama

Cambridge

The Cambridge

Companion

Poetry,

Donne

to

to

to

Edith

edited by Millicent Bell

Michael H a t t a w a y The

Companion Wharton

edited by A . R . Braunmuller and

Cambridge

English

Companion

to Realism

and

Naturalism

Marvell

edited by D o n a l d Pizer

edited by T h o m a s N . C o r n s The The

Cambridge

Companion

to

Milton

Cambridge

Companion

to

Twain

edited b y Forrest G . Robinson

edited by Dennis Danielson The The

Cambridge

Companion

to

Cambridge

British

Companion

to

Whitman

edited by Ezra Greenspan

Romanticism The

edited by Stuart C u r r a n

Cambridge

Companion

to

Hemingway

edited by Scott Donaldson The

Cambridge

Companion

to James

Joyce The

edited by Derek Attridge

Cambridge

Companion

Eighteenth-Century The

Cambridge

Companion

to

The

Cambridge

Companion

to

edited by J o h n Richetti

Ibsen

edited by J a m e s M c F a r l a n e Brecht

edited by Peter T h o m a s o n and G l e n d y r Sacks

to the

Novel

The

Cambridge

Companion

to Jane

Austen

edited by E d w a r d Copeland and Juliet M c M a s t e r

THE

CAMBRIDGE

C O M P A N I O N TO

J A N E AUSTEN E D I T E D

EDWARD

B Y

COPELAND

Pomona

College

A N D

JULIET McMASTER University

of

Alberta

I CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, N Y 1 0 0 1 1 - 4 2 1 1 , USA 1 0 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1 9 9 7 First published 1 9 9 7 Reprinted 1 9 9 7 Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data The Cambridge companion to Jane Austen / edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster p. cm. - (Cambridge companions to literature) Includes bibliographical references and index. I S B N o 5 2 1 4 9 5 1 7 2 (hardback) - I S B N O 5 2 1 4 9 8 6 7 8 (paperback) 1 . Austen, Jane, 1 7 7 5 - 1 8 1 7 - Criticism and interpretation. 2. Women and literature - England - History - 19th century. I. Copeland, Edward. II. McMaster, Juliet. III. Series. PR4036.C3

1997

ISBN ISBN

823'.7~dc2o

98-23387

o 5 2 1 4 9 5 1 7 2 hardback o 5 2 1 4 9 8 6 7 8 paperback

CE

CIP

CONTENTS

Notes on contributors

page ix

Preface • E D W A R D C O P E L A N D and J U L I E T M c M A S T E R

Acknowledgements Texts and abbreviations 1 •

xv

Chronology of Jane Austen's life

i

D E I R D R E LE F A Y E

2 •

The professional woman writer

12

J A N FERGUS

3 •

North anger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice

32

R A C H E L M. BROWNSTEIN

4 •

Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion

58

JOHN WILTSHIRE

5 •

The short fiction

84

M A R G A R E T A N N E DOODY

6 •

The letters

100

CAROL HOULIHAN FLYNN

7 •

Class

115

JULIET McM ASTER

8 •

xi

xiv

Money

131

EDWARD COPELAND

9

Religion

and

• GARY KELLY

Vll

politics

149

CONTENTS

10

Style

170

• JOHN F. BURROWS

11

Jane Austen and literary traditions

•

ISOBEL G R U N D Y

12

Austen cults and cultures

•

CLAUDIA L. J O H N S O N

13

Further reading

•

BRUCE STOVEL

189

211

227

Index

244

vni

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

M . B R O W N S T E I N is Professor of English at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Centre, C U N Y . She is the author of Becoming a Heroine: Reading about Women in Novels (1982) and Tragic Muse: Rachel of the ComédieFrançaise (1993).

RACHEL

is Emeritus Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing at the University of Newcastle, N S W , Australia. He has published two monographs and several essays on Jane Austen's fiction. His other writings lie chiefly in the field of Australian literature and, since 1 9 8 3 , in that of computational stylistics. He is best known for Computation into Criticism: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels and an Experi­ ment in Method (1987).

J O H N F. BURROWS

C O P E L A N D , F. S. Jennings Professor of English at Pomona College, Claremont, California, is the author of a study of novelists contemporary with Jane Austen, Women Writing about Money: Women's Fiction in England, 1790-1810 (1995), and of essays on Austen, Smollett, Cleland, Richardson, and Burney. He is co-editor with Carol Houlihan Flynn of The Clarissa Project: volume 1 6 , The Critical Commentary - New Essays.

EDWARD

A N N E D O O D Y is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities and Professor of English at Vanderbilt University Nashville, where she is presently Director of the Comparative Literature Program. She is the author of two novels and a number of critical and biographical works, including A Natural Passion: A Study of the Novels of Samuel Richardson (1974), The Daring Muse: Augustan Poetry Reconsidered (1985), and Frances Burney: The Life in the Works (1988).

MARGARET

JAN

F E R G U S , Professor of English at Lehigh University, has published Jane Austen and the Didactic Novel (1983) and Jane Austen: A Literary Life ( 1 9 9 1 ) . She is Book Review Editor for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and is completing a study of the audience for prose fiction in eighteenth-century English entitled Readers and Fictions.

IX

NOTES ON

CONTRIBUTORS

H O U L I H A N F L Y N N , is Professor of English at Tufts University, and the author of Samuel Richardson: A Man of Letters (1982), a novel, Washed in the Blood (1983), The Body in Swift and Defoe (1990), and essays on Smollett, Sterne, Cleland, and Fielding. She is co-editor with Edward Copeland of The Clarissa Project: volume 1 6 , The Critical Commentary - New Essays.

CAROL

G R U N D Y is Henry Marshall Tory Professor at the University of Alberta. Her publications include Samuel Johnson and the Scale of Greatness (Georgia, 1986); with Patricia Clements and Virginia Blain, The Feminist Companion to Literature in English (Yale, 1990); and an edition of Eliza Fenwick's Secresy, or The Ruin on the Rock 1 7 9 5 (Broadview, 1994). She has edited Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Romance Writings (forthcoming), and is writing her life.

ISOBEL

L . J O H N S O N , Professor of English at Princeton University, is author of Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (Chicago, 1988), Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender, and Sentimentality in the iyyos: Wollstonecraft, Radcliffe, Burney, Austen (Chicago, 1 9 9 5 ) , and essays and reviews on eight­ eenth-century literature and music. She is editing the forthcoming Norton Critical Edition of Mansfield Park.

CLAUDIA

K E L L Y is Professor and Head of the Department of English, Keele University, England. He has published The English Jacobin Novel (1976), English Fiction of the Romantic Period (1989), and Women, Writing, and Revolution (1993). He has edited Wollstonecraft's two novels and Sarah Scott's Millenium Hall.

GARY

L E F A Y E is the author of Jane Austen: A Family Record (1989), the definitive factual biography, and editor of the new (3rd) edition of Jane Austen's Letters (1995). She has also published (with Maggie Black) The Jane Austen Cookbook (1995), and numerous articles on Austenian subjects in Notes and Queries, Review of English Studies, and The Book Collector.

DEIRDRE

M c M A S T E R , University Professor at the University of Alberta, is the author of Thackeray: The Major Novels (1970), Trollope's Palliser Novels (1978), Dickens the Designer (1987), and Jane Austen the Novelist (1995). She is also co-editor with Bruce Stovel of Jane Austen's Business: Her World and her Profession (1995), and General Editor of the Juvenilia Press.

JULIET

S T O V E L is a member of the English Department at the University of Alberta. Co-editor with Juliet McMaster of Jane Austen's Business: Her World and her Profession (1995), he has published many essays and reviews on Austen, Richardson, Fielding, Swift, Sterne, Charlotte Lennox, Frances Burney, Scott, Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis, Brian Moore, and Margaret Laurence.

BRUCE

W I L T S H I R E , Reader in English at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Aus­ tralia, is the author of Jane Austen and the Body (1992). He specializes in eighteenth-century literature and in medical and health-care narrative. He is an editor of the journal Hysteric: Body, Medicine, Text.

JOHN

x

PREFACE

T h e problem for a n y o n e w h o addresses readers of J a n e A u s t e n is a l w a y s the same: Which readers of J a n e Austen? T h e y c o m e uniquely self-defined. T h e old division between Janeites a n d anti-Janeites is n o w replaced by n e w divisions, perhaps not so hostile as the old ones, but sufficiently distinct to m a k e general introductions a m o o t question. T h e n e w Janeites, energetic members of the A u s t e n societies, for e x a m p l e , h a v e eager feelings for Austen, but limited tolerance for b o o k i s h h a r a n g u e s ; a n d the a c a d e m i c s , also with energy in a b u n d a n c e , are b o o k i s h e n o u g h a b o u t A u s t e n , but h a v e few feelings of the Janeite kind. G e n e r a t i o n a l divisions prevail as well: older readers w h o are jealously protective of A u s t e n , their cultural icon, a n d younger readers w h o are equally enthusiastic for A u s t e n , their n e w - f o u n d subversive. M e a n w h i l e , first-time readers arrive at the novels w i t h con­ flicting motives: ' I ' m reading J a n e A u s t e n for g r a d u a t e s c h o o l ' , or, ' I read J a n e Austen because I w a n t to understand m y m o t h e r . ' One a p p r o a c h , h o w e v e r , addresses a n issue that A u s t e n readers of all stripes embrace w i t h equal enthusiasm, the c o n t e x t u a l setting of A u s t e n ' s w o r k s . Students first encountering her w o r k s a n d old hands reading her novels both sense that A u s t e n ' s culture is receding from them at

an

unsettling speed. N o v e l s that once seemed so accessible to readers n o w produce a g r o w i n g consciousness that p r o f o u n d differences between A u s ­ ten's culture a n d t o d a y ' s must be addressed. N o r t h A m e r i c a n students in particular find themselves mystified, for e x a m p l e , b y the economics of Austen's novels, by her class distinctions, by the role of the church. T h e y are startled to find that Austen's w o r k s possess political resonance. R e a d e r s mystified by 'Sir', ' L a d y ' , and ' R e v e r e n d ' n o w w a n t m o r e than a simple key to the players.. T h e old Janeite question, ' H o w d o they m a k e l

syllabub?' has altered almost universally to Why

whip't

d o they m a k e w h i p ' t

syllabub?' J a n e Austen's stock in the literary m a r k e t p l a c e has never been higher than late in our twentieth century, w h e n even H o l l y w o o d has seen fit to attach XI

PREFACE

itself to her rapid rise in popularity, a n d adaptations on stage, screen, and television are emerging in such quick succession that the newsmedia can h a r d l y keep pace. F a c e d within the s a m e few months with a H o l l y w o o d a d a p t a t i o n of Emma

as the teenage fashion m o v i e Clueless,

versions of Persuasion

a n d Sense

television serial of Pride

and

and Prejudice

Sensibility,

full-scale screen

and the second B B C

in ten y e a r s , journalists have been

feverishly turning to literary critics to a s k w h i c h Austen novel they should r e a d first and fastest in order to catch up with the culture. T h e pace has certainly picked u p since the classic m o v i e of 1 9 3 9 , starring G r e e r G a r s o n a n d L a u r e n c e Olivier as Elizabeth and D a r c y . A Cambridge

Companion

to Jane

Austen

can't hope, any more than the

journalists, to capture the burgeoning Austen b o o m on the w i n g . This collection seeks rather to recover and illuminate elements of her culture, so that her novels m a y speak the m o r e lucidly to ours. E s s a y s in the Companion,

by a g r o u p of contributors w h o have already

distinguished themselves in A u s t e n studies and elsewhere, cover a broad r a n g e . Deirdre L e F a y e , A u s t e n ' s b i o g r a p h e r a n d the editor of her letters, provides a c h r o n o l o g y of A u s t e n ' s life, as a m a p of the life and career by w h i c h the student a n d scholar c a n locate other historical events. J a n Fergus fills this in with detailed g u i d a n c e o n the 'professional writer', and Austen's engagement in the publishing practices of her d a y . T h e s i x published novels, A u s t e n ' s major w o r k s , are discussed in t w o swathes, as she c o m p o s e d them: the first three, Northanger Prejudice

Abbey,

Sense

and

Sensibility,

and Pride

and

- all drafted in the 1 7 9 0 s - receive g r o u p treatment in Rachel

B r o w n s t e i n ' s searching essay o n irony a n d r o m a n c e . T h e last three, field Park, Emma,

and Persuasion,

Mans­

all c o m p o s e d in the ripe C h a w t o n years,

are J o h n Wiltshire's subject. T h i s division a l l o w s for a fresh a p p r o a c h to the m a j o r w o r k s , w h i c h h a v e been e x a m i n e d often enough individually, but w h i c h reveal n e w themes a n d motifs w h e n so g r o u p e d . A u s t e n ' s other w o r k s , the ones not designed for publication, receive separate treatment. M a r g a r e t A n n e D o o d y ' s essay on the short

fiction

presents a p r o v o c a t i v e glimpse of the other kind of writer Austen might h a v e become, but for her necessary adaptation to the n e w values of the R e g e n c y ; a n d C a r o l H o u l i h a n F l y n n e x a m i n e s the letters as literary produc­ tions, a n d as documents that register A u s t e n ' s marginalized position as a w o m a n writer. T h e subsequent essays address aspects of Austen's cultural context, and her reception in our o w n culture t o d a y . Juliet M c M a s t e r examines class and class consciousness in the novels; E d w a r d C o p e l a n d presents an informed guide to m o n e y , income, and material culture; and G a r y Kelly discusses A u s t e n ' s development of the A n g l i c a n novel, the genre she developed to Xll

PREFACE

articulate her o w n a n d her immediate society's mediated

middle-of-the-road

position in religion a n d politics. J o h n B u r r o w s e x a m i n e s A u s t e n ' s style in relation to that of her contemporaries, a n d Isobel G r u n d y , in a far-reaching essay, demonstrates

the

multiple literary sources, influences, a n d

light

allusions that inform A u s t e n ' s writing in her letters a n d fiction. In our o w n d a y , A u s t e n has become not just an a u t h o r , but a 'figure', a writer avidly claimed by readers lay a n d a c a d e m i c , by critics of different stripes and

schools. C l a u d i a J o h n s o n e x a m i n e s the J a n e i t e s a n d

anti-

Janeites, the 'cults a n d cultures' that have g r o w n to s u r r o u n d this retiring country spinster a n d her 'little bits . . . of i v o r y ' ; a n d finally B r u c e Stovel provides a guide to the burgeoning critical tradition from her time to o u r own.

Xlll

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The

Cambridge

number

Companion

to Jane

Austen

of outstanding scholars, a n d the

a c k n o w l e d g e is that to o u r contributors,

d r a w s on the talents of a first

debt w e w o u l d like to

for their patience under

our

editorial onslaughts as well as for their scholarly expertise. W e are grateful t o o for the skilled research assistance of E r i k a R o t h w e l l and

Nicholette

W a l k e r , of the English Department at the University of A l b e r t a . A version of M a r g a r e t A n n e D o o d y ' s p a p e r on the short fiction appeared in

Persuasions,

the a n n u a l journal of the J a n e Austen Society of N o r t h A m e r i c a (number 1 6 , 1 9 9 4 ) ; and Deirdre L e F a y e ' s ' C h r o n o l o g y ' of J a n e Austen's life appears in longer form in Jane

Austen:

A Family

Record

(London: T h e British

L i b r a r y , 1 9 8 9 ) . W e are grateful to the publishers for permission to reprint. T h a n k s are also due to J o h n M u r r a y , for permission granted to J a n Fergus to q u o t e from the M u r r a y A r c h i v e s in her essay on ' T h e w o m a n writer'.

xiv

professional

TEXTS AND ABBREVIATIONS

References to J a n e Austen's w o r k s are to these editions: The

Novels

of Jane

Austen,

ed. R . W . C h a p m a n ,

5 vols., 3rd

edition

(London: O x f o r d University Press, 1 9 3 3 ) , reprinted w i t h revisions, 1969. Minor

Works,

ed. R . W . C h a p m a n

( L o n d o n : O x f o r d University Press,

1 9 5 4 ) , reprinted with revisions b y B . C . S o u t h a m , 1 9 6 9 . Jane

Austen's

Letters,

collected a n d edited by Deirdre L e F a y e ( O x f o r d :

O x f o r d University Press, 1 9 9 5 ) . Catharine

and

Other

Writings,

ed. M a r g a r e t A n n e D o o d y a n d D o u g l a s

M u r r a y (Oxford: O x f o r d University Press, 1 9 9 3 ) . Abbreviations: C&OW E

Catharine

and Other

Writings

Emma

L

Jane Austen's

MP

Mansfield

MW

Minor

NA

North anger

P

Persuasion

Letters

Park Works Abbey

PP

Pride and

Prejudice

SS

Sense and

Sensibility

xv

1 DEIRDRE LE FAYE

Chronology of Jane Austen's life

1764

April 26 October

M a r r i a g e of R e v . G e o r g e A u s t e n a n d C a s s a n d r a L e i g h . 9

M a r r i a g e of J a m e s Leigh-Perrot ( M r s . A u s t e n ' s

brother) a n d J a n e C h o l m e l e y . 1765

February

13

Summer

J a m e s A u s t e n born at D e a n e .

M r . a n d M r s . H a n c o c k ( M r . A u s t e n ' s sister) a n d their

daughter Eliza return from India. 1766

August

z6

1767

October

1768

July/August

G e o r g e Austen the y o u n g e r b o r n at D e a n e .

7

E d w a r d Austen b o r n at D e a n e . A u s t e n family m o v e to Steventon.

?Autumn

M r . H a n c o c k returns alone to India.

} Winter

M a r r i a g e of J a n e L e i g h ( M r s . A u s t e n ' s sister) a n d R e v .

Dr. Edward Cooper. 1770

July 1

E d w a r d C o o p e r the y o u n g e r b o r n in L o n d o n .

1771

June 8

H e n r y - T h o m a s Austen (hereafter ' H T A ' ) b o r n at

Steventon. June zy

J a n e C o o p e r born at Southcote, near R e a d i n g .

?Autumn 1

773

January

C o o p e r family m o v e to B a t h , 1 2 R o y a l Crescent. 9

Cassandra-Elizabeth A u s t e n (hereafter ' C E A ' ) b o r n at

Steventon. March

23

M r . Austen becomes R e c t o r of D e a n e as w e l l as

Steventon. Pupils live at Steventon from n o w until 1 7 9 6 . 1774

April 2 3

Francis-William Austen (hereafter ' F W A ' ) b o r n at

Steventon. 1

DEIRDRE LE FAYE

1775

November

5

December

16

1777

Winter

1779

June 2 3

M r . H a n c o c k dies in C a l c u t t a . J a n e A u s t e n (hereafter ' J A ' ) born at Steventon.

M r s . H a n c o c k a n d Eliza g o to the Continent. C h a r l e s - J o h n A u s t e n (hereafter ' C J A ' ) born at

Steventon. July 3

J a m e s A u s t e n matriculates at St. J o h n ' s C o l l e g e , O x f o r d .

Summer

M r . a n d M r s . T h o m a s K n i g h t II (cousins of

M r . Austen) visit Steventon. ?i78o

T h e C o o p e r s m o v e to 1 4 Bennett Street, B a t h .

1781

M a r r i a g e of Eliza H a n c o c k to J e a n - F r a n ç o i s C a p o t de Feuillide, in France.

1782

Summer

First mention of J A in family tradition.

December

First a m a t e u r theatrical production at Steventon -

Matilda. 1783

E d w a r d A u s t e n (hereafter ' E A K ' ) a d o p t e d by M r . and M r s . T h o m a s K n i g h t II. Spring

J A , C E A , a n d J a n e C o o p e r g o to M r s . C a w l e y in O x f o r d .

May 3

R e v . I. P. G . Lefroy instituted to A s h e .

Summer

M r s . C a w l e y m o v e s to S o u t h a m p t o n a n d the girls fall ill.

October 1784

25

M r s . C o o p e r dies in B a t h .

July

The Rivals performed at Steventon.

July

D r . C o o p e r m o v e s to Sonning.

1785

Spring

1786

E A K a b r o a d o n G r a n d T o u r from 1 7 8 6 - 9 0 . April

J A a n d C E A g o to the A b b e y S c h o o l , R e a d i n g .

F W A enters R o y a l N a v a l A c a d e m y , Portsmouth.

June 2 5

1787

Eliza de Feuillide's son H a s t i n g s born in L o n d o n .

November

J a m e s A u s t e n goes to the Continent.

December

J A a n d C E A h a v e n o w left school.

J A starts writing her Autumn December

Juvenilia.

J a m e s A u s t e n returns from the Continent. The Wonder

performed at Steventon. 2

Chronology 1788

January

The Chances performed at Steventon.

March

Tom Thumb

performed at Steventon.

A 'private theatrical exhibition' also performed at Steventon s o m e time later this y e a r . July 1

H T A matriculates at St. J o h n ' s C o l l e g e , O x f o r d .

Summer

M r . a n d M r s . A u s t e n take J A a n d C E A to K e n t a n d

London. September

M r s . H a n c o c k a n d Eliza de Feuillide return to

France. December

23

Winter

F W A sails to E a s t Indies.

The Sultan a n d High Life Below

Stairs performed at

Steventon. 1789

January

31

First issue of The Loiterer

appears - published

w e e k l y by J a m e s A u s t e n in O x f o r d until M a r c h 1 7 9 0 . Spring 1790

1791

L l o y d family rent D e a n e p a r s o n a g e .

April

J a m e s A u s t e n takes up residence as curate of O v e r t o n .

Autumn

E A K returns to E n g l a n d from G r a n d T o u r .

June zi

Death of M r . Francis Austen of S e v e n o a k s

(Mr. Austen's uncle). July

C J A enters R o y a l N a v a l A c a d e m y , Portsmouth.

September

15

J a m e s Austen becomes vicar of Sherborne

zy

M a r r i a g e of E A K and Elizabeth B r i d g e s , in K e n t ;

St. J o h n . December

they live at R o w l i n g . 1792

January

T h e L l o y d s leave D e a n e for Ibthorpe.

February

z6

March

zy

D e a t h of M r s . H a n c o c k , in L o n d o n . Marriage

of J a m e s Austen

and

Anne

Mathew,

at L a v e r s t o k e ; they presently take up residence at D e a n e parsonage. August

zy

D e a t h of D r . C o o p e r , at Sonning.

October

J A a n d C E A visit the L l o y d s at Ibthorpe.

December

11

M a r r i a g e of J a n e C o o p e r and C a p t . T h o m a s

Williams, R N , at Steventon. ? Winter J

793

C E A engaged to R e v . T o m F o w l e .

January

zi

L o u i s X V I of France guillotined.

January

23

E A K ' s first child, F a n n y , born at R o w l i n g . 3

DEIRDRE LE FAYE

February

i

R e p u b l i c a n F r a n c e declares w a r on G r e a t Britain

and H o l l a n d . Spring

H T A becomes Lieutenant in Oxfordshire Militia.

March

14

M a r r i a g e of E d w a r d C o o p e r and Caroline L y b b e -

P o w y s ; they live at H a r p s d e n until 1 7 9 9 . April

15

June 3

J a m e s A u s t e n ' s first child, A n n a , born at Deane. J A writes last item of

Winter

Juvenilia.

F W A returns h o m e from F a r East.

December

J A a n d C E A visit Butler-Harrison cousins in

Southampton.

1794

February

22

M . de Feuillide guillotined in Paris.

Midsummer ?August

J A a n d C E A visit the Leighs at Adlestrop. J A a n d C E A visit E d w a r d a n d Elizabeth at R o w l i n g .

September October

C J A leaves R o y a l N a v a l A c a d e m y and goes to sea. 23

?Autumn

1

795

D e a t h of M r . T h o m a s K n i g h t II. J A possibly writes Lady Susan this y e a r .

J A p r o b a b l y writes Elinor May 3

and Marianne

this year.

D e a t h of A n n e M a t h e w at D e a n e ; A n n a sent to live at

Steventon. Autumn

R e v . T o m F o w l e joins L o r d C r a v e n as his private

chaplain for the W e s t Indian c a m p a i g n . December

179y/January

1796

J A ' s flirtation with T o m Lefroy

on his visit to A s h e R e c t o r y .

1796

January

T o m Lefroy leaves A s h e for L o n d o n .

T o m F o w l e sails for W e s t Indies. April

J A a n d C E A visit the C o o p e r s at H a r p s d e n .

^Summer June

J a m e s A u s t e n courting Eliza de Feuillide.

C a p t . T h o m a s W i l l i a m s knighted.

August

E A K a n d F W A take J A to R o w l i n g via L o n d o n ; she

returns to Steventon late September/early October. October

J A starts writing First

End November

1

797

January

iy

Impressions.

J a m e s A u s t e n engaged to M a r y L l o y d .

M a r r i a g e of J a m e s A u s t e n and M a r y Lloyd at

H u r s t b o u r n e T a r r a n t ; A n n a returns to live at Deane. February

T o m F o w l e dies of fever at San D o m i n g o and buried

at sea. 4

Chronology August

J A finishes First

November

i

Impressions.

M r . Austen offers First Impressions

to publisher

Cadell; rejected sight unseen. November and

J A starts converting Elinor

and Marianne

into Sense

Sensibility.

M r s . A u s t e n , J A , and C E A visit the Leigh-Perrots in B a t h , at P a r a g o n Buildings. E A K and family m o v e from R o w l i n g to G o d m e r s h a m . Winter

R e v . Samuel Blackall visits A s h e . M i l d courtship of

JA. December

31

M a r r i a g e of H T A a n d Eliza de Feuillide, in

London. 1798

April 6

Death of M r . W i l l i a m - H a m p s o n W a l t e r ( M r . A u s t e n ' s

elder half-brother), in K e n t . August

M r . a n d M r s . Austen, w i t h J A a n d C E A , visit

Godmersham. J A possibly starts writing Susan {Northanger August

9

October

Abbey).

L a d y Williams ( J a n e C o o p e r ) killed in r o a d accident. 24

J A and her parents leave G o d m e r s h a m for

Steventon. M r s . Austen ill until end N o v e m b e r . November 1799

17

February

J a m e s Austen's son J a m e s - E d w a r d b o r n at D e a n e .

J A possibly visits the L l o y d s at Ibthorpe.

March

C E A returns to Steventon from G o d m e r s h a m .

May iy

M r s . Austen and J A arrive in B a t h , with E d w a r d a n d

Elizabeth, a n d stay at 1 3 Queen S q u a r e . End June

T h e y return h o m e .

J A p r o b a b l y finishes Susan (Northanger Late summer

Abbey)

about now.

T h e Austens p a y r o u n d of visits to the Leighs at

A d l e s t r o p , the C o o p e r s at H a r p s d e n , a n d the C o o k e s at G r e a t Bookham. August

14

M r s . Leigh-Perrot charged w i t h theft a n d committed

to Ilchester G a o l . October 1800

March 2 9

T h e C o o p e r s m o v e to H a m s t a l l R i d w a r e , Staffordshire. M r s . Leigh-Perrot tried at T a u n t o n a n d acquitted.

P r o b a b l y stays at Steventon thereafter. October

E A K visits Steventon a n d takes C E A b a c k to

G o d m e r s h a m with him via C h a w t o n a n d L o n d o n . 5

DEIRDRE LE FAYE

End November

J A visits the L l o y d s at Ibthorpe; returns h o m e

mid-December. December 1801

M r . A u s t e n decides to retire and m o v e to Bath.

January

H T A resigns c o m m i s s i o n in Oxfordshire Militia and

sets up as b a n k e r a n d a r m y agent in L o n d o n , living at 2 4 U p p e r Berkeley Street a n d w i t h office at C l e v e l a n d C o u r t , St. J a m e s ' s . End January

J A visits the Bigg-Wither family at M a n y d o w n .

February

C E A returns to Steventon from G o d m e r s h a m via

London. May

T h e A u s t e n family leave Steventon; M r s . Austen and J A

travel to B a t h via Ibthorpe, and stay with the Leigh-Perrots. J a m e s A u s t e n a n d his family m o v e to Steventon. End May

T h e Austens lease 4 Sydney Place a n d then g o o n W e s t

C o u n t r y h o l i d a y ; p r o b a b l y visit Sidmouth and C o l y t o n . J A ' s traditionary W e s t C o u n t r y r o m a n c e p r e s u m a b l y occurs between n o w a n d the a u t u m n of 1 8 0 4 . September

1802

T h e Austens visit Steventon a n d A s h e .

October

5

T h e y return to B a t h .

October

9

H a s t i n g s de Feuillide dies, in L o n d o n .

Spring

M r s . L y b b e - P o w y s visits the Austens in Bath.

March

25

April

J a m e s a n d M a r y , with A n n a , visit the Austens in Bath.

Summer

Peace of A m i e n s commences. C J A joins the Austens for holidays; visit D a w l i s h and

p r o b a b l y T e i g n m o u t h , also p r o b a b l y T e n b y a n d B a r m o u t h . September

1

September

3

October

28

J A a n d C E A arrive at Steventon. C J A takes J A a n d C E A to G o d m e r s h a m . C J A brings his sisters back to Steventon.

November

2j

December

2

H a r r i s Bigg-Wither proposes to J A ; she accepts.

J A a n d C E A visit M a n y d o w n .

December

3

J A rejects p r o p o s a l ; she and C E A return to

Steventon a n d set off at once for Bath. Winter 1803

J A revises Susan (Northanger

February Spring

M r s . L y b b e - P o w y s visits the Austens in Bath. J A sells Susan (Northanger

May 18

Abbey).

Abbey)

to C r o s b y of L o n d o n .

N a p o l e o n breaks Peace of A m i e n s ; H T A a n d Eliza

nearly t r a p p e d in F r a n c e . Summer July

J A possibly visits C h a r m o u t h , U p L y m e , a n d Pinny.

F W A stationed in R a m s g a t e . 6

Chronology September

to October

M r . and M r s . Austen, probably accom­

panied by J A and C E A , stay at G o d m e r s h a m . October

J A and C E A visit A s h e .

October

24

T h e y return to B a t h .

November 1804

T h e Austens visit L y m e R e g i s .

J A p r o b a b l y writes The Watsons this y e a r . January

M r s . L y b b e - P o w y s visits the Austens in B a t h .

Spring

M r s . Austen seriously ill.

H T A m o v e s house to 1 6 M i c h a e l ' s Place, B r o m p t o n , a n d m o v e s office to A l b a n y , Piccadilly. Summer

T h e Austens, with H T A a n d Eliza, visit L y m e R e g i s .

October

25

T h e Austens return to B a t h a n d m o v e to 3 G r e e n

P a r k Buildings E a s t . December 1805

16

January

21

March

M a d a m Lefroy of A s h e killed in a riding accident. Death of M r . Austen in B a t h .

2j

M r s . Austen and her daughters m o v e to 2 5 G a y

Street, B a t h . April

16

M r s . L l o y d dies at Ibthorpe, a n d thereafter M a r t h a

L l o y d joins forces with M r s . A u s t e n , J A , and C E A . June

M r s . Austen, J A , and C E A travel to G o d m e r s h a m via

Steventon, taking A n n a with them. June

18

J a m e s Austen's y o u n g e r daughter C a r o l i n e born at

Steventon. Summer

Possible courtship by E d w a r d Bridges.

September

17

J A and C E A g o to W o r t h i n g , and stay there with

M r s . A u s t e n and M a r t h a L l o y d until at least early N o v e m b e r . October 1806

21

January January

Battle of T r a f a l g a r - F W A unable to participate.

M r s . Austen and her daughters visit Steventon. 29

M r s . Austen returns to B a t h a n d takes lodgings in

T r i m Street. February

J A a n d C E A visit M a n y d o w n , returning to B a t h via

Steventon m i d - M a r c h . July 2

M r s . Austen and her daughters finally leave B a t h , and g o

via Clifton to Adlestrop. July 24

M a r r i a g e of F W A to M a r y G i b s o n , at R a m s g a t e .

August

5

August

14

Adlestrop family g o to Stoneleigh A b b e y . M r s . Austen and her daughters g o from Stoneleigh to

visit the C o o p e r s at H a m s t a l l R i d w a r e and stay a b o u t five w e e k s . 7

DEIRDRE LE F AYE

October

T h e Austens call at Steventon, a n d with F W A and

M a r y G i b s o n take lodgings at S o u t h a m p t o n . Winter

1807

C E A visits G o d m e r s h a m .

H T A m o v e s office from A l b a n y to 1 0 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. March

T h e Austens m o v e into house in Castle Square,

Southampton. April

H T A brings C E A b a c k to S o u t h a m p t o n from

Godmersham via London. May 1 9

M a r r i a g e of C J A to F a n n y Palmer, in B e r m u d a .

August

T h e C o o p e r s visit S o u t h a m p t o n .

September

E A K arranges family gathering at C h a w t o n G r e a t

H o u s e , f o l l o w e d by further family gathering in Southampton.

1808

January

to March

J A a n d C E A staying at Steventon,

M a n y d o w n , a n d w i t h the F o w l e s at K i n t b u r y . May 1 5

H T A a n d J A at Steventon en route for L o n d o n .

June

J A goes to G o d m e r s h a m w i t h J a m e s a n d M a r y .

14

July 8

J A returns to S o u t h a m p t o n .

September October

28 10

C E A goes to G o d m e r s h a m . D e a t h of Elizabeth Austen (Knight) at

Godmersham.

1809

February

C E A returns to S o u t h a m p t o n .

April 5

J A attempts to secure publication of Susan

[Northanger

Abbey). May is June

M r s . A u s t e n a n d her daughters arrive at G o d m e r s h a m . H T A a n d Eliza m o v e house to 64 Sloane Street, L o n d o n .

July 7

M r s . A u s t e n a n d her daughters m o v e into C h a w t o n

Cottage. August October

1810

J A regains interest in c o m p o s i t i o n . E A K a n d F a n n y visit C h a w t o n .

July to August November Winter

J A a n d C E A visit M a n y d o w n and Steventon. E A K a n d F a n n y visit C h a w t o n .

Sense and Sensibility

accepted for publication.

T h e Leigh-Perrots b u y 4 9 G r e a t Pulteney Street, Bath. 1811

February

J A planning Mansfield 8

Park.

Chronology March

J A staying with H T A in L o n d o n and correcting proofs of

Sense and Sensibility; May

C E A at G o d m e r s h a m .

J A returns to C h a w t o n via Streatham.

August

C J A and family return to E n g l a n d .

October

3o

November

Sense and Sensibility

published.

J A visits Steventon.

? Winter

J A starts revising First Impressions

into Pride

and

Prejudice. 1812

April

E A K and F a n n y visit C h a w t o n .

June 9 - 2 5

M r s . Austen and J A visit Steventon - the last time

M r s . Austen does so; C E A goes to G o d m e r s h a m . June 1 y

A m e r i c a declares w a r o n G r e a t Britain.

October

14

D e a t h of M r s . T h o m a s K n i g h t II; E d w a r d A u s t e n

n o w officially takes name of K n i g h t . Autumn

J A sells copyright of Pride and Prejudice

to E g e r t o n for

£110. 1813

January

28

Mansfield

Pride and Prejudice

published. J A h a l f - w a y t h r o u g h

Park.

April 21

E A K a n d family c o m e to C h a w t o n G r e a t H o u s e a n d

stay for four months. April 22

J A goes to L o n d o n to attend Eliza de Feuillide.

April 2 5 May 1

Eliza de Feuillide dies. J A returns to C h a w t o n .

May 19

H T A takes J A to L o n d o n a g a i n , for a fortnight.

June

H T A m o v e s house to 1 0 Henrietta Street.

}July

J A finishes Mansfield

August

1j

Park.

A n n a Austen engaged to B e n Lefroy.

September

E A K and J A travel v i a L o n d o n to G o d m e r s h a m ; her

last visit there. November

13

Mansfield 1814

January

E A K takes J A b a c k to C h a w t o n via L o n d o n ;

Park p r o b a b l y accepted for publication at this time. 21

J A commences

Emma.

March

1

H T A takes J A to L o n d o n .

April

J A returns to C h a w t o n via Streatham.

E A K and family stay at C h a w t o n G r e a t H o u s e for t w o m o n t h s . April 5 May 9

N a p o l e o n abdicates a n d is exiled to E l b a . Mansfield

Midsummer

Park

published.

J A visits the C o o k e s at G r e a t B o o k h a m . 9

DEIRDRE LE FAYE

H T A m o v e s house to 2 3 H a n s Place, L o n d o n . August

J A visits H T A in L o n d o n .

F W A a n d family m o v e into C h a w t o n G r e a t H o u s e and stay there for a b o u t t w o y e a r s . September

3

H T A takes J A h o m e to C h a w t o n .

September

6

C J A ' s wife F a n n y Palmer dies after childbirth.

Autumn

H i n t o n / B a v e r s t o c k lawsuit against E A K commences.

November

8

M a r r i a g e of A n n a Austen and Ben Lefroy at

Steventon; they g o to live in H e n d o n . November

zy

December

5

J A visits H T A in L o n d o n .

December

24

T r e a t y of G h e n t officially ends w a r with A m e r i c a .

December

z6

J A a n d C E A stay with M r s . Heathcote and M i s s

H T A takes J A b a c k to C h a w t o n .

Bigg in Winchester. 1815

January

z-16

J A a n d C E A stay at Steventon, also visiting A s h e

and L a v e r s t o k e . March

N a p o l e o n escapes and resumes p o w e r in France; hostili­

ties r e c o m m e n c e . March

zy

}March June

Emma

or April

18

July

finished. J A a n d C E A p r o b a b l y visit H T A in L o n d o n .

Battle of W a t e r l o o finally ends w a r with France.

M a r y L l o y d a n d C a r o l i n e stay at C h a w t o n .

August

8

J A starts

August

Persuasion.

A n n a a n d Ben Lefroy m o v e to W y a r d s , near C h a w t o n .

J A p o s s i b l y goes to L o n d o n to negotiate publication of

Emma,

returning early in September. October

4

H T A takes J A to L o n d o n ; he falls ill, and she stays

longer than anticipated. November

13

J A visits C a r l t o n H o u s e ; receives invitation to

dedicate a future w o r k to the Prince Regent. December

16

End December

J A returns to C h a w t o n . Emma

published, dedicated to the Prince

Regent. 1816

Spring

J A begins to feel unwell.

H T A buys b a c k M S of Susan (Northanger

Abbey),

which J A

revises a n d intends to offer again for publication. March

15

May

E A K a n d F a n n y stay at C h a w t o n for three w e e k s .

May zz

H T A ' s b a n k fails; he leaves L o n d o n . J A a n d C E A g o to Cheltenham via Steventon. 10

Chronology June i j

T h e y return to C h a w t o n via K i n t b u r y .

Midsummer

F W A and family m o v e from C h a w t o n G r e a t H o u s e

to A l t o n . July 18

First draft of Persuasion

August

1817

6

Persuasion

finished.

finally completed.

September

C E A a n d M a r y L l o y d g o to C h e l t e n h a m .

December

H T A ordained, becomes curate of C h a w t o n .

F W A a n d family living in A l t o n this y e a r . January

27

March

18

March

28

J A starts

Sanditon.

Ceases w o r k on this M S . D e a t h of M r . Leigh-Perrot at Scarlets.

April 27

J A m a k e s her will.

May

C E A takes J A to Winchester, w h e r e they lodge at

24

8 C o l l e g e Street. July 18

J A dies in early morning.

July 24

Buried in Winchester C a t h e d r a l .

? Autumn

H T A arranges publication of Northanger

Abbey

and

Persuasion. End December

Northanger

Abbey

a n d Persuasion

together, w i t h ' B i o g r a p h i c a l N o t i c e ' a d d e d by H T A .

11

published

2 J A N FERGUS

The professional women writer

1

You will be glad to hear that every Copy of S[ense] & S[ensibility] is sold &c that it has brought me £ 1 4 0 besides the Copyright, if that sh ever be of any value. - I have now therefore written myself into £ 2 5 0 - which only makes me long for more. d

T h e s e w o r d s of J a n e A u s t e n to her brother F r a n k , written on J u l y 3 , 1 8 1 3 (L 3 1 7 ) after she h a d published t w o novels, are those of a professional author w h o is acutely c o n s c i o u s of her sales (as w e l l as the possible future v a l u e of her copyright) a n d eager to increase her profits. Austen's professionalism here exists in startling contrast to her brother H e n r y ' s earliest biographical accounts of her, accounts that helped to create the longstanding m y t h of A u s t e n as a genteel amateur, the spinster lady author w h o sketched

her novels in m o m e n t s

of leisure. H e n r y w r o t e in his first

' B i o g r a p h i c a l N o t i c e ' (printed with Northanger

Abbey

a n d Persuasion

in

1818): Neither the hope of fame nor profit mixed with her early motives . . . She could scarcely believe what she termed her great good fortune when 'Sense and Sensibility' produced a clear profit of about £ 1 5 0 . Few so gifted were so truly unpretending. She regarded the above sum as a prodigious recompense for that which had cost her nothing . . . [S]o much did she shrink from notoriety, that no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen . . . in public she turned away from any allusion to the character of an authoress. (NA, P 6-j) H e n r y ' s w i s h to project an i m a g e of a ladylike, unmercenary, unprofessional, private, delicate, a n d domestic author

led him to repeat

these

statements fifteen y e a r s later, in the e x p a n d e d ' M e m o i r s of M i s s Austen' that w e r e printed w i t h R i c h a r d Bentley's edition of Sense and Sensibility.

He

then a d d e d a n anecdote omitted earlier, that Austen refused to meet the writer G e r m a i n e de Staël, so as to emphasize Austen's ladylike disdain for 2

p u b l i c i t y . T h i s distaste did not m a k e her less professional, h o w e v e r . During 12

The professional woman writer p r o b a b l y the same visit to L o n d o n (September, 1 8 1 4 ) in w h i c h she a v o i d e d M a d a m e de Staël, she kept a careful eye to business: she w a s 'in s o m e h o p e ' , she w r o t e , 'of getting Egerton's account [for Mansfield

Park]

before I g o

a w a y - so w e will enjoy ourselves as long as w e c a n ' ( L 2 7 4 ) . The image that H e n r y A u s t e n creates - at o d d s w i t h the evidence that both A u s t e n ' s letters a n d her publishing decisions offer of her profession­ alism - is precisely the one that so a n n o y e d H e n r y J a m e s , a c c o r d i n g to Brian S o u t h a m : 'the m y t h of the inspired amateur, the h o m e l y spinster w h o 3

put d o w n her knitting needles to take up her p e n ' . T h a t m y t h , a n d others like it, h a v e prevented subsequent readers from understanding that, for Austen, being a professional writer w a s , a p a r t from her family,

more

important to her than anything else in her life. Austen w r o t e w h e n opportunities for w o m e n to publish h a d never been greater, a n d from her childhood her a i m w a s to see her w o r k s in print. She collected her juvenilia in v o l u m e s m a d e to resemble published b o o k s as closely as possible. She w r o t e three novels before she w a s twenty-five, although she didn't m a n a g e to publish them till m u c h later. H e r literary career depended to some extent u p o n the other w o m e n novelists of her time, w h o created a n d sustained a m a r k e t for domestic fiction by w o m e n , a n d w h o s e attitudes t o w a r d s writing, like A u s t e n ' s o w n , became increasingly professional. M a n y of A u s t e n ' s contemporaries, including A n n Radcliffe, Frances B u r n e y , Charlotte Smith, Elizabeth Inchbald, M a r i a E d g e w o r t h , and Amelia O p i e , a m o n g others, received m u c h greater fame a n d fortune as novelists in their o w n time than A u s t e n did. B u t these novelists are only the most visible of a large m a s s of w o m e n w h o rushed into print at the end of the eighteenth century. T h e n u m b e r of w o m e n writers increased dramati­ cally throughout

the century, as J u d i t h Phillips Stanton's research

s h o w n , but e x p l o d e d at the end, rising b y ' a r o u n d 5 0 percent every starting in the 1 7 6 0 s ' .

has

decade

4

THE CULTURAL CONTEXT: OBSTACLES

TO

AUTHORSHIP This publishing e x p l o s i o n occurred despite the presence of m a n y social obstacles to w o m e n ' s writing. Publishing her o w n writing could threaten a w o m a n ' s reputation as well as her social position. F o r a n y w o m a n , the fame of authorship could become infamy, a n d novels w e r e particularly reprehen­ sible, as their famous defence in Northanger

Abbey

indicates ( 3 7 - 8 ) . P r o p e r

w o m e n , as H e n r y A u s t e n m a k e s clear, w e r e modest, retiring, essentially domestic a n d private. A u t h o r s h i p of a n y kind entailed publicity, thrusting oneself before the public eye - thus loss of femininity. T h e s e prejudices led 13

JAN

FERGUS

m a n y w o m e n besides A u s t e n to publish their first novels a n o n y m o u s l y , a m o n g them S a r a h Fielding, Frances B u r n e y , and A n n Radcliffe;

they

affixed their names to their w o r k s only w h e n their excellent reputations as novelists w e r e established. A n d writing for profit - professional writing c o u l d be even m o r e disreputable than writing for fame; H e n r y Austen, in the first passage quoted from him, takes care to assert that at first Austen h o p e d for neither fame n o r profit. Before A u s t e n ' s birth in 1 7 7 5 , literature h a d become firmly fixed in the m a r k e t p l a c e , to the d i s m a y of m a n y . A l v i n K e r n a n has succinctly summar­ ized the change: ' A n older system of polite o r courtly letters - primarily oral, aristocratic, amateur, authoritarian, court-centered - w a s swept a w a y at this time a n d g r a d u a l l y replaced by a n e w print-based,

market-centered,

5

democratic literary s y s t e m . ' T h e public replaced the patron as a source of income. But the older aristocratic attitudes that s a w print a n d p a y m e n t as v u l g a r w e r e surprisingly persistent a m o n g elite w o m e n and some men. M o s t m a l e writers, h o w e v e r , w e r e h a p p y to be p a i d for their writing, a n d once they established themselves in this n e w literary marketplace, as reviewers, essayists, and so forth, with few exceptions they tended to discourage competition from w o m e n writers. T h e y transferred (with renewed energy) m u c h of the old aristocratic disdain for all print to hack writers - the male denizens of G r u b Street - a n d to w o m e n w h o w r o t e . W o m e n w e r e attacked for h a v i n g the temerity to write w i t h o u t h a v i n g the necessary learning a n d taste. O n l y desperate financial need, preferably to support aged parents, a sick h u s b a n d , or destitute children, could (according to literary men) excuse a

woman's

e x p o s i n g herself

in print to

obtain

money. Accordingly,

w o m e n ' s prefaces often a p o l o g i z e for writing by alluding to distresses of this sort, causing reviewers frequently to condescend kindly to their w o r k , t h o u g h increasingly they b e m o a n e d the n u m b e r and g r a m m a r of 'female scribblers'. A w o m a n might also face legal obstacles to authorship if she were married. M a r r i e d w o m e n h a d n o legal existence. T h e y could not o w n property or sign contracts. A l t h o u g h C h a r l o t t e Smith began to publish in order to support herself a n d her children after her feckless h u s b a n d w a s imprisoned for debt, a contract for her novel Desmond

( 1 7 9 2 ) survives signed not by her but by

Benjamin Smith, w h o w a s at the time residing in Scotland under an a l i a s . T h e publishing records for A n n Radcliffe's The (1791)

list W i l l i a m Radcliffe,

her h u s b a n d ,

Romance

of the

6

Forest

as the w o r k ' s author;

he

7

apparently received £ 4 0 for the second edition ( 1 7 9 2 ) . C o m p a r a b l e restric­ tions survived in F r a n c e within living m e m o r y : 'it w a s not until 1 9 6 5 that married w o m e n w e r e legally permitted to publish a w o r k or to engage in any 8

profession w i t h o u t the consent of their h u s b a n d s ' . U n m a r r i e d w o m e n in the

14

The professional woman writer eighteenth century did not face these restrictions, but they generally lived under their fathers' authority, and fathers (like Frances B u r n e y ' s ) m i g h t tend to disapprove of their daughters' risking their modesty, their

reputations,

and possibly their marriageability by publishing. B y contrast, A u s t e n ' s father tried to help her publish the early version of Pride Impressions,

and

Prejudice,

First

writing to a possible publisher himself.

T H E P R O C E S S OF

PUBLISHING

The obstacles to w o m e n ' s writing m a k e their success in publishing novels all the more r e m a r k a b l e . Admittedly, it w a s m u c h easier then for authors to have novels published, nationally distributed, a n d r e v i e w e d in the m a j o r review journals than it is n o w . W h e n A u s t e n g a v e advice to her niece A n n a Austen on a novel-in-progress, she a s s u m e d that the novel w o u l d be not only finished

but published. A l t h o u g h t o d a y

few w o u l d

be likely to

encourage y o u n g unpublished writers to expect to see their novels in print, Austen did not hesitate. In her o w n circle of family a n d friends, in fact, Austen k n e w several published authors, m a n y of them w o m e n : for instance, her much older friend A n n e Lefroy, w h o s e 1 8 0 4 obituary mentions that she had published poetry w h e n quite y o u n g . C a s s a n d r a C o o k e produced Battleridge:

9

A u s t e n ' s mother's first cousin

An Historical

Tale,

Founded

on

Facts (2 vols., 1 7 9 9 ) . Other slightly m o r e distant Leigh cousins published during Austen's childhood: J a m e s H e n r y L e i g h ' s p o e m The New appeared in 1 7 8 5 , a n d C a s s a n d r a , L a d y H a w k e ' s novel Julia

de

Rosciad Gramont

came out in 1 7 8 8 . In the n e x t y e a r , Austen's brothers J a m e s a n d H e n r y , along with other friends, began publishing their w e e k l y periodical essays, The Loiterer,

the collected essays w e r e brought out in 1 7 9 0 . A l l these b o o k s

were reviewed in m a j o r r e v i e w j o u r n a l s .

10

This family access to print must h a v e e n c o u r a g e d the youthful A u s t e n a n d helps to account for the w a y that her advice to her niece takes printing for granted, reflecting the greater availability of publication in her lifetime. A l l writers, k n o w n or u n k n o w n , w h o w i s h e d to obtain p a y m e n t for a n o v e l h a d four options for publishing: ( 1 ) by subscription, (2) by profit-sharing, (3) by selling copyright, a n d (4) on ' c o m m i s s i o n ' , a system w h e r e b y the a u t h o r w a s responsible for p a y i n g all the expenses of publication w h i l e the publisher distributed the copies a n d t o o k a commission on all sold. A u s t e n m o s t frequently e m p l o y e d this last form, also k n o w n as publishing for oneself. The closest equivalent w e h a v e to this method is to e m p l o y a ' v a n i t y press' that is, to p a y for printing one's o w n w o r k s . T h i s form of publication, not respected n o w , means that b o o k s will be neither r e v i e w e d by the public press nor sold in shops; authors frequently distribute them free of c h a r g e . B y

15

JAN

FERGUS

contrast, in A u s t e n ' s lifetime a b o o k published on commission w a s perfectly respectable, as likely as a n y other b o o k to be r e v i e w e d a n d sold. Publication

by

subscription

Subscription w a s declining s o m e w h a t ,

for it w a s a c u m b e r s o m e

and

d e m e a n i n g business, a n d not a l w a y s remunerative. Subscribers paid for a projected b o o k , preferably in a d v a n c e . A list of their names w o u l d be printed in the w o r k w h e n it a p p e a r e d . A n author solicited subscribers (usually by publishing p r o p o s a l s ) , kept records, a n d collected m o n e y - or a s k e d friends to d o s o , rather a h e a v y t a x o n friendship because subscribers generally w e r e reluctant to part w i t h cash. Admittedly, Frances Burney m a d e £ 1 , 0 0 0 - a tremendous s u m - by selling subscriptions to Camilla, Picture

of Youth

or a

( 1 7 9 6 ) ; ' M i s s J . A u s t e n , Steventon' is listed as a subscriber

in the first v o l u m e . B u r n e y also received £ 1 , 0 0 0 in copyright m o n e y for 11

Camilla.

B u t her success in c o m b i n i n g these t w o forms of publication w a s

possible only because her reputation

w a s preeminent.

The

Hookham

records s h o w h o w unlikely such r e w a r d s w e r e for other w o m e n . A M r s . Clutterbuck attempted to get subscribers through H o o k h a m and Carpenter for a projected 'Beauties of St. Pierre' in J u n e a n d J u l y , 1 7 9 8 ; she got five a n d h a d H o o k h a m return the m o n e y ( G / 1 2 7 ) . Publication

by

profit-sharing

Profit-sharing b e c a m e frequent only in the early nineteenth century. Pub­ lishers w h o chose this form of publication paid for printing and advertising, repaid themselves as the b o o k s w e r e sold, a n d shared a n y profit realized over a n d a b o v e the costs. If the sale did not c o v e r expenses, the firm absorbed the loss. Publishers generally offered profit-sharing to untried authors w h o s e m a r k e t they c o u l d not predict. In some cases, sharing profits could be more remunerative than publishing for oneself o r selling copyright. If Austen had published all the editions of her w o r k s that a p p e a r e d during her lifetime by profit-sharing, she w o u l d h a v e m a d e m o r e m o n e y than she actually d i d .

1 2

O b v i o u s l y , a n a u t h o r w h o published for himself t o o k all the profits, not just half, but in practice this m e a n t only a b o u t 5 0 per cent m o r e m o n e y . Sale of To

most

eighteenth-century

copyright

British authors

eager to dispose of

their

property, sale of limited c o p y r i g h t for a fee w a s by far the most prestigious a n d desirable option a v a i l a b l e , if they could find a purchaser. T h e fee offered a clear s u m of m o n e y , generally p a y a b l e within a y e a r of publica­ tion, a n d it r e m o v e d the writer c o m f o r t a b l y a n d decorously from

the

m a r k e t p l a c e as none of the other options did, for the publisher w a s obliged 16

The professional woman writer to p a y the sum agreed u p o n h o w e v e r p o o r l y the w o r k sold. If sales w e r e g o o d a n d further editions w e r e printed, a publisher w h o h a d p u r c h a s e d copyright might

send the

author

an

additional

payment.

Established

authors, unwilling to leave themselves at the mercy of publishers' generosity, might contract for additional p a y m e n t s once a specified n u m b e r of copies o r editions were printed or sold, as Radcliffe h a d p r o b a b l y d o n e w h e n she sold the copyright of The

Romance

of the Forest

for a n u n n a m e d s u m to

H o o k h a m and Carpenter. Publishing

on

commission

Austen's most frequent m o d e of publication w a s at her o w n risk, o r ' o n commission' as it w a s called. T h e a u t h o r w a s ultimately responsible for the cost of paper, printing, a n d advertising; the publisher kept

accounts,

distributed the b o o k s to the trade, a n d c h a r g e d a 1 0 per cent c o m m i s s i o n o n each c o p y sold - a kind of r o y a l t y in reverse. If not e n o u g h copies w e r e sold to cover costs, the author h a d to m a k e up the difference. A u s t e n herself assumed that this m e t h o d required a n initial outlay of capital: she w r o t e to her sister on the a p p e a r a n c e of the second edition of Sense and

Sensibility

that 'I suppose in the meantime I shall o w e dear H e n r y a great deal of M o n e y for Printing & c ' ( L 2 5 0 ) . B u t s u r v i v i n g publishers' records indicate that as a rule the publisher seems to h a v e p a i d for production of a b o o k , charging the expenses off against receipts s o m e months later, after the w o r k had sold. E v e n H o o k h a m a n d C a r p e n t e r , fashionable booksellers but a relatively small publishing firm, o p e r a t e d this w a y . W h e n M i s s M a r y B a r k e r published 7 5 0 copies of her three-volume novel A Welsh

Story

in J u n e ,

1 7 9 8 , H o o k h a m carried the cost of a b o u t £61 for p a p e r , not quite £ 5 0 for composing, printing, a n d correcting, a n d £ 6 for advertising. Less than half the copies were disposed of by the end of September, so that the a u t h o r o w e d the firm over £ 4 8 ( G / 1 3 8 ) . T h i s m o d e of publication could be m o r e remunerative to an a u t h o r than selling copyright, but clearly the risks w e r e great - to publishers a l s o , if they

financed

the outlay. H o o k h a m

and

Carpenter m a y never h a v e r e c o v e r e d the m o n e y o w e d them by M a r y Barker. H e r debt of £ 4 8 includes the c o m m i s s i o n gained o n selling 1 8 0 copies, only a b o u t £ 5 . If the w o r k h a d sold out, their total profit o n commission w o u l d h a v e been less than £ 2 5 - a small s u m for w h i c h to risk nearly £ 1 2 0 .

MONEY AND THE

MARKET

P r o b a b l y the major reason for the e x p l o s i o n of w o m e n into print t o w a r d s the end of the eighteenth century w a s their need for m o n e y . Publishing w a s 17

JAN

FERGUS

one of the few means b y w h i c h a w o m a n of the middling or upper classes could earn cash. L a e t i t i a - M a t i l d a H a w k i n s ' account of her first venture into print m a k e s this m o t i v e clear: ' S o m e f e w years previous to this time [Samuel J o h n s o n ' s death in 1 7 8 4 ] , being in w a n t of a s u m of m o n e y for a w h i m of girlish p a t r o n a g e , a n d h a v i n g n o honest downright n o v e l . '

1 3

means of raising it, I w r o t e a

H a w k i n s sold her novel to T h o m a s H o o k h a m , p r o b ­

a b l y for n o m o r e than 1 0 or 2 0 p o u n d s - sufficient for 'a w h i m of girlish patronage'

but not for full support. With few exceptions, as E d w a r d

C o p e l a n d ' s research has s h o w n ,

1 4

w o m e n c o u l d not live o n their earnings

from publishing novels alone; these funds h a d to supplement other sources of i n c o m e . O n e r e a s o n for m o s t w o m e n ' s v e r y limited income from publishing w a s that the novel-reading public at this time w a s small. In the 1 7 9 0 s , novels by u n k n o w n writers w o u l d be published in editions of just 7 5 0 , 5 0 0 , o r (later) 1,000

copies, w h i l e p r o v e n novelists might sell 2 , 0 0 0 or 3 , 0 0 0 in one or

m o r e editions. T h e largest k n o w n edition for an Austen novel w a s 2 , 0 0 0 , for Emma enlarge Waverley

( 1 8 1 6 ) , a n d it failed to sell out. It t o o k W a l t e r Scott's novels to the

novel-reading

public,

beginning

with

the

publication

of

in 1 8 1 4 . T h e limited m a r k e t for novels w a s partly dictated by

their cost. A l l A u s t e n ' s novels w e r e printed on h a n d presses similar in principle to those used by G u t e n b e r g three hundred years earlier. These techniques a n d especially the great expense of h a n d m a d e p a p e r kept the price of b o o k s h i g h ,

1 5

m a k i n g small editions m o r e economical than large

ones unless a strong a n d steady d e m a n d w e r e assured. It w a s m u c h cheaper to print a small edition of 7 5 0 copies a n d to recompose a n d reprint if it sold out than to risk a large edition of t w o or three thousand

that might

ultimately be sold as w a s t e p a p e r . T h e p a p e r for even a small edition, like the 7 5 0 copies of M a r y B a r k e r ' s Welsh Story,

a b s o r b e d m o r e than half the

costs. B a r k e r ' s b o o k , unlike those of A u s t e n ' s brothers a n d cousins, does not seem to h a v e been r e v i e w e d .

1 6

R e v i e w s w e r e thought then as n o w to

increase sales, t h o u g h they m a y h a v e h a d less influence upon purchases by individuals than u p o n purchases m a d e by b o o k clubs a n d b o o k societies, w h i c h frequently subscribed to r e v i e w j o u r n a l s .

17

O n the w h o l e , A u s t e n

received few reviews - during her lifetime, t w o for Sense and three for Pride

and Prejudice,

none for Mansfield

Sensibility,

Park, a n d ten for

Emma

(although t w o of these w e r e written in G e r m a n ) . M o s t w e r e short a n d r e a s o n a b l y f a v o u r a b l e . T h e longest, o n Emma,

w a s written by W a l t e r Scott

at her publisher J o h n M u r r a y ' s urging: ' H a v e y o u any fancy to dash off an article o n " E m m a " ? It w a n t s incident a n d r o m a n c e , does it not? N o n e of the author's other novels h a v e been noticed [by M u r r a y ' s o w n periodical, the 18

The professional woman writer Quarterly tion.'

18

Review]

and surely "Pride and P r e j u d i c e " merits high c o m m e n d a ­

M u r r a y sent Austen a c o p y of the r e v i e w , a n d her response survives

- a surprising one: ' I return y o u the Quarterly R e v e i w w i t h m a n y T h a n k s . T h e Authoress of Emma

has n o reason I think to c o m p l a i n of her treatment

in it - except in the total omission of M a n s f i e l d P a r k . - 1 c a n n o t but be sorry that so clever a m a n as the R e v e i w e r of Emma,

should consider it as

u n w o r t h y of being noticed' ( L 3 1 3 ) . A u s t e n ' s response is professional. She regrets Scott's failure to mention Mansfield

Park,

n o d o u b t because the

novel h a d never been r e v i e w e d and, m o r e i m p o r t a n t , because she m a y h a v e k n o w n that sales of the second edition h a d already stalled b y the time she wrote.

AUSTEN'S PUBLISHING

CAREER

W h e n Austen arrived in her final h o m e at C h a w t o n o n J u l y 7 , 1 8 0 9 , she w a s thirty-four and unpublished, a condition that she w a s determined alter. H e r earlier attempts to publish First Impressions of Pride

and

Prejudice

Davies, respectable

and Northanger

publishers,

had

Abbey,

refused

a n d Susan,

to

versions

h a d failed. C a d e l l a n d

George Austen's

N o v e m b e r 1 , 1 7 9 7 of the manuscript of First Impressions.

offer

on

A u s t e n h a d sold

the manuscript of Susan to the L o n d o n publisher B . C r o s b y a n d C o m p a n y and had received £ 1 0 for it by 'the Spring of the y e a r 1 8 0 3 ' , according to her a n g r y letter to the firm o n A p r i l 5 , 1 8 0 9 ( L 1 7 4 ) . She a d o p t e d pseudonym ' M

r s

the

A s h t o n D e n n i s ' for this enquiry to C r o s b y a b o u t the delay

in publishing Susan;

this n a m e a l l o w e d her to sign herself ' M . A . D . ' H e r

letter m a k e s clear her determination to publish. Sense and

Sensibility

A t this point, Austen h a d three completed manuscripts a v a i l a b l e to her: Susan (although to publish it, she w o u l d have to return C r o s b y ' s £ 1 0 ) , Impressions,

a n d Sense

Sense and Sensibility.

and Sensibility.

First

She chose s h r e w d l y to w o r k o n

Its emphasis u p o n the importance as well as the costs

of self-command m a d e it her most o r t h o d o x n o v e l both aesthetically a n d morally. Susan

or Northanger

Abbey

constituted

a b o l d experiment

in

burlesque o v e r w h i c h C r o s b y had clearly vacillated, thinking it a profitable speculation at first, a n d then a p o o r risk. T h e m a n u s c r i p t version of

Pride

and Prejudice

contained an extremely u n o r t h o d o x heroine, and A u s t e n m a y

have feared

either

similar

vacillation

from

another

publisher,

succeeded in selling the copyright, or a m o r e a m b i v a l e n t reception reviewers and the reading public than Sense and Sensibility

if

she from

w a s likely to

obtain. M a r y Russell M i t f o r d w r o t e to a friend in D e c e m b e r , 1 8 1 4 , for 19

JAN

FERGUS

instance, deploring 'the entire w a n t of taste w h i c h could produce so pert, so w o r l d l y a heroine as the b e l o v e d of such a m a n as D a r c y ' .

1 9

Austen m a y

h a v e a p p r o a c h e d the publisher T h o m a s Egerton early in 1 8 1 1 H e n r y . E g e r t o n h a d sold J a m e s ' a n d H e n r y ' s The Loiterer

through

in his Whitehall

s h o p m o r e than twenty y e a r s earlier a n d m a y h a v e liked the novel well e n o u g h to feel that he w o u l d gain prestige by being associated with it. Perhaps m o r e important,

he m u s t h a v e felt that he could trust H e n r y

A u s t e n , at this time a b a n k e r , to settle the bill for costs. O n c e Egerton h a d agreed to publish the novel on commission, he sent it to the printer Charles R o w o r t h , p e r h a p s in F e b r u a r y or M a r c h , Roworth

took

his

time:

Austen

wrote

near

the

end

1811.

of A p r i l that

' M r s . K[nightJ regrets in the m o s t flattering m a n n e r that she must w a i t till M a y [for Sense and Sensibility],

but I h a v e scarcely a hope of its being out in

J u n e . - H e n r y does not neglect it; he has hurried the Printer . . . ' (L 1 8 2 ) . T h e delay w a s m u c h w o r s e than A u s t e n anticipated; the novel w a s not advertised until the end of O c t o b e r . She experienced some delay from printers o n every

novel that she published for herself, though none w a s as

lengthy as this. B y contrast, E g e r t o n w a s later able to issue Pride Prejudice

and

within a few months of p u r c h a s i n g it, doubtless because his o w n

profit w a s at stake. H e w o u l d earn less than £ 3 6 by publishing Sense Sensibility

and

o n c o m m i s s i o n in a n edition of 7 5 0 copies, by m y calculations,

w h e r e a s A u s t e n herself m a d e £ 1 4 0 , as she w r o t e to her brother

Frank

(L 2 1 7 ) . It w a s not w o r t h E g e r t o n ' s w h i l e to hurry the printers. A l t h o u g h he stood to gain little by agreeing to publish Sense Sensibility

and

o n c o m m i s s i o n , E g e r t o n r a n n o risk; only the author did. Austen

w a s , a c c o r d i n g to her brother H e n r y ' s ' B i o g r a p h i c a l N o t i c e ' , 'so persuaded . . . that its sale w o u l d not r e p a y the e x p e n s e of publication, that she actually m a d e a reserve from her v e r y m o d e r a t e income to meet the expected loss' (NA,

P 6 ) . A t this time, the expenses of publishing 7 5 0 copies of the novel

w o u l d c o m e to a b o u t £ 1 5 5 , a n d advertisements w o u l d ordinarily take another

£ 2 4 or s o .

2 0

T h e n o v e l retailed at 1 5 s . , but the b o o k s were

accounted for to the a u t h o r at the trade price of 9s. é d . If every c o p y were sold, receipts at the trade price w o u l d be o v e r £ 3 5 6 , leaving a m a x i m u m profit of a b o u t £ 1 4 0 after deducting e x p e n s e s of £ 1 7 9 a n d Egerton's 1 0 per cent c o m m i s s i o n o n the sales. A u s t e n w a s risking, then, a b o u t £ 1 8 0 o n the chance of earning £ 1 4 0 . In fact, h o w e v e r , her risk w a s substantially less. T h e buyer's market for novels w a s small, but sales to circulating libraries were fairly certain. A novel n o r m a l l y w o u l d h a v e to sell between one half and two-thirds of an edition to b e c o m e profitable. F o r e x a m p l e , within five months of being issued in F e b r u a r y , 1 8 1 0 , M a r i a B e n s o n ' s The

20

Wife. A Novel

h a d sold 2 7 5 of the

The professional woman writer 5 0 0 copies printed, and in t w o m o r e years another 4 9 , realizing £ 7 . 6 . 4 to split with L o n g m a n , w h o h a d agreed to share profits w i t h the a u t h o r . only 2 7 5 copies of Sense and Sensibility

2 1

If

h a d sold, A u s t e n w o u l d h a v e h a d

£ 1 3 0 , less Egerton's 1 0 per cent, to offset her expenses of £ 1 7 9 ; that is, she w o u l d have o w e d a b o u t £ 6 2 . If the other 4 7 5 copies had been remaindered at the same price that Benson's novel w a s in 1 8 1 3 ( i s . 6d. e a c h ) , A u s t e n w o u l d have received another £ 3 2 or s o . A t w o r s t , then, her loss w a s unlikely to be more than £ 3 0 . A l t h o u g h she p r o b a b l y w a s unable to 'reserve' such a sum from her o w n 'moderate income' (her dress a l l o w a n c e h a d been £ 2 0 a year [L 3 1 , 3 2 ] ) , she could perhaps

set aside a b o u t

half. A n d every

additional copy of her novel that w a s sold at the full trade price of 9 s . 6d. w o u l d reduce this possible debt. She w o u l d break even once 4 1 9 copies were bought, even a l l o w i n g for Egerton's c o m m i s s i o n . H a d A u s t e n k n o w n earlier that even at w o r s t her losses w e r e likely to be m a n a g e a b l e , she might have published sooner - perhaps w h e n she inherited £ 5 0 in 1 8 0 7 . Fortu­ nately, by 1 8 1 1 Austen w a s prepared to invest m o n e y in herself, in her o w n authorship. Pride

and

Prejudice

Egerton had almost certainly accepted Sense and Sensibility

by F e b r u a r y ,

1 8 1 1 . This acceptance evidently m a d e Austen optimistic e n o u g h a b o u t the possibilities of publication to begin her m o s t ambitious n o v e l to Mansfield

Park.

A c c o r d i n g to C a s s a n d r a ' s m e m o r a n d u m ,

date,

this n o v e l w a s

7

begun 'somewhere a b o u t F e b 1 8 1 1 - Finished s o o n after J u n e 1 8 1 3 '

(MW

facing 2 4 2 ) . N o other novel t o o k Austen so long to write. P r o b a b l y p a r t of the time w a s spent revising First Impressions

into Pride

and Prejudice.

perhaps began this revision w h e n she discovered that Sense and

She

Sensibility

had sold well enough to b r e a k even; this point w a s quite likely to be reached within six months of issue, in M a y , 1 8 1 2 . B y the f o l l o w i n g N o v e m b e r , Austen had completed her revisions to Pride

and Prejudice,

m a d e a fair

copy, and sold the manuscript to Egerton for £ 1 1 0 , as she w r o t e to M a r t h a Lloyd: 'Its' being sold will I hope be a great saving of T r o u b l e to H e n r y , &c therefore must be w e l c o m e to me. - T h e M o n e y is to be p a i d at the end of the twelvemonth.' Austen h a d been disappointed

by E g e r t o n ' s offer: ' I

w o u l d rather have had £ 1 5 0 , but w e could not both be pleased, &c I a m not at all surprised that he should not chuse to h a z a r d so m u c h ' ( L 1 9 7 ) . T h e offer w a s rather n i g g a r d l y . B y m y calculations, Egerton m a d e a profit of more than £ 4 5 0 on just the first t w o editions. A u s t e n ' s unfortunate decision to part with the c o p y r i g h t of Pride

and

Prejudice

was made, however,

before she could predict that the first edition of Sense and Sensibility sell out and bring her £ 1 4 0 .

21

would

JAN

FERGUS

Issued at the end of J a n u a r y , 1 8 1 3 , Pride

and Prejudice

w a s Austen's

m o s t p o p u l a r n o v e l , both with the public a n d with her family and friends. B y the spring of 1 8 1 3 , three f a v o u r a b l e reviews h a d a p p e a r e d (compared to t w o for Sense and Sensibility).

Before M a y , 1 8 1 3 , Pride

and Prejudice

had

b e c o m e the 'fashionable n o v e l ' , according to A n n e Isabella M i l b a n k e , w h o w a s to m a r r y L o r d B y r o n .

2 2

Its popularity eventually m e a n t the end of

A u s t e n ' s a n o n y m i t y . B y the following September, her authorship w a s pretty w e l l k n o w n , as she w r o t e to her brother F r a n k : ' . . . the truth is that the Secret has s p r e a d s o far as to be scarcely the S h a d o w of a secret n o w - & d

that I beleive w h e n e v e r the 3 a p p e a r s , I shall not even attempt to tell Lies a b o u t it. - I shall rather try to m a k e all the M o n e y than all the M y s t e r y I c a n of it. - People shall p a y for their k n o w l e d g e if I c a n m a k e them' (L 2 . 3 1 ) . A l t h o u g h A u s t e n j o k e d a b o u t both, m o n e y w a s important

to her, a n d

a n o n y m i t y h a d been so essential that she h a d h a d C a s s a n d r a write to G o d m e r s h a m in September, 1 8 1 1 , 'to beg w e w o u l d not mention that A u n t J a n e A u s t e n w r o t e " S e n s e & Sensibility" \

2 3

B e c a u s e she h a d sold the copyright, Austen did not profit from her most p o p u l a r n o v e l as she should h a v e done. Egerton p r o b a b l y issued a first edition of 1 , 0 0 0 copies of Pride

and

Prejudice

a n d , in the following

O c t o b e r , a second edition of perhaps 7 5 0 , both of w h i c h w e r e sold at 1 8 s . , three shillings m o r e than Sense and Sensibility.

H a d A u s t e n published such

editions

about

for herself,

she w o u l d h a v e m a d e

Egerton's commission

£ 4 7 5 , allowing for

of a p p r o x i m a t e l y £ 1 0 0 , w h e n

they sold out

-

s u p p o s i n g that E g e r t o n h a d brought them out as economically for her as he did for himself. C e r t a i n l y he p r o d u c e d Pride

and Prejudice

more cheaply,

using c h e a p e r p a p e r a n d less of it, even t h o u g h the novel w a s longer than Sense and Sensibility}*

A n d furthermore, he seems to h a v e been guilty of

o v e r c h a r g i n g for Pride

and Prejudice,

Sense

T h e latter h a d in fact been slightly

and

Sensibility.

w h i c h cost three shillings m o r e than underpriced:

L o n g m a n c h a r g e d 1 6 s . 6d. for a shorter three-volume novel like Benson's The Wife e a r l y in 1 8 1 0 , a n d retained that price for She Thinks w h i c h a p p e a r e d a l m o s t exactly w h e n Pride

and Prejudice

for

Herself,

did a n d w a s of

c o m p a r a b l e length. A u s t e n seems to h a v e been professionally alert

to

E g e r t o n ' s m a n o e u v r i n g s , for she w r o t e s h r e w d l y to C a s s a n d r a on J a n u a r y 2 9 , 1 8 1 3 : ' T h e Advertisement is in o u r p a p e r to d a y for the first time; - 1 8 s . - H e shall a s k £ 1 -

1-

for m y t w o next, & £ 1 -

8 -

for m y stupidest of

all' ( L 2 0 1 ) . F o r A u s t e n , 'shall' in the second o r third person is a l w a y s emphatic: it ' c o m m a n d s o r threatens', to use an eighteenth-century marian's f o r m u l a .

2 5

gram­

B y naming sums in excess of one p o u n d - not yet

a p p r o p r i a t e for a three-volume novel - she j o k i n g l y suggests that she will imitate E g e r t o n ' s s h a r p business practices. M o r e seriously, she implies that

22

The professional woman writer she will not permit him to undercharge a g a i n w h e n her o w n profit is at stake - a n d she did not. Mansfield T h e success of Pride Sense and Sensibility,

Park retailed at 1 8 shillings.

and Prejudice

certainly increased the d e m a n d for

sold out by J u l y 3 , 1 8 1 3 , according to a letter written

on that date to F r a n k ( L 2 1 7 ) . It h a d taken a b o u t t w e n t y m o n t h s to clear the edition. A u s t e n w r o t e as a postscript to F r a n k o n September 2 5 , 1 8 1 3 , d

that 'There is to be a 2 Edition of S. & S. E g e r t o n advises it' ( L 2 3 2 ) , a n d the second editions of both Sense and Sensibility

a n d Pride

and

Prejudice

were advertised together o n O c t o b e r 2 9 . O n the w h o l e , E g e r t o n ' s a d v i c e to Austen w a s s o u n d . She never lost m o n e y b y publishing w i t h him, a l t h o u g h she had to w a i t until 1 8 1 6 before receiving profits on the second edition of Sense and

26

Sensibility.

Mansfield

Park

In her dealings w i t h Egerton, A u s t e n seems to h a v e learned q u i c k l y that his interests w e r e very different from hers. H e r w r y r e m a r k o n the price that he charged for Pride and Prejudice

s h o w s her a w a r e n e s s that he w a s likely to

profit from the novel m o r e than she h a d - a n d m o r e than she h a d profited from publishing Sense and Sensibility and

Prejudice,

for herself. After the success of

Pride

Egerton certainly offered to purchase the c o p y r i g h t of

Austen's next novel, but she did not accept his offer. It w a s n o d o u b t rather l o w - perhaps £ 1 5 0 . She evidently h a d learned to prefer her o w n j u d g m e n t of the value of her w o r k to E g e r t o n ' s , a n d she w a s p r e p a r e d to risk a n unfavourable response from the reading public. In other w o r d s , as A u s t e n wrote to her brother, ' I h a v e written myself into £ 2 5 0 ' ; she chose to invest that m o n e y in underwriting her o w n w o r k - wisely ( L 2 1 7 ) . She p r o b a b l y offered Mansfield

Park to Egerton in J a n u a r y , 1 8 1 4 . O n M a r c h 2 1 , A u s t e n

expected a delay of at least a m o n t h before publication: 'Perhaps before the end of A p r i l , Mansfield

Park by the a u t h o r of S & S. - P. & P. m a y be in the

w o r l d . - K e e p the name beforehand' (L 2 Ô 2 ) .

to yourself. I s h

d

not like to h a v e it k n o w n

2 7

Egerton seems to h a v e p r o d u c e d Mansfield

Park quite cheaply, perhaps at

Austen's request. T h e p a p e r is thinner (thus less expensive) than the thin paper used for Pride and Prejudice,

a n d because each p a g e contains twenty-

five lines, not twenty-three as in the earlier novels, further savings o n p a p e r were achieved. R . W . C h a p m a n has conjectured that E g e r t o n printed only 1 , 2 5 0 copies; later, H e n r y Austen reminded J o h n M u r r a y that he himself had 'expressed astonishment that so small an edition of such a w o r k should have been sent into the w o r l d ' .

2 8

T h i s edition sold out in only s i x m o n t h s ,

more quickly than that of Pride

and Prejudice,

w h i c h h a d taken eight o r

nine

being

certainly

months

to

clear

despite

23

almost

smaller.

Using

JAN

Chapman's

estimate

p r o d u c e d Mansfield

of Park

FERGUS

1 , 2 5 0 copies, w e must

assume that

Egerton

extremely cheaply indeed, based on w h a t w e

k n o w of A u s t e n ' s earnings. H e r profit exceeded £ 3 1 0 , m o r e than she received during her lifetime for a n y n o v e l .

2 9

Emma A u s t e n c o m p o s e d Emma

in only fourteen months, from J a n u a r y 2 1 , 1 8 1 4 ,

to M a r c h 2 9 , 1 8 1 5 ; she w a s clearly at the height of her genius. D u r i n g this time, she also s a w Mansfield

Park

through the press, m a d e three visits to

H e n r y in L o n d o n , a n d three m o r e to other friends. She w r o t e on N o v e m b e r 1 8 , 1 8 1 4 , that the first edition of Mansfield

Park w a s sold out, and that her d

brother w a n t e d her to c o m e to L o n d o n , 'to settle a b o u t a 2 Edit: - but as I c o u l d not v e r y conveniently leave h o m e n o w , I h a v e written him m y Will & pleasure, & unless he still urges it, shall not g o . - 1 a m very greedy ÔC w a n t to m a k e the m o s t of it' ( L 2 8 1 ) . She did g o , for o n N o v e m b e r 3 0 , 1 8 1 4 , she d

w r o t e : 'it is not settled yet w h e t h e r I do hazard a 2 Edition. W e are to see Egerton t o d a y , w h e n it will p r o b a b l y be determined. - People are m o r e ready to b o r r o w &c praise, than to b u y . . . but t h o ' I like praise as well as a n y b o d y , I like w h a t E d w a r d calls Pewter

t o o ' ( L 2 8 7 ) . Egerton must already h a v e

advised against a second edition. H e m a y h a v e pointed to a falling-off in d e m a n d for the first edition before it sold out. Austen h a d hoped in J u l y , 1 8 1 3 , that Mansfield

Park ' o n the credit of P. & P. will sell well, tho' not half

so entertaining' ( L 2 1 7 ) . A l t h o u g h in fact Mansfield Pride

and Prejudice,

Park sold out faster than

perhaps w o r d of m o u t h reduced later d e m a n d . T h e

second edition w a s finally issued m o r e than a y e a r later o n F e b r u a r y 1 9 , 1 8 1 6 , by J o h n M u r r a y , w h o b r o u g h t out Emma

at the end of 1 8 1 5 .

Unfortunately, E g e r t o n ' s advice turned out to be g o o d . M u r r a y ' s second edition of Mansfield

Park lost m o n e y . In addition, M u r r a y produced Austen's

b o o k s m o r e expensively during her lifetime than Egerton had, w h i c h reduced her possible profit. Nonetheless, her decision to a p p r o a c h M u r r a y w a s not, o n the face of it, a b a d one. M u r r a y ' s imprint carried much more prestige than E g e r t o n ' s . B y the time A u s t e n submitted Emma

to him in A u g u s t o r

September, 1 8 1 5 , he w a s L o r d B y r o n ' s publisher and h a d co-published m a n y of W a l t e r Scott's w o r k s , including Waverley

(1814).

Furthermore,

M u r r a y w a s reputedly very o p e n - h a n d e d to authors, offering large c o p y right fees. A c c o r d i n g l y , once M u r r a y received a favourable opinion of Emma

from his editor W i l l i a m G i f f o r d , w h o w r o t e that ' O f " E m m a " , I

h a v e nothing but g o o d to s a y ' , A u s t e n might w e l l have expected a generous fee for the c o p y r i g h t .

30

Instead, o n O c t o b e r 1 5 , 1 8 1 5 , M u r r a y offered the

s u m of £ 4 5 0 altogether for the copyrights of Emma, Sense and Sensibility.

Mansfield

Park,

and

A u s t e n c o m m e n t e d , accurately enough, 'It will end in

24

The professional woman writer rny publishing for myself I d a r e s a y ' ( L 2 9 1 ) . Despite illness, H e n r y dictated early in N o v e m b e r an exasperated reply to M u r r a y : ' T h e terms y o u offer are so very inferior to w h a t w e h a d expected, that I a m apprehensive of having m a d e some great error in m y arithmetical c a l c u l a t i o n . ' H e w e n t o n to point out that his sister h a d made m o r e than £ 4 5 0 b y one small edition of Sense and Sensibility

31

a n d a moderate one of Mansfield

Park.

Henry's

illness w o r s e n e d , a n d Austen conducted m o s t of the remaining negotiations for herself. In a letter of N o v e m b e r 3 , she requested a meeting w i t h M u r r a y , at which time he must h a v e agreed to publish Emma

on commission, and on

N o v e m b e r 2 3 she w a s already ' v e x e d ' by printers' delays ( L 2 9 5 , 2 9 7 ) . M u r r a y responded civilly, promising 'no farther cause for dissatisfaction . . . In short, I a m soothed & complimented into tolerable c o m f o r t ' ( L 2 9 8 ) . Hindsight indicates that M u r r a y ' s offer of £ 4 5 0 for the three copyrights w a s fair if not generous. A u s t e n w o u l d h a v e done w e l l to accept it. First, she w o u l d h a v e received that sum within a y e a r . Instead, because losses o n the second edition of Mansfield

Park

w e r e set a g a i n s t the profits of

Emma,

Austen received during her lifetime only £ 3 8 . 1 8 . 0 profit o n her greatest work.

3 2

Ultimately, her heirs received a total of a b o u t £ 3 8 5 m o r e from the

sole edition of Emma,

from the second of Mansfield

Park

(both of w h i c h

were remaindered in 1 8 2 1 ) , a n d from the sale in 1 8 3 2 of the copyrights of the three novels for £ 4 2 e a c h .

3 3

In short, M u r r a y ' s estimate in 1 8 1 5 of the

market value of her copyrights w a s if anything e x a g g e r a t e d . Nonetheless, M u r r a y treated

Austen rather

less generously than other

writers.

He

frequently g a v e such large payments to his authors that he lost m o n e y by their w o r k s . F o r instance, he offered Helen M a r i a W i l l i a m s 5 0 guineas in 1 8 1 6 for her pamphlet, Letters

on Protestants;

M u r r a y still realized a loss of £ 1 8 . 2 . 6 .

3 4

the w o r k sold out,

but

Austen's refusal to accept M u r r a y ' s

£ 4 5 0 suggests h o w highly she valued Emma

a n d h o w willing she w a s to risk

a different valuation from the public. H e r recent profit o n Mansfield

Park

m a y h a v e encouraged her to insist that M u r r a y publish the fairly large edition of 2 , 0 0 0 copies of Emma.

Unfortunately, Emma

w a s not as p o p u l a r

as her earlier w o r k s : in the first nine months it h a d sold only 1 , 2 4 8 copies. After four y e a r s , the total w a s 1 , 4 3 7 , a n d the rest w e r e remaindered. Ironically enough, at a b o u t the same time that A u s t e n w a s refusing M u r r a y ' s m o n e y a n d insisting on publishing for herself, she w a s e x p o s e d to her only experience of ' p a t r o n a g e ' - the support of polite letters by w e a l t h y patrons. W h e n Emma

w a s in the press, the Prince R e g e n t - w h o a d m i r e d

the novels - apparently learned of Austen's presence in L o n d o n a n d sent his librarian to visit her. This officious a n d obtuse character, J a m e s Stanier C l a r k e , invited Austen to visit him at C a r l t o n H o u s e a n d during the course of the visit imparted, in her w o r d s , 'the Information of m y being at liberty

2.5

JAN

FERGUS

to dedicate a n y future w o r k to H R H . the P . R . without the necessity of any solicitation o n m y p a r t ' ( L 2 9 6 ) . O n N o v e m b e r 1 5 , 1 8 1 5 , just over a month before Emma

w a s issued, A u s t e n w i s h e d to k n o w 'whether it is incumbent

o n me to s h e w m y sense of the H o n o u r , by inscribing the W o r k n o w in the Press, to H . R . H . - 1 s h be equally concerned to appear either Presumptuous d

o r Ungrateful' ( L 4 2 9 ) . T h e w o r d 'incumbent' suggests her a n n o y a n c e . She o r perhaps H e n r y subsequently w r o t e the briefest possible dedication to be prefixed to Emma,

a n d she w a s obliged to send an expensively b o u n d c o p y

to the R e g e n t ; he t o o k n o notice of it o r the dedication a n d certainly sent n o m o n e y . A u s t e n ' s last letter to C l a r k e contains her very professional reply to his suggestion that she w r i t e ' a n Historical R o m a n c e , founded on the H o u s e of S a x e C o b o u r g ' , w h i c h she a c k n o w l e d g e d 'might be m u c h more to the p u r p o s e of Profit o r P o p u l a r i t y than such pictures of domestic Life in C o u n t r y Villages as I deal in'. She c o n c l u d e d , h o w e v e r , ' N o , I must keep to m y o w n style a n d g o o n in m y o w n w a y ; A n d though I m a y never succeed a g a i n in that, I a m c o n v i n c e d that I should totally fail in any other' ( L 3 1 2 ) . Persuasion

a n d Northanger

Abbey

W h e n A u s t e n w r o t e this letter to C l a r k e o n A p r i l 1 , 1 8 1 6 , she h a d been writing Persuasion

for nearly eight months, a n d the phrase 'though I m a y

never succeed a g a i n ' - t h o u g h p r o p e r l y modest - m a y hint at a fear that this novel might fail to earn m o n e y , as her second edition of Mansfield

Park w a s

failing. A t this time, 'Profit o r P o p u l a r i t y ' w a s of even m o r e concern to her as a writer than it h a d been. H e r family h a d suffered financial reverses. H e r brother H e n r y ' s b a n k h a d failed o n M a r c h 1 5 , 1 8 1 6 ; he took orders and b e c a m e a curate in the C h a w t o n n e i g h b o u r h o o d . Austen herself h a d lost £ 1 3 . 7 . 0 of profit o n Mansfield

Park that h a d remained in her account with

H e n r y , but fortunately the remainder of her earnings had already been invested in the ' N a v y F i v e s ' . Other m e m b e r s of her family w e r e m u c h m o r e seriously affected. H e r brother E d w a r d lost £ 2 0 , 0 0 0 , her uncle J a m e s LeighPerrot £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 , her brothers J a m e s a n d F r a n k several hundreds each. A s a result, neither F r a n k n o r H e n r y c o u l d afford any longer to contribute to their mother's i n c o m e .

3 5

T h e s e losses a n d threats m a y have kept A u s t e n

from a n y immediate attempt to publish Northanger

Abbey,

which Henry

h a d p r o b a b l y reclaimed from the L o n d o n publisher C r o s b y , returning his 6

£ 1 0 , fairly s o o n after the publication of Emma?

In any case, the strain of

so m a n y family reverses helped to undermine Austen's o w n health. S y m p ­ toms of A d d i s o n ' s disease, w h i c h eventually killed her, m a y h a v e s h o w n themselves early in 1 8 1 6 . W h e n Persuasion

was

3 7

finally

completed o n A u g u s t 6, 1 8 1 6 , almost

precisely a y e a r after it w a s begun o n A u g u s t 8, 1 8 1 5 , Austen put it aside 26

The professional woman writer for longer than any other n o v e l , p r o b a b l y because of the f a m i l y ' s

financial

troubles. In F e b r u a r y , 1 8 1 7 , she received the first small profits o n Emma.

At

this point, she h a d t w o completed but unpublished novels on her h a n d s . Possibly she had expected that she could use earnings o n Emma write the publication of Northanger

Abbey

o r Persuasion,

to under-

o r both. H e r

meagre profit of a b o u t £ 3 9 m a y h a v e caused her to write to her niece F a n n y Knight on M a r c h 1 3 , 1 8 1 7 : 'I h a v e a something r e a d y for Publication, which m a y perhaps a p p e a r a b o u t a t w e l v e m o n t h hence' ( L 3 3 3 ) . A u s t e n perhaps hoped that n e x t y e a r ' s profits w o u l d permit the publication of Persuasion.

Since the failure of H e n r y ' s b a n k , she h a d been a l l o w i n g her

half-yearly dividends of £ 1 5 o n the £ 6 0 0 in the ' N a v y F i v e s ' to a c c u m u l a t e in a n e w account at H o a r e ' s b a n k ; they a m o u n t e d to £ 4 5 by the time she died.

38

She m a y h a v e planned to d r a w u p o n these a l s o , if necessary, to

publish Persuasion

a n d p e r h a p s Northanger

Abbey

as well. In the s a m e

letter, she told F a n n y that ' M i s s Catherine is put u p o n the Shelve for the present, and I d o not k n o w that she will ever c o m e out' ( L 3 3 3 ) . T h e p h r a s e 'upon the s h e l f is a p p r o p r i a t e l y mercantile, whether applied to a n unsuccessful debutante unable to c o m e out into the m a r k e t o r to a n unsaleable commodity like a b o o k . A u s t e n ' s mind a n d l a n g u a g e seem to h a v e been particularly attuned to the m a r k e t after the disappointing failure to earn money from

Emma.

Nonetheless, A u s t e n did not permit herself to be discouraged from further publication by illness, b y h a v i n g t w o unpublished manuscripts b y her, by the failure of her second edition of Mansfield unpopularity of Emma.

Park,

o r b y the relative

She w a s forced to postpone publication, but it

remained her g o a l , as is evident in her decision to begin a n e w n o v e l , Sanditon,

on J a n u a r y 2 7 , 1 8 1 7 . She w r o t e twelve chapters before stopping

on M a r c h 1 8 , 1 8 1 7 , w h e n p r e s u m a b l y her health failed. She died four months later. A l t h o u g h anxiety a b o u t m o n e y a n d ill health h a d prevented A u s t e n from publishing Persuasion

before her death, her sister C a s s a n d r a w a s evidently

determined to see her sister's last w o r k s in print. She h a d A u s t e n ' s will proved on September 1 0 , 1 8 1 7 . After p a y i n g burial expenses of £ 9 2 , £ 1 0 0 in legacies, m o r e than £ 2 2 in probate costs, a n d £ 2 5 in debts, C a s s a n d r a o w e d duty on an estate

of £ 5 é i . 2 . o .

3 9

O n c e the estate

was

settled,

C a s s a n d r a arranged to publish the t w o remaining novels w i t h M u r r a y ; as a result, she h a d n o duty to p a y on those receipts. Possibly the f a m i l y ' s financial

problems lay behind the apparent insistence that M u r r a y p r o d u c e

Northanger

Abbey

a n d Persuasion

as cheaply as possible: only 1 , 7 5 0 copies

were printed o n v e r y inexpensive paper. T h e y a p p e a r e d at the end of December, 1 8 1 7 , a n d 1 , 4 0 9 copies sold within a y e a r . T h i s f o u r - v o l u m e

27

JAN

FERGUS

d u a l publication o n c o m m i s s i o n earned £ 5 1 8 . 6 . 5 , m o r e than any earlier A u s t e n n o v e l , even though the last 2 8 3 copies h a d to be remaindered at 3 s . i d . each - a far cry from the £ 1 . 4 . 0 retail p r i c e .

4 0

Overall, Cassandra

collected £ 7 8 4 . 1 1 . 0 from M u r r a y on this edition a n d on the final sales of Emma

a n d Mansfield

41

Park.

T h e sale of the five remaining copyrights to

R i c h a r d Bentley in 1 8 3 2 for £ 2 1 0 b r o u g h t Austen's overall literary earnings to at least £ 1 , 6 2 5 , most of w h i c h w a s received after her death. During her life she received something o v e r £ 6 3 1 , perhaps as m u c h as £ 6 6 8 and loose change.

4 2

She earned, despite her increasing professionalism, rather less

than has usually been thought, m u c h less than contemporaries like M a r i a E d g e w o r t h ( £ 1 1 , 0 6 2 . 8 . 1 0 ) or Frances B u r n e y ( £ 4 , 2 8 o ) .

4 3

T h i s £ 6 3 0 or s o that A u s t e n ' w r o t e herself into', to use her o w n phrase, was

not

v e r y substantial

by a n y c o n t e m p o r a r y

standard.

As Edward

C o p e l a n d points out elsewhere in this v o l u m e , l u m p sums of m o n e y were a l w a y s translated into y e a r l y incomes. Invested in the N a v y Fives, part of A u s t e n ' s earnings b r o u g h t her £ 3 0 a y e a r , not m u c h m o r e than her dress a l l o w a n c e of £ 2 0 a y e a r during her father's lifetime a n d m u c h less than the income of a n y o n e else in her f a m i l y .

4 4

T h i s s u m w o u l d not afford genteel

maintenance to a single w o m a n , even though w o m e n alone w e r e certainly s u p p o s e d to require v e r y little: as F a n n y D a s h w o o d puts it, her mother- and sisters-in-law ' w i l l live so c h e a p ' {SS 1 2 ) . If w e depart from Austen's practice, h o w e v e r , a n d calculate her earnings of just o v e r £ 6 3 0 between 1 8 1 1 a n d 1 8 1 7 as a y e a r l y income of £ 9 0 , w e c a n n o t conclude that she w r o t e herself into even t e m p o r a r y wealth. N o v e l ­ ists like A m e l i a O p i e a n d M a r y D a r b y R o b i n s o n , w h o did not invest their earnings but applied them to daily expenses, found that even w h e n they m a d e as m u c h as £ 1 5 0 to £ 2 0 0 a y e a r for several y e a r s , those sums did not keep them o u t of debt despite other sources of i n c o m e .

4 5

B y contrast,

A u s t e n not only invested most of her earnings but a l l o w e d the dividends to a c c u m u l a t e in her account at H o a r e ' s b a n k .

4 6

W h e n she w r o t e to her niece

F a n n y K n i g h t o n M a r c h 1 3 , 1 8 1 7 that 'I h a v e a something ready for Publication, w h i c h m a y perhaps a p p e a r a t w e l v e m o n t h hence' (L 4 8 4 ) , she h a d learned a m o n t h earlier that her profits o n Emma the second edition of Mansfield

Park

w e r e small because

h a d sold so p o o r l y . H e r dividends

a m o u n t e d to £ 3 0 by J a n u a r y , 1 8 1 7 ; in a y e a r , they w o u l d come to £ 6 0 . I imagine that, after the family catastrophe of H e n r y ' s bankruptcy a y e a r before, a n d the w e a k sale of Mansfield Persuasion

(and perhaps Northanger

Park, A u s t e n w a s waiting to publish Abbey)

until she could underwrite the

publication herself. W e see here, I believe, a n d in her continuing M a r c h 1 8 ) despite failing health to write her n e w novel Sandition, the m o s t p o i g n a n t evidences of Austen's professionalism.

28

(until

perhaps

The professional woman writer

NOTES 1 The arguments in this essay summarize and expand those presented earlier in Jane Austen: A Literary Life (London: Macmillan, 1 9 9 1 ) . 2 [Henry Austen,] 'Memoir of Miss Austen', in Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (London: Richard Bentley, 1 8 3 3 ) , p. ix. 3 B. C. Southam, ed., 'Introduction', Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), p. 3 2 . 4 'Profile of Women Writing in English from 1 6 6 0 to 1 8 0 0 ' , Eighteenth-Century Women and the Arts, ed. Frederick M . Keener and Susan E. Lorsch (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), p. 248. 5 Alvin Kernan, Printing Technology, Letters & Samuel Johnson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 4. 6 Judith Phillips Stanton, 'Charlotte Smith's "Literary Business": Income, Patronage, and Indigence', in Paul J . Korshin, ed., The Age of Johnson, vol. 1 (New York: A M S Press, 1 9 8 7 ) , pp. 3 7 6 - 7 . 7 Hookham and Carpenter published The Romance of the Forest. Their records are located in the Public Record Office, C 1 0 4 / 7 5 / 1 - 3 . They comprise three ledgers, the first labelled F (= 1 ) , the second G (= 2), and the third Petty Ledger F (= 3). This information comes from the Petty Ledger, p. 1 9 1 , where the name is spelled 'Mr Ratcliff. All subsequent references to the ledgers will be indicated in the text by the alphabetical abbreviation of the ledger followed by page number. 8 Carla Hesse, 'Reading Signatures: Female Authorship and Revolutionary L a w in France, 1 7 5 0 - 1 8 5 0 ' , Eighteenth-Century Studies, 22:3 (1989), 486. 9 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 84, part ii (Dec. 1804), 1 1 7 8 . 1 0 See Antonia Forster's Index to Book Reviews in England, 1775-1800, to be published by the British Library. 1 1 Frances Burney, Camilla, ed. Edward A. and Lillian D. Bloom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1 9 8 2 ) , pp. x i x - x x . 1 2 Jan Fergus and Janice Farrar Thaddeus, 'Women, Publishers, and Money, 1 7 9 0 1 8 2 0 ' , Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 1 7 (1987), 198 and n. 38, 2 0 6 - 7 . 1 3 Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins, Memoirs, Anecdotes, Facts, and Opinions, 2 vols. (London: Longman, Hurst, et al., 1 8 2 4 ) , 1:156. 14 Edward Copeland, Women Writing about Money: Women's Fiction in England, 1790-1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 9 5 ) , ch. 7. See also calculations of various levels of income, pp. 2 4 - 3 3. 1 5 When Austen sold the copyright of Susan for £ 1 0 in 1 8 0 3 , novels cost about 3s. 6d. per volume; by 1 8 1 3 , they had doubled: Egerton charged 6s. per volume for Pride and Prejudice. 1 6 See Forster, Index 1775-1800. 1 7 Jan Fergus and Ruth Portner, 'Provincial Subscribers to the Monthly and Critical Reviews, and their Book Purchasing', O M Brack J r . , ed., Writers, Books, and Trade: An Eighteenth-Century Miscellany for William B. Todd (New York: A M S Press, 1994), p. 1 6 7 . 18 Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of the Late John Murray, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1 8 9 1 ) , 1:228. 1 9 Mary Russell Mitford, The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, ed. A. G. L'Estrange and William Harness, 3 vols. (London: Richard Bentley, 1 8 7 0 ) , 1:300.

29

JAN

FERGUS

20 I have arrived at these figures by examining the Archives of the House of Longman, microfilmed by Chadwyck-Healey (Cambridge, England), hereafter cited as Longman; I have used Longman's costs for books of comparable length produced at the same time as Austen's to calculate the probable sizes and costs of editions she published with Egerton (whose records do not survive). Because my conclusions about Austen's editions and profits differ significantly from other accounts, I have documented my calculations in detail in the notes to ch. 5 of Jane Austen: A Literary Life; those interested may refer to those notes. The Longman records usefully supplement those of Austen's later publisher John Murray. For very different estimates of Austen's editions and profits, see (among others) Jane Aiken Hodge, 'Jane Austen and her Publishers', John Halperin, ed., Jane Austen: Bicentenary Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 8

1 9 7 5 ) , PP- 7 5 " 5 2 1 Longman reel 1 , 1 / 2 / 1 5 6 . 22 Quoted by David Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 8 2 ) , p. 2 5 . 23 Quoted by Le Faye in William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh, revised and enlarged by Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (London: The British Library, 1989), p. 1 6 7 . 24 These estimations are based upon Gilson's bibliographical analysis of the novel: despite being somewhat longer than 5 5 , PP was printed in fewer sheets, 36.5 instead of 38, using slightly smaller type in the second and third volumes. With his own profits at stake, Egerton shaved costs. 25 Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762), p. 58, quoted by K . C. Phillipps, Jane Austen's English (London: André Deutsch, 1970), p. 1 2 5 . 26 See Austen's note of 'Profits of my Novels', reproduced in facsimile in Plan of a Novel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 192.6); hereafter cited as 'Note on profits'. 27 Sidney Ives, The Trial of Mrs. Leigh Perrot (Boston: Stinehour Press, 1980), p. iii; Deirdre Le Faye conjectures that this fragment was written to Frank Austen, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 1 8 8 . 28 Bodleian M S Autog d n / 2 4 4 ; printed in William and Richard Arthur AustenLeigh, Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. A Family Record, 2nd edition (London: 1 9 1 3 ; reissued N e w York: Russell and Russell, 1965), p. 3 1 1 . 29 Austen must have made over £ 3 1 0 from MP, according to the letter from Henry to John Murray cited later in the text, for Henry asserts that she received from her small edition of 5 5 (£140) and a moderate one of MP more than the £450 Murray had offered for the copyrights of 5 5 , M P , and E. She also invested the bulk of profits from her novels in £600 worth of 'Navy Fives', according to her own 'Note on profits'. Scholars have assumed that this £600 represents clear profit, but in fact 'Navy Fives' always sold at a discount during the period when Austen could have purchased them. Her investment cost her less than £600, and her profits were accordingly smaller than has been assumed. Although we cannot calculate her earnings precisely without knowing the date on which she made her purchase, we can nonetheless infer the size of the first edition of MP and arrive at an approximation of Austen's profits on it. Accordingly, I calculate that she earned from £ 3 1 0 on MP to a little over £ 3 4 7 . 30 Quoted by Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen, pp. 66-7. r

30

The professional woman writer r

3 1 Bodleian M S Autog d n / 2 2 4 ; W. and R . Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. A Family Record, p. 3 1 0 . 3 2 See 'Note on profits'. 33 Exactly 539 copies of E were remaindered at 2s. apiece on January 2 5 , 1 8 2 1 , 498 copies of MP at 2s. éd., and 282 copies of NA and P at 3s. i d . (Murray Archives, BB 1 / 2 2 8 - 9 ; BB 1 / 2 4 2 - 3 ; BB 2/28-9; Copies Ledger B / 1 5 1 ) . British Library Add. Mss. 46611, ff. 3 0 5 , 3 1 1 , 3 1 3 records the sale of Austen's copyrights to Richard Bentley. Austen and her heirs also received profits on the second edition of Sense and Sensibility, which came to about £ 3 2 during her lifetime, according to her 'Note on profits', and an unknown sum afterwards; the existence of this edition no doubt helped to lower Murray's offer for the three copyrights. 34 Murray Archives, Copies Day Book (CB)/B/i28. 3 5 Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, pp. 2 1 1 , 2 2 2 . 36 James Edward Austen-Leigh, Memoir of Jane Austen, ed. R. W. Chapman ( 1 9 2 e ; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 0 7 ) , p. 1 3 8 . The Memoir was originally issued in 1 8 7 0 . 37 For this diagnosis, see Zachary Cope, 'Jane Austen's Last Illness', reprinted in Collected Reports of the Jane Austen Society, 1949-1965 {1967; rpt. Folkestone: William Dawson and Sons, 1990), pp. 2 0 7 - 7 2 . 38 Elizabeth Jenkins, 'Some Banking Accounts of the Austen Family', Annual Report of the Jane Austen Society (1954); rpt. Collected Reports of the Jane Austen Society, 1949-1965, intro. Elizabeth Jenkins (1907; rpt. Overton, Hampshire: Jane Austen Society, 1990), p. 59. 39 Collected Reports, 1966-1975, p. 39 (1967). Legacy duty came to £ i é . i é . 8 ; see Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 2 3 3 . 40 Murray Archives, Copies Ledger B / 1 4 2 , 1 5 1 . 4 1 Murray Archives, Customer Ledger D/550. 42 Austen had received during her lifetime more than £ 3 1 0 (and up to £347) from MP, £ 2 5 0 from SS and PP, £71.6.1 partial profits on E and the second edition of SS; Cassandra's £ 7 8 4 . 1 1 . 0 from Murray and £ 2 1 0 from Bentley bring the total to £ 1 0 2 5 . 1 7 . 1 at least (see British Library Add. Mss. 46611, ff. 3 0 5 , 3 1 1 , 3 1 3 ) . Some further payments from Egerton for the second edition of SS were certainly also received, and more profit on MP is very likely. 43 Fergus and Thaddeus, 'Women, Publishers, and Money, 1 7 9 0 - 1 8 2 0 ' , p. 2 0 5 , n. 27. 44 Her sister Cassandra had an income of £ 5 0 a year from the legacy of £ 1 , 0 0 0 left her by her fiancé Tom Fowle; her mother had by her own account £ 1 2 2 a year in 1 8 2 0 (Richard A. Austen-Leigh, Austen Papers, 1704-1856 [London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne, 1 9 4 2 ] , p. 2é4); even her brother Henry after his bankruptcy obtained the curacy of Chawton at 52 guineas a year (Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 2 1 2 ) . 45 Jan Fergus and Ruth Portner, 'Women, Publishers', passim. 46 Collected Reports of the Jane Austen Society, 1949-1965, intro. Elizabeth Jenkins, 1 9 7 e ; reprinted by the Jane Austen Society, 1 9 9 0 , p. 59 (Report for 1954).

3i

3 RACHEL M. BROWNSTEIN

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice y

' F o r w h a t d o w e live', M r . Bennet e x c l a i m s to his favourite daughter late in Pride

and Prejudice,

'but to m a k e sport for o u r neighbours, and laugh at

them in o u r turn?' {PP 3 6 4 ) . T h e question is rhetorical - an a n s w e r , not a p r o p e r question - a n d J a n e Austen's m o r a l critics h a v e sternly remonstrated w i t h those w h o read it as the novelist's o w n a n s w e r . T h e y e x p l a i n it a w a y as a n e p i g r a m , only M r . Bennet's p h i l o s o p h y , to be read ironically - by w h i c h they m e a n dismissively. A n d indeed M r . Bennet is particularly obtuse, his w i t ill-advised, w h e n he s a y s w h a t he does while chuckling over the letter in w h i c h M r . Collins reports that his patroness, L a d y Catherine de B o u r g h , d i s a p p r o v e s of a m a r r i a g e between Elizabeth and D a r c y . Earlier in the novel, w h e n her father read a letter from the same unctuous writer, Elizabeth w a s his pleased c o l l a b o r a t o r , a s k i n g , ' C a n he be a sensible m a n , sir?', so M r . Bennet c o u l d complacently reply, ' N o , m y dear; I think not. I h a v e great hopes of finding him quite the reverse. There is a mixture of servility a n d self-importance

in his letter, w h i c h promises well. I a m

impatient to see h i m ' (64). N o w Elizabeth is in love with D a r c y ; she has just refused to p r o m i s e L a d y Catherine de B o u r g h not to m a r r y him; she cannot possibly laugh at w h a t her parent takes to be the absurd r u m o u r of her impending m a r r i a g e ( ' M r . D a r c y , w h o never l o o k s at any w o m a n but to see a blemish, a n d w h o p r o b a b l y never l o o k e d at you in his life!' [ 3 6 3 ] ) . W h e n M r . Bennet urges her to be 'diverted', not 'Missish'

( 3 6 3 - 4 ) , Elizabeth c a n

o n l y muster a strained smile a n d a nervous laugh. ' H e r father h a d m o s t cruelly mortified her, by w h a t he said of M r . D a r c y ' s indifference, a n d she could d o nothing but w o n d e r at such a w a n t of penetration, or fear that p e r h a p s , instead of his seeing t o o little, she might have fancied t o o

much'

( 3 6 4 ) . Because it is glib as well as blind, her father's self-confidence threatens her o w n . W h e n Elizabeth w a s first 'mortified' by D a r c y ' s dismissal of her beauty ('tolerable; but not h a n d s o m e e n o u g h to tempt me'),

she forced a

laugh

her

and

'told

the

story

...

with

great

spirit a m o n g

friends';

M r . Bennet's daughter h a s , after all, 'a lively, playful disposition, w h i c h

32

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and

Prejudice

delighted in any thing ridiculous' ( 1 2 ) . But n o w she is w o r r i e d that D a r c y ' s own

'notions of dignity' might m a k e him accept his aunt's 'ridiculous'

arguments against her; a n d she is w e a k e r than she w a s , living n o w neither to m a k e sport for her neighbours nor to laugh at them, but m o r e a n x i o u s l y and n a r r o w l y for love. T h e sympathetic reader is inclined to deplore M r . Bennet's failure of penetration as Elizabeth does, a n d reflect that it is of a piece w i t h w h a t w e (along w i t h her) h a v e c o m e to recognize as his general insufficiency - as the lax, irresponsible father w h o invited disaster by a l l o w i n g L y d i a to f o l l o w the soldiers to Brighton; the overly caustic parent w h o e m b a r r a s s e d M a r y in public to stop her singing ( ' Y o u h a v e delighted us long e n o u g h ' [ 1 0 1 ] ) , a n d flippantly recommended W i c k h a m to Elizabeth as 'a pleasant fellow, [ w h o ] w o u l d jilt y o u creditably' ( 1 3 8 ) ; the h u s b a n d guilty of breaching d e c o r u m by exposing his wife to the contempt of her daughters. A t this point in the story, one tends not to reflect (as one might) that he b e h a v e d m o r e reason­ ably than not w h e n he refused to lock up his w i l d daughter, silenced his doltish one, teased Elizabeth for a silly infatuation, a n d , y e a r s before, chose the detached pleasures of 'the true philosopher' o v e r m o r e foolish o r vicious occupations w h e n his pretty wife p r o v e d silly a n d 'all his v i e w s of domestic happiness were o v e r t h r o w n '

( 2 3 6 ) . T h e courtship

plot is

approaching

closure, and feeling seems m o r e important than r e a s o n , especially as the dialogue of father a n d daughter in v o l u m e 111 f o l l o w s a long p a s s a g e in the free indirect style that gives us access to Elizabeth's thoughts. M r . Bennet seems a flat, static c o m i c character, merely the sum of his ' q u i c k parts', in comparison to his daughter, w h o has depth a n d feeling as w e l l as ' s o m e ­ thing m o r e of quickness than her sisters' (5). Nevertheless, undercut

as it is by his character

M r . Bennet's remark is p a r t of w h a t Pride

and

and Prejudice

T h e epigram leaps off the p a g e ; like the narrator's

circumstances,

says a n d m e a n s . happy

formulation

about Charlotte L u c a s , that 'without thinking highly either of m e n o r of matrimony, m a r r i a g e h a d a l w a y s been her object' ( 1 2 2 ) , it claims truth by thus leaping, a n d by m o v i n g with authority from the particular to the general. Rejecting great expectations (like Elizabeth's), it s p e a k s to

the

portions of our brains that suspect romantic fiction - portions J a n e A u s t e n has cultivated.

Its e c o n o m i c a l phrasing,

its

symmetry

and

sense,

its

philosophical detachment, are appealing not merely for their o w n sakes but because they are a m o n g this novel's values. M r . Bennet's reflects with striking a c c u r a c y the w o r l d of Pride

and Prejudice,

question in w h i c h

social interactions are the substance of life. E v e n the r o m a n t i c plot begins as Elizabeth m a k e s sport for D a r c y , a n d she laughs at him in her turn; a n d t o w a r d s the end, w h e n J a n e Bennet gets engaged, the n a r r a t o r l o o k s a w a y

33

RACHEL M. BROWNSTEIN

from

the m a i n

characters

to tell us that 'the

Bennets w e r e speedily

p r o n o u n c e d to be the luckiest family in the w o r l d , though only a few w e e k s before . . . they h a d been generally p r o v e d to be m a r k e d out for misfortune' ( 3 5 0 ) . In the w o r l d of A u s t e n ' s novels, all the people w h o d o n ' t inherit p r o p e r t y depend for their lives on w h a t the neighbours say a b o u t them, spend their time e x c h a n g i n g gossip o r ' n e w s ' a b o u t

one

another, a n d quite r e a s o n a b l y feel themselves to be (in the w o r d s of H e n r y Tilney of Northanger

Abbey)

' s u r r o u n d e d by a n e i g h b o u r h o o d of volun­

tary spies' ( N A 1 9 8 ) . It is tempting to r e a d M r . Bennet's r e m a r k as a selfconscious gesture by the novelist: like J a n e A u s t e n , he relishes people and g o s s i p , a n d m o v e s easily from observations a b o u t his fellows to m o r a l p h i l o s o p h y . If his detachment is not e x e m p l a r y , his disinterest is. W h e n w e consider the a n s w e r s that other characters in Pride

and Prejudice

might

give to the big question - if it occurred to them - of w h a t w e live for, Elizabeth's father's

seems not half b a d : living to m a k e sport for our

neighbours a n d to laugh at them in o u r turn is m o r e generous and civil than living to m a k e self-aggrandizing m a r r i a g e s o r to attend to o u r o w n a n d o u r f a m i l y ' s best interests, as most people in the novel, a n d elsewhere, do. M o s t readers will agree that J a n e A u s t e n w a n t s us to condemn those people - m o s t people - but M r . Bennet's p h i l o s o p h y still strikes most as insufficient, antithetical to the values of feeling, s y m p a t h y , a n d love that m o s t people profess. A u s t e n ' s irony t h w a r t s readers in search of straight a n s w e r s to big questions; her novels formulate only to undercut

them.

M e a n w h i l e the seriousness of her irony baffles those readers w h o think w i t must be either decorative o r definitive. I begin here w i t h M r . Bennet because playful a n d purposeful irony seems to me the m o s t important thing about J a n e A u s t e n . O n e of her acquaintances recalled of A u s t e n that 'her keen 1

sense of h u m o u r . . . o o z e d out very m u c h in M r . Bennett's [sic] S t y l e ' , and his accents, o r the m o r e cynical tones of L a R o c h e f o u c a u l d , are audible in a g o s s i p y letter she w r o t e to her sister C a s s a n d r a in 1 7 9 9 : 'Whenever I fall into misfortune, h o w m a n y jokes it o u g h t to furnish to m y acquaintance in general, o r I shall die dreadfully in their debt for entertainment' (L 3 8 ) . B u t m y a r g u m e n t here is not biographical; n o r d o I p r o p o s e to take issue with H e n r y A u s t e n ' s n e r v o u s insistence that his sister ' d r e w from nature; but, w h a t e v e r m a y h a v e been surmised to the contrary, never from individuals' ( ' M e m o i r ' , NA,

P 7 - 8 ) . R a t h e r , I w a n t to consider the conjunctions of

r o m a n t i c narrative a n d ironic c o m m e n t a r y in J a n e Austen's first three fulllength n o v e l s , Northanger

Abbey,

Sense

and

Sensibility,

and Pride

and

Prejudice. T h e s e novels present themselves as a g r o u p on the basis of a 'memor34

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice a n d u m ' C a s s a n d r a A u s t e n jotted d o w n after her sister's death, stating that all three were drafted in the 1 7 9 0 s . B e c a u s e they w e r e published m u c h later and no manuscripts s u r v i v e , it is impossible to k n o w h o w closely the drafts correspond to the novels as w e k n o w them, o r w h a t revisions w e r e m a d e and w h e n J a n e A u s t e n m a d e them, o r w h i c h novels should rightly be considered her first, second, a n d third. Sense and Sensibility the w o r k s to be published, but a version of Pride Impressions Abbey

w a s the first of

and Prejudice

called First

w a s p r o b a b l y the first long n o v e l she completed;

Northanger

remained in manuscript until after the novelist's death, but

Susan,

the first novel she sold to a publisher, w h o advertised but failed to print it, w a s evidently a version of the b o o k that finally a p p e a r e d in 1 8 1 8 . A s the facts, such as they are, prevent a critic from relying o n the standard plot of g r o w t h and development, they free her to devise another one. T h i s essay will consider the w a y s irony interrogates r o m a n c e a n d romanticism, in these three novels. I will conclude w i t h Pride and Prejudice

because it p r o v i d e s a

happy ending, the balance of forces being m o s t strenuous a n d perfect there: disengagement from r o m a n c e is a simpler pleasure in Northanger and in Sense and Sensibility

Abbey,

both satire a n d sentiment are m o r e p r o b l e m a t i c .

J a n e Austen, in her twenties, is easily i m a g i n e d as asking herself w h a t w e write novels for, and a n s w e r i n g that she for one w r o t e to criticize a n d perfect the form. H e r early novels are all brilliantly a w a r e of themselves as novels - heroine-centred domestic fictions of a kind that became p o p u l a r in the w a k e of Samuel R i c h a r d s o n ' s Pamela

( 1 7 4 2 ) a n d Clarissa

(1747-8). By

the time she began writing, the genre h a d been w i d e l y criticized o n m o r a l and aesthetic g r o u n d s . F o c u s e d o n the education a n d courtship of a virtuous virgin, courtship novels - m a n y of them by w o m e n - reflected the concerns of a culture in change, w h i c h debated the nature of authority a n d personal distinction, and the value of sentiment a n d the sentient self. T h e w o m a n centred novel w a s deliberately didactic, conscious of setting standards of morality and b e h a v i o u r in a w o r l d that w a n t e d them. It w a s critical of mere materialism; it v a l u e d genteel m a n n e r s , female subjectivity, w o m e n ' s lives, and affection in m a r r i a g e , a n d a b o v e all the unique, superior, integral self. Novels a b o u t a y o u n g w o m a n ' s courtship a n d m a r r i a g e - crucial to the cultural revolution w e call romanticism - w e r e J a n e Austen's favourite reading; the novels she w r o t e in her turn l a u g h at them in M r . Bennet's spirit, conscious of being novels themselves. E m b r a c i n g a n d p a r o d y i n g the novel form, Austen keeps a neighbourly distance from its tropes

and

premises, seeing them as analogues of her culture's conventions a n d v a l u e s . H e r sense of the novel's limits permeates her m o r a l , witty fictions, offering itself - in lieu of a n y ideal romantic heroine, in place of a n y clear didactic message - as a model of h u m a n b e h a v i o u r .

35

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

NORTHANGER

ABBEY

T h e m i x e d m o c k e r y a n d defence of fiction in Northanger

Abbey

is evident

from the first sentence, w h i c h (like the m o r e famous first sentence of and Prejudice)

Pride

repeats so as to m o c k w h a t the neighbours (other writers a n d

readers) think a n d s a y . H e r e the subject is the idea of a heroine: ' N o one w h o h a d ever seen Catherine M o r l a n d in her infancy, w o u l d h a v e supposed her b o r n to be a n heroine' (NA

1 3 ) . C l e a r l y ' n o o n e ' , i.e. everyone, is

w r o n g . Catherine, n a m e d in the first sentence of a novel, is sure to be a heroine, w h a t e v e r that m e a n s . A l o n g w i t h those conditional verbs, the initiating negative, the excessive emphasis, the peculiar pauses imposed by the c o m m a a n d the queer ' a n ' before 'heroine' that forces one to say it (here, but n o w h e r e else) w i t h a n e x t r a - h a r d aspirate or n o 'h' at all - all these serve to question the very idea of a heroine. E v e n if w e k n o w nothing about the b o o k s that Catherine's neighbours read, w e h a v e n o trouble

under­

standing that idea, or the reasons w h y Catherine w o u l d seem a n unlikely heroine. She is plain, not beautiful, a n d h a p p y a n d healthy rather than victimized a n d pathetic. Preferring rolling d o w n a hill, a n d b o y s ' g a m e s , to 'the m o r e heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a d o r m o u s e , feeding a c a n a r y - b i r d , o r w a t e r i n g a rose-bush' ( 1 3 ) , she is unfeminine. N u r t u r i n g is not her g a m e - until she g r o w s u p a n d begins to curl her hair a n d read the b o o k s that e n c o u r a g e a girl to b e h a v e like other girls - that is, like that extraordinary

representation

of

conventional

femininity,

a

romantic

heroine. M o c k i n g the implausible e x a g g e r a t i o n s and clichés of novelists, J a n e A u s t e n simultaneously suggests that these reflect society's expectations of genteel girls. A s Catherine becomes a heroine inevitably, by g r o w i n g up, A u s t e n m a k e s the point that social a n d literary conventions collaborate with b i o l o g y to construct femininity - m u c h as Simone de B e a u v o i r does in The Second

Sex, w h e r e she m e m o r a b l y declares, ' O n e is not born, but rather 2

becomes, a w o m a n . ' If the novelist is less outraged by her insight than the twentieth-century polemicist is, she is also m o r e c h a r y than de B e a u v o i r of the r o m a n t i c idea of the heroic o r transcendent self. C o n c l u d i n g her introduction of Catherine, the narrator writes that ' w h e n a y o u n g l a d y is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty

surrounding

families c a n n o t prevent her. Something must a n d will happen to t h r o w a hero in her w a y ' ( 1 6 - 1 7 ) . Northanger

Abbey

sets a b o u t to m a k e a heroine

of Catherine M o r l a n d in the m a n n e r of sentimental novelists, by arranging the y o u n g l a d y ' s entrance into the social w o r l d . Ineptly chaperoned by empty-headed M r s . A l l e n , she is taken from her father's country parish, w h e r e heroes are hard to c o m e b y , to the resort city of B a t h : location will turn out to be as important as a hero o r a novelist in m a k i n g a y o u n g lady a

36

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and

Prejudice

heroine. In B a t h , ignorant Catherine sets a b o u t to learn w h a t the manners of g o o d society are a n d w h a t they mean a n d m a s k , a n d h o w to b e h a v e herself a n d judge others; later, at N o r t h a n g e r A b b e y , she is threatened by the more inchoate a n d intimate sinister forces of the e p o n y m o u s a b b e y a n d her o w n imagination, a n d her education continues. T h a t Catherine does not in fact change or learn very much - her mind being, first a n d last, ' w a r p e d by an innate principle of general integrity' ( 2 1 9 ) , in H e n r y T i l n e y ' s w r y formulation - is an ironic comment on novels of education. A s Catherine reads a n d discusses gothic novels in B a t h , a n d schemes to visit a castle in the neighbourhood,

A u s t e n elides the differences between

didactic,

moral

domestic novels a n d the m o r e sensational a n d fantastic gothic novels that were the r a g e in the 1 7 9 0 s . Northanger

Abbey's

take on tropes of

fiction,

kinds of readers, a n d modes of reading is t o o t h o r o u g h l y riddled w i t h ironies to a l l o w one to categorize it c o m f o r t a b l y as p a r o d y o r pastiche. Austen's most sustained defence of fiction occurs at the end of the fifth chapter of the first v o l u m e of this novel. It is presented as a digression - a n abrupt disengagement, really - from the a c c o u n t of C a t h e r i n e ' s

swiftly

developing intimacy with Isabella T h o r p e . T h e y o u n g ladies, the n a r r a t o r reports, are such great friends that if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; - for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding - joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. (37) The language in w h i c h other novelists are criticized is violent; the pleasure in departing from their practice is gleeful. Still, the writer insists that novels, 'which h a v e only genius, wit, and taste to r e c o m m e n d them', are vastly superior to the 'threadbare strains' of reviewers a n d the productions of literary h a c k s , 'the nine-hundredth abridger of the H i s t o r y of E n g l a n d , or . . . the m a n w h o collects and publishes in a v o l u m e s o m e dozen lines of M i l t o n , P o p e , a n d Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, a n d a chapter from Sterne' ( 3 7 - 8 ) . She m a k e s a stirring declaration of solidarity with her fellows ('Alas! if the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from w h o m can she expect protection a n d r e g a r d ? . . . L e t us not desert one another; w e are an injured b o d y ' [ 3 7 ] ) , n a m i n g individuals 'Cecilia, o r C a m i l l a , o r Belinda', novels, or heroines - as m e m b e r s of this 37

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

' b o d y ' . N o v e l s are conflated w i t h heroines, novelists praised for exhibiting 'the greatest p o w e r s of the m i n d . . . the m o s t t h o r o u g h k n o w l e d g e of h u m a n nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of w i t a n d h u m o u r ' ( 3 8 ) . A u s t e n ' s defence of the gothic novels that Catherine a n d Isabella read a n d talk a b o u t , w h i c h this declaration conspicuously ignores, will also rest o n their truth to - their imbrication in - h u m a n

nature.

F a v o u r i n g individuals o v e r abstractions, m o v i n g swiftly from the specific to the

philosophical

and

general,

the

narrator's

rhetoric

is

very

like

M r . Bennet's. Catherine's necessary h e r o is introduced to her altogether prosaically, as a dancing partner, by the master of ceremonies w h o s e j o b it is to m a k e such introductions. R o m a n t i c fiction is implicitly d e b u n k e d by this event, also by the fact that Catherine likes H e n r y T i l n e y immediately, a n d that that m a k e s him like her: far from being o v e r w h e l m e d by her heroinical qualities, 'a persuasion of her partiality for him [is] the only cause of giving her a serious t h o u g h t ' ( 2 4 3 ) . T h e tropes of stock r o m a n c e are p a r o d i e d as, for instance, the requisite separation of the lovers is effected by Isabella T h o r p e a n d her brother J o h n , w h o physically restrain Catherine, each holding onto one a r m , w h e n she struggles to f o l l o w H e n r y a n d his sister d o w n the street. L o n g i n g for the m o r e elegant T i l n e y s , o u r heroine is entangled with the v u l g a r T h o r p e s , because she w a s so q u i c k l y taken up by the importunate, scheming Isabella - w h o as it turns out is being courted by her o w n brother J a m e s . T h e several brother-and-sister

pairs, a n d Catherine's

infatuation

w i t h both the sisters as w e l l as one of the brothers, m a k e for an ironically unerotic atmosphere in this r o m a n c e : H e n r y ' s clever chaste c o m p a r i s o n of m a r r i a g e to a country d a n c e reflects the n o v e l ' s sassy sexlessness. N a m e d perhaps after J a n e A u s t e n ' s favourite brother, but perhaps after 3

8 0 per cent of the heroes of the novels she h a d r e a d , H e n r y Tilney is an unconventional r o m a n t i c h e r o , 'not quite h a n d s o m e ' , though 'very near it' ( 2 5 ) , a n d w o m a n i s h l y k n o w l e d g e a b l e a b o u t not only fiction but fabrics. H e is dominated a n d intimidated b y his o v e r b e a r i n g father, the G e n e r a l , himself 'a v e r y h a n d s o m e m a n , of a c o m m a n d i n g aspect, past the b l o o m , but not past the v i g o u r of life' (80). It is G e n e r a l T i l n e y , not his son, w h o pointedly relishes Catherine's physical attractions, appreciating the elasticity of her w a l k - a n d causing her to w a l k o n ' w i t h great elasticity, though she h a d never thought of it before' ( 1 0 3 ) . (Sir T h o m a s Bertram of Mansfield

Park,

another propertied paterfamilias, a l s o m a k e s a y o u n g w o m a n blush by appreciating her b o d y . ) T h e G e n e r a l invites Catherine to

Northanger

A b b e y : misinformed that she is a n heiress, he means to m a r r y her to his c l e r g y m a n son. (His older s o n Frederick, w h o will inherit

Northanger

A b b e y , is a military m a n like his father, a n d a rake.) T h e coincidence of the

38

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and

Prejudice

heroine's motive a n d the villain's, along w i t h the hero's passivity, are a m o n g the nice ironies that m a k e this r o m a n c e so cheerful. The sexy G e n e r a l is c o m m a n d i n g , a n d w h e n he instructs Catherine to ride in H e n r y ' s open curricle she agrees, even t h o u g h she has a l r e a d y learned and m a n a g e d to get M r . Allen to a c k n o w l e d g e - that it is i m p r o p e r for a y o u n g lady to ride alone w i t h a gentleman in a n o p e n c a r r i a g e . In the carriage H e n r y sets her u p to expect 'all the h o r r o r s that a building such as " w h a t one reads a b o u t " m a y p r o d u c e ' ( 1 5 7 ) . H e e n c o u r a g e s her to e x p e c t to be lodged in a ' g l o o m y c h a m b e r - t o o lofty a n d extensive for y o u , w i t h only the feeble r a y s of a single l a m p to take in its size - its w a l l s hung w i t h tapestry exhibiting figures as large as life, a n d the bed, of d a r k green stuff o r purple velvet, presenting even a funereal a p p e a r a n c e ' . O v e r r i d i n g her g o o d humoured, sensible protests that w h a t he projects is impossible ('This is just like a b o o k ! - B u t it c a n n o t really h a p p e n to m e ' [ 1 5 9 ] ) , he predicts w h a t she will find in the secret chambers of the a b b e y in the matter-of-fact flat tones of the fiction that has captivated Catherine: 'In one p e r h a p s there m a y be a dagger, in another a few drops of b l o o d , a n d in a third the remains of some instrument of torture; but there being nothing in all this o u t of the c o m m o n w a y , and y o u r l a m p being nearly e x h a u s t e d , y o u will return towards y o u r o w n apartment' ( 1 6 0 ) . Catherine continues to protest that she is nothing like a gothic heroine, but she is d r a w n in b y the familiar f o r m u l a s ; because she likes him, she falls for attractive H e n r y T i l n e y ' s skilful straightfaced teasing even though she w a s able to recognize it for w h a t it w a s from the beginning, in B a t h , w h e n he solemnly discussed the durability a n d cost of muslin w i t h M r s . A l l e n , a n d she feared 'as she listened to their discourse, that he indulged himself a little t o o m u c h w i t h the foibles of others' ( 2 9 ) . Once they reach the a b b e y , a n d the c o o p e r a t i v e elements p r o v i d e the requisite storm, Catherine begins to imagine gothic h o r r o r s . F o r all its modern kitchens that are the G e n e r a l ' s particular pride, N o r t h a n g e r A b b e y w a s 'a richly-endowed convent at the time of the R e f o r m a t i o n ' ( 1 4 2 ) a n d it is still redolent of the sinister spirituality a n d r o m a n c e of a repudiated religion, therefore

of stories like A n n Radcliffe's

dangerous, exotic continent

that are set o n

the

of E u r o p e . T h e G e n e r a l is i m p o s i n g ; his

children are afraid of him; to Catherine, it is logical to imagine that he must have murdered his wife in the A b b e y . Catherine is energetic, curious, a n d only seventeen; she has longed to visit an atmospheric old building the w a y she has w a n t e d to dance, to w a l k , to learn to appreciate the picturesque, and to love a hyacinth. She is nothing like a q u i x o t i c , deluded, isolated reader w h o prefers r o m a n t i c fantasies to the actual w o r l d : w h i l e J a n e Austen enjoyed Charlotte L e n n o x ' s The Female Eaton Stannard Barrett's The Heroine

39

Quixote

( 1 8 1 5 ) , Northanger

( 1 7 5 2 ) a n d , later, Abbey

departs

RACHEL M. BROWN STEIN

from the C e r v a n t e a n m o d e l . N o t only is Catherine too modest to presume herself a heroine of r o m a n c e , but it w o u l d be hard for a n y girl to d o so in a w o r l d like hers, w h e r e people read novels, a n d discuss them together Catherine a n d Isabella T h o r p e , a n d also H e n r y T i l n e y , w h o finished Mysteries

of Udolpho

-

The

in t w o d a y s , his 'hair standing on end the w h o l e time'

( 1 0 6 ) , after he m a d e off w i t h his sister's c o p y of the novel w h e n their reading a l o u d w a s interrupted.

(The thorough

i n a d e q u a c y of H e n r y ' s

w o u l d - b e r i v a l J o h n T h o r p e is clear from his ignorance of novels - as well as his l o u d , p r o f a n e , slangy talk, w h i c h he directs at his horse w h e n he takes Catherine out for a drive. W h e r e H e n r y ' s style is personal a n d his tastes are feminine, m a c h o T h o r p e will only admit to h a v i n g r e a d risqué novels by men, Tom Jones

a n d The

Monk.)

Catherine is t o o n a i v e a n d unselfconscious to keep anything like H e n r y ' s a m u s e d distance from novels; she especially admires Isabella for sounding like 'all the heroines of her acquaintance' ( 1 1 9 ) , a n d has nothing but a n e w publication in mind w h e n she expects 'that something very shocking indeed, will s o o n c o m e out in L o n d o n ' ( 1 1 2 ) . W e are persuaded to think her absurd for h a v i n g horrific 'visions of r o m a n c e ' ( 1 9 9 ) a b o u t the G e n e r a l - but then, o n the other h a n d , they p r o v e to be substantially correct. N o wife-murderer, he is evil in a c o m m o n p l a c e w a y - a greedy, scheming, rude social climber; w h e n he discovers that she is not rich after all, he ejects p o o r Catherine from his house w i t h o u t ceremony, o r e x p l a n a t i o n , or p o c k e t m o n e y , at a n u n c o m f o r t a b l y early h o u r of the morning, forcing her to travel h o m e alone in a public c o n v e y a n c e , therefore in some degree of danger. Insensitive, inhospitable, a n d selfish, obsessed w i t h m a r r y i n g his children for m o n e y , he is a villain of ' c o m m o n life', not r o m a n c e . T h e m o r a l w o u l d seem to be that o u r heroine's instincts w e r e g o o d guides to truth - perhaps even that they w e r e g o o d because they w e r e informed by gothic novels a b o u t vulnerable w o m e n persecuted b y powerful men. But one is w a r n e d a w a y from that conclusion as, at the end, the question of a m o r a l is explicitly begged. T h e h a p p y ending r e w a r d s nearly everyone as the n a r r a t o r , w i n k i n g at the reader, marries Catherine a n d H e n r y a n d even finds a m o n g the incidental dramatis

personae

a h u s b a n d for M i s s

Tilney, w h o s e n e w title a l l o w s the G e n e r a l the pleasure of addressing his daughter as ' M y L a d y ' . T h e n a r r a t o r ostentatiously leaves 'it to be settled by w h o m s o e v e r it m a y concern, whether the tendency of this w o r k be altogether to r e c o m m e n d parental tyranny, o r r e w a r d filial disobedience' ( 2 5 2 ) . M o c k i n g l y rejecting these inversions of c o m m o n p l a c e m o r a l s a n d the typical ones they p a r o d y , A u s t e n offers, in place of a n y advice o n living, this novel that c o m p a r e s a n d contrasts itself to its romantic, didactic fellows, its heroine to other heroines. T h e literary satire of Northanger

40

Abbey

mod-

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice ulates smoothly into c o m m e n t a r y on m o s t people's l a n g u a g e , w h i c h is so very different from 'the best chosen l a n g u a g e ' (38) of novelists: Isabella T h o r p e ' s lies and fluent endearments a n d inflated expostulations,

her

brother J o h n ' s profane bluster, a n d the bland inanities of M r s . Allen, w h o 'as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; a n d , therefore, while she sat at her w o r k , if she lost her needle o r b r o k e her thread, if she heard a carriage in the street, o r s a w a speck u p o n her g o w n , she must observe it a l o u d , whether there w e r e a n y one at leisure to a n s w e r her or not' (60). H e n r y Tilney is the novel's hero because he m o c k s c o m m o n p l a c e s , p r o n o u n c i n g professorially on the style of w o m e n ' s letters and journals a n d the loose overuse of w o r d s like ' a m a z i n g l y ' a n d 'nice', a n d m a n a g i n g to put himself nearly in the frame of the story, alongside the narrator, w h e n he first meets Catherine a n d anticipates the figure he'll cut in the journal he's sure she keeps: I know exactly what you will say: Friday, went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings - plain black shoes - appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense. (26) (Poor Catherine doesn't k n o w w h a t to s a y , but recognizes this as clever.) Like M r . Bennet, H e n r y is self-indulgent a n d sometimes goes t o o far, being too quick to see himself as others might see him. B u t he shines, in a w o r l d where it is not possible to transcend the c o m m o n lot or the

common

language, by seeing conventions a n d fictions for the near relations they are, and appreciating a n d using them for his purposes. Briefly at a loss for language w h e n he discovers Catherine's suspicions a b o u t his father, he charges her w i t h having 'formed a surmise of such h o r r o r as I h a v e h a r d l y w o r d s to - ' ( 1 9 7 ) . H e m a n a g e s , h o w e v e r , to reprimand her fluently, m a k i n g a charming fine distinction, as he does s o , between her c o n v e n t i o n a l , outlandish fantasies a n d Catherine herself: 'Dearest M i s s M o r l a n d , w h a t ideas h a v e y o u been admitting?' ( 1 9 8 ) . Catherine, H e n r y ' s counterpart, is this novel's heroine because she c a n give n e w meaning to a v a i l a b l e clichés. W h e n she chats in the P u m p - r o o m with E l e a n o r Tilney, the n a r r a t o r tells us, 'though in all probability not a n observation w a s m a d e , nor an expression used by either w h i c h h a d not been m a d e a n d used some t h o u s a n d s of times before, under that roof, in every Bath season, yet the merit of their being s p o k e n w i t h simplicity a n d truth, and without personal conceit, might be something u n c o m m o n ' ( 7 2 ) . T h e meanings of ' c o m m o n ' , a w o r d related to ' c o m m u n a l ' , range from ' p e r v a ­ sive', to ' b a n a l ' ; ' u n c o m m o n ' can m e a n 'implausible' a n d also ' r a r e ' . B o t h w o r d s occur frequently in Northanger

Abbey, 41

w h i c h contrasts the implausi-

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

bilities of r o m a n c e w i t h the c o m m o n p l a c e s of c o m m o n life - ordinary life, the life w e lead in c o m m o n - only to s h o w that the t w o have much in c o m m o n . M o c k i n g conventions

a n d clichés, it suggests that they

are

inescapable - a n d that the best a n d m o s t interesting w a y to live is with a w a r e n e s s of them, a n d in d i a l o g u e , as this novel is, with others.

SENSE Sense

and Sensibility

AND

SENSIBILITY

( 1 8 1 1 ) a n d Bride

m o r e ambitious novels t h a n Northanger

and Prejudice Abbey:

( 1 8 1 3 ) are longer,

in both, the literary satire is

subtler a n d the social satire b r o a d e r , a n d the narrator's engagement with the heroine a n d the fiction is m o r e c o m p l e x . T h e similar symmetrical titles invite the reader to see the novels as a pair, p r o p o s i n g different views of r o m a n c e a n d reality, the self a n d the neighbours, love a n d laughter. M o s t of the laughter in Sense and Sensibility

is h o l l o w : those w h o laugh

m o s t are m o s t u n a w a r e that they themselves m a k e sport for their neigh­ bours. W h e n fastidious M a r i a n n e D a s h w o o d corrects him for using a cliché, declaring that she a b h o r s 'every c o m m o n - p l a c e phrase by w h i c h w i t is intended', bluff Sir J o h n M i d d l e t o n doesn't understand her - 'but he laughed as heartily as if he d i d ' {SS 4 5 ) . H i s jolly but coarse mother-in-law, Mrs.

J e n n i n g s , m a k e s c l u m s y , stupid jokes - at w h i c h nearly everyone

laughs -

a b o u t E l i n o r D a s h w o o d ' s lover w h o s e n a m e starts with ' F ' ,

perverting w i t by establishing 'its character as the wittiest letter in the alphabet' ( 1 2 . 5 ) . M r s . J e n n i n g s ' silly second daughter, M r s . Palmer, laughs all the time at nothing, hardest of all w h e n her d o u r , sour, unpleasant h u s b a n d ignores her: ' " M r . Palmer does not hear m e , " said she, laughing, "he never does sometimes. It is so r i d i c u l o u s ! ' " ( 1 0 7 ) . She anticipates the absurdity of his election to Parliament w i t h m o r e laughter: ' " H o w I shall laugh! It will be so ridiculous to see all his letters directed to him with an M . P . ' " ( 1 1 3 ) . E d w a r d F e r r a r s , E l i n o r ' s lover, has a foppish brother R o b e r t who

is as a m u s e d b y the church as M r s . Palmer is by the state; w h e n told

that E d w a r d has finally chosen a profession, ' H e laughed most i m m o d e ­ rately. T h e idea of E d w a r d ' s being a c l e r g y m a n , a n d living in a small p a r s o n a g e - h o u s e , diverted him b e y o n d measure; - and w h e n to that w a s a d d e d the fanciful i m a g e r y of E d w a r d reading prayers in a white surplice, a n d publishing the banns of m a r r i a g e between J o h n Smith a n d M a r y B r o w n , he c o u l d conceive nothing m o r e ridiculous' (298). Elinor a n d M a r i a n n e D a s h w o o d , the novel's earnest a n d self-conscious heroines, register the failings of their neighbours with m o r e pain than pleasure, scornful M a r i a n n e usually averting her eyes while Elinor struggles civilly to keep her countenance. A l t h o u g h L a d y M i d d l e t o n , 'because they 42

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and

Prejudice

were fond of reading, . . . fancied them satirical', the D a s h w o o d sisters are hardly that; only the narrator is satirical, o b s e r v i n g that L a d y M i d d l e t o n used the w o r d 'perhaps

without

exactly k n o w i n g w h a t it w a s to

be

satirical; but that did not signify. It w a s censure in c o m m o n use, a n d easily given' ( 2 4 6 ) . Sense and Sensibility c o m m o n p l a c e s as Northanger

is as critical of literary a n d linguistic

Abbey

is, a n d its definitions of distinction

are m o r e discriminating. A s M a r i l y n Butler o b s e r v e s , it resembles didactic novels by M r s . W e s t a n d M a r i a E d g e w o r t h that w e r e published a r o u n d the time it w a s drafted, w h i c h c o m p a r e a n d contrast 'the beliefs a n d conduct of t w o protagonists - with the object of finding one i n v a r i a b l y right a n d the other i n v a r i a b l y w r o n g ' .

4

T h e presence of the third, y o u n g e s t D a s h w o o d

sister, M a r g a r e t , hints at Austen's intention to diverge from this pattern. Sense and Sensibility

corrects the typical didactic e m p h a s i s by refusing to

choose between M a r i a n n e a n d Elinor. W h i l e the action of the novel is mediated by the consciousness of the prudent sister, the narrative r e w a r d s both equally. M a r i a n n e and Elinor are m o r e interestingly alike than they are different. T h e first chapter a c k n o w l e d g e s that M a r i a n n e has sense as well as sensi­ bility, a n d that Elinor has 'an excellent heart' (6), a n d strong feelings as well as prudence. T h e opposing values of r o m a n c e a n d practical realism are debated as each sister takes issue w i t h the c o n d u c t a n d the 'doctrine' of the other. M a r i a n n e loves the poetry of C o w p e r a n d Scott, a n d

picturesque

landscapes; she believes in first and passionate l o v e , a meeting of tastes a n d minds; she trusts her feelings to guide her conduct. E l i n o r is m o r e circum­ spect, m o r e a w a r e of h o w the self interacts w i t h others; in her v i e w , conventions are necessary and even useful. T h e sisters are devoted to one another, but they can be cutting in debate, as w h e n M a r i a n n e pretends to think E l i n o r believes that 'our judgments w e r e given us merely to

be

subservient to those of o u r neighbours' (94). E a c h e x a g g e r a t e s a n d observes and indeed seems deliberately to fashion herself as her sister's opposite. M a r i a n n e depends for her identity on E l i n o r ' s watchful judgments of her; Elinor fears the force of M a r i a n n e ' s s y m p a t h y . Elinor's v i e w of the self as social, not isolated, is a l s o the

narrator's.

W h e n M a r i a n n e ' s lover inexplicably leaves t o w n , the characterization of her

as

Abbey's

a

would-be

romantic

heroine

is

reminiscent

of

Northanger

satire; the difference is made by the emphasis o n the feelings of

others:

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen 43

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with an headache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough! (83) L a t e r , the social a n d p s y c h o l o g i c a l dangers of s h o w i n g feeling are excruciat­ ingly dramatized as M a r i a n n e insists o n claiming intimacy with W i l l o u g h b y in a c r o w d e d b a l l r o o m . In contrast, prudent Elinor painfully hears out L u c y Steele's story of E d w a r d F e r r a r s ' secret engagement to her under cover of the noise a n d music in L a d y M i d d l e t o n ' s d r a w i n g r o o m . T h e n , heartbroken b y the revelation of w h a t she constrains herself to think of, conventionally, as L u c y ' s secret, she says nothing a b o u t it to her mother a n d sisters, w h o h a v e a s s u m e d , w i t h her, that E d w a r d ' s mother is the only impediment to her m a r r y i n g him: It was a relief to her, to be spared the communication of what would give such affliction to them, and to be saved likewise from hearing that condemnation of Edward, which would probably flow from the excess of their partial affection for herself, and which was more than she felt equal to support. From their counsel, or their conversation she knew she could receive no assistance, their tenderness and sorrow must add to her distress, while her selfcommand would neither receive encouragement from their example nor from their praise. She was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be. (141) E l i n o r ' s self-control is contingent, dependent on her control of others. T h e difference between her chilling chat w i t h L u c y and Catherine M o r l a n d ' s sincere e x c h a n g e of c o m m o n p l a c e s w i t h E l e a n o r Tilney in the P u m p - r o o m at B a t h suggests the difference between the v i e w s of h u m a n nature a n d h u m a n relations in Sense and Sensibility

a n d Northanger

Abbey.

As Lucy

'confesses' so as to steer E l i n o r a w a y from E d w a r d , in an effort to get him b a c k , a n d E l i n o r seeks to find out the hurtful truth while convincing L u c y of her perfect serenity a n d propriety, the y o u n g w o m e n use w h a t looks like an intimate e x c h a n g e to strengthen the facades that conceal and serve their o p p o s i n g purposes. T h e w o r l d is w i d e r in Sense Abbey:

and

Sensibility

than it is in

Northanger

C o l o n e l B r a n d o n has been in the E a s t Indies, and he could talk,

w e r e he only lively e n o u g h , a b o u t ' n a b o b s , gold mohrs, a n d palanquins' 44

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice ( 5 1 ) ; the heroines m o v e a r o u n d E n g l a n d , shuttled by their shifting fortunes from Sussex to D e v o n s h i r e to L o n d o n to Somerset. B u t as other people's lives and histories impinge on theirs, M a r i a n n e ' s a n d E l i n o r ' s m o v e s (to a small cottage, suffocating c r o w d e d r o o m s , a n d finally adjoining properties, at the very end) seem constricting. While the cultivated D a s h w o o d sisters argue a b o u t right c o n d u c t a n d the picturesque, instead of hunting for m e n , contrasting pairs of sisters underscore o r undercut their superiority a n d gentility, a n d perhaps even the importance of the contrast between them: big-mouthed N a n c y a n d small-eyed L u c y Steele, w h o m e a n to m a r r y as well as possible, a n d polite L a d y M i d d l e t o n a n d inappropriate M r s . P a l m e r , w h o already h a v e . L u c y ' s calculating a p p r o a c h to life a n d her prohibited love affair with E d w a r d caricature E l i n o r ' s , a n d the passionate love that nearly destroys M a r i a n n e is elaborately p a r o d i e d by the story of the t w o Elizas that C o l o n e l B r a n d o n tells. T h e details of that story - a callous parent committed

to primogeniture, brothers

at o d d s w i t h one another,

two

w o m e n ' s lives irrecoverably lost - echo the n o v e l ' s plots, a n d its themes of selfishness and greed. Debates a b o u t taste seem a l u x u r y , a n d true gentility a romantic dream, as a divorce a n d a couple of seductions, a fall into a life of sin and an illegitimate birth, a secret engagement a n d even a duel, touch the lives of scrupulous a n d sensitive M a r i a n n e a n d E l i n o r D a s h w o o d . Catherine M o r l a n d ' s adventures begin w h e n she leaves her

healthy,

normal family; their c l i m a x comes w h e n G e n e r a l T i l n e y forces her to leave his house. In contrast, E l i n o r a n d M a r i a n n e D a s h w o o d are cast out of their home to begin w i t h , b y their o w n close relatives. A chronicle of deaths in the family begins their story. W h e n his sister a n d housekeeper died, the o w n e r of N o r l a n d P a r k , 'a single m a n ' , invited his n e p h e w a n d heir H e n r y D a s h w o o d , w i t h his wife a n d three daughters, to live on the estate so as to care for him; the subsequent death of 'the old G e n t l e m a n ' ensured the loss of their h o m e , w h i c h he left to the father of the D a s h w o o d girls, a n d then his son by a former m a r r i a g e and that son's son, a child w h o s e o r d i n a r y infantile charms m a d e the old m a n forget 'all the attention w h i c h , for y e a r s , he had received from his niece a n d her daughters'. T h e death of H e n r y D a s h w o o d a n d the o c c u p a t i o n of N o r l a n d by the greedy J o h n D a s h w o o d s initiate the action. T h e n a r r a t o r ' s even tone implies it is as certain as death that men merely use dependent w o m e n , that virtue goes u n r e w a r d e d , that ingratitude, caprice, a n d selfishness prevail, that people d o active h a r m a n d yet remain respectable. T h e D a s h w o o d family h a d lived for generations 'in so respectable a m a n n e r , as to engage the general g o o d o p i n i o n of their surrounding a c q u a i n t a n c e ' ( 3 ) ; and J o h n D a s h w o o d will clearly not lose the g o o d opinion of his neighbours by leaving his dependent female relatives penniless. H e is sketched in three long acidulous sentences:

45

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties. Had he married a more amiable woman, he might have been made still more respectable than he was: - he might even have been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and very fond of his wife. But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature of himself; - more narrow-minded and selfish. (5)

Beginning w i t h a polite d o u b l e negative a n d quickly modifying it, reiterating 'rather' to m a k e it a l m o s t an intensifier, shifting the blame from the man to his wife -

as people d o - a n d sympathetically a c k n o w l e d g i n g J o h n

D a s h w o o d ' s g o o d points, or seeming to, before reverting in a damningly short, e m p h a t i c sentence to his character's fixed flaws, the narrator makes it clear that his respectability reflects b a d l y o n his neighbours. T o w a r d s the end of the n o v e l , w h e n Elinor meditates as generously as she can on the character of her sister's deceiver, she c o n d e m n s W i l l o u g h b y in the w o r d s used here of J o h n D a s h w o o d : ' E x t r a v a g a n c e a n d vanity h a d m a d e him coldhearted a n d selfish' ( 3 3 1 ) . A w o r l d w h e r e y o u n g men h a v e these vices is a h a r s h one for y o u n g w o m e n . L i k e all J a n e A u s t e n ' s novels, Sense and Sensibility

is a c o m e d y that ends

in m a r r i a g e s , w h i c h traditionally affirm the connections between sexes and families, a n d between desire a n d public ritual o r social convention. Its portraits of m a r r i a g e s a l r e a d y m a d e are clear signs of the novel's darkness. A s J o h n a n d F a n n y D a s h w o o d , in the e x t r a o r d i n a r y d i a l o g u e in chapter 2 , talk themselves, like K i n g L e a r ' s evil daughters, into ever less fairness and generosity to J o h n ' s half-sisters, their m a r r i a g e is revealed as effectively an anti-social relationship. T h e m a r r i a g e of the less well-matched Sir J o h n and L a d y M i d d l e t o n falls short of doing active social ill, but it also unpleasantly illustrates h o w both individual character a n d the w i d e r society are affected by the m o s t intimate of chosen social relations. T h e desperate hospitality of the M i d d l e t o n s is

necessary to the happiness of both; for however dissimilar in temper and outward behaviour, they strongly resembled each other in that total want of talent and taste which confined their employments, unconnected with such as society produced, within a very narrow compass. Sir John was a sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she humoured her children; and these were their only resources. Lady Middleton had the advantage of being able to spoil her children all the year round, while Sir John's independent employments were in existence only half the time. Continual engagements at home and abroad, however, supplied all the 46

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice deficiencies of nature and education; supported the good spirits of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good-breeding of his wife. (32) T h e doubling that m a r r i a g e effects c a n be negative w h e n t w o minds m o v e as one, as in the D a s h w o o d dialogue, or, as here, w h e n o p p o s i t i o n a n d balance and antithesis u n c o m f o r t a b l y prevail. In both unpleasant families, the fruits of m a r r i a g e - the undeserving scion of the J o h n D a s h w o o d s , the spoiled a n d noisy children of the M i d d l e t o n s - are unappetizing.

Lady

Middleton's empty politeness, especially in v i e w of her mother's a n d sister's vulgarity, can be called ' g o o d - b r e e d i n g ' only ironically (and punningly) here. T h e M i d d l e t o n s ' relatives, the even m o r e badly m a t c h e d

Palmers,

produce a child in the middle of the novel: they also p r o v o k e E l i n o r to reflect on 'the strange unsuitableness w h i c h often existed between h u s b a n d and wife' ( 1 1 8 ) . Further dimming the v i e w of r o m a n t i c l o v e is the depressing similarity among the three men w h o court the D a s h w o o d sisters, repeating

one

another's moves and mistakes. E a c h one has h a d an earlier attachment

to

another w o m a n ; each one, beginning w i t h C o l o n e l B r a n d o n , leaves the D a s h w o o d s abruptly, for u n e x p l a i n e d r e a s o n s . T h e suggestion that people m a y be substituted for one another is d e v e l o p e d in a series of misrecognition scenes:

Marianne,

in

her

passionate

eagerness

to

see

her

beloved

Willoughby, twice mistakes another m a n for him, first as E d w a r d Ferrars approaches on horseback, a n d then w h e n B r a n d o n arrives at the d o o r of M r s . J e n n i n g s ' house in L o n d o n (86, 1 6 1 ) ; E l i n o r , trembling w i t h eagerness to see E d w a r d but unwilling to h o p e , w r o n g l y identifies him as B r a n d o n ( 3 5 8 ) ; earlier, waiting for her mother to arrive at M a r i a n n e ' s bedside, she goes to the d o o r to w e l c o m e her a n d finds ' o n l y W i l l o u g h b y ' , instead ( 3 1 6 ) . Elinor sees on E d w a r d ' s finger a ring that contains a lock of hair, supposes it is his sister F a n n y D a s h w o o d ' s , then decides it must be her o w n ; it turns out - dramatically, at the end of v o l u m e 1 - to be L u c y ' s . W h e n considered as candidates for m a r r i a g e a n d possible sole heirs of their mother's fortune, sober E d w a r d Ferrars a n d his silly brother R o b e r t become indistinguishable; as she disowns one a n d then the other, their o w n mother c a n barely tell the difference between them: Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one again. (373) In this w o r l d w h e r e sons a n d lovers seem interchangeable, w h e r e people affect by watching one another, a n d individuals seem neither integral n o r 47

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

unique, M a r i a n n e D a s h w o o d romantically insists on an ideal of perfect selffulfilment in a love based o n m u t u a l feeling a n d shared tastes, and hence on the impossibility of second attachments; it is one of 'her most favourite m a x i m s ' ( 3 6 6 ) . A c o n v e r s a t i o n between Elinor and B r a n d o n , early in the novel, raises the nice question of whether she thinks them unimaginable or immoral: 'Your sister, I understand, does not approve of second attachments.' 'No,' replied Elinor, 'her opinions are all romantic' 'Or rather, as I believe, she considers them impossible to exist.' 'I believe she does. But how she contrives it without reflecting on the character of her own father, who had himself two wives, I know not.' (5 5-6) T h a t M r . H e n r y D a s h w o o d h a d t w o w i v e s - a fact central to the predica­ ment of his daughters - is a p o i g n a n t context for M a r i a n n e ' s creed; equally p o i g n a n t is B r a n d o n ' s loving correction of Elinor's harshly emphasis, a n d his sympathetic emendation

judgmental

of his o w n remark. Second

thoughts are characteristic of this revisionary lover, w h o loves M a r i a n n e because she reminds him of the w o m a n he loved before; w h e n in the end he attaches her to himself, he changes her mind. A s nearly e v e r y o n e but E l i n o r comes to love more than once, Sense Sensibility

comes

to

a

thoroughly

unromantic

resolution,

and

coupling

M a r i a n n e with the colonel in the flannel w a i s t c o a t , a n d Elinor - w h o does not, as w e might, c o u n t his history a n d family against him - with the familiar, hapless E d w a r d . T h e reader is urged to believe that ' M a r i a n n e could never love by halves; a n d her w h o l e heart became, in time, as m u c h devoted to her h u s b a n d , as it h a d once been to W i l l o u g h b y ' ( 3 7 9 ) . T o balance this, w e are assured that W i l l o u g h b y , although 'he lived to exert, a n d frequently to enjoy h i m s e l f , will remember her forever, and m a k e 'her his secret standard

of perfection in w o m a n ' ( 3 7 9 ) . But the

concluding

p a r a g r a p h brilliantly u n d o e s the requisite romantic resolution, by startlingly giving E l i n o r ' s a n d M a r i a n n e ' s attachment to one another pride of place, so as to m a k e their second attachments,

to their husbands, seem merely

secondary. Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate; - and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing cool­ ness between their husbands. (380) B y returning the focus, surprisingly, to the family of origin, by the super48

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and

Prejudice

fluity of 'naturally' and the ambiguity of ' w o u l d dictate', A u s t e n questions by affirming the strength and naturalness of family affection. T h e w o r d s 'though sisters' shifts the g r o u n d under the reader w h o , being a s s u m e d to understand that married sisters c o m m o n l y disagree, is a b r u p t l y disengaged not only from the characters a n d the fiction but from the premise of sisterly affection that the novel never questioned as it detailed the arguments a n d differences between E l i n o r a n d M a r i a n n e . T h e s a l u b r i o u s little distance from one's o w n reality that fiction provides is suddenly d o u b l e d ; the reader is placed in an uneasy position w h e r e it seems possible - o r necessary - to laugh even at oneself.

PRIDE

AND

PREJUDICE

'I have for the first time l o o k e d into " P r i d e a n d Prejudice", a n d it is really a very pretty thing', one of his literary advisers w r o t e to the publisher J o h n M u r r a y in 1 8 1 5 , w h e n he w a s considering the m a n u s c r i p t of Emma.

'No

dark p a s s a g e s , ' W i l l i a m Gifford continued a p p r o v i n g l y ; ' n o secret c h a m ­ bers; n o w i n d - h o w l i n g s in long galleries; n o d r o p s of b l o o d u p o n a rusty dagger - things that should n o w be left to ladies' m a i d s a n d

sentimental

5

w a s h e r w o m e n ' . N o one these d a y s w o u l d condescend, w i t h such evident class a n d gender bias, to J a n e A u s t e n ' s masterpiece - a n y m o r e than they w o u l d think of c o m p a r i n g it to a gothic n o v e l . G i f f o r d ' s c o m m e n t reminds us that for its first readers Pride and Prejudice

w a s a notable departure from

the romantic fictions that w e r e still p o p u l a r a n d still expected of w o m e n novelists. It also reminds us - by m i m i n g it - of the n o v e l ' s o w n r e m a r k a b l e easy superiority, the confidence with w h i c h it m a k e s its critical judgments. O n its title p a g e , Sense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice,

is identified as a w o r k b y ' A L a d y ' ;

published t w o years later, w a s signed ' b y the A u t h o r of

"Sense a n d S e n s i b i l i t y " ' . In 1 8 1 3 , the a u t h o r w a s thirty-seven y e a r s o l d . First Impressions,

the first version of Pride and Prejudice,

h a d been rejected

unseen w h e n her father h a d offered it to a publisher fifteen y e a r s earlier, but J a n e A u s t e n h a d continued to believe in it, e n c o u r a g e d b y the continuing admiration of her family circle. A t twenty-four, she h a d written playfully to her sister from B a t h , a b o u t a close friend, ' I w o u l d not let M a r t h a read First Impressions again u p o n a n y account . . . She is v e r y cunning, but I see through her design; - she means to publish it from M e m o r y , & one m o r e perusal must enable her to d o it' (L 4 4 ) . L o n g anticipated a n d denied, the joy of publishing Pride

and

Prejudice

w a s intense. T h e a u t h o r a n d her

family read it a l o u d , in the evenings, during the w e e k after the b o o k ('my o w n darling C h i l d ' ) c a m e in the mail from L o n d o n . A u s t e n searched it for errors, found a few, decided that 'a " s a i d h e " o r a " s a i d s h e " w o u l d

49

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

sometimes m a k e the D i a l o g u e m o r e immediately clear', but also that for readers like hers that w a s unnecessary ( L 2 0 1 - 2 ) . Gleefully paraphrasing Sir W a l t e r Scott, she w r o t e to her sister C a s s a n d r a , ' " I d o not write for such D u l l E l v e s " / " A s h a v e not a great deal of Ingenuity t h e m s e l v e s " ' ( 2 0 2 ) . In the m o o d to flatter her readers a n d herself, she did so characteristically by indirection, delighting in her o w n ingenuity, telling C a s s a n d r a perversely: The work is rather too light &C bright & sparkling; - it wants shade; - it wants to be stretched out here & there with a long Chapter - of sense if it could be had, if not of solemn specious nonsense - about something unconnected with the story; an Essay on Writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte - or anything that would form a contrast &c bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness & Epigrammatism of the general stile. (L203) L i k e a n y o n e w h o has written in obscurity for years, she felt sure no one w o u l d like her w o r k as m u c h as she did; a n d at the same time she felt grandiosely a k i n to the m o s t respected a u t h o r of the d a y . She k n e w that her b o o k h a d the authority of magisterial discourse

-

literary criticism or history, the sort of serious, abstract, philosophical, pretentious

writing she c o m p a r e d

negatively in Northanger

Abbey

to

w o m e n ' s novels a b o u t people. Its brilliant first sentence takes the tone of a J o h n s o n i a n essayist p r o n o u n c i n g o n the nature of universals and truths: 'It is a truth universally a c k n o w l e d g e d , that a single m a n in possession of a g o o d fortune, must be in w a n t of a w i f e . ' T a k e s the tone, of course, so as to m o c k it. A s critics h a v e enjoyed pointing out, that sentence is full of logical holes: a truth universally acknowledged

is p r o b a b l y less than true; and the

real truth is not that single men w a n t w i v e s ('in w a n t o f merely means they lack them) but that p o o r y o u n g w o m e n need husbands, 'their pleasantest preservative from w a n t ' (PP 1 2 2 - 3 ) . F a r from describing the state of affairs even a r o u n d M e r y t o n , that s o n o r o u s first sentence, taken at face v a l u e , expresses the g o s s i p ' s fantasy that w o m e n e x c h a n g e or traffic in men, a n d not vice v e r s a . T h e novel takes off, in other w o r d s , from M r s . Bennet's notion (or is it only w h a t M r s . Bennet pretends to believe?): that rich men exist for people to m a r r y . Its irony further

suggests that the universal

acceptance of this idea m a y m a k e it operatively true - that w h a t authorities s a y , a n d m o s t people a c k n o w l e d g e , matters. T h e first sentence of Pride and Prejudice

pretends to repeat something like

a p r o v e r b , one of those e p i g r a m m a t i c sayings that R i c h a r d s o n ' s novels illustrate a n d debate, like ' A reformed r a k e makes the best h u s b a n d ' , or ' O n c e subdued, a l w a y s s u b d u e d ' . T h e n o v e l ' s house moralist, M a r y Bennet, rattles off a jumble of similar sayings gleaned from her reading w h e n her 5°

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and

Prejudice

sister L y d i a runs off w i t h the r a k e G e o r g e W i c k h a m : 'loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable . . . one false step involves her in endless ruin . . . her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful' ( 2 8 9 ) . W h e n L y d i a ' s life is successfully patched u p , in the end, M a r y ' s m o r a l s p r o v e to be w r o n g . B u t disproving the truth of generally accepted notions is not the a i m of and

Prejudice,

playful

Pride

any m o r e than p r o v i n g a universal truth is. T h e n o v e l ' s

' E p i g r a m m a t i s m ' counters

the generalities of philosophers

and

theorists with the specificities of individual styles a n d stories, the p r o v i n c e of gossips and novelists. E p i g r a m m a t i s m itself is laughed at, w h e n C h a r l o t t e Lucas intones her credo that ' H a p p i n e s s in m a r r i a g e is entirely a matter of chance', and Elizabeth protests, ' Y o u m a k e me l a u g h , C h a r l o t t e ; but it is not sound' ( 2 3 ) . W h e n Elizabeth, dancing with the silent, a w k w a r d D a r c y , teases him in H e n r y T i l n e y ' s engaging, disengaged m a n n e r ('It is your

turn

to say something n o w , M r . D a r c y . - J talked a b o u t the d a n c e , a n d

you

ought to m a k e some k i n d of r e m a r k o n the size of the r o o m , o r the n u m b e r of couples'), she jokes that they are both 'unwilling to s p e a k , unless w e expect to say something that will a m a z e the w h o l e r o o m , a n d be h a n d e d d o w n to posterity w i t h all the eclat of a p r o v e r b ' ( 9 1 ) . 'Her liking D a r c y & Elizth is e n o u g h ' , J a n e A u s t e n w r o t e of one of her early readers (L 2 0 5 ) . Theirs is the most r o m a n t i c of l o v e stories, rivalled in J a n e Austen's oeuvre only by Persuasion. Park,

a n d Emma,

In Sense and Sensibility,

Mansfield

the h a p p y marriages of the heroines are not

quite

e x o g a m o u s , but D a r c y a n d Elizabeth are perfect strangers. D a r c y prefers Elizabeth to his first cousin, A n n e de B o u r g h , a n d to C a r o l i n e Bingley, his friend's sister; Elizabeth chooses him o v e r her relative, M r . C o l l i n s , a n d M r . W i c k h a m , w h o s e relation to her is that of 'brother a n d sister' ( 3 2 9 ) at the end. Y o u n g , h a n d s o m e , a n d justifiably p r o u d of his tastes,

standards,

wealth, and antecedents, D a r c y is captivated against his will b y the second of five daughters of a country gentleman w h o s e estate is entailed o n the male line. (That M r . Bennet's legal plight is the fault of n o b o d y in particular is a m o n g the m a n y elements that m a k e Pride brighter than Sense and Sensibility.)

and Prejudice

lighter a n d

D a r c y dismisses Elizabeth at first sight,

but is soon enchanted by her 'fine eyes' a n d 'the liveliness of [her] m i n d ' ( 2 7 , 3 8 0 ) . Conventional himself, he admires her for defying c o n v e n t i o n . T h e first volume dramatizes Elizabeth's impatient divergences from the stock heroine of romantic

fiction

a n d the proper y o u n g lady of m o r a l i z i n g novelists.

When her sister J a n e falls ill a n d has to extend her visit to the Bingleys at Netherfield Park, just as her mother hoped, Elizabeth w a l k s to see her, 'crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping o v e r stiles a n d springing over puddles with impatient activity, a n d finding herself at last within a view of the house, w i t h w e a r y ancles, dirty stockings, a n d a face g l o w i n g

51

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

w i t h the w a r m t h of exercise' ( 3 2 ) - a n d her petticoat deep in m u d . A t Netherfield, she takes issue with the c o m p a n y ' s conventional idea that refined y o u n g ladies are to be a d m i r e d for their v a r i o u s trivial 'accomplish­ ments'; w h i l e she agrees to join C a r o l i n e Bingley in w a l k i n g up and d o w n the r o o m s o that D a r c y can assess (and c o m p a r e ) their beauty, she dares to m a k e him the object of her gaze later, refusing to join him and the Bingley sisters in a w a l k . ' Y o u are charmingly g r o u p ' d , a n d a p p e a r to u n c o m m o n a d v a n t a g e ' , she s a y s . ' T h e picturesque w o u l d be spoilt by admitting

a

fourth' ( 5 3 ) . B y keeping a critical distance from both the ideal of w o m a n a n d D a r c y himself, she enchants him. F o r her part, Elizabeth is a n n o y e d by overbearing D a r c y ' s first, unkind r e m a r k a b o u t her a p p e a r a n c e , a n d dislikes him m o r e after hearing a story told her b y another, engaging y o u n g m a n . G e o r g e W i c k h a m turns out to be a liar, w h o s e entanglements w i t h D a r c y ' s sister in the past, a n d then with L y d i a Bennet, contribute intricacy of the characters;

the

to bringing the lovers together. T h e

plot echoes the

intricacy of Elizabeth's and

n o v e l itself is characterized

by the

interesting

beautiful Darcy's quality

discussed in a n important conversation in the first v o l u m e , w h e n Elizabeth character'

(like

D a r c y ' s ) , then satirically concedes that 'intricate characters are the

slyly praises Bingley for not h a v i n g 'a deep, intricate

most

a m u s i n g . T h e y h a v e at least that a d v a n t a g e . ' T h a t conversation, m e m o r a b l y cut short by M r s . Bennet's uncomprehending ' I assure y o u there is quite as m u c h of that g o i n g on in the country as in t o w n ' ( 4 2 - 3 ) , is one of several veiled private e x c h a n g e s in public that charge the relationship of Elizabeth a n d D a r c y w i t h erotic p o w e r . T h e i r implication in the w i d e r w o r l d enhances the l o v e r s ' intimacy. C o n t e m p l a t i n g the h a p p y couple at Pemberley in the end, the reader doesn't h a v e to be told that e v e r y o n e - M r . and M r s . Bennet, C h a r l o t t e L u c a s a n d M r . Collins a n d L a d y Catherine de B o u r g h , Bingley a n d his sisters a n d J a n e , W i c k h a m a n d G e o r g i a n a D a r c y and L y d i a - has been, like Elizabeth's a u n t a n d uncle, the G a r d i n e r s , 'the means of uniting them'. (There is surely a note of justifiable authorial complacency in the t r i u m p h a n t t w o w o r d s that end the b o o k . ) A s if to affirm the reality of r o m a n c e , the plot m o v e s from a dialogue between a long-married couple w h o c a n n o t understand one another - the first scene - to a m a r r i a g e that will ensure happiness, benevolence, and laughter, m o v i n g Elizabeth from the c l a m o u r of M e r y t o n a n d the instability of her father's entailed house t h r o u g h the v e x i n g discordance between great house a n d p a r s o n a g e at R o s i n g s , in v o l u m e 11, to end in the settled grandeur of Pemberley, w i t h its p a r k a n d w o o d s a n d river, its library a n d picture gallery. W h e n she first sees it o n the first p a g e of v o l u m e 111, Elizabeth feels 'that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!' ( 2 4 5 ) . T o visit

5*

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice Pemberley as she does, as a tourist, w i t h her pleasant uncle a n d aunt, is to reverse the position of the heroine of gothic, w h o is o v e r c o m e by the influence of a haunted house with secret chambers a n d mysterious corridors that confine her while they a l s o , horrifyingly, mirror her, reflecting the unexplored recesses of her virgin b o d y a n d her intricate p s y c h e . Pemberley, a place where old a n d n e w d o n ' t clash, w h e r e 'natural beauty h a d been so little counteracted by an a w k w a r d taste' ( 2 4 5 ) , is g r a n d but not r o m a n t i c , as Northanger A b b e y - in spite of h a v i n g been renovated - is. E x p l o r i n g a house that is open to the public, Elizabeth discovers her lover's hidden dimensions rather than her o w n . Instead of a black veil concealing a terrifying picture or statue o r skeleton, she comes across a portrait of D a r c y which she examines at leisure from a position of strength, activating its gaze by her o w n as she 'fixed his eyes u p o n h e r s e l f ( 2 5 1 ) . W i l l i a m Gif ford must have relished the anti-gothicism of the heroine's decorous transit

through

the 'lofty and h a n d s o m e ' r o o m s of the house, w h e r e she takes in the 'real elegance' of the furnishings, a n d the 'respectable-looking, elderly w o m a n , much less fine, a n d m o r e civil, than [Elizabeth] h a d a n y notion of

finding

her' (246), w h o receives the party a n d tells them a b o u t the excellence of her master and his affability to the p o o r , a n d a b o u t the price of the furniture. A n d h o w he must h a v e s a v o u r e d the matter-of-fact

materialism of the

heroine, w h o unromantically sighs out her desire to h a v e the place! By the time she gets to Pemberley Elizabeth has turned d o w n

two

proposals of marriage from men w h o expect her to accept them simply because she is a w o m a n , a n d p o o r , a n d must w a n t a h u s b a n d a n d h o m e of her o w n . T h e first p r o p o s a l is from sanctimonious M r . C o l l i n s , w h o m e a n s to please his patroness by m a r r y i n g , a n d to indulge his o w n p o m p o s i t y by choosing a daughter of the house he is to inherit. Elizabeth has barely persuaded him that she is not an 'elegant female' refusing him so as to w h e t his appetite, but - she echoes M a r y Wollstonecraft - 'a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart' ( 1 0 8 - 9 ) , w h e n Charlotte L u c a s accepts him. Rejecting M r . Collins in the first v o l u m e , Elizabeth seems to be in her father's c a m p against her mother, the business of w h o s e life is to get her daughters married: she seems, that is, to rebel against the lot of w o m e n a n d the courtship plot. Refusing M r . D a r c y ' s first p r o p o s a l in the

second

volume, she seems to reaffirm that position. But the amusing parallel m a k e s the important difference clear. D a r c y ' s p r o p o s a l is quite as a r r o g a n t a n d overbearing and uncomprehending of its object as the stout y o u n g clergy­ man's ('In vain h a v e I struggled', he tactlessly begins. 'It will not d o . M y feelings will not be repressed. Y o u must a l l o w me to tell y o u h o w ardently I admire and love y o u ' [ 1 8 9 ] . ) After Elizabeth turns him d o w n , he e x p l a i n s his behaviour a n d clarifies his character a n d feelings in a letter, w h i c h she

53

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

reads a n d rereads at the d e a d centre of the novel, until she e x c l a i m s , 'Till this m o m e n t , I never k n e w m y s e l f ( 2 0 8 ) . D a r c y ' s letter tells her w h a t her family l o o k s like to others; it even persuades her to be critical of her father, preparing her to m o v e a w a y from him. L e a r n i n g that her first impressions of W i c k h a m , w h o flattered

her, a n d D a r c y , w h o did not, w e r e both

mistaken, Elizabeth begins to understand the extent to w h i c h her character a n d her actions are a function of her relation to her neighbours. Austen's critical distance from

the idea of a romantic

heroine, explicit in

narrator's condescension to the heroine of Northanger tized in the double heroines of Sense and Sensibility,

Abbey

the

and d r a m a ­

is located, in this novel,

in the protagonist's self-consciousness. Elizabeth's searching rereadings, first of D a r c y ' s letter and then of letters from J a n e , are matched b y her close attention to her o w n thoughts, her o w n story a n d character. After she has c o m e to admire D a r c y a n d to despair of m a r r y i n g him, she reflects ruefully, like a thwarted novelist, that ' n o such h a p p y m a r r i a g e could n o w teach the admiring multitude w h a t connubial felicity really w a s ' ( 3 1 2 ) . A n d at the very end, w h e n her spirits rise 'to playfulness a g a i n ' , a n d she asks D a r c y 'to account for his having ever fallen in love w i t h her', she observes that her thanking him for his kindness to L y d i a h a d perhaps t o o great an effect on her lover, 'for w h a t becomes of the m o r a l , if o u r comfort springs from a breach of promise, for I ought not to h a v e mentioned

the subject? T h i s will never d o . ' H a p p y a n d

amiable

M r . D a r c y soothingly replies that 'the m o r a l will be perfectly fair' ( 3 8 1 ) . R e a d e r s h a v e disagreed, a n d a r g u e d that Elizabeth is either a proto-feminist o r a fairy-tale heroine. J a n e A u s t e n ' s irony a l l o w s her to be both at once. A l t h o u g h Elizabeth's consciousness is at the centre of the novel, the narrative s h r e w d l y m a k e s us p r i v y to D a r c y ' s mind - as she is not. A s early as chapter 6, w e learn that ' n o sooner h a d he m a d e it clear to himself a n d his friends that she h a d h a r d l y a g o o d feature in her face, than he began to find it w a s rendered u n c o m m o n l y intelligent by the beautiful expression of her d a r k eyes'. W e k n o w before she does that he is 'caught' by the 'easy playfulness' of her m a n n e r s , being told explicitly that ' O f this she w a s perfectly u n a w a r e ; - to her he w a s only the m a n w h o made himself agreeable n o w h e r e , a n d w h o h a d not thought her h a n d s o m e enough to dance w i t h ' ( 2 3 ) . Elizabeth's blindness to D a r c y ' s feelings a n d merits a n d m a n y of his v e r y frequent blushes engages the reader in the love story. O n the other h a n d , Elizabeth engages us as a character because she resembles the witty narrator, w h o refers to M r . Bingley's sisters' maids as 'the t w o elegant ladies w h o w a i t e d o n ' them ( 4 1 ) , and describes the end of an evening at R o s i n g s as f o l l o w s : ' T h e party then gathered r o u n d the fire to hear L a d y Catherine determine w h a t weather they w e r e to h a v e on the

54

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and

Prejudice

m o r r o w . F r o m these instructions they w e r e s u m m o n e d by the a r r i v a l of the coach' ( 1 6 6 ) . T r i c k s like the narrator's echo of the v e r y w o r d s Elizabeth has used ( ' M r . Collins w a s not a sensible m a n ' , chapter 1 5 begins) e n c o u r a g e the identification of the heroine with the novelist - a n d w i t h the reader, also outside the frame of the fiction. Elizabeth's infectious laughter does t o o . M r . Bennet a n d his favourite daughter d o not d o all the laughing in this comic novel: disdainful M i s s Bingley can ' h a r d l y k e e p [her] c o u n t e n a n c e ' (36) w h e n Elizabeth turns up at Netherfield w i t h m u d d y skirts, a n d L y d i a Bennet laughs t o o loudly and loosely a n d talks t o o m u c h a b o u t laughing: ' L o r d ! h o w I laughed! . . . I thought I should h a v e d i e d ' ( 2 2 1 ) , is h o w she finishes

a story a b o u t a v u l g a r p r a n k , a n d in the letter a n n o u n c i n g her

deplorable elopement she claims she can 'hardly write for l a u g h i n g ' ( 2 9 1 ) . T o observe Elizabeth's similarity to catty C a r o l i n e Bingley a n d the sluttish younger sister w h o marries the m a n she herself once f o u n d attractive is to begin to understand the m o r a l point of A u s t e n ' s n o v e l s , that o n the one hand w e are not so v e r y different from o u r n e i g h b o u r s , a n d that o n the other w e must tirelessly discriminate a m o n g o u r c o m m o n traits in order to understand

the extreme importance - a n d m o r a l implications - of the

differences. Unlike M i s s Bingley a n d L y d i a , Elizabeth is not m o v e d to laughter by gross deviations from arbitrary standards o r n o r m s . 'Follies a n d nonsense, w h i m s a n d inconsistencies' ( 5 7 ) , are w h a t delight her - character­ istics like the ones J a n e Austen, t o w a r d s the end of her life, w a s delighted to observe in her niece F a n n y Knight, to w h o m she w r o t e , ' Y o u are so o d d ! & all the time, so perfectly natural - so peculiar in yourself, & yet so like everybody else!' (L 3 2 9 ) . Early in Pride

and

Prejudice,

w h e n Elizabeth

professes to be startled by the notion that ' M r . D a r c y is not to be laughed at!' she s a y s pointedly, ' T h a t is an u n c o m m o n a d v a n t a g e , a n d u n c o m m o n I hope it will continue, for it w o u l d be a great loss to me to h a v e m a n y such acquaintance. I dearly love a l a u g h ' ( 5 7 ) . M a n y chapters later, w h e n she agrees to m a r r y him, w e are assured that the m a r r i a g e will be h a p p y since he will continue to a m u s e her: on the verge of m a k i n g a m o c k i n g o b s e r v a ­ tion, 'she checked h e r s e l f . Eventually, married to D a r c y , she will a m a z e her young sister-in-law by m a k i n g him 'the object of open p l e a s a n t r y ' ( 3 8 8 ) , but the clever bride-to-be bides her time a n d bites her tongue: 'She r e m e m b e r e d that he h a d yet to learn to be laught at, and it w a s rather t o o early to b e g i n ' ( 3 7 1 ) . In the act of getting w h a t she deserves, fulfilling the c o m i c heroine's destiny by m a k i n g precisely the m a r r i a g e that w o u l d 'teach the a d m i r i n g multitude', Elizabeth remains sufficiently outside her situation to recognize her m a n ' s limitations, keeps her wits a b o u t her even in the clinch. H e r greatest c h a r m , w h i c h the reader must take even m o r e seriously than her care in rereading, is her gift of disengaging herself. T h e shifting b a c k 55

RACHEL M.

BROWNSTEIN

and-forth between the n a r r a t o r ' s m i n d a n d hers identifies the heroine with the text. W h e n she first tells her sister she is engaged to D a r c y , J a n e thinks she is j o k i n g ; not only M r . Bennet has been convinced of her dislike of the m a n . Elizabeth insists, urgently but c o m i c a l l y , 'I must confess, that I love him better than I d o B i n g l e y ' , so s o b e r J a n e begins to doubt herself, and s a y s , 'do be serious. I w a n t to talk v e r y seriously . . . Will y o u tell me h o w long y o u h a v e loved h i m ? ' W h e n Elizabeth replies, 'I must date it from m y first seeing his beautiful g r o u n d s at P e m b e r l e y ' , the admission, w h i c h the reader recognizes as witty but also perfectly serious, p r o v o k e s

another

'intreaty that she w o u l d be serious' from her serious sister ( 3 7 3 ) . C o u r t e s y a n d caution m a r the intimacy of the D a s h w o o d sisters; playful Elizabeth a n d c a n d i d J a n e h a v e a n easier time. Elizabeth's joking is a habit of mind: o n the parallel o c c a s i o n of J a n e ' s engagement, she carries on a similar d i a l o g u e all by herself, w h i c h the narrative modulates into free indirect speech to render:

' N o t a w o r d p a s s e d between the sisters

concerning

Bingley; but Elizabeth w e n t to bed in the h a p p y belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless M r . D a r c y returned w i t h i n the stated time. Seriously, h o w e v e r , she felt tolerably p e r s u a d e d that all this must have taken place w i t h that gentleman's c o n c u r r e n c e ' ( 3 4 6 ) . U n w i l l i n g to tease her sister, Elizabeth pleases by teasing herself, professing - silently, but as if to an audience - an o p i n i o n that is not seriously, not in fact, her o w n . T a k i n g herself not quite seriously, she is m a k i n g sport for herself quite as if she w e r e one of her n e i g h b o u r s . 'I a m happier even than J a n e ' , she writes to M r s . G a r d i n e r , w h e n she announces her e n g a g e m e n t to M r . D a r c y ; 'she only smiles, I laugh' ( 3 8 3 ) . T h i s is j o y o u s , not satirical laughter; nevertheless, laughing a little at J a n e , w h o smiles t o o m u c h a n d doesn't get j o k e s , is part of the strenuous j o y . D o e s Elizabeth laugh t o o m u c h ? She is punished, perhaps, for doing s o , w h e n M r . Bennet mortifies her pride by assuring her of D a r c y ' s indifference, a n d she finds it 'necessary to l a u g h , w h e n she w o u l d rather have cried' ( 3 6 4 ) . H e r laughter is n e r v o u s ; the m o r a l is not quite fair; but neither is life, a n d substituting laughter for tears is n o small p a r t of Austen's w i s d o m . A clear c h r o n o l o g y of her early novels w o u l d generate one likely story or another, a b o u t J a n e A u s t e n - that she learned romance, or restraint,

or

prudence, as she g r e w older. B u t w e l a c k the g r o u n d s for such a narrative of development, and A u s t e n ' s consistent elasticity of mind is more striking, a n y w a y , than a n y transformative c h a n g e o v e r time. F r o m her youth J a n e A u s t e n w a s committed to a clear m o r a l vision a n d a stern m o r a l code; she w a s a l w a y s concerned w i t h the s a m e themes a n d issues and variations on the s a m e plot. A n d from the beginning she w a s able to seize and enjoy an astonishing freedom to m o v e from one to another level of her

56

fictions,

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice shifting easily from the r o m a n t i c point of v i e w to a place w h e r e

romance

can only be v i e w e d ironically. M o r e than anything else, these shifts c o n v e y the contagious pleasures of a free play of mind - w h i l e they signal that the turns and tones and surprising conjunctions, the differences between w a y s of seeing, are w h a t matter most.

NOTES 1

2 3 4 5

Charlotte Maria Beckford, quoted in William Austen-Leigh, Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh, and Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (London: The British Library, 1989), p. 1 7 8 . Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H . M . Parshley (New York: Vintage, 1974), P- 3 0 1 • See, on Henrys in fiction, J . M . S. Tompkins, The Popular Novel in England 17y0-1800 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1 9 6 1 ) , pp. 5 7 - 8 . Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 7 5 ) , p. 1 8 2 . Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of the Late John Murray (London: J . Murray, 1 8 9 1 ) , 1:282.

57

4 JOHN WILTSHIRE

Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion

W h e n J a n e A u s t e n m o v e d to C h a w t o n cottage in 1 8 0 9 she sent off a poem to her brother Francis that celebrates the occasion: Our Chawton home - how much we find Already in it, to our mind, And how convinced, that when complete, It will all other Houses beat, That ever have been made or mended, With rooms concise or rooms distended. 1

(L 1 7 6 )

It w a s at C h a w t o n that J a n e A u s t e n , settled with her mother, sister, and friend, found the conditions that fostered the writing of three of her greatest novels. Mansfield Persuasion,

Park,

published in 1 8 1 4 , Emma,

published in 1 8 1 6 , and

published after A u s t e n ' s death, in 1 8 1 8 , develop that compli­

cating of a r o m a n t i c narrative w i t h social satire and psychological insight so characteristic of her earlier w o r k . T h e s e novels also display a

more

intensified sense of the influence of place a n d environment on personality a n d action, a b r o a d e r a n d m o r e thoughtful social critique, and a much greater p o w e r of imagining her figures within the social and geographical spaces they inhabit. In the action of the novels that J a n e Austen w r o t e at C h a w t o n , c o m m u n a l , family, a n d physical settings - homes, houses, and, indeed, ' r o o m s concise o r r o o m s distended' - play an important role. W h e n A n n e Elliot, in the last completed b o o k , m o v e s from one house to another,

she reflects that each is a 'little social c o m m o n w e a l t h ' ,

that

manners a n d topics v a r y w i t h place, a n d this observation, too, is pertinent to a reading of these major texts. A n n e comments to herself that it is incumbent o n her to 'clothe her i m a g i n a t i o n ' in her setting as m u c h as possible (P 4 3 ) . In this discussion of the three texts I shall take her lead a n d suggest h o w each of the n o v e l ' s distinct physical a n d social w o r l d s is a conceptual w o r l d t o o . I shall clothe m y account as m u c h as possible in each n o v e l ' s particular qualities, a n d in discussing their distinctive w o r l d s , I shall 58

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

relate these to the specific narrative techniques through w h i c h A u s t e n brings these 'social c o m m o n w e a l t h s ' into being.

MANSFIELD Mansfield

Park

PARK

w a s published only a y e a r after Pride

and Prejudice,

but

moving from one novel to the other the reader is keenly a w a r e of a change of tone a n d atmosphere. Partly it is that Mansfield w o r k of an older, maturer,

w o m a n . The narrator

Park

is evidently the

is not a n

intrusive

presence, by a n y m e a n s , but one w h o , while an insider of the w o r l d she depicts, can a l s o see b e y o n d it. ' P o o r w o m a n ! she p r o b a b l y t h o u g h t change of air might

agree with m a n y

of her children',

she r e m a r k s

of

the

beleaguered M r s . Price at the conclusion of chapter i [MP n ) . It is a voice with a range of s y m p a t h y b e y o n d the social c o m m o n w e a l t h of rich families that is the milieu of Mansfield

Park.

A l m o s t everyone in this novel is w e a l t h y . Sir T h o m a s B e r t r a m is a M e m b e r of Parliament w i t h a large estate a n d property in the W e s t Indies; H e n r y C r a w f o r d also has an estate, and enough income easily to afford to h a v e it totally ' i m p r o v e d ' as s o o n as he comes of a g e . H i s sister M a r y has twenty thousand. M r . R u s h w o r t h has a p a r k five miles r o u n d and a T u d o r m a n s i o n . T o l d that H e n r y C r a w f o r d has 'four t h o u s a n d a y e a r ' , M r s . R u s h w o r t h senior seems to feel that this is just e n o u g h to get by: ' V e r y well. - T h o s e w h o have not m o r e , must be satisfied w i t h w h a t they h a v e ' ( 1 1 8 ) . T h e s e are ' y o u n g people of fortune', far better off than those in a n y other A u s t e n novel, a n d untroubled,

despite Sir T h o m a s ' need to see to his A n t i g u a

estates, by a n y sense of financial insecurity. O n l y M r s . N o r r i s is obsessed with saving, a neurotic compensation for her inferior family position w h o s e other manifestation is her remorseless bullying of her even p o o r e r niece, Fanny Price. In p a r t the novel is a study in the assumptions a n d manners of the very rich, in the manners of 'society', as the initial c o n v e r s a t i o n between the C r a w f o r d s a n d the Bertrams, a b o u t 'coming out' ( 4 8 - 5 1 ) , indicates. Spoilt, full of self-consequence, g o o d - l o o k i n g , healthy, the B e r t r a m s d o not need to be p r o u d like L a d y Catherine de B o u r g h o r Sir W a l t e r Elliot. T h e i r vanity is in such g o o d order that they c a n a p p e a r free of it. L o r d l y , careless, insouciant, a n d selfish, T o m Bertram at least has s o m e sense of h u m o u r . In Pride and Prejudice,

the great estate of Pemberley is v i e w e d by a visitor

and outsider, a n d Elizabeth Bennet gives it all the a w e a n d respect of one w h o can say only that she is 'a gentleman's daughter'. B u t in

Mansfield

Park, the reader is, s o to speak, a resident, s h o w n w h a t it is like to live from d a y to d a y in such a place. T h e spaciousness of the house is a n important factor in the lives a n d events that the novel traces, a n d m u c h of A u s t e n ' s

59

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

n a r r a t i o n a l skill in the brilliant first v o l u m e consists in the manipulation a n d i n t e r w e a v i n g of a large n u m b e r of characters a n d destinies within one locale that is also a g r o u p of distinct spaces. F o r F a n n y , the novel's uprooted heroine, '[t]he g r a n d e u r of the h o u s e astonished, but could not console her. T h e r o o m s w e r e t o o large for her to m o v e in w i t h ease. Whatever she touched she expected to injure, a n d she crept a b o u t in constant terror of something o r other' ( 1 4 - 1 5 ) . J u s t taken a w a y from her mother and her family, F a n n y projects o n t o the furniture her o w n sense of the potential injuriousness of this space, felt to be b o t h empty a n d hostile. Mansfield is not, o n the w h o l e , a g l a m o r o u s or idyllic h o m e (until it becomes such in F a n n y ' s eyes at the end of the n o v e l ) . H a r a s s e d a n d disregarded, F a n n y g r a d u a l l y constructs

a substitutively maternal

space where she can be

h a p p y ; furnishing the E a s t r o o m w i t h discarded bric-à-brac and carelessly d o n a t e d gifts, she m a k e s a fragile 'nest of c o m f o r t s ' that is an emotional as well as p h y s i c a l i m p r o v i s a t i o n . B u t this r o o m w h i c h F a n n y thinks of as 'her o w n ' , that she has m a d e her o w n , is a l w a y s actually m a r k e d as the r o o m of a dependent, a transient, by the absence of a fire in the grate. J a n e A u s t e n ' s ability to m a k e the setting integral to her development of c h a r a c t e r c a n be illustrated t o o , by the early scene w h e r e the youthful F a n n y is w a i t i n g for M a r y C r a w f o r d to return w i t h the mare that she has b o r r o w e d . She is scolded out of the house b y M r s . N o r r i s and discerns the p a r t y of E d m u n d , M a r y , a n d the g r o o m s m e n across the valley. ' T h e sound of m e r r i m e n t ascended even to her' ( 6 7 ) : the phrasing subtly makes F a n n y ' s g e o g r a p h i c a l distance from the g r o u p a simultaneous index of her emotional isolation. 'After a few minutes, they stopt entirely, E d m u n d w a s close to her, he w a s speaking to her, he w a s evidently directing her management of the bridle, he h a d hold of her hand; she s a w it, o r the imagination supplied w h a t the eye c o u l d not r e a c h ' ( 6 7 ) ; a n d the r h y t h m supplies the under­ current of F a n n y ' s j e a l o u s y . N o t 'see' but ' r e a c h ' . H o w that suggests the distance across w h i c h F a n n y ' s eyes are straining! F r o m o n e point of v i e w , F a n n y Price is an interesting psychological study in the manners

a n d attitudes of a radically insecure and

traumatized

personality. T h e impatience that one inevitably feels w i t h some of her more censorious o r prim judgments m a y be m o d e r a t e d by the careful history of displacement A u s t e n has p r o v i d e d for her, her years of unremitting intimi­ dation by M r s . N o r r i s , a n d her youthful dependence on an E d m u n d w h o s e kindness c o m e s a l o n g w i t h a g o o d deal of tutorly instruction. H e r disap­ p r o v i n g attitude t o w a r d s

M a r y is a l w a y s complicated

by its jealous

c o l o u r i n g as well as an even m o r e disqualifying trait, envy. F a n n y ' s moral attitudes in general are overdetermined - p a r t the result of Edmund's c o a c h i n g , p a r t the result of her o w n nature a n d insecurities - and so it is a

60

Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion great simplification to see her as modelling a 'conduct b o o k ' , a C h r i s t i a n , o r an evangelical heroine. D o e s she refuse to act in Lovers'

Vows out of fear of

acting, or out of d i s a p p r o v a l of the p l a y ? She certainly offers her timidity as her excuse, thereby displaying that timidity rather than m o r a l righteousness. Mansfield

Park is a novel in the m o d e of the omniscient n a r r a t o r , a n d for

the first and only time in her novels, J a n e Austen continuously a l l o w s the narrative to m o v e freely in a n d out of the consciousnesses of a w h o l e r a n g e of characters. In Pride and Prejudice,

there are m o m e n t s , especially early in

the novel, w h e n D a r c y ' s a n d Charlotte L u c a s ' thoughts are presented. In Persuasion,

the

reader

is

shown

at

one

crucial

moment

Wentworth's still-burning anger against A n n e . B u t in Mansfield

Captain Park

the

independence of the narrator from a n y one controlling consciousness is a structural principle. This text at v a r i o u s times represents the

thinking

processes or picks up the internal speech-cadences of M a r i a B e r t r a m , E d m u n d B e r t r a m , Sir T h o m a s , M a r y C r a w f o r d , a n d several others, besides Fanny Price. W h e n Sir T h o m a s o v e r h e a r s M r . Y a t e s in full ranting flight o n the improvised stage at M a n s f i e l d the narrative b o r r o w s his point of v i e w at the beginning of the p a r a g r a p h , a n d , to heighten the c o m i c effect, T o m Bertram's at the close ( 1 8 2 - 3 ) . Perhaps most significantly, this novel presents w h o l e scenes a n d dialogues from w h i c h the heroine is absent. T h e scenes at the P a r s o n a g e between M a r y and H e n r y C r a w f o r d (and sometimes w i t h M r s . G r a n t ) are quite freestanding. T h e y depict the relationship between the C r a w f o r d s at first without reference to F a n n y . T h u s the novel is structured w i t h t w o different centres o r foci of interest. In the m o d e of 'free indirect speech', M a r y ' s thoughts a b o u t her prospects on entering a n e w place a n d a b o u t older brothers, for e x a m p l e , are a l l o w e d to enter the text w i t h o u t

authorial

commentary. F o l l o w i n g from these g a y a n d brilliant introductory scenes (volume 1, chapters 4 a n d 5) the narrator naturally keeps the reader in touch with M a r y C r a w f o r d ' s private thoughts - she has been given the representa­ tional treatment of a m a j o r figure, a n d her projects a c c o r d i n g l y d r a w from one a certain sympathetic attention. It is not the fact that M a r y is v i v a c i o u s , while the supposed heroine F a n n y is timid a n d n e r v o u s , that m a k e s for this novel's m o r a l complications: it is that the rival figures are each a c c o r d e d an almost equivalent narrative stature until F a n n y ' s r e m o v a l to P o r t s m o u t h in the last v o l u m e . T h e reporting of M a r y ' s thoughts m o v e s fluidly between the m e d i u m of indirect speech, the dramatic representation of her b e h a v i o u r , a n d direct commentary on both. Different m o d e s , o r rather dimensions o r aspects, of presentation throughout the novel tend to suggest different m o r a l a g e n d a s . When Sir T h o m a s B e r t r a m interviews M a r i a a n d asks her w h e t h e r she 61

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

w a n t s to press o n w i t h the engagement to R u s h w o r t h ( 2 0 0 - 1 ) his thoughts are outlined like a n internal m o n o l o g u e w i t h o u t quotation m a r k s . T h e reader is expected to see t h r o u g h the self-deceptions a n d convenient blindnesses of his reasonings, but to retain the vestigial s y m p a t h y one conventionally has for a figure w h o s e thought-processes, w h o s e capacity to reflect, one has intimately f o l l o w e d . (This is one of the reasons w h y Sir T h o m a s , for all his failures - a n d he n e v e r fails in his kindness to his wife - is a fundamentally respectable figure.) T h e caustic comments that f o l l o w - 'Such and such-like w e r e the reasonings of Sir T h o m a s ' -

are an abrupt shift of address, and

require a c h a n g e of attitude from the reader from participatory leniency to dismissive contempt. T h e s e abutments of aspect (not a l w a y s as abrupt as here) are one source of the novel's scintillating life, but they sometimes cause ethical a n x i e t y in the reader that is not entirely resolved. T h e presentation

of M a r y a n d

Henry

C r a w f o r d , freestanding,

but

d o u b l e d t h r o u g h the perspective of the heroine, is the m a j o r instance of this challenge. M a r y has lived in L o n d o n a n d has a range of social skills that are a p p a r e n t l y w o r l d l y a n d sophisticated, but v i e w e d from F a n n y ' s position, she often seems s a d l y m a l a d r o i t . One complication of her tone - her 'sweet peculiarity of m a n n e r ' as E d m u n d describes it - is a tincture of disillusion­ ment that is not quite as cynical as she imagines. T h e sketch of M a r y ' s years at the A d m i r a l ' s h o u s e that emerges from her allusions, h o w e v e r witty and professedly u n c o n c e r n e d , indicates a history that invites s y m p a t h y for a d a m a g e d life. W h e n she is married, she tells M r s . G r a n t , she will be a staunch defender of the m a r r i a g e state, and adds ' I w i s h m y friends in general w o u l d be s o t o o . It w o u l d save me m a n y a heart-ache' ( 4 7 ) . H e r disrespectful description of her uncle's household - 'of Rears

and Vices, I

s a w e n o u g h ' - is w i t t y , but the crudity of the w i t laughs off an enormity she feels but has n o w a y of a p p r o a c h i n g directly. (Her assessment is not in doubt: the n a r r a t o r h a s said previously that the A d m i r a l w a s a m a n of 'vicious habits'.) 'In short, it is not a favourite profession of mine. It has never w o r n an a m i a b l e f o r m to me' (60). T h e r e m a r k s scandalize F a n n y a n d E d m u n d , but their intensity, w h i c h is replicated w h e n e v e r M a r y brings up the topic of life at the A d m i r a l ' s , betrays a n u n h a p p y experience that is clearly formative. M a r y ' s history, b r o u g h t u p in the charge of her aunt and uncle, mirrors F a n n y ' s , a n d one might justly suppose that the traumatic effects of her a d o p t i v e h o m e o n one personality are as relevant to the author's purpose as they are o n the other. In other w o r d s , though M a r y ' s worldliness is viewed critically (through the eyes of F a n n y a n d E d m u n d especially) it is also r e a d a b l e as a c o p i n g strategy, a sign of an insecurity m u c h less manifest than F a n n y ' s , but nonetheless, critical. 62

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

The complications of feeling a n d j u d g m e n t these different dimensions of narration give rise to c a n be exemplified by the f a m o u s scene w h e n M r s . N o r r i s turns on F a n n y a n d accuses her of being 'a v e r y obstinate, ungrateful g i r l . . . very ungrateful indeed, considering w h o a n d w h a t she is' ( 1 4 7 ) . T h e setting is the d r a w i n g r o o m , w h e r e T o m , M a r i a , H e n r y C r a w f o r d , a n d M r . Y a t e s are at a table w i t h the p l a y in front of them, w h i l e L a d y B e r t r a m on her sofa, E d m u n d , F a n n y , a n d M r s . N o r r i s are g r o u p e d nearer the fire. The separation is political. M a r y C r a w f o r d ' s predicament a n d nervousness (she w a n t s E d m u n d to act the A n h a l t role but does not k n o w h o w to a p p r o a c h the question) is defined by her m o v e m e n t between one a n d the other set of people within the r o o m . She shifts from g r o u p to g r o u p , in response to different promptings, her freedom a sign not of independence but of her need to attach herself, to find a centre for her emotional life almost, one might say, to find a h o m e . W h e n E d m u n d snubs her, she ' w a s silenced; and with some feelings of resentment a n d mortification', the reader is told, ' m o v e d her chair' t o w a r d s M r s . N o r r i s at the tea-table. The reader's main focus is on F a n n y , w h o is the target of T o m ' s plans, so that the little d r a m a of M a r y ' s m a n o e u v r e s interweaves it only as a subsidary theme. T h e c l i m a x is T o m ' s repeated 'attack' on F a n n y a n d M r s . N o r r i s ' a n g r y speech. M a r y ' s immediate response is 'I d o not like m y situation; this place

is too hot for m e ' a n d her m o v i n g of her chair once

again to the opposite side of the table. M a r y ' s action, the completion of her series of movements, is sympathetically described as she continues to talk to Fanny and to try 'to raise her spirits, in spite of being out of spirits h e r s e l f . But in a m o m e n t one's admiration for her c o u r a g e a n d kindness becomes undermined: ' B y a look to her brother, she prevented a n y farther entreaty from the theatrical b o a r d , a n d the really g o o d feelings by w h i c h she w a s almost purely governed, w e r e rapidly restoring her to all the little she h a d lost in E d m u n d ' s f a v o u r ' ( 1 4 7 ) . T h i s o d d sentence, beginning w i t h M a r y ' s (or the narrator's) point of v i e w a n d ending w i t h E d m u n d ' s , seems to attribute to him an u n w a r r a n t e d

insight into M a r y ' s motives, a n d

the

upshot is a carping note all-too-consonant w i t h the suspiciousness of F a n n y . The dramas of the t w o y o u n g w o m e n h a v e been presented contrapuntally, but at this point w h e r e their projects actually clash the task of keeping sympathy for both figures alive in the narrative p r o v e s just too m u c h . T h i s episode presents a miniature version of the narrative k n o t that A u s t e n cuts in the last section of the novel by r e m o v i n g F a n n y to Portsmouth

and

allowing only her consciousness to preside. ' B y a look to her brother': the reader's responses to M a r y C r a w f o r d are also complicated by the fact that the dialogues between M a r y a n d H e n r y emphasize their mutual r a p p o r t . T h e y seem to h a v e a family style, teasing, 63

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

h u m o r o u s , generous, that contrasts w i t h the absence of anything like w i t or style a m o n g the B e r t r a m s . O n e never sees J u l i a a n d M a r i a , w h o are said to get o n well, for e x a m p l e , in c o n v e r s a t i o n , a n d T o m only speaks to E d m u n d in order crudely to m a k e clear w h o is boss. H e n r y , as M a r y declares, 'loves m e , consults m e , confides in m e ' ( 5 9 ) . H e n r y ' s regard for M a r y invites the reader to see his flirtations with M a r i a a n d J u l i a in a light that is perhaps a shade different from the youthful F a n n y ' s abhorrence. ( M a r y ' s resolve to keep her affections under control a l s o c a n n o t but m a k e one despise M a r i a ' s sulky disregard of consequences.) T h u s the

C r a w f o r d s ' worldliness is

a c c o m p a n i e d b y a complicating un-Bertramesque mutuality, kindness, and a d u l t h o o d . T h e y exemplify that 'fraternal' tie ( 2 3 5 ) the n a r r a t o r celebrates explicitly in reference to F a n n y a n d W i l l i a m . H e n r y C r a w f o r d is as m a r k e d as his sister by the arrangements in his uncle's h o u s e h o l d . Fatherless a n d a l l o w e d a free rein b y the A d m i r a l , H e n r y does not require the a p p r o v a l of others to feel justified in w h a t he does: in fact he rather relishes opposition than the reverse, w h i c h perhaps explains his persistence in the courtship of the anything but graciously reluctant F a n n y . H e n r y ' s pursuit of his s e x u a l objects, in this instance M a r i a , is a c c o m p a n i e d by c o n t e m p t for those objects. A u s t e n implies that he has picked up such attitudes from his uncle. But she also succeeds in suggesting h o w his spoilt a n d liberal upbringing can result in fascination w h e n the beloved offers the challenge, but also the comfort, of inflexible resistance. ' " I could so w h o l l y a n d absolutely confide in her," said he; " a n d that is what I w a n t " ' (294). H e n r y ' s courtship of F a n n y is a c c o m p a n i e d by conversations in which he discusses it w i t h M a r y , a n d his love for F a n n y by her endorsement,

or,

perhaps, collusion. T h e dual focus is m o s t brilliantly exploited in chapters 1 1 a n d 1 2 of the second v o l u m e . F o r m a n y chapters, the novel has seen events m a i n l y from the standpoint of F a n n y Price. It is her v i e w of H e n r y ' s flirtations that has been given, her mistrust, resentment, a n d reluctance have been highlighted, even while it is counterpointed a n d ironically at odds with the excitements a n d delights of the C r a w f o r d s . After the ball, w h i c h Sir T h o m a s has organized from the h a r d l y conscious w i s h to p r o m o t e F a n n y ' s chances with H e n r y , E d m u n d goes a w a y to be ordained. In chapter

11,

F a n n y ' s state of m i n d is described, but then the narrative shifts its focus on to M a r y at the P a r s o n a g e . It is n o w she w h o s e thoughts are filled with a n x i e t y a n d self-mistrust, a n d w h o n o w contends 'with one disagreeable emotion entirely n e w to her - j e a l o u s y ' ( 2 8 6 ) . T h e positions of the t w o y o u n g w o m e n h a v e been reversed as M a r y tries to extract some reassurance of her p o w e r o v e r E d m u n d from the unbending M i s s Price. In chapter 1 2 , H e n r y returns a n d a n n o u n c e s , to M a r y ' s astonishment, 64

Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion that he intends to m a r r y F a n n y Price. T h e genius of this a l m o s t entirely dramatic scene is that it gives full recognition to the excitement, gaiety, a n d exhilaration of the t w o figures w h o challenge the narrative a n d m o r a l status of the hero a n d heroine. T h e reader's responses are n o t inhibited

by

reservations from the narrator. W h a t also m a k e s it s o telling is that it is not merely a scene of mutual delight a n d congratulation, but that it touches once more on the painful family history that has m a d e these t w o , a n d their needs, w h a t they are. H e n r y , even w h i l e he a c k n o w l e d g e s the grossness of his uncle, says of him ' F e w fathers w o u l d h a v e let m e h a v e m y w a y half so much.' In the midst of her delight, with her mind racing a h e a d to w h a t this means for her o w n prospects, M a r y is stopped a n d s o u n d s a s o m b r e note: 'Henry, I think so highly of F a n n y Price, that if I c o u l d s u p p o s e the n e x t M r s . C r a w f o r d w o u l d h a v e half the reason w h i c h m y p o o r ill used a u n t h a d to a b h o r the very n a m e , I w o u l d prevent the m a r r i a g e , if p o s s i b l e ' ( 2 9 6 ) . The gravity of this declaration suggests once a g a i n the u n h a p p y p s y c h o l o ­ gical b a c k g r o u n d that leads M a r y , in this v e r y d i a l o g u e , to fantasize a reconstituted

family -

cousins a n d

brother

and

sister -

together

in

N o r t h a m p t o n s h i r e , a fantasy that ironically duplicates s o m e of F a n n y ' s o w n longings. It is not only p s y c h o l o g i c a l depth a n d narrative orchestration that m a k e Mansfield

Park a milestone in the English n o v e l . T h e novelist imagines the

physical w o r l d in w h i c h her figures m o v e to h a v e a p a l p a b l e presence, an effective bearing on their lives. A t one point in Pride narrator

r e m a r k s casually o n

'the

shrubbery

and Prejudice,

w h e r e this

the

conversation

passed' (PP 86). Settings are never neutral b a c k g r o u n d s in Mansfield

Park,

and the gardens at Sotherton, famously, are m a d e to p l a y a n integral, even determinative part in the action. It is not only that one c a n r e a d them in allegorical terms, as the punning e x c h a n g e of H e n r y a n d M a r i a a b o u t her 'prospects' invites one to d o . It is rather as if e m o t i o n a l pressures a n d urgencies w e r e felt, a n d c o n v e y e d to the reader, in spatial terms, as w h e n M a r i a declares s o intensely ' I cannot get out, as the starling s a i d ' ( M P 9 9 ) . A s the figures m o v e , disperse, a n d reassemble within the v a r i o u s venues Sotherton a n d M a n s f i e l d a n d Portsmouth offer them, one is m a d e vividly conscious not o n l y of the opportunities and inhibitions of these spaces, but of their being at issue - contested over, claimed, a n d o w n e d . M a r i a ' s disregard of the l o c k e d gate is to be echoed in T o m ' s overturning

the

arrangements of his father's r o o m s : both express their egotistical drives as the usurpation of territory. F a n n y seeks to keep E d m u n d at the w i n d o w looking at the stars, M a r y lures him indoors w i t h her m u s i c . C h a r a c t e r s a n d their bodies are imagined precisely within settings that are d r a w n into the narrative and act as p r o v o c a t i o n s to conversation a n d action.

65

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

T h i s capacity to dramatize space a n d to m a k e the h u m a n d r a m a insepar­ able from its physical location reaches its p e a k in the scenes at Portsmouth. A s E d w a r d Said observes, for e x a m p l e , the 'solitary candle' that F a n n y ' s father holds 'between himself a n d the p a p e r , w i t h o u t a n y reference to her possible c o n v e n i e n c e ' ( 3 8 2 ) 'renders v e r y precisely the dangers of unsocia­ bility, of lonely insularity, of diminished a w a r e n e s s that are rectified in larger a n d

better administered

spaces'.

2

It is this evening that F a n n y

r e m e m b e r s three months later w h e n her depression is deepened by the sun that brings its glare to illuminate the dirt a n d disorder of her parents' p a r l o u r . W h e n she returns to M a n s f i e l d w i t h E d m u n d in early spring an affiliation between emotional state, narrative purpose, and landscape setting - the trees in 'that delightful state . . . while m u c h is actually given to the sight, m o r e yet remains

for the

imagination'

possibilities that are to be e x p l o r e d further in Emma

(446-7) and

suggests the

Persuasion.

EMMA Emma

is a novel w i t h a quite different social setting a n d

conceptual

structure. F r o m the v i g o r o u s l y trochaic r h y t h m of the opening w o r d s ' E m m a W o o d h o u s e , h a n d s o m e , clever a n d rich . . . ' - a confident, energetic, a n d c o m m a n d i n g voice carries this narrative f o r w a r d s . T h i s is an optimistic b o o k , c o l o u r e d by E m m a ' s 'eager laughing w a r m t h ' , very much conceived of as a c o m e d y , w i t h the cross-purposes, misunderstandings,

mistaken

identities, tricking, a n d teasing that are definitive of c o m e d y as a genre. In the vicinity of E m m a , the narrative picks up her tone, her expressions, her phrasing, even w h e n it is not formally committed to rendering her speech or thought-patterns. O c c a s i o n a l l y , there is a note that does not belong to her, as in the description of M r s . W e s t o n ' s thoughts on her marriage: 'She felt herself a m o s t fortunate w o m a n ; a n d she h a d lived long enough to k n o w h o w fortunate she might well be thought, w h e r e the only regret w a s for a partial separation from friends, w h o s e friendship for her h a d never cooled, a n d w h o c o u l d ill bear to part w i t h her!' (E 1 8 ) - the voice of an older, sadder w o m a n than E m m a , that might not be out of place in Mansfield or

Park

Persuasion. B u t for the m o s t part the narrative voice of Emma,

while flexible, and

c a p a b l e even of picking up M r . Elton's v u l g a r i s m s w h e n in his vicinity, is o v e r w h e l m i n g l y the style of E m m a , youthful, confident, presumptive, witty, d o g m a t i c , c o m m a n d i n g , assured. ' H a r r i e t w a s to sit again the next d a y ; and M r . Elton, just as he ought, entreated for the permission of attending and reading to them a g a i n ' ( 4 7 ) : though this is formally information given by the n a r r a t o r , the phrase 'just as he o u g h t ' construes his motives according to 66

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

E m m a ' s point of v i e w . Sometimes one can catch the n a r r a t o r a s s u m i n g E m m a ' s viewpoint deliberately to trick the reader. A few m o m e n t s

later

M r s . Weston is said to talk to M r . E l t o n of M i s s Smith 'not in the least suspecting she w a s addressing a l o v e r ' ; F r a n k Churchill, pressed to visit the Bates', is said to consent only 'with the h o p e of Hartfield to r e w a r d h i m ' ( 2 3 5 ) . In each of these cases, E m m a ' s v i e w of motives is a l l o w e d to tease the reader, to a p p e a r as if it is the b o o k ' s . So everything - m o r e o r less - is s h o w n through E m m a W o o d h o u s e ' s eyes. C h a r g e d with her o w n spirits a n d energy a n d self-consequence, she shapes the narrated w o r l d a c c o r d i n g to her presumptions,

preconceptions,

and demands. T h e structural principle of the novel, this is formally b r o k e n with only twice. T h e scene in chapter 5 , v o l u m e 1, in w h i c h M r . K n i g h t l e y and M r s . Weston discuss E m m a in her absence, is matched by chapter 5 in volume i n , in w h i c h M r . K n i g h t l e y ' s suspicions of a liaison between J a n e Fairfax and F r a n k Churchill seem to be confirmed by their b e h a v i o u r o v e r the w o r d g a m e . A s M r . Knightley w a t c h e s them in the gathering d a r k n e s s of the r o o m , he questions his o b s e r v a t i o n s - as E m m a never d o e s . L a t e r a looser style of narrative takes o v e r , but in the first t w o v o l u m e s

the

tunnelling of vision produces s o m e of its m o s t amusing a n d delicious effects. But if the novel is b o u n d e d by this rule (a flexible rule) it is also b o u n d e d spatially. Emma

is a novel in w h i c h circumscribed settings, limited s p a c e s ,

and confinement (comforting a n d enabling, but at the same time impri­ soning and suffocating) are crucially important. H i g h b u r y , the

country

village almost the size of a t o w n , in w h i c h the novel is set, is conceptually, if not geographically, isolated from the rest of the w o r l d . A u g u s t a E l t o n lets it be k n o w n that M r . Elton has expressed fears 'lest the retirement' of H i g h b u r y be disagreeable to his bride ( 2 7 6 ) , and, r e c o m m e n d i n g B a t h to E m m a , comments that 'it w o u l d be a charming introduction for y o u , w h o have lived so secluded a life'. She also thinks that J a n e F a i r f a x is w a s t i n g her sweetness on the desert air. H i g h b u r y is provincial a n d confined -

a city-

state, a c o m m o n w e a l t h , that F r a n k Churchill takes out his freedom in by purchasing gloves at F o r d ' s a n d declaring his amor patriae

( 2 0 0 ) . (The true

freedom of H i g h b u r y , of course, is w o n by the hard w o r k of parish meetings and neighbourly concern that M r . Knightley puts in.) Y e t to speak of H i g h b u r y ' s isolation a n d limitedness is to put

the

emphasis mistakenly. ' " O u r lot is cast in a g o o d l y h e r i t a g e " ', effuses M i s s Bates, and H i g h b u r y is depicted as a cheerfully functioning c o m m u n i t y (it is 'reckoned a particularly healthy spot'). F o r despite E m m a ' s w a r i n e s s - her wish not quite to define her identity in terms of the place - H i g h b u r y is not seen from the position of an a m u s e d or superior outside o b s e r v e r (as Elizabeth G a s k e l l ' s C r a n f o r d is). T h o u g h the reader sees from one point of

67

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

v i e w , a n d that rather one given to snobbery, the novel generates, especially in v o l u m e n , a sense of busy interplay between characters a n d between social classes, a n e t w o r k of visiting, gossip, charitable acts, a n d neighbourly concern. O n e of the achievements of the novel is to populate 'the H i g h b u r y w o r l d ' ( 3 5 2 ) a n d give it a p p a r e n t depth. T h e loose ends a n d superfluous names that figure s o m u c h in M i s s B a t e s ' gossip d o not just serve to camouflage the essential bits of information that she is feeding into the plot, they are a technically adroit m e a n s of c o n v e y i n g - especially in the H i g h b u r y ball scene - this sense of a social c o m m o n w e a l t h . It is not o n l y in M i s s Bates' speeches that characters are s p o k e n of familiarly w h o are never formally presented. M r . Perry, the doctor w h o m a y or m a y not be setting up his c a r r i a g e , is o n l y the m o s t frequently mentioned of a host of figures w h o pass in a n d out of the narrative a n d acquire a kind of familiarity b y p r o x y . It is as if by h a v i n g W i l l i a m L a r k i n s , R o b e r t M a r t i n , M r s . G o d d a r d , a n d m a n y others - M r s . H o d g e s , J o h n A b d y , Patty, J a m e s , the C o x e s , even the Coles partially within o u r field of vision, the novel persuades us of their richly extended existence b e y o n d it. T h e novelist m a k e s sure that the reader grasps that the curtailment of space - this d r a w i n g of strict boundaries - has social a n d ethical dimensions t o o . She introduces a scene in w h i c h E m m a and H a r r i e t visit a p o o r cottage (volume 1, chapter 1 0 ) . T h e w a l k on the w a y offers o p p o r t u n i t y for some of E m m a ' s m o r e preposterous pronouncements a b o u t herself but it also serves to define the p a r a m e t e r s of the novel's scheme. T h i s is a p a r t of H i g h b u r y that is not p a r t of E m m a ' s H i g h b u r y , a n d E m m a ' s w o r d s o n surveying the cottage define the limitations of the conceptual w o r l d of the novel (not to be confused w i t h the historical social w o r l d of R e g e n c y E n g l a n d ) . E m m a a n d H a r r i e t cross 'the l o w hedge, a n d tottering footstep w h i c h ended

the

n a r r o w , slippery p a t h t h r o u g h the cottage garden, a n d b r o u g h t them into the lane a g a i n ' . E m m a tells H a r r i e t that her impression of the misery in the cottage will not s o o n be o v e r . ' I d o not think it w i l l ' , she s a y s , 'stopping to l o o k once m o r e at all the o u t w a r d wretchedness of the p l a c e , a n d recal the still greater w i t h i n ' ( 8 7 ) . T h e n , 'the lane m a d e a slight bend; a n d w h e n that bend w a s p a s s e d , M r . Elton w a s immediately in sight' a n d the novel resumes its c o m i c intrigue: a n elegant w a y for the novelist to put out of sight, out of the n o v e l ' s focus, a w h o l e aspect of H i g h b u r y life. T h e episode is relevant to the n o v e l ' s concern w i t h charity in all its forms, but w h a t it a l s o does is persuade the reader to see h o w g e o g r a p h i c a l s p a c e , m o r a l focus, a n d conceptual scheme c a n be identified. E m m a a n d H a r r i e t ' s w a l k is an interruption to the sequence of Hartfield scenes in the first v o l u m e of Emma.

W o m e n in this novel are m o r e or less 68

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

limited to d r a w i n g r o o m s , but men can w a l k in at all h o u r s , a n d even g o off to L o n d o n for a haircut. J a n e F a i r f a x is subject to a n e i g h b o u r l y inquisition w h e n she is caught w a l k i n g in the rain to the local p o s t office on the chance of hearing from her b e l o v e d , but M r . Knightley is free to ride t h r o u g h the rain all the w a y from L o n d o n to attend to the needs of his. S p a c e is thus gendered: a n d the v a r i o u s dimensions of confinement interrelated: confine­ ment to the indoors, to a restricted sphere of influence, to a small c o m m u ­ nity; and on the other hand, freedom to enjoy the o u t d o o r s , freedom to exercise choice, to travel. T h e reader is a s k e d to see a correlation, or correspondence, between being shut in a n d the possibilities of the m o r a l life, as w h e n E m m a , p r o n o u n c i n g w i t h ineffable c o m p l a c e n c y to H a r r i e t that she will never get married, says 'those w h o live perforce in a very small, a n d generally very inferior, society, m a y w e l l be illiberal a n d c r o s s ' ( 8 5 ) . In Emma

w o m e n ' s imprisonment is associated w i t h deprivation, w i t h

energies and p o w e r s perverted in their application, a n d events, balls, a n d outings are linked w i t h the a r o u s a l a n d satisfaction of desire. B u t the presentation is not b l a c k and white: structure is perceived to be essential to the fulfilment of desire, a n d the freedom of the o u t d o o r s is depicted as potentially treacherous o r empty. T h e n o v e l ' s o w n m o m e n t u m

harnesses

E m m a ' s a n d the reader's desire for e x p a n s i o n a n d the release of energies. Confined to Hartfield for most of the first v o l u m e , the narrative then gradually e x p a n d s its horizons w i t h an increasingly far-flung series of outings, visits, a n d the ball at the C r o w n , until it c l i m a x e s in the t w o excursions, one a d a y after the other, a chapter after the other, to D o n w e l l and to B o x H i l l . T h e n , w h e n E m m a learns of H a r r i e t ' s great expectations of M r . Knightley, there is a scene set in her father's d r a w i n g r o o m in w h i c h the term 'prospect' ( 4 2 2 ) , as in Mansfield

Park, requires us to read the confined

r o o m , the miserable weather outside included, as both the material condi­ tion of E m m a ' s m e l a n c h o l y , a n d a m e t a p h o r . But E m m a , like other ladies, does m a k e visits. O n e particularly skilful exploitation of her point of v i e w is the p a s s a g e (literally) between chapter 9 and chapter 1 0 of v o l u m e 11 in w h i c h the reader, a c c o m p a n y i n g E m m a a n d pursued ' b y the sounds of [Miss Bates'] desultory g o o d w i l l ' climbs the stairs to the B a t e s ' a p a r t m e n t a n d (over the p a g e , opening the n e x t chapter) sees the r o o m as if the curtain has g o n e up on a stage set: ' T h e a p p e a r a n c e of the little sitting-room as they entered, w a s tranquillity itself; M r s . B a t e s , deprived of her usual e m p l o y m e n t , slumbering o n one side of the fire, F r a n k Churchill, at a table near her, most deedily o c c u p i e d a b o u t her spectacles, and J a n e F a i r f a x , standing w i t h her b a c k to them, intent on her p i a n o f o r t e ' (240). T h i s is w h a t E m m a sees, a n d the f o l l o w i n g sequence in w h i c h F r a n k encourages her suspicions of J a n e w h i l e at the s a m e time speaking otherwise

69

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

to his fiancée is a particularly delicious e x a m p l e of his skill, or damning evidence of his duplicity (depending o n h o w one's sympathies lie). While w e r e a d the following scene from E m m a ' s point of v i e w , and are involved in E m m a ' s responses - a m o n g them that characteristic shading of her hostility to J a n e into pity a n d b a c k a g a i n - the novelist is inviting the reader to step b e y o n d her a n d to see it quite differently. T h a t 'deedily occupied' raises the suspicion that the y o u n g occupants h a v e just sprung into these innocent positions. P o o r old M r s . Bates has been as effectually blinded as E m m a . Because of the confinement

3

of focus to E m m a , F r a n k Churchill is

presented entirely d r a m a t i c a l l y a n d therefore enigmatically: is he appeasing o r teasing E m m a w h e n he professes to take up all her suspicions regarding J a n e F a i r f a x ? H o w m u c h is he being ironic at her expense w h e n he says 'but I, simple I, s a w nothing but the f a c t . . . I d o not mean to say, h o w e v e r , that y o u might not h a v e m a d e discoveries' ( 2 1 8 ) ? W h e n he m u r m u r s 'conjecture'

about

- ' a y e , sometimes one conjectures right a n d sometimes one

conjectures w r o n g ' - w h a t kind of adroit act is he performing? In retrospect, one might be sure that he's slyly implying the same criticisms of E m m a that M r . K n i g h t l e y m a k e s so forthrightly, but the reader, listening with E m m a ' s ears, laps up the flattery that his w o r d s a p p e a r to proffer. F r a n k is not merely a m a n i p u l a t o r :

A u s t e n ' s presentation

a l l o w s one to detect

his

m o m e n t s of b a d conscience, of uneasiness at the g a m e he is forced into, as well as his enjoyment of the g a m e itself - ' T h e n I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so w e l l ' ( 2 0 0 ) . T h e reader is free to imagine that F r a n k is both sly a n d impetuous - that he is a l w a y s straining against the restrictions of secrecy a n d at the s a m e time enjoying the opportunities for mischief it presents. T h e enigmatic a n d m e r c u r i a l nature of the character is a product of the technique

of presentation

a d o p t e d . F o r reasons best k n o w n

to

himself, M r . K n i g h t l e y does not think m u c h of him. Neither does M r . W o o d h o u s e . ' T h a t y o u n g m a n is not quite the thing' (or: 'not w h a t he o u g h t to b e ' ) . F r a n k dares to break the H i g h b u r y habit of deference to M r . Perry, a n d , even m o r e scandalously, p r o v o k e s M r . W o o d h o u s e into panic o v e r o p e n w i n d o w s at the ball. ' O p e n the w i n d o w s ! . . . N o b o d y c o u l d be so imprudent! I never heard of such a thing. Dancing with o p e n w i n d o w s ! I a m sure neither y o u r father nor M r s Weston (poor M i s s T a y l o r that w a s ) w o u l d suffer it.' A n d F r a n k replies, ' A h ! sir - but a thoughtless y o u n g person will sometimes step behind a w i n d o w - c u r t a i n , a n d t h r o w up a sash w i t h o u t its being suspected. I h a v e often k n o w n it done m y s e l f ( 2 5 1 - 2 ) . T h e reader m a y w e l l enjoy this teasing, as with M r . J o h n K n i g h t l e y ' s earlier a n d m u c h less good-tempered taunts a b o u t the s n o w thick o n the g r o u n d at R a n d a l l s . F r a n k t h r o w s o p e n w i n d o w s in the novel in a m o r e modern sense - the 70

Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion opportunity of v i e w i n g the characters a n d events w i t h i n a different ethic. If w e laugh w i t h him, w e enjoy a t e m p o r a r y truancy from the official m o r a l i t y of the novel's conceptual w o r l d . F r a n k presents the possibility of seeing things another w a y

- one that a l l o w s m u c h m o r e to impetuosity a n d

surprise, to passion a n d risk-taking. In this v i e w M r . W o o d h o u s e w o u l d be seen as blocking the w a y , a m a n w h o s e depressive fussiness inhibits a n d shuts d o w n opportunities

a n d possibilities of life, a n d M r . K n i g h t l e y ' s

masculine rationality a n d rule-giving an attempt to contain a n d organize a w o r l d that is actually m u c h m o r e volatile. Y e t since E m m a ' s perspective is so much the n o v e l ' s , the reader w h o takes out his o r her freedom in H i g h b u r y undertakes to accept its consensus a n d thus declines to pursue these options or doubts. E m m a , of course, is completely u n a w a r e of the relationship

between

Frank and J a n e . B u t her misunderstanding is deeper than this. W h a t she misses in F r a n k a n d J a n e ' s situation is a romantic element that simply is foreign to her sensibility. F o r E m m a the arrival of the p i a n o is simply a stimulus for further speculation a b o u t M r . D i x o n : the gift might h a v e been a piece of jewellery (an a m b e r cross?) for all the difference it m a k e s . B u t the choice of the p i a n o as a gift is not accidental. It becomes clear that J a n e a n d Frank fell in love o v e r music, and that music is important to J a n e in a w a y that E m m a cannot fully conceive. In this very scene F r a n k m a n a g e s to s a y to Jane: 'I believe you were glad we danced no longer; but I would have given worlds all the worlds one ever has to give - for another half hour.' She played. (242) J a n e speaks, in effect, through the p i a n o . H e r eloquence passes u n h e a r d by E m m a . L a t e r , preoccupied by thoughts a b o u t M r . K n i g h t l e y , she scarcely notices 'the s w e e t sounds of the united voices' of F r a n k a n d J a n e singing in the b a c k g r o u n d . O n l y through music does the c o m m u n i t y

unwittingly

sanction their intimacy. O n e is left to speculate that p e r h a p s it is a n insight into her confined circumstances a n d the need for an outlet that

has

motivated the gift of the p i a n o , a gift 'thoroughly from the heart', attuned to the needs of the b e l o v e d , as F r a n k contrives to declare. M o r e o v e r , a p i a n o is a symbol of culture a n d gentility - as the discussion at M r s . C o l e ' s brings out - and the present is a pledge on F r a n k ' s part of a future larger, m o r e comprehensive in its cultural horizons, than the B a t e s ' t w o r o o m s . W h e n the engagement is b r o k e n off, and J a n e faces a future as g o v e r n e s s , M i s s Bates reports her addressing the p i a n o directly: ' P o o r dear J a n e w a s talking of it just n o w . " Y o u must g o " , said she. " Y o u a n d I must part. Y o u will have no business h e r e " ' ( 3 8 4 ) .

71

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

F r a n k ' s gift of the p i a n o is therefore l o a d e d w i t h implications - cultural, social, a n d erotic - that E m m a c a n n o t see. B u t mostly it is that the piano signifies p a s s i o n . S o that while E m m a is busily constructing a t a w d r y r o m a n t i c narrative a r o u n d J a n e , a n d taking F r a n k to be confirming her speculations, the reader is at the s a m e time being given the material to substantiate a conception of love that is, indeed, r o m a n t i c - a love that seems to h a v e been m o r e o r less at first sight, that is expressed by both in passionate terms, a n d that is carried o n in defiance of social proprieties. ' H a d she refused', to become e n g a g e d , F r a n k later writes, ' I should h a v e gone m a d ' ( 4 3 7 ) . T h i s intensity - J a n e herself, not given to g u s h , speaks of F r a n k ' s ' b e w i t c h i n g ' qualities - is all the m o r e r e m a r k a b l e because it conflicts with, o r is set up in opposition to, the notion of c o m p a n i o n a t e love that is d e v e l o p e d through the n o v e l ' s focus on E m m a . F o r Emma,

w h i c h celebrates

rational m a r r i a g e , a l s o offers credence to passionate a n d reckless love. A u s t e n ' s interweaving of the suggestions of a deeply romantic narrative w i t h i n the novel is the m o r e telling because its ' l o v e story' is such a fundamental revision of the convention. T h o u g h superficially the relation­ ship of E m m a W o o d h o u s e a n d M r . Knightley resembles the

pupil/tutor

pattern that is discernible in Catherine M o r l a n d a n d H e n r y Tilney, F a n n y a n d E d m u n d , a n d even Elizabeth a n d D a r c y - he is so m u c h older than she, for e x a m p l e - it is far m o r e than these a relationship of equals, even though E m m a is a w o m a n a n d thus severely restricted in the w a y s she can exercise p o w e r , a n d in the forms her intelligence can take. Theirs are contests between equals in confidence, w i t , a n d capacity for strong and sympathetic feeling. B o t h love everything that is decided a n d open. W h e n they fight over H a r r i e t Smith a n d R o b e r t M a r t i n , E m m a m a y ' a b u s e her reason' but it is as if, underlying the real anger a n d indignation on both sides, there is a reciprocation of energy, a love of the other's strength of mind. T h e real identity of E m m a a n d K n i g h t l e y ' s v i e w s is defined in their next quarrel w h e n E m m a 'to her great amusement, perceived that she w a s taking the other side of the question from her real o p i n i o n ' ( 1 4 5 ) : the underlying a n d unconscious

motive

is

clearly

pleasure

in

crossing

swords

with

M r . Knightley. E m m a finds M r . K n i g h t l e y such a stimulus to her ingenuity that the reader m a y well feel s w a y e d by her arguments. ' Y o u are very fond of bending

little minds; but w h e n little minds

belong to rich people in

authority, I think they h a v e a k n a c k of swelling out, till they are quite as u n m a n e a g e a b l e as great o n e s ' ( 1 4 7 ) . L i k e so m u c h of w h a t E m m a says, this has the ring of intuitive truth. S o m e readers think that M r . Knightley is never w r o n g , a n d , in the sense that the outcomes of E m m a ' s meddling with H a r r i e t ' s life are m u c h as he predicts, they are correct: but dramatically,

72

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

E m m a ' s ideas - just because they capture something of a w o r l d that is less tractable, m o r e r a n d o m a n d u n g o v e r n a b l e than M r . K n i g h t l e y ' s o w n g o o d sense and rationality a l l o w - h a v e a g o o d deal of v a l u e , a n d w h a t the reader watches, as a spectacle, is E m m a ' s w i t a n d fire in M r . K n i g h t l e y ' s presence. A n d in a later dispute, w h e n M r . Knightley says that M r s . Elton w o u l d be subdued by M i s s F a i r f a x into deference, and E m m a doubts it, her m o r e open sense of unpredictability a n d volatility in h u m a n relations certainly scores over him. This is a relation in w h i c h , then, the erotic content is a l w a y s implicit, a l w a y s transmuted or sublimated. M r . Knightley only learns h o w he feels about E m m a from his o w n h o m o s o c i a l jealousy of F r a n k . E m m a ' s desire for M r . Knightley (as distinct from her admiration a n d r e g a r d for him) is o u t of her o w n a w a r e n e s s - impeded by her devotion to her father. S o the n o v e l needs to find w a y s to c o n v e y to the reader that the m a r r i a g e w i t h w h i c h it will inevitably close is plausible - has to m a k e the reader desire E m m a ' s union with M r . Knightley, has to find w a y s of c o n v e y i n g her u n c o n s c i o u s erotic or desiring attachment to him. 'She a l w a y s declares she will never marry, w h i c h , of course, means just nothing at all' ( 4 1 ) , M r . K n i g h t l e y has said: E m m a declares as m u c h to H a r r i e t , a n d a g o o d deal of the c o m e d y of the novel concerns, of course, E m m a ' s o w n pursuit of r o m a n t i c matters b y p r o x y . Austen s h o w s , t o o , that Knightley is constantly in E m m a ' s thoughts, but cumulatively these, a n d even the telling m o m e n t at the ball w h e n she registers his 'tall, firm, upright figure' ( 3 2 6 ) , d o not quite a m o u n t c o n v i n ­ cingly to a demonstration of hidden desire. B u t perhaps the m o s t effective technique for persuading the reader of the necessity of the m a r r i a g e is the interlude of description of D o n w e l l A b b e y . In this, as in so much else, Emma

is a rewriting of Pride

and

Prejudice.

T h e crucial point in the evolution of Elizabeth's feelings t o w a r d s M r . D a r c y is her visit to Pemberley, w h e r e she sees him at h o m e , at ease in his o w n setting, a n d given a g l o w i n g p e r s o n a l reference by his o w n housekeeper. It is evident that Pemberley, the estate, has a m é t o n y m i e relation to its o w n e r : it not only symbolizes or represents his social a n d financial status, but gives material presence to less definable qualities like his taste a n d his j u d g m e n t . Even more than this: the stream a b o u n d s with fish, a n d the table, w h e n Elizabeth visits M i s s D a r c y , is piled with 'beautiful p y r a m i d s of g r a p e s , nectarines a n d peaches' (PP 2 6 8 ) . D o n w e l l A b b e y is introduced into the narrative at a b o u t the s a m e point, and is a set-piece of a similiar kind. B o t h houses represent, o r figure forth, their o w n e r s . Pemberley is manifestly an i m a g e of social p o w e r a n d w e a l t h . D o n w e l l A b b e y is m o r e c o m p l e x ; less idealized, less in the i m a g e of houses and their g r o u n d s ' i m p r o v e d ' by R e p t o n o r C a p a b i l i t y B r o w n . 'It w a s just

73

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

w h a t it ought to be, a n d it l o o k e d w h a t it w a s ' (E 3 5 8 ) : D o n w e l l A b b e y , as E m m a v i e w s it, has its limitations - the disputable taste of the w a l k , its neglect of prospect - it is w i t h o u t fashionable smoothness a n d thus presents or incarnates the blunt honesty, the m o r a l integrity, even w h a t Austen presents as the characteristic Englishness, of its o w n e r . ' E a g e r to refresh and correct her m e m o r y w i t h m o r e particular observation, m o r e e x a c t under­ standing' E m m a seizes the chance to e x p l o r e alone (her father

being

temporarily taken care of) a n d l o o k a b o u t her. She w a r m s to 'its suitable, becoming, characteristic situation, l o w a n d sheltered - its ample gardens stretching d o w n to m e a d o w s w a s h e d by a stream . . . its a b u n d a n c e of timber in r o w s a n d a v e n u e s ' ( 3 5 7 - 8 ) . E m m a feels a sense of propriety, of possession a n d affiliation. T h i s is a spectacle of plenitude and comfort, richness, prosperity, a n d containment. V i e w i n g it - and E m m a slips off once a g a i n 'for a few m o m e n t s ' free observation of the entrance a n d ground-plot of the h o u s e ' ( 3 6 2 ) - gives her peculiar relish. O n e difference between D o n w e l l a n d Pemberley is that Elizabeth Bennet is perfectly c o n s c i o u s that in seeing o v e r it she is revising her v i e w of D a r c y . E m m a is unconscious of the fact that the place is identified for her with its proprietor, that in being there -

indeed in luxuriating in it -

she is

unconsciously imagining union w i t h M r . Knightley. She never thinks: ' T o be mistress of D o n w e l l might be something!' Y e t the w a r m t h of her response (here indistinguishable from the narrator's) is important for m o v i n g the narrative impetus f o r w a r d . It suggests that D o n w e l l is a place that, while realistic o n the surface - the planning of its gardens is almost as a w k w a r d as Sotherton - offers a resting place for d r e a m s . T h e house a n d its surround­ ings - the f a r m , the o r c h a r d , even the a b u n d a n c e of strawberries - augur satisfaction, fulfilment, amplitude. Seeing Harriet a n d M r . Knightley ad­ miring the v i e w of the f a r m , E m m a ' s description w a r m s to 'all its appen­ dages of prosperity a n d beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in b l o s s o m , a n d light c o l u m n of s m o k e ascending' ( 3 6 0 ) . In his notes to Emma,

R . W . C h a p m a n points out that 'the o r c h a r d in

b l o s s o m ' w h e n the season is said to be ' a b o u t M i d s u m m e r ' is 'one of M i s s A u s t e n ' s very rare mistakes of this k i n d ' ( 4 9 3 ) . T h e 'light column of s m o k e ascending' is also o d d l y u n s e a s o n a l . B u t perhaps 'mistake' is t o o simple an e x p l a n a t i o n for these effects: w h a t is being presented here is not a place but an idyll, the fantasy of the p a s t o r a l p a r a d i s e . T h e r e is an enthusiasm that seeks to represent D o n w e l l a n d its estate, not just as a d m i r a b l e a n d august, but as h a v i n g everything

- strawberries at their peak of ripeness, sunshine,

'spreading flocks', ' a m p l e gardens w a s h e d by a stream', prosperous farm­ land, a n d the domestic hearth: a rich constatation encompasses.

74

of all that desire

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

But by representing E m m a ' s desire in the i m a g e of, as contained b y , the house, garden, and estate, J a n e A u s t e n performs a narrative and ideological hat-trick. Erotic longing is united with a c o n s e r v a t i v e political a n d social agenda. E m m a ' s desire is not to possess the h o u s e , but rather the house is made an eloquent e m b o d i m e n t or vessel for that desire, w h i c h is thenceforth seen to be inseparable from the social institutions that m a y contain it. It is D o n w e l l , thus, that persuades the reader that E m m a ' s destiny is to be w i t h M r . Knightley - persuades one both of the social propriety (in the largest sense of fitness a n d likelihood of happiness) of the u n i o n , but a l s o , m o r e subtly, that M r . Knightley will a n s w e r to E m m a ' s needs just as m u c h as to her desires: permanence, strength, a n d that stability that is also ' a b u n d a n c e ' , and g r o w t h w h i c h is an implicit w a r r a n t y of s e x u a l amplitude. All this can be accomplished because D o n w e l l is ' l o w a n d sheltered': this is an outdoor scene in w h i c h freedom is liberty, structured

within

an

ordered, established, social w o r l d . A t B o x H i l l , in the n e x t chapter, the o p e n air is an empty space, people w a n d e r off in all directions, social relations are unstructured, and the limitations of i n n o v a t i o n a n d freedom are manifest. Soon follows the scene w h e r e E m m a , confined to the Hartfield d r a w i n g r o o m and with nothing to l o o k f o r w a r d to but a string of similiar evenings with her father, revisits the past: a n i n d o o r s that encapsulates b o r e d o m a n d deprivation. W h e n , next d a y , the p r o p o s a l takes p l a c e , it is in the g a r d e n . Here, in this wonderful p r o p o s a l scene, t w o intelligent people, each fearing that the other is devoted to another person, try their best to hold b a c k their o w n emotions, a n d to give all their energy, their attention, their care, to further the other's happiness. W h a t E m m a learns in this novel is not to think like M r . Knightley, but that she has a l w a y s , in fact, thought like him. T h e r e is n o element of capitulation in the novel's ending, rather one of celebratory recognition. Their reconciliation w o u l d be the conclusion of a conventional

romantic

narrative, but E m m a a n d M r . Knightley c o n v e r s e a g o o d deal after their private engagement. Unlike Elizabeth a n d D a r c y w h o , in a similiar situation, educate each other into the intimacy of equals, E m m a and M r . K n i g h t l e y enjoy already their reciprocal k n o w l e d g e . T h e y chafe a n d tease each other, w o r k i n g through the past, replaying their relationship in different terms: it is almost as if Austen w e r e presenting E m m a a n d M r . Knightley as an already married couple. T h e s e scenes are by n o m e a n s simply occasions for E m m a to confess to being ' w r o n g ' . ' W h a t h a d she to w i s h for? N o t h i n g , but to g r o w more w o r t h y of him, w h o s e intentions a n d j u d g m e n t h a d been ever so superior to her o w n . N o t h i n g , but that the lessons of her past folly might teach her humility and circumspection in future'

( 4 7 5 ) . T h i s is E m m a

thinking - vivaciously, but also e x t r a v a g a n t l y - as u s u a l .

75

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

PERSUASION E m m a occupies her w o r l d so vividly that its sparseness - that there has been n o ball at the C r o w n for m a n y y e a r s - is hardly noticed. A n n e Elliot is mentioned v e r y early in Persuasion,

but several chapters pass before this

possible o r potential heroine comes into her o w n in its pages. Instead this novel foregrounds the unnourishing w o r l d of her father and sister and those people, L a d y Russell a n d M r . S h e p h e r d , w h o d o duty as their 'friends'. Elizabeth 'did not quite equal her father in personal contentment', the n a r r a t o r c o m m e n t s dryly: For thirteen years had she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at home, and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and dining rooms in the country. Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighbourhood afforded; and thirteen springs shewn their blossoms, as she travelled up to London for a few weeks annual enjoyment of the great world. (? 6-7) Elizabeth ' w o u l d h a v e rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by b a r o n e t - b l o o d within the n e x t t w e l v e m o n t h or t w o ' . T h i s is E m m a ' s ' w h a t o u g h t to b e ' seen as self-destructive presumption, pride n o w examined as self-immolation. W h i l e Elizabeth insists o n her prerogatives and rights, the seasons p e r f o r m in m e c h a n i c a l rotation a b o u t her, and springs only return to suggest a f o r m a l p a r o d y of r e n e w e d a n d replenished life. 'Fulfilment' is a R o m a n t i c w o r d , but such a term is needed to suggest h o w J a n e Austen associates Elizabeth's spiritual impoverishment, w h a t the narrator calls later 'the sameness . . . a n d the nothingness' (9) of her life, w i t h the absence of love a n d erotic satisfaction. Instead she clutches, as does her sister M a r y , at every sign of precedence the social w o r l d hands her. Persuasion

is, then, a novel a b o u t the inner and the outer life. This

e v o c a t i o n of the sterility of Elizabeth's social space is a preface to its concern w i t h the o u t w a r d capability a n d inner turbulence of the quiet, recessive, a n d only g r a d u a l l y introduced heroine. A n n e is without p o w e r in her family circle as she is at first w i t h o u t dramatic prominence in the text, but the narrative becomes g r a d u a l l y suffused w i t h her presence, idioms, a n d a p p r o a c h . Y e t it is through negatives, absences, understatements, merely the cadences a n d phrasing that s h a p e her introspections, not through

an

assertive o r d r a m a t i c voice, that A n n e Elliot becomes for the reader a presence in her w o r l d . 'Nobody'

in her

immediate

family, she is at

least 'useful' in

the

n e i g h b o u r i n g M u s g r o v e circle. T h e r e , others talk while she plays the p i a n o . 76

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

'She k n e w that w h e n she p l a y e d she w a s giving pleasure only to herself; but this w a s n o n e w sensation: excepting one short period of her life, she h a d never, since the a g e of fourteen, never since the loss of her d e a r mother, k n o w n the happiness of being listened to, o r e n c o u r a g e d by a n y just appreciation or real taste' ( 4 7 ) . Such sentences exemplify the w a y A n n e ' s consciousness is represented in this novel. Defining her solitariness, the sentence, by mentioning

the death

of her mother,

and

alluding

more

indistinctly to the forfeit of W e n t w o r t h , m a n a g e s to suggest the enduring painfulness of both, a n d h o w that second loss inscribed the first yet m o r e deeply. T h e plangent chords of these losses are dwelt o n m o m e n t a r i l y , but by enclosing, a n d holding, them within an assertion of A n n e ' s c o m p e t e n c e , the phrasing also suggests h o w she has proceeded to a m a t u r e , if tenuous, accommodation. A n n e ' s inner life is rendered in touches like this, w h i c h open brief perspectives on her emotional a n d p s y c h o l o g i c a l history, o n the painful underpinnings of her present condition, but w h i c h never d w e l l o n them. A n n e ' s consciousness is imbued with m e m o r y a n d reflection, a n d the style which evokes it is at once suggestive a n d understated. When C a p t a i n W e n t w o r t h once again enters A n n e ' s life, he thus b r o a c h e s a tentatively achieved stability. A n n e ' s struggles to c o m e to terms w i t h the momentary encounters a n d challenges of his presence are represented

as

moral or ethical struggles to be 'rational' o r 'sensible' but a l s o as ' n e r v o u s ' excitements, p h y s i o l o g i c a l responses of energies half repressed but

now

aroused a n d heightened, in blushes a n d agitations. A n n e Elliot is thus a kind of moral-physiological entity,

and

the

account

of her

'reasonings'

is

accompanied by the continuous registration of a physical state, c a p t u r e d in a freer, m o r e agitated prose than Austen has previously d e v e l o p e d . A n n e ' s thoughts after their first encounter

are presented

as a battle, as in a

Shakespearian s o l i l o q u y , between the countervailing forces of desire a n d self-command, w i t h desire repeatedly infiltrating the pitiful strategems of the stoic will that are marshalled to quell it ( 6 0 - 1 ) . B u t since A n n e ' s emotional needs are legitimate, the effect of her struggles is to p r o d u c e a kind of ironic p a t h o s , a n d the desire of the reader can only be to a w a i t their expression a n d fulfilment. This sense of the intricacy of A n n e ' s p s y c h o l o g y - the pull of e m o t i o n imperfectly coinciding w i t h conduct; the b o d y , so to s p e a k , h a v i n g a will of its o w n (unexpectedly discerning W e n t w o r t h w a l k i n g d o w n the street 'She n o w felt a great inclination to g o to the outer d o o r ; she w a n t e d to see if it rained' ( 1 7 5 ) , is one of A u s t e n ' s main achievements. C a p a b i l i t i e s , action, social life: these are o n l y partially adequate vessels for, o r e x p r e s s i o n s of, inner life, a n d A n n e ' s v a r i o u s roles, until the novel's close, are never quite congruent with her nature. W e n t w o r t h ' s will is largely exercised in the

77

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

d o m a i n of conduct, but just as m u c h as A n n e ' s , w h i c h addresses her e m o t i o n s , it is out of h a r m o n y w i t h desire. T h e depth of A n n e ' s solitary consciousness is contrasted with the absence of reflection (for Sir W a l t e r picks u p n o b o o k s but the Baronetage) in the life of the s u r r o u n d i n g small-time country gentry. T h e M u s g r o v e s are w a r m ­ hearted a n d unaffected, unlike the Elliots, but the w h o l e family share an unreflecting philistinism. Finding C h a r l e s H a y t e r w i t h b o o k s before him the M u s g r o v e s ' w e r e sure all c o u l d not be right, a n d talked, with g r a v e faces, of his studying himself to death' ( 8 2 ) . T h e y inhabit a taken-for-granted w o r l d , w i t h o u t a n inkling that people are not entirely to be k n o w n by their appearances,

without

a glimpse of the

pain

behind

Anne's

apparent

capability, a n d quite w i t h o u t insight into their o w n motives, as for e x a m p l e w h e n Henrietta expresses so m u c h concern for D r . Shirley's health ( 1 0 2 - 3 ) . W h e n a m a n she likes talks to her a b o u t the v a l u e of firmness L o u i s a M u s g r o v e takes him w i t h her family's literal-mindedness a n d is resolute at every opportunity, b e c o m i n g impulsive by rule. N o t even W e n t w o r t h

a n d L a d y Russell check their o w n feelings, or

distance themselves from them. T h e r e is n o hint that L a d y Russell has felt guilt a b o u t the persuasion exerted o v e r A n n e in the past - indeed 'her heart revelled in a n g r y pleasure, in pleased contempt' ( 1 2 5 ) w h e n it appears that her original prejudice is being confirmed -

for all the sadness of its

consequences. T h e vehemence of W e n t w o r t h ' s protestation to himself that A n n e ' s ' p o w e r w i t h him w a s g o n e for e v e r ' ( 6 1 ) suggests, of course, the o p p o s i t e . B u t he does not consider this. H e is a m a n of action and energy, trenchant convictions, strong a n d impulsive feelings that often take him to the verge of tactlessness, but little self-questioning or self-doubt. A n n e Elliot, then, is initially the only reflective consciousness of the novel. (The late-introduced

invalid M r s . Smith is p e r h a p s a second.) Isolated

within her family, she naturally takes the position of silent observer and is often privately a m u s e d at w h a t she sees. H e r o w n perception that she must accommodate

to w h a t e v e r social c o m m o n w e a l t h

she inhabits sets her

a l w a y s at a slight distance. L i k e the n a r r a t o r w h o s e interpretive role she g r a d u a l l y takes o v e r , she is acutely alive to others' self-deceptions, but unlike the n a r r a t o r - in this b o o k a n o t a b l y impatient voice - her response is usually k i n d l y . T h u s w h e n she p l a y s the p i a n o for the M u s g r o v e s she is presented as being h a p p y in their partiality for their daughters' performance o v e r her o w n , while the writer, o n the other h a n d , caustically suggests that they are 'fond parents' w h o o n l y 'fancy themselves delighted' ( 4 7 ) . A n n e ' s k e y interpretive role in the narrative is in sharp contrast to w h a t is at first her peripheral place in her social circle. T h e novel is shaped, indeed, b y the w a y this m a r g i n a l o b s e r v e r g r a d u a l l y comes to take up a more 78

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

central position, till in the climactic scene she is the focus of attention in the r o o m . This is paralleled by the w a y A n n e ' s inner life g r a d u a l l y comes to correspond to, m a k e contact with, a n d be declared t h r o u g h , the outer life that surrounds

her. These processes can be traced

in her

developing

articulacy, for A n n e is at first a notably silent observer. O n l y in chapter 4 does she become the subject of the narrative, a n d even then, she does not speak throughout. ' H o w eloquent could A n n e Elliot h a v e been . . . ! ' declares the author, t o w a r d s its close ( 3 0 ) . B u t within the text, A n n e is usually eloquent only by indirection or implication. It is w i t h A n n e ' s ears that the reader listens to the m a n y m o n o l o g u e s w i t h w h i c h this n o v e l characters -

defines

speeches from Elizabeth, Sir W a l t e r , M r . S h e p h e r d , M r s .

M u s g r o v e , Henrietta M u s g r o v e , even M r s . C l a y - but w h a t A n n e herself says is often omitted. In dialogue, her responses tend to be a b s o r b e d into the meditative c o m m e n t a r y of the text. In a p o w e r f u l scene, L a d y R u s s e l l tempts her with an eloquent vision of herself as L a d y Elliot, 'presiding a n d blessing in the same spot' as her mother ( 1 6 0 ) , a n d A n n e is o v e r c o m e w i t h such emotion that she must rise a n d w a l k to a distant table. B u t there c a n be no w o r d s for the c o m p l e x i t y of her recognition that w h a t she v a l u e d in her family life cannot be restored. W e n t w o r t h has m a d e up his m i n d that he will not s p e a k to A n n e . T h e novel presents a carefully g r a d u a t e d sequence of incidents w h i c h bring the t w o into contact - an intimacy felt acutely in the first instance in bodily terms, as w h e n 'they w e r e actually o n the s a m e s o f a ' (68). Since w o r d s are not exchanged, the physical settings in w h i c h they meet p l a y a n i m p o r t a n t role. T h e episode in w h i c h her t r o u b l e s o m e n e p h e w climbs on A n n e ' s b a c k , for e x a m p l e , is constructed

w i t h A n n e at the a p e x of lines of force

-

unspoken emotions - in the r o o m , that run between herself a n d W e n t w o r t h , stationed at the w i n d o w , between W e n t w o r t h a n d H a y t e r , jealously refusing to speak from behind his n e w s p a p e r , a n d between herself a n d H a y t e r , w h o makes one perfunctory attempt to call off his little cousin. T h e setting is precisely imagined to focus these tensions a n d to increase them, give them material weight w h e n the little b o y hangs himself r o u n d

A n n e ' s neck

( 7 9 - 8 0 ) . His unruliness is a m e t o n y m for the pressures that are present in the r o o m . A n n e has w a n t e d to 'release' W e n t w o r t h embarrassment.

a n d herself

Instead the release of the child's 'little sturdy

from hands'

unlocks responses in A n n e that are all the m o r e intense for the e m b a r g o against their expression. A n d it is a l m o s t as if the b o y ' s unruly to her is an incarnation of W e n t w o r t h ' s

attachment

still childish rage against, a n d

therefore conflicted involvement with, A n n e . H i s release of the b o y thus figures

as an initial m o v e m e n t

towards

disabling psychological attitude.

79

his o w n relinquishment

of a

JOHN

Another moment

WILTSHIRE

of significant progress in their reconciliation

occurs

after the accident at L y m e . A n n e , pausing at the parlour d o o r , overhears W e n t w o r t h s p e a k i n g o f her directly. H e ought to speak of her politely as ' M i s s A n n e Elliot', as he s p e a k s of ' M r s . Charles M u s g r o v e ' , but instead he blurts out ' A n n e ' : 'if A n n e w i l l stay, n o one so proper, so capable as A n n e ! ' , for that is the n a m e she g o e s by in his thoughts. After pausing, she enters the r o o m . ' " Y o u w i l l stay, I a m sure; y o u will stay and nurse her"; cried he, turning to her a n d s p e a k i n g w i t h a g l o w , a n d yet a gentleness, w h i c h seemed a l m o s t restoring the p a s t ' ( 1 1 4 ) . H e addresses her as if they w e r e b o u n d to c o n c u r - a n d she is consulted, not merely assumed to be useful. A n n e ' s reply is to ' c o l o u r deeply' a n d her w o r d s of acquiescence are presented

in indirect speech. Characteristically, physical or nervous re­

sponses are d r a m a t i z e d , v e r b a l ones are recessed, a n d if A n n e is often silent, her b o d y l a n g u a g e s p e a k s v o l u m e s . W h e n W e n t w o r t h turns to her in the c a r r i a g e after their silent drive h o m e a n d asks ' D o y o u think this a g o o d p l a n ? ' A n n e ' s reply is merely presented as 'She did' ( 1 1 7 ) . O n e is reminded of

similar

Mr.

K n i g h t l e y , but here the traumatic presence of the past is felt, once

moments

of

mutual

consultation

between

Emma

and

a g a i n , in the inhibition of speech. T h e accident at L y m e w h i c h concludes v o l u m e 1 is indeed the turning point both in the relationship of A n n e and W e n t w o r t h , a n d in A n n e ' s narrative position. A n n e h a s responded w i t h precisely similar authority to another fall, earlier in the tale ( 5 3 ) , but the difference is n o w that her competence

is d r a m a t i z e d

and

her

performance

seen

by

appreciative

witnesses. A n n e ' s b e c o m i n g increasingly a n object of regard in her circle is thus paralleled a n d m a t c h e d by her increasing presence as a speaker and performer in the text. In v o l u m e 11 her responses are less elided in the narrative, a n d m o r e a n d m o r e fully represented within it. She is less a n d less confined to the r e s p o n s i v e , reactive role (the glances a n d attentions of Mr.

Elliot h a v e at least this positive effect). ' M y idea of g o o d c o m p a n y ,

Mr.

Elliot, is the c o m p a n y of clever, well-informed people, w h o h a v e a great

deal of conversation; that is w h a t I call g o o d c o m p a n y ' ( 1 5 0 ) : this assertiveness in his presence is a narrative as well as psychological development. A n n e starts declaring her opinions to willing listeners, so that her private thoughts a b o u t the M u s g r o v e sisters' impending m a r r i a g e s , for instance, are e x p r e s s e d fully a n d o p e n l y . " T a m extremely g l a d , indeed", cried A n n e ' ( 2 1 7 ) ; she e x c l a i m s that M r . a n d M r s . M u s g r o v e are excellent parents, she laughs out l o u d at M u s g r o v e ' s sketch of L o u i s a a n d B e n w i c k ' s courtship. T h i s d e v e l o p m e n t culminates in dialogue w i t h H a r v i l l e at the White H a r t

-

w h i c h is thus as m u c h a f o r m a l as an emotional c l i m a x to the novel. Perhaps the n o v e l ' s greatest achievement is in the c h o r e o g r a p h y of its 80

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

public or ' c r o w d ' scenes, for it is here that A u s t e n threads her p s y c h o l o g i c a l theme through an active a n d almost picaresque setting, in w h i c h hidden motives are up against the exacting pressures of social business. In B a t h there is a sense of personal c o m m u n i c a t i o n s h a v i n g to be m a d e within a c r o w d e d , c o m p l e x w o r l d , in continual d a n g e r of being t h w a r t e d ,

inter­

rupted or twisted by the projects a n d emotions of others. T h r e e brilliant social chapters form the novel's c l i m a x , the concert in the o c t a g o n r o o m (chapter 8 of v o l u m e n) a n d the gatherings at the Elliots' a n d M u s g r o v e s ' apartments ( 1 0 a n d n ) . In chapter 1 0 A u s t e n succeeds in bringing together almost all of the personages of her n o v e l , giving each of them a character­ istic solo turn, and at the same time keeping u p the p s y c h o l o g i c a l tension and emotional suspense of A n n e a n d W e n t w o r t h ' s relationship. ' A large party in an hotel ensured a quick-changing, unsettled scene' ( 2 2 1 ) . Serially, a set of incidents occurs w h i c h bear u p o n A n n e a n d W e n t w o r t h indirectly: M a r y ' s spying M r . Elliot from the w i n d o w , the s q u a b b l e of M a r y a n d Charles o v e r the theatre tickets, the chilling visitation of A n n e ' s father a n d sister to distribute their cards. Elizabeth Bennet h a d felt that her family conspired to disgrace her, but here the fear that one's projects are continu­ ally being trespassed u p o n , o r contaminated, b y one's relatives is felt even more acutely. Charles M u s g r o v e ' s teasing of M a r y a b o u t their social priorities is m o r e good-natured than M r . Bennet's taunting of his wife, but the significant difference is that the e x c h a n g e is m a d e to h a v e bearing o n the underlying (and quite distinct) d r a m a of A n n e a n d W e n t w o r t h ' s feelings, w h o extract from it meanings o n l y for themselves. It is not by chance that A u s t e n sets the climactic scenes of her novel at an inn. T h i s novel is concerned w i t h that distinctively m o d e r n form of relation in w h i c h bonds are formed between people w h o are essentially transients. Elective affinities are seen to replace a n d even redeem the lost possibilities of A n n e Elliot's emotionally sterile family. In chapter 1 1 , a g a i n at the White Hart, A n n e finds herself in the s a m e r o o m w i t h W e n t w o r t h . H i s presence immediately causes a rise in her level of nervous tension. T h e e x c h a n g e s of the t w o principals are once again mediated t h r o u g h a third party, here the overheard conversation of M r s . M u s g r o v e a n d M r s . Croft, w h i c h modulates unexpectedly into a discussion of long engagements. A n n e feels 'a nervous thrill all o v e r her' ( 2 3 1 ) . C a p t a i n H a r v i l l e s h o w s the miniature painting of C a p t a i n B e n w i c k , once destined for the n o w d e a d F a n n y H a r v i l l e , to A n n e . T h e themes of loss a n d m o u r n i n g , fidelity a n d transience, that h a v e occupied so m u c h of A n n e Elliot's consciousness in the n o v e l are n o w resumed a n d played out dramatically in a conversation. T h e d i a l o g u e begins quietly but rises in seriousness and commitment, as A n n e ' s responses become longer, more assertive, m o r e eloquent. T h e y are m o m e n t a r i l y interrupted

81

by a

JOHN

WILTSHIRE

s o u n d in W e n t w o r t h ' s 'hitherto perfectly quiet division of the r o o m ' ( 2 3 3 ) , a s o u n d that, punctuating the d i a l o g u e , m a k e s one very a w a r e of the spatial relations between the three. T h e conversation w i t h H a r v i l l e resumes, with A n n e ' s contributions once m o r e increasing in length, till both are charged with intense

personal

feeling. A n n e c a n n o w s p e a k indirectly, but nonetheless eloquently and fervently, of her personal experience. 'She could not immediately have uttered another sentence; her heart w a s t o o full, her breath too

much

o p p r e s s e d ' ( 2 3 5 ) . T h e i r talk is a b o u t love a n d loyalties sustained o v e r time; in its course H a r v i l l e a n d she become friends, as his response indicates: ' Y o u are a g o o d s o u l ' , he says w h i l e 'putting his hand

on her a r m

quite

affectionately' - a wonderfully natural touch. T h e sequence is designed here to release, step by step, the energies of articulation that A n n e has been forced to keep b o u n d u p , h e m m e d in, throughout so m u c h of the novel. T h u s this climactic scene resolves the tensions that h a v e been built up in the course of this narrative. J a n e A u s t e n has found a w a y that gives her heroine the initiative, a n d gives her, finally, the heroine's place. A n n e is n o w at once the w o m a n through w h o s e consciousness the w o r l d is seen a n d organized, a n d the speaking subject of the text. ' H o w eloquent could A n n e Elliot have been . . . !' A n n e ' s yearning for fulfilment has been codified textually as a longing for e x p r e s s i o n . H e r eloquence at last brings a b o u t the resolution of the r o m a n t i c plot, a n d leads to the fulfilment of the hero a n d heroine's desires. A t the s a m e time A n n e ' s expressive speech marries together those aspects of her nature that h a v e been so unharmonized

with each other

t h r o u g h o u t the text: feeling and m o r a l action, the responsive b o d y a n d the responsible self. T h e design of this n o v e l , only sketched

in parts, is

effectively complete. T h e three ' C h a w t o n ' novels are, then, incommensurate one with another. People are in the habit of s p e a k i n g of ' J a n e Austen's w o r l d ' , not perhaps separating the novels e n o u g h from the historical conditions in w h i c h their a u t h o r w r o t e . B u t in truth there is n o one, unified, h o m o g e n e o u s ' J a n e A u s t e n ' s w o r l d ' , but a n u m b e r of different ' w o r l d s ' , each defined

and

elaborated within the narrative frame that contains it. T h e w e a l t h y and spoilt great upper gentry set of M a n s f i e l d a n d Sotherton is quite different from that local g r o u p i n g of small gentry w h o form the comfortably enclosing - but a l s o n a r r o w , confining - c o m m u n i t y of H i g h b u r y . Persuasion

takes

different social g r o u p s a g a i n t h r o u g h w h i c h to pursue its concerns with emotional impoverishment a n d fulfilment. J a n e Austen's creation of these distinct social a n d physical settings is inseparable, then, from her articula­ tion of specific narrative designs. In

Sanation,

82

imagination is even more

Mansfield Park, Emma,

Persuasion

specifically clothed in its setting, but this is the novel that J a n e A u s t e n did not live to complete at C h a w t o n , that h o m e so m u c h 'to her m i n d ' .

4

NOTES 1 2 3 4

Letter to Francis Austen, July 26, 1 8 0 9 . Culture and Imperalism (London: Vintage, 1994), p. 1 0 6 . I owe this point to Professor Joseph Wiesenfarth. The author thanks J o Barnes for her invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

83

5 MARGARET ANNE DOODY

The short fiction

In J a n e A u s t e n ' s unfinished Catharine, Volume

the Third,

or the Bower,

found in the notebook

w e hear silly C a m i l l a Stanley a n d her mother gushing

over C a m i l l a ' s c o r r e s p o n d e n c e w i t h her friend A u g u s t a : ' Y o u received a Letter from Augusta Barlow to day, did not you, my Love?' said her Mother - . 'She writes remarkably well I know.' 'Oh! Yes M a ' a m , the most delightful Letter you ever heard of. She sends me a long account of the new Regency walking dress Lady Susan has given her, and it is so beautiful that I am quite dieing with envy for it.' 'Well, I am prodigiously happy to hear such pleasing news of my young freind; I have a high regard for Augusta, and most sincerely partake in the general J o y on the occasion. But does she say nothing else? it seemed to be a long Letter - Are they to be at Scarborough?' 'Oh! Lord, she never once mentions it, now I recollect it; and I entirely forgot to ask her when I wrote last. She says nothing indeed except about the Regency.' 'She must write well' thought Kitty, 'to make a long Letter upon a Bonnet & Pelisse.' (C&OW 2 0 3 ) 1

A u s t e n ' s a b o r t i v e n o v e l c a n be heard here m a k i n g fun of the epistolary m o d e , a n d of both the o p p o s i n g v i e w s regarding female letter-writing. M r s . Stanley a p p r o v e s of female correspondence: ' I h a v e from C a m i l l a ' s infancy taught her to think the s a m e . . . N o t h i n g forms the taste more than sensible &C Elegant Letters' (C&OW of Hester C h a p o n e ' s Letters

2 0 2 ) . T h i s gush, like a p a b u l u m concocted out on

the Improvement

of the Mind

(1773),

cannot quite conceal M r s . S t a n l e y ' s pride in having her daughter correspond w i t h the daughter of L a d y H a l i f a x - a n a m e amusingly reminiscent of L o r d H a l i f a x , a u t h o r of a f a m o u s treatise Advice

to a Daughter,

a conduct b o o k

inhibiting to most female activity a n d feeling. M r s . Percival, Catharine's aunt, takes the m o r e traditional a n d sterner v i e w , seeing 'a correspondence between Girls as p r o d u c t i v e of n o g o o d , and as the frequent origin of imprudence & E r r o r b y the effect of pernicious advice and b a d E x a m p l e ' (2.02). 84

The short fiction This mini-debate rages amusingly in this p a s s a g e , as if there h a d been a revolution in manners. A s debaters, the w o m e n m a n a g e to ignore

the

decorous insipidity a n d total triviality of their letters themselves, w h i c h reinforce

a culturally

fashion-conscious

desirable

consumerism.

female v a n i t y , empty-headedness, In R i c h a r d s o n ' s

Clarissa,

or

in

and Eliza

F e n w i c k ' s Secresy, authority figures are not u n r e a s o n a b l e in imagining that a female correspondence can change s o m e o n e ' s m i n d a n d b e h a v i o u r ; corre­ spondence can corrupt o r encourage, a n d thus bring a b o u t s o m e revolution in manners. It is m o r e exciting to believe that than to think that false values merely repeat themselves - as seen in M r s . Stanley's f o r m a l but hyperbolical expression - a hyperbole b o u g h t at the e x p e n s e of realism. ' I . . . m o s t sincerely p a r t a k e in the general J o y o n the o c c a s i o n ' - as if A u g u s t a h a d g o t engaged or h a d a b a b y , instead of acquiring her ' R e g e n c y w a l k i n g dress'. T h e phrase ' R e g e n c y w a l k i n g dress' is itself m y chief focus of interest. T h e manuscript of Volume

the Third

reveals, rather

infuriatingly, that this

phrase w a s substituted for another, but I h a v e failed to decipher exactly the expression crossed out. It m a y well be ' B o n n e t ' w i t h an underdeveloped ' B ' . It looks a little like ' P a n o P , or ' P a r r o t ' - o r ' P a r i s o l ' . W h a t e v e r this reference to wearing apparel w a s (and it should m a t c h B o n n e t a n d Pelisse) it has been excised in favour of another

e x p r e s s i o n . E x c i s e d t w i c e , for the

same

puzzling w o r d w a s once there instead of ' R e g e n c y ' in the sentence 'She s a y s nothing indeed except a b o u t the R e g e n c y . '

2

H o w a n d w h e n did this change c o m e a b o u t ? I c a n n o t accept G e o r g e Holbert T u c k e r ' s suggestion that it indicates Catharine as 1 7 8 8 - 9 , w h e n G e o r g e Ill's first serious attack 3

brought on agitation for a R e g e n c y . Volume

w a s written as early of deranging

the Third

illness

w a s begun in M a y

1 7 9 2 . a n d the R e g e n c y crisis of the winter of 1 7 8 8 - 9 w a s o v e r by J u n e 1 7 8 9 , w h e n G e o r g e Ill's return to health w a s celebrated. I incline, rather, to accept Deirdre L e F a y e ' s suggestion that J a n e A u s t e n rediscovered her earlier manuscript n o t e b o o k s w h e n she, her mother, a n d C a s s a n d r a at last c a m e to roost in C h a w t o n in J u l y 1 8 0 9 .

4

' E v e l y n ' is also

added to in another h a n d , most likely by niece A n n a A u s t e n , possibly by n e p h e w E d w a r d , a n d the last p a r a g r a p h of Catharine

though

is also the

product of these other hands - a n d minds. T h e likeliest scenario is that o n digging out her old n o t e b o o k s J a n e A u s t e n shared her fiction with the nephew and niece, a n d a l l o w e d them to join her in her old g a m e of writing. I believe their interest, perhaps even enthusiasm, inspired her to return to writing, and thus to undertake the serious a n d h e a v y w o r k of finally revising Sense and Sensibility,

the first of her novels to be published, in the very y e a r

of the R e g e n c y , 1 8 1 1 . Catharine,

o r Kitty,

or the Bower,

that unfinished fiction, w a s p r o b a b l y 85

MARGARET ANNE

DOODY

b e g u n in the m i d - 1 7 9 0 s , certainly not before the date at the top of the n o t e b o o k v o l u m e s - M a y 6th, 1 7 9 2 . ; interior references to Charlotte Smith's novels a c c o r d w e l l w i t h the date 1 7 9 2 - 3 . T h e ' R e g e n c y w a l k i n g dress' a d d e d to it indicates that J a n e A u s t e n turned b a c k to this w o r k at some p o i n t after - p r o b a b l y v e r y s o o n after - the R e g e n c y A c t w a s passed by P a r l i a m e n t o n F e b r u a r y 5 , 1 8 1 1 . F a s h i o n magazines w e r e very quick to seize o n the n e w era. T h e Lady's

Magazine

enticements of a running serial entitled Sappho

of 1 8 1 1 , along with - An Historical

the

Romance,

includes advertisements for, a m o n g other things, a plume of three feathers w i t h silver a n d g o l d ornaments 'universally w o r n for the Regent's fête'; ' A n e w a n d elegant Pattern for R e g e n c y B o r d e r s ' a n d a child's dress 'with the R e g e n t hat of grey silk'. I h a v e not yet found a ' R e g e n c y w a l k i n g dress', but in picking u p the c o m e d y of such terms A u s t e n w a s undoubtedly reflecting a trend of the time of 1 8 1 1 . C a m i l l a ' s r e m a r k gains a n e w c o m e d y : ' A u g u s t a s a y s nothing indeed except a b o u t the R e g e n c y ' , for A u g u s t a is thus m a d e to s o u n d as if she h a d a political interest in current affairs, although

her

interest is entirely ladylike a n d fashionable. In the period between 1 8 0 9 a n d 1 8 1 1 J a n e A u s t e n w a s w o r k i n g - and w h o c a n d o u b t intently

w o r k i n g - on her o w n early writings. She w a s

bringing w h a t h a d been p r o d u c e d in the 1 7 9 0 s into line with

current

fashion. W e h a v e speculated a b o u t the ' L o s t N o v e l s ' - lost to us in their old f o r m . W e k n o w that First Prejudice;

Impressions

w e believe that a n Elinor

the g e r m of Sense and Sensibility;

w a s the prototype of Pride

and

and Marianne,

perhaps epistolary, w a s

a n d that Susan,

w h i c h J a n e Austen had

tried to publish, a n d w h i c h h a d been once accepted (in 1 8 0 3 ) but never b r o u g h t out, w a s revised to m a k e Northanger

Abbey

(published posthu-

m o u s l y ) . Interestingly, ' S u s a n ' w a s reclaimed from the publisher (Crosby) w h e n the m o v e to C h a w t o n w a s an immediate prospect. M u c h of J a n e A u s t e n ' s writing career after the m o v e to C h a w t o n in 1 8 0 9 consisted in revising o r cannibalizing her o w n older w o r k s . B u t the revisions should be seen as a m a j o r matter. In bringing her w o r k s into line with the n e w era - putting them into their R e g e n c y w a l k i n g dress, as it w e r e - A u s t e n underwent a sort of personal and

authorial

revolution. T h a t revolution m a d e her publishable. It is

startling to realize that J a n e Austen might never h a v e published. D u r i n g the early y e a r s of the n e w century she h a d o b v i o u s l y begun to feel that her style of writing w a s not g o i n g to be acceptable to the press and the arbiters of taste. F r o m her mid-twenties she h a d started to m a k e some effort to reach a p u b l i c , but h a d been severely balked by the lack of respect p a i d to the neverprinted Susan.

After the death of her father in 1 8 0 5 , Austen, n o w in her

thirties, seems for a w h i l e to h a v e given up writing, save for o d d comic 86

The short fiction verses to friends. R e m o v a l to a real h o m e in C h a w t o n , a n d p r o b a b l y a l s o the society of some y o u n g relatives interested in writing, helped to free Austen's mind a n d restore confidence. But it w a s not the s a m e sort of confidence as that of the y o u n g w o m a n w h o w r o t e the material in the notebook

Volumes.

J a n e Austen h a d to c h a n g e , in short, from a 1 7 9 0 s w r i t e r to a ' R e g e n c y ' writer. T h e term ' R e g e n c y ' , a l w a y s loosely used (especially as a n adjective), ought to refer to the period from 1 8 1 1 (when the Prince of W a l e s , ' P r i n n y ' , w a s m a d e R e g e n t , as his father G e o r g e III w a s unfit to g o v e r n by r e a s o n of insanity) to 1 8 2 0 (when G e o r g e III died a n d the Prince R e g e n t b e c a m e K i n g George I V ) . In practice, the term in English usage has c o m e to refer to the period from the onset of the nineteenth century through the 1 8 2 0 s . J a n e Austen has really been recast in certain quarters as the first in line of the writers of ' R e g e n c y r o m a n c e s ' - a fact underdiscussed in a c a d e m i c circles. I believe the appeal of the ' R e g e n c y r o m a n c e ' - for m o d e r n intents a n d purposes a genre invented by Georgette H e y e r ( 1 9 0 2 - 7 4 ) - lies in the combination of the traditional ' l o v e story' with the idea of a c h a r m i n g a n d tastefully pert w o m a n w h o is a little likely to question the status quo, but n o t too much. O f course, there is a l w a y s the dashing lover - less likely to a p p e a r in Austen. Y e t I think J a n e A u s t e n herself does bear s o m e relation to this genre. H e r kind of novel w a s achieved by a special m i x t u r e of eighteenthcentury qualities of attitude a n d style c o m b i n e d with domestic seriousness and R o m a n t i c respect for both idealism a n d p o w e r . Georgette H e y e r started by writing novels set in the eighteenth century (The Black

Moth,

1 9 2 1 ) , but

made her m a r k w h e n she invented the story set in the R e g e n c y w i t h

These

Old Shades ( 1 9 2 6 ) . H e y e r , in the period from the 1 9 2 0 s through the 1 9 5 0 s , caught - and in her o w n w a y a l s o p a r o d i e d - the qualities in literature wanted by her audience. T h e s e w e r e not at all dissimilar to s o m e of the qualities desired by J a n e A u s t e n ' s public, though H e y e r has the

added

element of a version of p a s t o r a l . H e r ' R e g e n c y ' is a h a p p y a b o d e of the past, a place to escape to. S o J a n e A u s t e n ' s temporal setting has b e c o m e idyllic though it w a s a present-day setting for the author. T h e desire for the c o m b i n a t i o n

of the flippant a n d the serious,

nostalgic a n d the entertaining, c a n be postulated in the readership

the

(both

male and female) of both writers. H e y e r , like A u s t e n , reached a public tired by a very difficult w a r w h i c h h a d brought not only painful loss but great upheaval. S o m e responses to the threat of change a n d s o m e modified f o r m of patriotism h a d to be incorporated in w o m e n ' s writing if it w a s to succeed -

yet it could not be successful if it p r o p o s e d itself as t o o critical a

commentary. Fiction h a d to take the fundamental shape of things seriously, and to play by the rules.

87

MARGARET ANNE

DOODY

I w a n t to p r o p o s e that J a n e A u s t e n ' s a d v a n c e to the L o n g N o v e l acceptable to her contemporaries w a s a process of a c c o m m o d a t i o n . It w a s a difficult a n d strenuous process - she h a d , as it w e r e , to reinvent herself as a R e g e n c y figure. After all, the ' R e g e n c y ' itself is a figure for substitution. W e are s o devoted to the s i x A u s t e n novels, it is h a r d for us to think of them as substitutes for anything - but they m a y not really h a v e been the w o r k s J a n e A u s t e n w a n t e d to write. H e r c o m m e n t s o n the process reach us filtered through irony - as in the f a m o u s r e m a r k in a letter of F e b r u a r y , 1 8 1 3 , a b o u t the 'defects' of and

Pride

Prejudice:

the work is rather too light 8c bright & sparkling; - it wants shade; - it wants to be stretched out here & there with a long Chapter - of sense if it could be had, if not of solemn specious nonsense - about something unconnected with the story; an Essay on Writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte - or anything that would form a contrast &c bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness &c Epigrammatism of the general stile. (L z o ) 3

W e take this simply as irony in self-praise, but there is m o r e to it. ' S p a r k l e ' w a s n o longer in order - a n d particularly not in a w o m a n . ' S p a r k l e ' in general m e a n t that old A u g u s t a n style, the taste for p a r a d o x a n d w i t , for snip-snap antithesis - all things J a n e A u s t e n inherited. William W o r d s w o r t h , w h o h a d often praised the style of the poet A n n e Finch, C o u n t e s s of W i n c h i l s e a , w a s to s a y of Finch: 'her style in rhyme is often a d m i r a b l e , chaste, tender, a n d v i g o r o u s , a n d entirely free from sparkle, 5

antithesis a n d . . . o v e r - c u l t u r e ' . L a d y Winchilsea's poetry is g o o d because it is tender, a n d does not s p a r k l e . A u s t e n b e c a m e increasingly a w a r e , I think, that playfulness a n d e p i g r a m m a t i s m h a d decided dangers. R e g e n c y readers w a n t e d to be a m u s e d , but they liked to h a v e a clear line d r a w n , the now-tobe-completely-serious line. A n a u t h o r

like M a r i a E d g e w o r t h met

this

d e m a n d through didacticism, and a l l o w e d herself s o m e political leverage, t h o u g h at the cost of suppressing a w i t rarely a l l o w e d full emergence. Frances B u r n e y , publishing The Wanderer

( 1 8 1 4 ) in this n e w climate, got

b a d l y frozen by d i s a p p r o v a l a n d s o m e very negative reviews in reaction against her inclusive satire o n E n g l a n d in the R e v o l u t i o n a r y period. Burney w r o t e n o m o r e novels. J a n e A u s t e n ' s relations to a n d w i t h the ' R e g e n c y ' are paradigmatically p l a y e d out in the m e r r y amusing c o m e d y of relations between herself, the Prince R e g e n t , a n d the Prince R e g e n t ' s librarian, J a m e s Stanier C l a r k e . It w a s he w h o entertained J a n e A u s t e n at the library of C a r l t o n H o u s e in N o v e m b e r , 1 8 1 5 - only a few months after W a t e r l o o . C l a r k e told her that 88

The short fiction she w a s 'at liberty to dedicate a n y future w o r k to H[is] R [ o y a l ] H[ighness] the P[rince] R [ e g e n t ] ' ( L 2 9 6 ) . She tried to clarify w h e t h e r this request amounted to a c o m m a n d , a n d C l a r k e ' s reiteration o n p a p e r that permission had been given s h o w e d A u s t e n clearly that she w a s expected to dedicate her next w o r k to the Prince. She w a s also told, flatteringly, ' T h e R e g e n t has read & admired all y o u r publications' ( L 2 9 6 ) . T h o u g h her opinion of the Regent himself, judging from comments in her other letters, w a s not high, Austen m a d e the Prince R e g e n t the l u c k y recipient of the dedication of Emma.

T h e R e g e n t undoubtedly intended to d o g o o d to A u s t e n by getting

her n a m e m o r e w i d e l y k n o w n ; he supplied her thus w i t h advertising that did h a v e its effect on reviewers a n d readership (see the essay b y J a n Fergus in this v o l u m e ) . H a d A u s t e n lived longer, she w o u l d h a v e reaped the full benefit of this publicity. T h e Prince is to be congratulated o n his taste. B u t J a m e s Stanier C l a r k e did g o blethering o n , suggesting that A u s t e n write the life of a clergyman, modelled o n his life, glorified. It w a s in e v a d i n g this suggestion that Austen defiantly set herself d o w n as 'the m o s t unlearned, & uninformed Female w h o ever d a r e d to be a n A u t h o r e s s ' ( L 3 0 6 ) . Unlike J a m e s Stanier C l a r k e , w e h a v e the benefit of A u s t e n ' s p a r o d i e 'Plan of a N o v e l , according to hints from v a r i o u s quarters', w h i c h includes m a n y phrases lifted straight from C l a r k e ' s letters, a n d applied to the father of the heroine: At last, hunted out of civilized Society, denied the poor Shelter of the humblest Cottage, they are compelled to retreat into Kamschatka where the poor Father, quite worn down, finding his end approaching, throws himself on the Ground, and after 4 or 5 hours of tender advice and parental Admonition to his miserable Child, expires in a fine burst of Literary Enthusiasm, inter­ mingled with Invectives against Holder's of Tythes. - Heroine inconsolable for some time - but afterwards crawls back towards her former Country . . . (C&OW 232) This is great stuff, i n t e r w o v e n as it is w i t h p a r o d i e references to other fictions, as well as with hidden references to the comments o n A u s t e n ' s novels passed by v a r i o u s acquaintances. T h e c o m e d y , h o w e v e r , expresses irritation. In this 'Plan', novel-writing itself turns into a ridiculous o r d e a l . Dealing with J a m e s Stanier h a d been something of an o r d e a l . A s the Regent's deputy, or the R e g e n t ' s regent, as well as a c l e r g y m a n , he is d o u b l y a Father, a n d triply a substitute father. In the c o m p a n y of such m o c k fathers y o u get into the cold regions of K a m s c h a t k a , the extremity of Siberia. J a n e Austen's early writings, preserved for us in the three

notebook

V o l u m e s , are short fictional pieces. It has been c u s t o m a r y to imagine

-

unconsciously to imagine - that she a l w a y s aspired to write three-volume 89

MARGARET ANNE

DOODY

novels, a n d that the early writings w e r e mere apprenticeship or practice until she could arrive at that happier capacity for sustained w o r k . But if w e think of it, this m a y not be true. Short fiction has its place - and sometimes it is a v e r y high place. T h e short fictional piece, the 'tale', had been used to g o o d effect by earlier w o m e n writers like A p h r a Behn and Eliza H a y w o o d . Eliza H a y w o o d , h o w e v e r , in mid-eighteenth century had to m a k e a turn similar to A u s t e n ' s . H e r kind of short story and its longer sexy cousin the ' n o v e l ' , o r novella,

h a d to be put aside for the sake of respectable long

'history' to m a t c h the w o r k s of Fielding and R i c h a r d s o n . S o w e m o v e from stories like Fantomina

to the full-length Miss Betsy Thoughtless.

Y e t it w a s

certainly not female practitioners alone w h o had an allegiance to the short fiction. Short fiction is a favourite Enlightenment m o d e , engaged in b y V o l t a i r e , for one notable e x a m p l e . It w a s e x p l o r e d by Diderot (e.g. Ceci n'est pas un conte)

a n d m o r e cautiously taken u p by M a r m o n t e l in his Contes

moraux

( 1 7 8 9 - 9 2 ) . M a r m o n t e l ' s Contes w e r e appearing in France at a b o u t the time A u s t e n b e g a n Volume

the

Third.

She might have k n o w n that

W a l p o l e h a d written his Hieroglyphic

Tales,

Horace

stories first printed in 1 7 8 5

a n d later published by M a r y Berry in W a l p o l e ' s Collected

Works

(1798).

C h a r l e s B u r n e y , reviewing them, said they contained 'a great m a n y fancies'

a n d in their allusions w e r e 'sarcastic, personal, and

odd

sometimes

6

p r o f a n e ' . W a l p o l e in his Postscript to these Tales says they are 'an attempt to v a r y the stale a n d beaten class of stories a n d novels, w h i c h , though w o r k s of invention, are a l m o s t a l w a y s d e v o i d of imagination'. H e professes himself surprised that fiction (especially current fiction) is so dull: 'that there should h a v e been so little fancy, so little variety, and so little novelty, in writings in w h i c h the imagination is fettered by n o rules' (Oriental

Tales,

ed. M a c k

1 3 7 ) . H i s tales p l a y w i t h the a b s u r d , the disproportionate, the illicit; his characters are greedy bundles of expressionistic desire: [the princess] had purchased ninety-two dolls, seventeen baby houses, six cartloads of sugar plums, a thousand ells of gingerbread, eight dancing dogs, a bear and a monkey, four toyshops with all their contents, and seven dozen of bibs; and aprons of the newest fashion. They were jogging on with all this cargo over mount Caucasus . . . (Oriental Tales 1 1 9 ) R o b e r t M a c k points out that the tales 'reach into every conceivable area of narrative invention . . . " A n entire w o r l d of invention lies open for y o u r use and e n j o y m e n t " , W a l p o l e seems to s a y , " w h y not take a d v a n t a g e of i t ? " ' ('Introduction', x x v i i ) . S o t o o w e might imagine J a n e Austen saying - that is, the A u s t e n of the early fiction. T h e characters are full of a fine excess, of energy impossible a n d disproportionate, of physicality unconcealed: 90

The short fiction My mother rode upon our little poney and Fanny and I walked by her side or rather ran, for my Mother . . . galloped all the way. Y o u may be sure we were in a fine perspiration . . . Fanny has taken a great many Drawings of the Country, which are very beautiful, tho' perhaps not such exact resemblances as might be wished, from their being taken as she ran along. It would astonish you to see all the Shoes we wore out in our Tour . . . M a m a was so kind as to lend us a pair of blue Sattin Slippers, of which we each took one and hopped home from Hereford delightfully - . ('A Tour through Wales', C&OW 1 7 0 ) Like W a l p o l e ' s personages, Austen's are wonderfully greedy, illicit mental collectors of w e a l t h : 'I shall expect a new saddle horse, a suit of fine lace, and an infinite number of the most valuable Jewels. Diamonds such as never were seen, Pearls as large as those of the Princess Badroulbadour . . . and Rubies, Emeralds, Toppazes, Sapphires, Amythists, Turkey stones, Agate, Beads, Bugles & Garnets.' ('The Three Sisters', from M S version) M u c h of the c o m e d y of these early fantastic tales c o m e s from the fantasticating capacity of the mind not only to desire, but to create w a n t s . N a r r a t i v e follows these jumps of desire. T h o s e persons, such as parents o r clergymen, w h o might represent l a w or sobriety h a v e really only different forms of desire to offer. Austen, like C e r v a n t e s , m a k e s us see the o r g a n i z a t i o n of property a n d propriety from a comic underside: Beloved by Lady Harcourt, adored by Sir George and admired by all the World, she lived in a continued course of uninterrupted Happiness, till she had attained her eighteenth year, when happening one day to be detected in stealing a banknote of 50 £ , she was turned out of doors by her inhuman Benefactors. Such a transition to one who did not possess so noble and exalted a mind as Eliza, would have been Death, but she, happy in the conscious knowledge of her own Excellence, amused herself as she sate beneath a tree with making and singing the following Lines . . . ('Henry and Eliza', C&OW

31)

In m o c k i n g depiction of the c a l m w a y in w h i c h the a b n o r m a l can be presented

as n o r m a l , the criminal as the proper, the shameful

as

the

excellent, Austen united with Cervantes a n d w i t h others w h o target both individual lust a n d social assumptions. H e r stories e x p l o r e irregular unions - hardly a n y b o d y is m a r r i e d , o r married in a regular fashion. T h e heroine of ' L o v e a n d F r e i n d s h i p ' is united to her true love shortly after he has w a n d e r e d into their cottage. T h e y o u n g pair are married by the heroine's father: ' W e w e r e immediately united b y m y Father, w h o t h o ' he h a d never taken orders h a d been bred to the 91

MARGARET ANNE

C h u r c h ' {C&OW

DOODY

8 0 ) . A u s t e n ' s early fiction is a m o c k - p a s t o r a l w o r l d in

w h i c h eviscerated institutions, o r institutionalized ideas, though sometimes h o n o u r e d in gesture, are unable to contain the characters' curiosity, anima­ tion, o r general desire for self-gratification. T h e desire for self-gratification prevails e v e r y w h e r e - including in the heroine modelled on J a n e ' s best friend a n d devoted sister. In ' T h e Beautifull C a s s a n d r a ' the heroine goes out w a l k i n g w i t h a bonnet intended for a countess ' o n her gentle H e a d ' . 'She then p r o c e e d e d to a P a s t r y - c o o k s w h e r e she d e v o u r e d six ices, refused to p a y for them, k n o c k e d d o w n the Pastry C o o k a n d w a l k e d a w a y '

(C&OW

4 2 ) . T h i s is not a m o r a l w o r l d w h e r e punishment catches u p with evil doers. A t the end of her libidinous e x c u r s i o n C a s s a n d r a can w h i s p e r to herself, ' " T h i s is a d a y well s p e n t " '

(C&OW43).

J a n e A u s t e n shares qualities w i t h R a b e l a i s - as G . K . Chesteron n o t i c e d .

7

She a l s o h a s s o m e of the c o o l w i t of a n eighteenth-century writer like D i d e r o t o r a twentieth-century one like B o r g e s . Y e t w e h a v e w a n t e d to see these early w o r k s as chaotic a n d childish, mere 'prentice-hand attempts to p e r f o r m w h a t will be d o n e p r o p e r l y in the s i x novels. F o r if the shorter w o r k s are n o t treated as childish effusions, they begin to l o o m very large indeed in A u s t e n ' s oeuvre,

pointing to the alternative Austen w h o might

h a v e been a different writer, w h o might h a v e figured in o u r calendar more like D i d e r o t or B o r g e s . It is not e n o u g h to s a y she is a parodist - though that is m u c h - o r to say that she is a satirist - w h i c h is a great deal more. W e h a v e to a c k n o w l e d g e , I think, that she here creates in her short fiction a ' w o r l d o f her o w n ' , as w e s a y - o r that such a w o r l d becomes adumbrated. T h e w o r l d she creates is a w o r l d of libidinous pressures only Actively constrained

by conceptual

structures

imposed

as order. English l a w s

r e g a r d i n g m a r r i a g e a n d property o r the n e w l a w s of the English novel are alike revealed as pseudo-orderly a n d

slightly crazed structures.

Here,

A u s t e n ' s w o r l d is one w h e r e the l a w of the Father applies only nominally o r not even that. T h e l a w of the Father is a kind of gesture in the air. M o d e s of defying the father in rebellion o r revolution,

w h i c h are likewise

c o n v e n t i o n a l ideas in themselves, especially between 1 7 8 9 and 1 8 0 0 , come in for e q u a l l y scornful treatment. T h i s c a n be seen in E d w a r d ' s stilted and c o n v e n t i o n a l defiance of his father in ' L o v e a n d Freindship'. L o v e is refracted narcissism. Dislike of others is not o n l y c o m m o n but, as it w e r e , decriminalized. In preposterous p l a y w i t h the idyll, the characters fare as they will w i t h o u t p a y i n g - m o n e y is e v e r y w h e r e , but it is a l w a y s going missing, o r b e c o m i n g invalid. A u s t e n p r o p o s e s that libidinous desire is prior to the e c o n o m i c system, although constantly getting attached to it. Libidi­ n o u s desire gets attached, for instance, to the feudal system of inheritance, creating a greed that cheerfully witnesses the r e m o v a l of parents

92

and

The short fiction siblings. Desire is officially

attached

to the system of m o n o g a m y .

In

attaching itself to a n y such systems, h o w e v e r , the libido p r o v e s itself capable of evading o r transforming them - in A u s t e n ' s w o r l d . This is a very frightening philosophic p r o d u c t i o n on the p a r t of a y o u n g w o m a n . T h e disconcerting elements in A u s t e n ' s fiction (even in the s i x novels) are sometimes v e r y p a l p a b l e obstacles to o u r s m o o t h a p p r o b a t i o n . But these elements in her early fiction c a n be redefined as l a c k of skill in doing the accepted thing. Doubtless C r o s b y , the publisher w h o g o t

Susan,

intuited that A u s t e n ' s b o o k didn't feel quite right, a n d put his response d o w n to a sense that the a u t h o r w a s amateurish, that she h a d n ' t quite g o t the hang of writing novels. T h e obstreperous qualities that w o r k w e l l in short fiction w e r e not highly v a l u e d in the novel. Short fiction w a s not as available to writers as it h a d been in the mid-eighteenth century as a vehicle for n e w a n d outrageous thought. T h e bright w i t of the eighteenth century is felt to be political, a n d politically d a n g e r o u s . T h e R e g e n c y is a tight time. Regency fashions m a y h a v e been s e x y -

but they h a m p e r e d

women's

movement in tight skirts, a n d left men strangulated in neckcloths. W e tend to confuse the ' R e g e n c y ' m a n n e r s of the Prince R e g e n t a n d his circle with the tone of the period in general. In English culture in general, however, raffishness w a s out of f a v o u r , a n d m o r a l i t y - especially as that concerned the m o r a l b e h a v i o u r of y o u n g ladies - w a s steadily g a i n i n g 8

ground. A s C l a u d i a J o h n s o n has s h o w n , the era of the N a p o l e o n i c w a r s brings a backlash against cultural experiment, a n d particularly a g a i n s t experiment in the representation of w o m e n in fiction. T h e courtship novel is returned. It is softened, m o r a l i z e d , m a d e safer. A u g u s t a n w i t in general is shunned. T h e early nineteenth century admires the serious. B y r o n h a d been serious a n d melancholy in Childe

Harold.

He

returned in Don Juan to w i t - w i t h a vengeance. B u t B y r o n w a s a l r e a d y a n established author, and there is an intermixture of the serious a n d

the

personal a n d the pathetic w h i c h saves his mock-epic from the a c c u s a t i o n of total flippancy. O n e of B y r o n ' s strengths is that he (or his narrator) c a n give us the impression of being able to see t h r o u g h Culture - C u l t u r e n o t in the anthropological sense but in the m o d e r n u r b a n sense, of a n a c c u m u l a t i o n of knowledge a b o u t k n o w l e d g e a n d artefacts that serves a n individual's social turn and creates a unified d o m i n a n t class. J a n e A u s t e n shares a d o u b t a b o u t the cultural - in part, such d o u b t is an inheritance of Enlightenment v i e w s that w h a t is past is p r o l o g u e , a n d that everything s h o u l d be held u p to question. T h e R o m a n t i c A g e in its o w n w a y takes 'culture' v e r y seriously. W e are headed t o w a r d s the w o r l d of M a t t h e w A r n o l d w h e r e there is a plain distinction between ' C u l t u r e ' a n d ' A n a r c h y ' . T o J a n e A u s t e n , culture often is anarchy.

93

MARGARET ANNE

DOODY

I had for many years constantly hollowed whenever she played, Bravo, Bravissimo, Encora, Da Capo, allegretto, con espressione, and Poco presto with many other such outlandish words, all of them as Eloisa told me expressive of my Admiration; and so indeed I suppose they are, as I see some of them in every Page of every Music book, being the Sentiments I imagine of the Composer. ( 'Lesley Castle', C&O W 1 2 5-6)

Such a p a s s a g e m o v e s us from the simple satire (Charlotte's stupidity in not k n o w i n g m u s i c a l terms) to a c o m p l e x satire o n cultural k n o w l e d g e and its close relation to absurdity. O u r thoughtful reaction is c o m p o u n d e d by the culturally dense m e a n i n g s of the t w o girls' names, ' E l o i s a ' and 'Charlotte'. ' E l o i s a ' refers us to the heroine of R o u s s e a u ' s novel Julie, Héloïse

ou la

nouvelle

( 1 7 6 1 ) . J u l i e , the ' N e w E l o i s a ' , is an emotionally complicated and

d o o m e d y o u n g w o m a n w h o has sex before m a r r i a g e a n d will meet a tragic fate. B y contrast, ' C h a r l o t t e ' , the virtuous a n d practical beloved of the e m o t i o n a l l y o v e r w r o u g h t Werther Werther

in G o e t h e ' s The

Sorrows

of

Young

( 1 7 7 4 ) , involves herself in n o illicit s e x , a n d leaves the suffering to

others. T h e n a m e s of A u s t e n ' s characters in 'Lesley C a s t l e ' are thus complicated for a n y reader w h o has k n o w l e d g e (guilty k n o w l e d g e ) of t w o famous but controversial novels a b o u t s e x a n d suffering. T o k n o w such w o r k s is itself a cultural achievement, if one not w i t h o u t risk for w o m e n . T h r o u g h such w o r k s w o m e n h a v e access to philosophical ideas. H e r e , h o w e v e r , the reader's vision is beclouded by an excess of association. R e a d i n g Austen's 'Lesley C a s t l e ' one is apt to run into a n e w reading of R o u s s e a u ' s ' E l o i s a ' as t o o limp a n d d i e - a w a y , as well as into a p a r o d y of the ' C h a r l o t t e ' of Werther,

bread-and-butter

w h o becomes that fiendish c o o k with a one-track

m i n d , C h a r l o t t e Luttrell. A u s t e n turns the culture into a n a r c h y . B u t the N o v e l itself - w h a t of that? In E n g l a n d , in particular, the N o v e l h a d u n d e r g o n e m a n y trials. T h e R e n a i s s a n c e a n d the seventeenth century h a d seen a great festival of fiction-reading, m u c h amplified by n e w editions a n d translations

of older novels from antiquity, such as the w o r k s of

H e l i d o r u s , a n d from the M i d d l e A g e s , such as B o c c a c c i o . T h e rage for fiction-reading g a v e rise to a certain nervousness. Sixteenth-century scholars a n d divines h a d b e g u n to take a dim v i e w of prose fiction. Y e t , on the w h o l e , it s u r v i v e d a n d prospered until that universal E u r o p e a n post-war period of the later seventeenth century. After the abortive French revolution of the 1 6 4 0 s k n o w n as the ' F r o n d e ' , after the English Civil W a r and the T h i r t y Y e a r s W a r , E u r o p e a n governments reformed themselves, more or less a w k w a r d l y , either into a m o r e absolute m o n a r c h i c form to achieve the status of nation state (like F r a n c e , a n d later G e r m a n y , a n d Austria), or into a m o r e republican f o r m , a l l o w i n g rule of a n oligarchy. T o both kinds of

94

The short fiction new politically adjusted p o w e r the tradition of prose fiction bore special dangers. T h e novel is critical of w h a t is. It gives the y o u n g e r generation a chance. R e a d i n g it can m a k e w o m e n a n d

b o y s think themselves

too

important. In F r a n c e , the novel is represented as bourgeois - a brilliant stroke initiated by B o i l e a u . In the plutocracies (England, H o l l a n d ) the N o v e l under the label ' R o m a n c e ' w a s attacked as t o o royalist, old-fashioned, a n d feudal. Prose fiction continued to be in a period of great experiment in the early eighteenth century, but the m i d century s a w m o r e determined efforts to police it, not the least of these being novel r e v i e w i n g . W h o l e tracts of the older fiction (and in Britain, practically all foreign fiction) w e r e labelled off limits - a process of banning recorded in that a m b i g u o u s a n d clever novel that J a n e Austen k n e w very well, Charlotte L e n n o x ' s The Female

Quixote,

in 1 7 5 2 . A s L e n n o x s h o w s us in that b o o k , the N o v e l can be a l l o w e d to continue to exist - even the novel a b o u t a w o m a n by a w o m a n - but only if the terms are agreed to. N o t h i n g outlandish o r d a n g e r o u s must be s h o w n . T h e novel is to exhibit the taming of a girl as she dwindles into a wife - the story of a girl learning her place. T h i s is the story that R o u s s e a u adapts in creating Sophie in his Emile

(1762).

T h e novel, then, is tamed. ' R e a l i s m ' is the n a m e that w e give to an ideology of tameness a n d tightening applied to the n o v e l . T h e novel in England - w h i c h defines itself as H i s t o r y or ultimately N o v e l as against Romance

- is especially domesticated. T h e history of its domestication in

relation to w o m e n has been traced by m a n y other writers, including V i n e t a 9

C o l b y , Sandra Gilbert a n d Susan G u b a r , a n d N a n c y A r m s t r o n g . I see the point of this domestication in another sense. T h e n e w novel is domestic

in

that it deals with h o m e , a n d with E n g l a n d . Foreigners d o n ' t count. If y o u meet a M u s l i m in a w o r k of fiction, then it isn't a p r o p e r novel, but R o m a n c e . A l l sensation (this in an era of colonization, w a r s , battle, murder, and sudden death) is the b a g g a g e of the b a d old ' R o m a n c e ' . T h e N o v e l is to be a l l o w e d to exist, a n d to be read by w o m e n a n d the y o u n g , on condition that it a l w a y s k n o w s its o w n place in the Culture, w h i c h is a l o w place. It is 'only a n o v e l ! ' (NA

3 8 ) . T h i s is a quiet, subservient, inferior form. Its best

use and sole justification is that it c a n inform the y o u n g (especially w o m e n ) of w e l l - k n o w n truths, a n d teach them their place in the universe. R e a l i s m is valued because it resists thought-experiment. A n d if a w o m a n writes only of w h a t she strictly a n d severely k n o w s then her fictional w o r l d - unlike that of, say, the seventeenth-century French novelist M a d e l e i n e de Scudéry - will be constricted indeed. T h e courtship plot of the regular novel is a l w a y s sneered at ( w o m e n , bless their silly little hearts, like to read love stories). But courtship is of the essence, particularly if it ends in a synthesizing middle-class m a r r i a g e . J a n e 95

MARGARET ANNE

DOODY

Austen's early w o r k s c a n n o t be called courtship novels, though they s h o w an e x a c t k n o w l e d g e of the f o r m u l a s . In her s i x full novels, she had to adapt the courtship plot in g o o d seriousness (or with some degree of seriousness). T h a t she w a s not quite successful in her R e g e n c y disguise, perhaps, can be felt in the w e i g h t of Scott's c o m p l a i n t , in his cumulative review of

Emma,

that A u s t e n does not p a y e n o u g h attention to love. It m a y be because of that r e v i e w that Austen discusses love, and m a l e and female v i e w s of it, as thoroughly as she does in

Persuasion.

Certainly, the novel as it w a s being shaped - the domestic novel, safe for w o m e n to write - a n d read - w a s not the appropriate home of social criticism or free aesthetic p l a y - still less of m o r a l questioning. Y o u n g people - especially but not only w o m e n - w e r e to be instructed in their m o r a l duties. S o h e a v y did the w e i g h t of the real R e g e n c y formulations lie o n the n o v e l , one m a y feel, that the novel became flattened under the burden a n d passed out. H o w else c a n w e explain the paucity of novels in the period between J a n e A u s t e n ' s death and Queen V i c t o r i a ' s ascent to the throne? T h e 1 8 4 0 s w e r e to inaugurate a n e w era in fiction, but the preceding decades from a novel-lover's point of v i e w are fairly dismal. There are few n e w writers in the 1 8 2 0 s and 1 8 3 0 s . Scott dominates the field, and he had developed in the historical n o v e l a route out of the impasse offered by the domestic fiction. M a r i a E d g e w o r t h did not die w h e n J a n e Austen did - she lived until 1 8 4 9 . B u t h a d she died in 1 8 1 7 w e should have lost but one i m p o r t a n t w o r k by E d g e w o r t h - the novel Helen Taken

for Granted,

( 1 8 3 4 ) . A n o t h e r novel,

finished in 1 8 3 8 , w a s (interestingly) destroyed by its

author. Frances B u r n e y the novelist w a s apparently silenced by the reviews of The Wanderer.

T h e a u t h o r published a three-volume biography of her

father in 1 8 3 2 , but w r o t e n o m o r e novels. P e a c o c k ' s early spurt of novelwriting ceases w i t h Nightmare 1 8 3 0 s (Crotchet to produce Gryll

Abbey

( 1 8 1 8 ) . There is one novel in the

Castle, 1 8 3 1 ) ; P e a c o c k w a i t e d until the H i g h Victorian A g e Grange

( i 8 6 0 ) . L o o k i n g at such a record, one begins to

think better of Catherine G o r e , w i t h her satiric 'silver fork' novels in the 1 8 3 0 s - but even M r s . G o r e turned to song-writing and d r a m a as more profitable. T h e challenge that J a n e A u s t e n offered to other writers of fiction w a s not then to be taken up, a n d by the time it w a s truly taken up she w a s burdened with a certain imposed quaintness never quite totally shaken off. She could a l s o be smothered in A u n t J a n e - i s m . T h e challenge that A u s t e n offered c o n t e m p o r a r y fiction arose from the challenge she herself faced - h o w to sustain s o m e of her o w n deeper interests while submitting to the restrictions of the domestic and m o r a l

courtship

novel as the only truly a v a i l a b l e form. W h a t she does, I w a n t to suggest, is 96

The short fiction to tap into the deep roots of the N o v e l as a w h o l e - the B i g N o v e l , not in the sense of the long novel but of the larger traditions of p r o s e fiction, g o i n g back to antiquity. If a novel is deep enough it c a n escape the shallowness of contemporary polite a n d prudential formulas. A u s t e n ' s depths are very well hidden. She is strikingly unlike her contemporaries, female as w e l l as m a l e , in not overtly alluding to any of the heathen m y t h o l o g y in her novels. Indeed, the allusion to the fact of its existence c o m e s in the form of mockery: 'How long ago it is, aunt, since we used to repeat the chronological order of the kings of England . . . ' 'Yes', added the other; 'and of the Roman emperors as low as Severus; besides a great deal of the Heathen Mythology, and all the Metals, SemiMetals, Planets, and distinguished philosophers.' (M? 18-19) Austen is not going to let us catch her m a k i n g her novels mythical. She customarily shies a w a y even from explicit allegory of n a m e s of the type familiar enough in Fielding (with his 'Squire W e s t e r n ' a n d ' M r . A l l w o r t h y ' ) . W e c a n catch her - just barely - in a n a m e like M r . K n i g h t l e y . B u t she uses to a considerable degree and in a very fascinating w a y w h a t I call the 'tropes of the N o v e l ' . One of these important tropes is the i m a g e of mud,

the m i x t u r e of earth

and w a t e r , usually combined with a m a r g i n , threshold, o r n o - m a n ' s land of in-between. Mud

is earthy a n d mobile, the deep p r i m a l slime from w h i c h

things g r o w , the union of male a n d female, the p a r t y of hylé, the celebration of life o n earth. M u d is thus exactly w h a t is b a n n e d f r o m d r a w i n g r o o m s and has no place in the transcendent. T o n a m e m u d is to n a m e w h a t is not transcendent

-

it goes with

the

flesh, the

muddy

vesture

of

decay.

M r . Knightley has to display his shoes to M r . W o o d h o u s e to reassure him that he has n o m u d or dirt o n them. This dry beginning of Emma

tells us

that relationships are b a u l k e d , that this is something of a w a s t e land of sterility - the sterility arising from propriety. W h e n the h e r o a n d the heroine at last c o m e together, they are outdoors after a s h o w e r . E a r t h a n d w a t e r have reunited, there is plenty of dirt a r o u n d , a n d fertility is possible. T o use the image thus is to join in the great N o v e l - w o r k of celebrating the physical, of resisting the transcendent insofar as that does not h o n o u r the w o r l d of matter and flesh. Elizabeth Bennet gets m u d o n her petticoats racing o v e r the fields a n d leaping o v e r stiles on a rainy d a y . H e r m u d d y

vesture

scandalizes the Bingley sisters - but not M r . D a r c y o r ourselves. T h e beginning of The

Watsons

s h o w s the sisters ' A s they splashed along the

dirty L a n e ' ( M W 3 1 5 ) . Life offers a n e w beginning. It is this sense of vitality that offers the deepest pleasure in A u s t e n ' s w o r k . 97

MARGARET ANNE

DOODY

W i t h this her truest 'religious feeling' (as w e sometimes term it) is conjoined. W e recognize in her mature novels the places of deception, the arid places w h e r e h y p o c r i s y reigns, w h e r e the spiritless meets the spiritless. T h e truly spiritual in A u s t e n is spirited. In her early fiction, J a n e A u s t e n c o u l d write w i t h zest a n d confidence. She h a d inherited a taste for irony, p a r a d o x , a n d ' s p a r k l e ' from the eighteenth century. H e r early writing is r o u g h , violent, s e x y , j o k y . It sparkles with k n o w i n g n e s s . It attacks w h o l e structures, including cultural structures that h a d m a d e a regularized a n d constricted place for the N o v e l , as well as the v e r y w o r k i n g s (in stylized plot a n d character) of the English novel itself. T h e o r d e a l of creating her o w n n o v e l , I w o u l d suggest, w a s an ordeal painful for J a n e A u s t e n , a retreat to K a m s c h a t k a a n d a c r a w l i n g back. T h e elements that w e find in A u s t e n ' s early short fiction are w h a t kept her later w o r k s from d w i n d l i n g into comfortable p r o s y little comedies of upper middle-class courtship, with didactic elements carefully inserted. Y e t , to a certain extent a n d not in trifling w a y s , A u s t e n h a d to pretend - in order to get published at all - that her mature novels w e r e such innocuous

and

didactic things. A t the beginning of the nineteenth century, Austen had, in effect, been w a r n e d that she w o u l d h a v e to 'chill out' to match the chillier d e c o r u m that constituted the conventions of fiction a l l o w e d into public discourse. T h e original ' S i b e r i a ' to w h i c h she h a d been sent w a s the Siberia of rejection by publishers. She escaped, but at the price of subscribing to c o n f o r m i t y , of adapting to the confinements of propriety. H e r movements b e c a m e constricted a n d she s p o k e in an altered tone. T h e early fictions tell us w h a t A u s t e n might h a v e s o u n d e d like w i t h o u t such domestication. She h a d to g o a v e r y long w a y r o u n d to get b a c k into fiction - w e a r i n g her R e g e n c y w a l k i n g dress, w h i c h must h a v e been uncomfortable to w a l k in, a n d c o m i n g from K a m s c h a t k a .

NOTES 1

2 3 4

M y quotations for this essay are from Jane Austen's Catharine and Other Writings, ed. Margaret Anne Doody and Douglas Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1 9 9 3 ) , which more closely represents the manuscript than R. W. Chapman's edition of the Minor Works. A version of this essay appeared in the annual journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America, Persuasions, 16 (1994), 69-84. See Volume the Third M S , p. 67. George Holbert Tucker, Jane Austen: The Woman (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), p. 1 1 4 . Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (London: The British Library, 1989), p. xxii. 98

The short fiction 5 6 7 8 9

Quoted in Roger Lonsdale, Eighteenth-Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 6. Robert Mack, Introduction to Horace Walpole's Oriental Tales, ed. Robert Mack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). G. K. Chesterton, ed., Love and Freindship and Other Early Works (New York: Fredrick A. Stokes, 1 9 2 2 ) , p. xv. Claudia L. Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988), 'Introduction'. Vineta Colby, The Singular Anomaly: Women Novelists of the Nineteenth Century (New York: N e w York University Press, 1970); Sandra M . Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979); Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1 9 8 7 ) .

99

6 CAROL HOULIHAN FLYNN

The letters

A s she recalls her o w n memories of A u n t J a n e to help brother J a m e s E d w a r d A u s t e n - L e i g h construct his Memoir

of Jane

Austen,

Caroline

A u s t e n questions the possibility of ever representing a 'life' that already seems t o o o b s c u r e to recover. ' I a m sure y o u will d o justice to w h a t there is - but I feel that it m u s t be a difficult task to dig up the materials,

so carefully

h a v e they been buried out of o u r sight b y the past g e n e r a t i o n . '

1

She

dismisses the m o r e o b v i o u s 'materials' at h a n d : ' T h e r e is nothing in those letters w h i c h I h a v e seen that w o u l d be acceptable to the public - T h e y were v e r y w e l l e x p r e s s e d , a n d they must h a v e been very interesting to those w h o received them - but they detailed chiefly h o m e a n d family events: a n d she s e l d o m c o m m i t t e d herself even

to a n opinion - so that to strangers they

c o u l d be no transcript of her mind - they w o u l d not feel that they k n e w her a n y the better for h a v i n g read them - '

2

W h a t I find s o compelling a b o u t C a r o l i n e A u s t e n ' s scepticism is its applicability to A u s t e n studies in every generation. R e a d e r s coming to her letters usually find something 'missing' that v e x e s them. In his introduction to the first edition of the letters, R . W . C h a p m a n recites w h a t will continue to be ' a familiar defence' of the letters. T h e y h a v e been ' r o b b e d of their general interest by C a s s a n d r a A u s t e n ' s pious destruction of all that she 3

s u p p o s e d might p o s s i b l y excite general c u r i o s i t y ' . B y blaming C a s s a n d r a for keeping us from the ' r e a l ' J a n e A u s t e n , w e are able to sustain an idea of the writer regardless of materials, o r lack of materials, that occlude the portrait of the artist. W e l o o k to the letters for deep feeling, but are kept relegated to the surface of things, r e w a r d e d w i t h 'small matters'

and

' m o m e n t o u s minutiae'. C a r o l i n e A u s t e n rejects w h a t is in A u s t e n ' s letters, not w h a t is left out. N o t the mysteriously buried materials, but those m u n d a n e l y visible a b o v e g r o u n d , the letters preserved by C a s s a n d r a , disappoint her for failing to p r o v i d e ' a transcript' of the writer's mind. H e r concern reveals the invest­ ment that readers l o o k i n g for a transparent relationship between ' m i n d ' and

ioo

The letters 'art' bring to the letters, a n investment her brother seems to share. L i k e Caroline, he is disappointed by his aunt's epistolary productions, a n d he w a r n s the reader of his Memoirs

'not to e x p e c t t o o m u c h ' from his aunt's

letters. T h e i r 'materials', he e x p l a i n s , ' m a y be t h o u g h t inferior',

treating

only 'the details of domestic life . . . T h e y resemble the nest w h i c h s o m e little bird builds of the materials nearest at h a n d . '

4

It is only recently that the

domestic nature of the letters has been freed from such a condescending interpretation. J o M o d e r t suggests that the v e r y b a n a l domestic surface of the letters offers us a tool for understanding the foundations of A u s t e n ' s creative p r o d u c t i o n ,

5

while D e b o r a h K a p l a n a n d S u s a n W h e a l l e r

Austen's depictions of self-denial a n d h o u s e w i f e r y as subtle

read

productions

emerging from a feminine culture w h i c h supports the self-expression of w o m e n w h o are conscious of dual allegiances to claims of social class a n d 6

g e n d e r . W e are learning to l o o k m o r e carefully at the c o d e d interpretations that Austen a n d her female correspondents

m a k e of their positions of

relative powerlessness in their class a n d gender systems, a n d to l o o k for their painfully calibrated understanding of the disappointments a n d adjust­ ments w h i c h m a r k the feminine experience. It is A u s t e n ' s a w a r e n e s s of the texture of domestic life that generates her densely realized novels. In the novels, Austen is careful to m a k e certain that her understanding of the 'dual cultures' w h i c h claim her allegiance not be m a d e entirely trans­ parent. H e r sensitivity to the privileged obligations of class a n d gender encourages her to disguise her representations of the desire for p o w e r a n d its disappointments, a n d to frame such situations with ironic p r o n o u n c e ­ ments w h i c h undercut desire while they pretend detachment. T h e v e r y style of her novels, tersely a n d laconically e p i g r a m m a t i c , insists u p o n a graceful inevitability of social forms that must triumph

o v e r individual acts of

rebellion a n d desire. N o t h i n g is ever so inevitable in Austen's o w n letters, h o w e v e r , w h i c h a w k w a r d l y disclose disjointed fragments of e v e r y d a y social e x c h a n g e . ' I w o n d e r whether the Ink bottle has been filled', she writes. ' D o e s Butcher's meat keep u p at the s a m e price? & is not B r e a d l o w e r than 2/6. - M a r y ' s blue g o w n ! - M y M o t h e r must be in a g o n i e s ' ( L 2 3 9 ) . S e l d o m moderated, extreme positions are m o r e often than not enumerated, blandly, in jarring catalogues of 'little matters' that unsettle a reader l o o k i n g for coherence. It is this incoherence that so alarms C a r o l i n e A u s t e n , w h o is l o o k i n g for a proper 'transcript' of a n elegant, c o m p o s e d m i n d . In her letters, A u s t e n employs a jolting, frustrating

style w h i c h d i s a l l o w s for

Dashes casually b r e a k up endless p a r a g r a p h s

subordination.

to signal fresh

'matters'

inappropriately joined, subjects as m o m e n t o u s as ' a dead B a r o n e t ' a n d as m u n d a n e as a dose of r h u b a r b ( 3 2 0 - 1 ) . Alternately 'ringing the C h a n g e s of

101

CAROL HOULIHAN

FLYNN

the G l a d s &c S o r r y s ' ( 1 1 8 ) , she seems to be e x p l o r i n g the limits of a stream of consciousness located s o m e w h e r e between Sterne a n d Samuel Beckett, one that represents her o w n a w a r e n e s s of the endless nature of her domestic 7

tasks. Since ' c o r r e s p o n d e n c e ' b e c o m e s one of these t a s k s , she must a l w a y s be in search of a subject. In fact, it is the search itself w h i c h ties her to a constant reading of the vicissitudes of her o w n mind, the one that C a r o l i n e doesn't like to see transcribed.

' T H E R E IS N O R E A S O N T O S U P P O S E T H A T

MISS

M O R G A N IS D E A D A F T E R A L L ' In a letter to F a n n y K n i g h t , J a n e A u s t e n apologises for the polarities of her state of mind: ' I a m feeling differently every m o m e n t , & shall not be able to suggest a single thing that c a n assist y o u r M i n d . -

I could lament in one

sentence 8c laugh in the n e x t . . . ' ( 2 7 9 ) . A l t h o u g h Austen presents her state as both e x t r e m e a n d unsuitable, it actually underlies much of her m o r e familiar epistolary discourse. M o c k i n g her domestic duties, she produces a typical ' n o t . . . quite so t r i u m p h a n t . . . a c c o u n t ' of daily life: We met with no adventures . . . except that our Trunk had once nearly slipt off, & we were obliged to stop at Hartley to have our wheels greazed. - While my Mother and M r Lyford were together, I went to Mrs Ryders, and bought what I intended to buy, but not in much perfection. - There were no narrow Braces for Children, & scarcely any netting silk; but Miss Wood as usual is going to Town very soon, and will lay in a fresh stock. - I gave zs/^d a yard for my flannel, & fancy it is not very good; but it is so disgraceful &c contemptible an article in itself, that its' being comparatively good or bad is of little importance. I bought some Japan Ink likewise, & next week shall begin my operations on my hat, on which Y o u know my principal hopes of happiness depend. - I am very grand indeed; I had the dignity of dripping out my mother's Laudanum last night, I carry about the keys of the Wine &c Closet; &c twice since I began this letter, have had orders to give in the Kitchen: Our dinner was very good yesterday, &C the Chicken boiled perfectly tender; therefore I shall not be obliged to dismiss Nanny on that account. (16-17) W h a t is characteristic a b o u t this excerpt, a small piece from a large letter filled w i t h dashes a n d m e m o r a n d a a n d tidily expressed laments ('I a m quite a n g r y w i t h myself for not w r i t i n g closer; w h y is m y alphabet so much m o r e s p r a w l y than Y o u r s ? D a m e T i l b u r y ' s daughter has lain-in - ' ) , is its l o w level of affect. A d v e n t u r e s sink into o b l i g a t o r y stops w h e r e one's wheels are greased. Purchases are either 'disgraceful & contemptible' or sublime, like 102

The letters J a p a n Ink elevated ironically into the means to p e r f o r m a n operation u p o n which ' m y principal hopes of happiness depend'. T h e grandeur of J a n e Austen's 'lesser duties' is undercut b y the level of 'obligation' w h i c h motivates her actions. ' T w i c e since I b e g a n this letter, I have h a d orders to give in the Kitchen.' W h i l e she is the one giving the orders, she 'has t o ' give them. Such m o m e n t o u s small matters force writer and reader alike to attend to the domestic duties, even w h i l e the writing itself becomes an obligation that she often chafes against ( ' w h y is m y alphabet so m u c h m o r e s p r a w l y than Y o u r s ? ' ) . T h i s p a r t i c u l a r letter holds within itself the f a m o u s , still shocking report that ' M r s H a l l of S h e r b o u r n w a s brought to bed yesterday of a d e a d child, s o m e w e e k s before she expected o w e i n g to a fright. - I suppose she h a p p e n e d u n a w a r e s to l o o k at her h u s b a n d ' ( 1 7 ) . W h a t is most notable a b o u t this statement is not so much its heartless wit, but its context. It becomes in this long a n d rambling letter just one of m a n y careless-seeming r e m a r k s squeezed in between reports a b o u t the u n c o m m o n largeness of M a r y , a b o u t to give birth, the lying in of D a m e T i l b u r y ' s daughter, a n d the dirtiness of Steventon's lanes. Austen the novelist addresses the stylistic p r o b l e m that the o d d l y j u x t a ­ posed detail presents in Persuasion

w h e n her n a r r a t o r , quite unexpectedly,

exposes the 'large fat sighings' that M r s . M u s g r o v e is guilty of displaying: 'Personal size a n d mental s o r r o w h a v e certainly n o necessary p r o p o r t i o n s . A large bulky figure has as g o o d a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the w o r l d . But, fair o r not fair, there are u n b e c o m i n g conjunctions, w h i c h reason will patronize in v a i n , - w h i c h taste cannot tolerate, - w h i c h ridicule will seize' (P 68). T h e n a r r a t o r ' s h o r r o r of the 'unbecoming conjunction' establishes a c a n o n of taste a n d d e c o r u m that Austen violates frequently a n d eagerly in her o w n domestic letters. T h e Austen that w e think w e ' k n o w ' , that writer w h o s e m i n d

could

be

transcribed, stands as an arbiter of taste, a modest tyrant w h o insists u p o n the appropriate forms of discourse. H e r letters, h o w e v e r , repeatedly e m b a r ­ rass her o w n standards in transgressions, w h i c h , unlike M r s . M u s g r o v e ' s , appear to be deliberate a n d self-conscious. W h e n she chronicles her 'little matters', A u s t e n exploits w i t h m u n d a n e precision the sheer tedium not only of committing oneself to practising 'the civilities, the lesser duties of life, w i t h gentleness a n d f o r b e a r a n c e ' ,

8

but of

being obliged to record them in closely written letters for the inspection of others: 'There is n o reason to suppose that M i s s M o r g a n is d e a d after all. M r L y f o r d gratified us very m u c h yesterday by his praises of m y father's mutton, w h i c h they all think the finest that w a s ever ate' ( L 2 4 ) . ' T h e r e is n o reason to suppose that M i s s M o r g a n is dead after a l l . ' S a m u e l Beckett could have written such a line. O r Swift. O r closer to h o m e , A u s t e n ' s o w n

103

CAROL HOULIHAN FLYNN

p a r a s y n t a c t i c , a l w a y s obliging M i s s Bates, w h o sees a n d reports every

thing

w i t h a flat, undistinguished, decidedly u n b e c o m i n g zeal.

'FLY[ING] OFF, T H R O U G H HALF A SENTENCE, TO HER MOTHER'S OLD

PETTICOAT'

M i s s Bates is first introduced to the reader as 'great talker on little matters' (E 2 1 ). H e r aimless, c o n v o l u t e d accounts invest her character with great significance as one w h o sees a n d tells the plot of Emma

as it unfolds. But

her c o n v e r s a t i o n also serves as a n o d d l y perverse model for Austen's o w n epistolary production. M i s s B a t e s ' m o n o l o g u e s , stuffed with roast p o r k and b a k e d apples, chimneys that w a n t sweeping, spectacles that need mending, s o u n d suspiciously like her creator's o w n p r o s e y , r a m b l i n g letters. M i s s Bates is, of c o u r s e , designed to be exasperating e n o u g h to excuse E m m a ' s d r e a d of engaging her in conversation. W e are even a l l o w e d to laugh at E m m a ' s imitation of M i s s Bates, w h e n she imagines the 'evils' of a marriage between M r . Knightley a n d J a n e F a i r f a x : H o w would he bear to have Miss Bates belonging to him? - T o have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane? - 'So very kind and obliging! - But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!' And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother's old petticoat. 'Not that it was such a very old petticoat either - for still it would last a great while - and, indeed, she must thankfully say that their petticoats were all very strong'. (E 225) B u t w h e n E m m a mimics M i s s B a t e s ' 'fly[ing] off, through half a sentence, to her mother's old petticoat', she reproduces A u s t e n ' s o w n epistolary use of the trusty dash that she applies in a n y direction to link together matters g r e a t a n d small: I am full of J o y at much of your information; that you should have been to a Ball, & have danced at it, & supped with the Prince, & that you should meditate the purchase of a new muslin Gown are delightful circumstances. - I am determined to buy a handsome one whenever I can, &C I am so tired and ashamed of half my present stock that I even blush at the sight of the wardrobe which contains them. - But I will not be much longer libelled by the possession of my coarse spot, I shall turn it into a petticoat very soon. - I wish you a merry Christmas, but no compliments of the Season. - Poor Edward! It is a very hard that he who has everything else in the World that he can wish for, should not have good health too. - But I hope with the assistance of Bowel complaints, Faintnesses &c Sicknesses, he will soon be restored to that Blessing like-wise. (L 30) 104

The letters I chose this particular excerpt because of its conveniently i n v o k e d petticoat, but its structure as well as its content connects this very typical m i x t u r e of romance, practicality, sentiment,

a n d passive aggression to M i s s B a t e s '

meditations o n rivets, b a k e d apples, civility, a n d the c o n s u m p t i o n of b r e a d ( £ 2 3 6 - 7 ) . B o t h speakers excel at filling empty space w i t h sentiments, T a m full of joy . . . P o o r E d w a r d ' , that jostle against each other inconsequentially, suggesting the relative meaninglessness of w h a t is being set d o w n . A s M i s s Bates w o u l d s a y , ' O n e takes up a notion, a n d runs a w a y w i t h it' ( 1 7 6 ) . W h e n Austen seems to mimic a character that she might h a v e been able to love, but could never admire, her letters reveal a p r o f o u n d consciousness of the artificial a n d v a c a n t nature of m o s t discourse, w h i c h flies off t h r o u g h half sentences because there is nothing substantial to hold it d o w n . ' D o not be angry w i t h me for beginning another C a s s a n d r a from Henrietta

Letter to y o u ' , she writes to

Street. ' I h a v e read the C o r s a i r , m e n d e d

petticoat, & h a v e nothing else to d o . -

' (L 2 5 7 ) . Employing

my

another

petticoat, Austen exploits a c o m i c a l l y painful a w a r e n e s s that a n y discourse will serve to fill up the time a n d space facing the m o s t adept c o n v e r s a t i o n a l ists and correspondents, particularly if they are w o m e n . In her letters, the absence of the subject often motivates the writing itself: ' E x p e c t a most agréable Letter; for not being o v e r b u r d e n e d w i t h subject (having nothing at all to say) - I shall h a v e n o check to m y G e n i u s f r o m beginning to end. - Well- & so . . . ' ( 7 4 - 5 ) . S i x y e a r s later, writing from Southampton, cut off from country life a n d still unpublished, she s o u n d s less eager to write a b o u t 'nothing'. M y expectation of having nothing to say to you after the conclusion of my last, seems nearer Truth than I thought it would be, for I feel to have but little. I need not therefore be above acknowledging the receipt of yours this morning; or of replying to every part of it which is capable of an answer; & you may accordingly prepare for my ringing the Changes of the Glads &c Sorrys for the rest of the page. (118) ' W e are all sorry, & n o w that subject is e x h a u s t e d ' , A u s t e n reports,

but

continues to write d o g g e d l y o n , v e x e d o v e r disappointments in getting fish, charmed by a 'little V i s i t o r ' w h o m a k e s her w o n d e r ' W h a t is b e c o m e of all the Shyness in the W o r l d ? ' W i t h 'nothing to s a y ' , A u s t e n uses u p all of her writing paper, squeezing in references to sofa-covers a n d carpets b e l o w the address panel, a n d crossing o v e r a rather snide reference to brother J a m e s ' impending visit. Straining to fit him onto her filled u p p a g e , she c o m p l a i n s about the w a y he takes up t o o m u c h r o o m , ' w a l k i n g a b o u t the h o u s e ÔC banging the D o o r s , or ringing the Bell for a glass of W a t e r ' . She writes here as the recessive, dutiful sister, one w h o hardly takes up a n y r o o m at all, 105

CAROL HOULIHAN

FLYNN

observing w i t h careful, painstaking acuity the cost of daily life, as she c o m p a r e s the b u m p t i o u s

excess of her brother's presence to her

own

relatively empty a n d tidy surface. T h e act of writing becomes here a necessary w e a p o n in the domestic w a r w a g e d against tedium, emptiness, a n d o c c a s i o n a l despair. In closing, A u s t e n reminds C a s s a n d r a that she has 'constructed Smartish Letter, considering m y w a n t of M a t e r i a l s . B u t like m y

... a dear

D r J o h n s o n I beleive I h a v e dealt m o r e in N o t i o n s than Facts. - ' ( i 1 8 - 2 1 ) . W h i l e she l o o k s to J o h n s o n as her m o d e l , she sounds m o r e like Swift and Sterne, writers m a k i n g their subject the task of writing u p o n nothing at all. H e r choice of materials, h o w e v e r , radically separates her from m o r e self­ consciously literary productions - J o h n s o n ' s Idler, Swift's H a c k , Sterne's W h i t e B e a r - that depend u p o n the generative p o w e r of the literary market­ place. Swift a n d Sterne a n d J o h n s o n pretend that they write upon nothing because they are being p a i d to d o s o . A u s t e n claims that she is writing upon n o subject because she is obliged to d o s o ; epistolary production is one of her domestic duties, w h a t w o m e n d o for free. A u s t e n ' s praise of her sister's epistolary skill ('you write so even, so clear both in style &c P e n m a n s h i p ' [229]) is complicated by the w a y that letterwriting is j u d g e d in A u s t e n ' s novels. T h e greatest admirer of close writing is M i s s Bates, w h o stupefies E m m a w i t h her p r o u d reports of J a n e F a i r f a x ' s literary p r o d u c t i o n s : 'in general she fills the w h o l e p a p e r a n d crosses half. M y mother often w o n d e r s that I c a n m a k e it out so well. She often says, w h e n the letter is first opened, " W e l l , Hetty, n o w I think y o u will be put to it to m a k e out all that c h e q u e r - w o r k . " ' W h e n E m m a says 'something very civil a b o u t the excellence of M i s s F a i r f a x ' s handwriting', and is rewarded w i t h 'hearing her o w n silly compliment repeated twice o v e r ' ( £ 1 5 7 - 8 ) it is clear that A u s t e n has little patience for the fetishizing of the letter. M i s s Bingley, f a w n i n g o v e r D a r c y ' s talent for writing long letters {PP 4 7 - 8 ) , Harriet, betraying her ' b a d taste' by judging R o b e r t M a r t i n ' s p r o p o s a l of m a r r i a g e to be 'too short' (E 5 1 - 4 ) , a n d L a d y Bertram, w h o shines in the epistolary line, all e x p o s e their foolish satisfaction with the form of the letter a n d their dissociation from its s u b s t a n c e .

9

W h i l e A u s t e n the novelist c a n satirize misplaced, self-important dedica­ tion to the fine art of letter-writing, A u s t e n the sister, engaged in friendly rivalry, determined to exhibit her social skills, gets 'sick' (L 1 3 1 ) a n d 'hates' herself w h e n she writes ill ( 1 3 ) . H e r d o u b l e d consciousness sets her against cultural productions that she herself pursues with great interest. Chafing against the d e m a n d s of her position, for T assure y o u I a m as tired of writing long letters as y o u can b e ' , she corrects herself, holding tenaciously o n t o her appreciation of the necessity for the letters that take up so much of 106

The letters her energy: ' W h a t a pity that one should still be so fond of receiving them', she reminds them both ( 1 3 7 ) . T h e c o m m i t m e n t w a v e r s , h o w e v e r , w h e n the writer faces the well w o r n terra cognita of her epistolary landscape: 'I a m not surprised m y dear C a s s a n d r a , that y o u did not find m y last Letter v e r y full of matter, 8c I w i s h this m a y not h a v e the s a m e deficiency; - but w e are doing nothing ourselves to write about, 6c I a m therefore quite dependant u p o n the C o m m u n i c a t i o n s of o u r friends, o r m y o w n W i t ' ( 1 6 2 ) . It is, after all, A u s t e n ' s a w a r e n e s s of such dependency that motivates her m o s t m o v i n g characters,

unaccommodated

women

like

Miss

Bates,

Persuasion's

M r s . Smith, and perhaps most poignantly, M i s s J a n e F a i r f a x , another great letter-writer, 'dependant u p o n the c o m m u n i c a t i o n of [her] friends', quite literally tied to the p o s t .

1 0

DETERMINED TO H A Z A R D NOTHING It is in Emma

that Austen explores the p r o b l e m of feminine dependence

most thoroughly, splitting the source of her a n x i e t y , the u n a c c o m m o d a t e d w o m a n squeezed by circumstance, into M i s s Bates a n d M i s s J a n e F a i r f a x . M i s s Bates stands for the e x p o s e d , needy, w o m a n ' s o v e r y o b l i g e d ' to the support of every

body. H e r 'simplicity a n d cheerfulness' might r e c o m m e n d

her to her neighbours, but they d o not c o m m a n d respect. She deserves rather

' c o m p a s s i o n ' , for sinking 'from the comforts she w a s born

to'

( £ 3 7 5 ) . Austen's m o r e a d m i r a b l e , elegant creation, M i s s F a i r f a x , is never entirely forgiven for her egregious acts of secrecy. E m m a might recognize that 'If a w o m a n can ever be e x c u s e d for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like J a n e F a i r f a x ' s .

- O f such, one m a y almost s a y , that "the

w o r l d is not their's, nor the w o r l d ' s l a w " ' ( 4 0 0 ) . B u t s o m e h o w , in spite of the s y m p a t h y that her circumstances a w a k e n in the reader, w e are a l w a y s kept on the outside of J a n e F a i r f a x ' s character, l o o k i n g in, a n d irresistibly judging her reserve. Y e t , it is in this oddly faulty J a n e F a i r f a x that w e c a n discover A u s t e n ' s o w n elegant, secretive sensibility. T o understand J a n e F a i r f a x ' s clandestine habits of mind is to enter into the hidden w o r l d of J a n e A u s t e n ' s o w n epistolary production. F o r like her character, A u s t e n , a l w a y s eschewing both the sentimental response a n d the a n g r y c o m p l a i n t , aims for, a n d m o s t often

succeeds at, impenetrability. W a i t i n g for the carefully regulated

deliveries of clandestine letters from F r a n k C h u r c h i l l , J a n e F a i r f a x presents an elegant, invulnerable exterior. B u t in her necessary reserve, J a n e F a i r f a x , h o w e v e r repulsive she seems to bossy, p o w e r f u l E m m a , resembles m o s t poignantly the J a n e A u s t e n , reported by one M i s s H i n t o n to h a v e 'stiffened into the most perpendicular, precise, taciturn piece of "single blessedness" ',

107

CAROL HOULIHAN FLYNN

k n o w n for being ' n o m o r e r e g a r d e d in society than a p o k e r or a fire screen, o r any other thin, upright piece of w o o d or iron that fills its corner in peace a n d quiet', the sort of m a i d e n a u n t w h o at least in her letters 'seldom committed herself even to an o p i n i o n ' for public c o n s u m p t i o n .

11

T h e secret integrity w h i c h depends upon silent self-censorship protects J a n e F a i r f a x ' s a n d J a n e A u s t e n ' s position of relative powerlessness in a culture w h i c h privileges the c o m m u n i c a t i o n s of those rich enough to afford them. T r u l y m a r g i n a l characters like M i s s Bates are a l l o w e d to talk because they d o n ' t matter. T d o not think', M r s . W e s t o n tells E m m a , ' M r . Knightley w o u l d be m u c h disturbed b y M i s s Bates. Little things d o not irritate him. She might talk on; a n d if he w a n t e d to say any thing himself, he w o u l d only talk louder, a n d d r o w n her v o i c e ' ( 2 2 6 ) . T h e stakes are higher for the less pathetic figures, like J a n e F a i r f a x , l o o k i n g for m o r e out of life than roast p o r k a n d b a k e d apples. T h e stakes require silence a n d cunning, producing a reserve w h i c h is often strategic. W e c a n see A u s t e n m a n a g i n g the secrets that are passing between her a n d her niece F a n n y . ' Y o u r sending the M u s i c w a s an admirable device', she reports; 'it m a d e everything easy, & I d o not k n o w h o w I could h a v e accounted for the parcel o t h e r w i s e ' ( L 2 8 1 ) . In another letter dedicated to the interesting private discussion they are conducting over the merits of F a n n y ' s ultimately unsuccessful suitor, Austen advises her to send her next letter by S a t u r d a y , 'as w e shall be off on M o n d a y long before the Letters are delivered - a n d write something

that m a y d o to be read or told' to the other

members of the h o u s e h o l d ( 2 8 6 - 7 ) . Epistolary reserve c a n also be political, designed to maintain peace in the family c o m m o n w e a l t h . It is r e m a r k a b l e h o w few times J a n e Austen c o m ­ plains a b o u t her mother

in her correspondence, although w e sense a n

implicit criticism in the daughter's veiled references to her h y p o c h o n d r i a c a l presence. Since explicit r e m a r k s m a d e against the mother w o u l d unsettle the pretence of h a r m o n y , A u s t e n seems to speak most loudly in her silence: 'It began to o c c u r to me before y o u mentioned it that I had been s o m e w h a t silent as to m y mother's health for s o m e time, but I thought y o u could h a v e n o difficulty in divining its e x a c t state - y o u , w h o have guessed so m u c h stranger things' ( 3 8 ) . C a s s a n d r a presides over the letter as its most adroit reader, p r o v i d i n g the hidden k n o w l e d g e that is not a l l o w e d into the text. R e s e r v e a n d indirection is m o s t v a l u e d as a w e a p o n against the con­ descending outside w o r l d . It protects the powerless w o m a n from being taken o v e r by the active 'interest' of patrons looking to engage in w h a t Sterne called 'sentimental c o m m e r c e ' .

1 2

Austen's opposition to sentimen­

tality c a n be detected in her depiction of J a n e F a i r f a x ' s struggle to remain free from the p o w e r of E m m a ' s s y m p a t h y : T d o pity y o u ' , E m m a says to 108

The letters herself. ' A n d the m o r e sensibility y o u betray of their just h o r r o r s , the m o r e I shall like y o u ' ( £ 3 6 3 ) . T o be in w a n t is to be open a n d v u l n e r a b l e . J a n e F a i r f a x ' s struggle to resist E m m a ' s patronizing s y m p a t h y m a k e s me w o n d e r just h o w often J a n e Austen herself needed to defend herself against interested, patronizing parties? S o m a n y friends a n d relations must h a v e displayed interest in the trials of p o o r C a s s a n d r a in 1 7 9 7 , the y e a r in w h i c h T h o m a s F o w l e died of y e l l o w fever in S a n D o m i n g o in the W e s t Indies, just weeks before he w a s to return to his fiancée in E n g l a n d . H o w did she protect herself from solicitous friends w h o heard reports of her distress w h e n she learned she w o u l d be m o v i n g to B a t h ? A u s t e n k n e w t o o w e l l h o w eagerly the friend, the patron, indeed the reader, l o o k s to dig o u t evidences of 'sensibility'. Austen herself doesn't w a n t to be ' l i k e d ' for

sentimental

reasons, the sort that motivate E m m a to g r o w fonder of p o o r , dear J a n e . She w o u l d rather be taken for a p o k e r o r a fire screen, silent, superior, guarded. In her letters A u s t e n

fiercely

defends

herself against the p o w e r s of

sympathy. Disgusted by 'fat sighings' seeping from a soft heart, she resists pity, the taking in of it or the giving out of it, in e d g y displays of an uncertain, sometimes a w k w a r d w i t . H e r i r o n y contains the m o s t m o r t a l implications, as in the case of M a r y L l o y d A u s t e n , r e a d y to deliver her first child, J a m e s E d w a r d ( w h o will be his aunt's b i o g r a p h e r ) : I am . . . to tell you that one of [my Father's] Leicestershire sheep, sold to the butcher last week, weighed 27 lb and 1/4 per quarter. I went to Deane with my father two days ago to see Mary, who is still plagued with the rheumatism, which she would be very glad to get rid of, and still more glad to get rid of her child, of whom she is heartily tired. Her nurse is come, and has no particular charm either of person or manner; but as all the Hurstbourne world pronounce her to be the best nurse that ever was, M a r y expects her attachment to increase. What fine weather this is! Not very becoming perhaps early in the morning, but very pleasant out of doors at noon, and very wholesome - at least everybody fancies so, and imagination is everything. T o Edward, however, I really think dry weather of importance. I have not taken to fires yet. I believe I never told you that Mrs Coulthard and Anne, late of Manydown, are both dead, and both died in childbed. We have not regaled M a r y with this news . . . Sunday. - I have just received a note from James to say that Mary was brought to bed last night, at eleven o'clock, of a fine little boy, and that everything is going on very well. M y mother had desired to know nothing of it before it should be all over, and we were clever enough to prevent her having any suspicion of it, though Jenny who had been left here by her mistress was sent for home. (L 2 0 - 1 ) Leicestershire sheep, a nurse of n o particular c h a r m , a n irritating sister-in 109

CAROL HOULIHAN FLYNN

l a w p l a g u e d w i t h r h e u m a t i s m a n d u n b o r n children, fine weather, breeding w o m e n , t w o of them, both d e a d in childbed. M y mother displays some degree of sensibility, not w a n t i n g to k n o w anything a b o u t 'it' until 'it' s h o u l d be o v e r . T h e r e is n o getting into this letter. T h e imagination revealed here is a particularly fortressed o n e , e x p r e s s e d laboriously, without one d a s h , staving off the enormity of m o m e n t s of emotional vulnerability. But then, A u s t e n is a l w a y s u n e a s y w h e n she writes a b o u t childbirth. H e r o w n darling children, her novels, p r o v i d e her w i t h a m o r e dependable source of r e p r o d u c t i v e pleasure. Breeding, w h i c h turns w o m e n into ' a n i m a l s ' ,

13

too

often leads to death.

POLICING THE

PARAPHERNALIA

V i r g i n i a W o o l f imagines the strains of being under J a n e Austen's surveil­ lance: ' A sense of meaning withheld, a smile at something unseen, an a t m o s p h e r e of perfect control a n d courtesy m i x e d w i t h something finely satirical, w h i c h , w e r e it not directed against things in general rather than against individuals, w o u l d be almost malicious, w o u l d , so I feel, m a k e it a l a r m i n g to find her at h o m e . '

1 4

Is it the natural s q u a l o r of domestic life that

m a k e s the act of o b s e r v a t i o n so threatening, o r the hidden squalor of the o b s e r v e d herself? T h e r e is a straightness, a 'perpendicular' penchant for order that a c c o m p a n i e s strict o b s e r v a t i o n , a n intolerance for looseness. M i s s H i n t o n , w h o emphasized this quality of stiff uprightness w h e n she reported

that A u s t e n h a d been 'no m o r e regarded . . . than a p o k e r ' ,

immediately corrected such a representation, a d d i n g that once understood to be the a u t h o r of Pride and Prejudice,

A u s t e n b e c a m e regarded as 'a poker

of w h o m every one is afraid. It must be confessed that this silent observation from such a n observer is rather formidable . . . a wit, a delineator of character, w h o does not talk, is terrific i n d e e d . '

15

Letters p r o v i d e a n excellent vehicle for such formidable observation. Silent a n d reserved, the correspondent can record household faults with impunity. It is, in fact, the letter-writer's duty to describe the 'minute' details of e v e r y d a y life before her, h o w e v e r offensive they might appear. T h u s w e find that J a m e s ' M a r y , for one, lying in, 'does not m a n a g e matters in such a w a y as to m a k e me w a n t to lay in myself. She is not tidy enough in her a p p e a r a n c e ; she has n o d r e s s i n g - g o w n to sit u p in; her curtains are all too thin, a n d things are not in that c o m f o r t a n d style a b o u t her w h i c h are necessary to m a k e such a situation an enviable o n e ' ( 2 4 ) . Offences

can also be less p e r s o n a l , shards

lodged painfully in the

o b s e r v e r ' s penetrating (and penetrated) eye. In a tartly critical letter, written w i t h a s h a k i n g h a n d (T beleive I d r a n k t o o m u c h w i n e last night'), Austen

no

The letters describes the belle of last night's ball, one M r s . B l o u n t , 'the only one m u c h admired', as having 'the s a m e b r o a d face, d i a m o n d b a n d e a u , white shoes, pink husband, &C fat neck' that she possessed in September, w h i l e the daughter of Sir T h o m a s C h a m p n e y s a p p e a r e d to be 'a queer a n i m a l w i t h a white neck'. In a postscript, determined to a p p r e h e n d that w h i c h offends, she adds that she 'had the c o m f o r t of finding out the other evening w h o all the fat girls w i t h short noses w e r e that disturbed me at the i s t H . Ball. T h e y all prove to be M i s s A t k i n s o n s of E n h a m ' ( 6 0 - 3 ) . T h i s surreal a c c o u n t collapses the bland, b r o a d glittering w e a l t h of the Blounts into character­ istics that merge together. W h i c h one has the fat neck; a n d w h a t is it a b o u t 'necks' that particular evening that so irked o u r c o m m e n t a t o r ? B y joining a 'white neck', traditionally a b o d y p a r t held in s o m e degree of esteem, to the figure of a 'queer a n i m a l ' , A u s t e n creates a m i n o r monster shocking in her catachrestic singularity. T h e M i s s A t k i n s o n s , m o r e traditionally pealing, become bizarre in their multitudinous

unap­

potential to disturb

the

observer. H o w m a n y could ' a l l ' be? The desire to catalogue offences m a k e s A u s t e n a m o s t daunting enforcer of 'straight' conduct. Acting as one long a c c u s t o m e d to repressing her o w n considerable p o w e r s , Austen expected n o less from those w h o l o o k e d to her as their monitor. W e can see her establishing standards of c o n d u c t in a letter to F a n n y K n i g h t , reporting o n her visit to another niece, A n n a A u s t e n Lefroy, n e w l y married. Our visit to Hendon will interest you I am sure, but I need not enter into the particulars of it, as your Papa will be able to answer almost every question. I certainly could describe her bed-room, & her Drawers & her Closet better than he can, but I do not feel that I can stop to do it . . . Her purple Pelisse rather surprised me. - 1 thought we had known all Paraphernalia of that sort. I do not mean to blame her, it looked very well & I dare say she wanted it. I suspect nothing worse than its' being got in secret, & not owned to anybody. - She is capable of that you know. (285) J o h n H a l p e r i n finds this to be ' p e r h a p s ' the ' w o r s t m o m e n t ' in A u s t e n ' s correspondence.

16

B u t it is also rather funny to w a t c h J a n e A u s t e n p o k i n g

into her niece's closet, searching for secrets. T h i s letter supposes a public awareness of the private p a r a p h e r n a l i a of life w h i l e it m a k e s particular claims for Austen's expertise in discovery a n d disclosure. W h e n she takes on the role of monitor to police the pelisse, she is acting out a cultural obligation, one that she has inherited from her novelistic m o d e l s , a n d one that she will pass on to her heirs. F o r if one thing is constant in the domestic novel, it is the e x p o s u r e of the female, w h o is a l w a y s subject to the w a t c h f u l eyes of others. R i c h a r d s o n might h a v e started this tradition, placing P a m e l a

in

CAROL HOULIHAN FLYNN

under

M r . B . ' s covert g a z e , subjecting

surveillance, but it is in Sir Charles

C l a r i s s a to L o v e l a c e ' s careful

Grandison,

one of Austen's favourite

novels, that w e are introduced to the benevolent male monitor, one w h o will be r e p r o d u c e d in B u r n e y ' s Evelina Emma, Deronda.

Mansfield

Park,

a n d Northanger

a n d Camilla, Abbey,

in Austen's o w n

a n d later in Eliot's

Daniel

A u s t e n ' s talent for surveillance locates her at the centre of a

tradition both literary a n d domestic w h i c h requires that the female figure be a l w a y s r e a d y for inspection. T h e familiar letter a l l o w e d the powerless to criticize the powerful, but as a n instrument serving t w o cultures, it also served to maintain powerful systems of social control. A u s t e n ' s position here as critic of A n n a ' s desire, for ' I dare s a y she w a n t e d it', places her in the service of a larger system of conduct, one that she is in this epistolary m o m e n t nurturing. F o r the codification of m a n n e r s a n d the pressures of surveillance will develop into such a carefully policed system that even J a n e A u s t e n , h o w e v e r careful she might h a v e been to protect herself from the judgment of others, will be found w a n t i n g by her o w n heirs, by her o w n F a n n y K n i g h t Knatchbull, w h o will m a k e her infamous r e m a r k s a b o u t her aunt's lack of refinement. ' Y e s m y l o v e , ' she will write to her sister m a n y years later, 'it is very true that A u n t J a n e from v a r i o u s circumstances w a s not so refined to h a v e been from her talent,

as she ought

& if she h a d lived 5 0 years later she w o u l d

h a v e been in m a n y respects m o r e suitable to our m o r e refined t a s t e s . '

17

T h e letters of J a n e A u s t e n reveal the difficulties that she faced under a system of checks a n d repressions that needed to be negotiated. Since Austen keeps reminding us of the challenge of finding 'subject' a n d 'matter' full e n o u g h a n d p r o p e r e n o u g h to motivate writing at all, it is particularly a p p r o p r i a t e that the last letter w e h a v e written by Austen is one heavily edited by her brother H e n r y . A s the original letter is missing, w e are left only w i t h his edited version w h i c h he published in his ' B i o g r a p h i c a l N o t i c e ' . A u s t e n ' s brother enters her text to suppress d a n g e r o u s material: She next touches with just and gentle animadversion on a subject of domestic disappointment. Of this the particulars do not concern the public. Yet in justice to her characteristic sweetness and resignation, the concluding observa­ tion of our authoress thereon must not be suppressed. T h e w a t c h f u l brother returns us, quite briefly, to A u s t e n herself, w h o seems herself to regret 'getting t o o near complaint', but then interrupts her last w o r d s once m o r e : The following and final extract will prove the facility with which she could correct every impatient thought, and turn from complaint to cheerfulness. (NA,P ) 9

112

The letters W h a t follows should not surprise us. B y n o w w e should be used to o d d l y placed domestic and social details -

the price of meat, M a r y ' s blue g o w n ,

my mother's agonies. A u s t e n appears to be taking up the m o s t social task, recommending one C a p t a i n — brother

mundane

(the n a m e has been excised by

H e n r y ) , 'a very respectable, well-meaning m a n , w i t h o u t

much

manner, his wife and sister all g o o d h u m o u r a n d obligingness, a n d I h o p e (since the fashion a l l o w s it) with rather longer petticoats than last y e a r ' (L 3 4 3 ) . Petticoats, m o r e petticoats, fly off 'through half a sentence'. If she k n e w these w e r e to be her last k n o w n written w o r d s , w o u l d J a n e A u s t e n , remembering M i s s Bates, laugh o r lament?

NOTES 1 Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (London, 1 9 8 9 : The British Library), p. 249. 2 Le Faye, p. 249. 3 'Introduction' to the first edition ( 1 9 3 2 ) , Jane Austen's Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1 9 9 5 ) , p. ix. J o Modert argues that Cassandra appears to have taken 'better care of the letters than most of the recipients', and made few incisions in the letters that 'had nothing to do with Jane Austen's emotional expressions or secrets', Jane Austen's Manuscript Letters in Facsimile (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), pp. x x - x x i i . Susan C. Whealler discusses the Cassandra contro­ versy in 'Prose and Power in T w o Letters by Jane Austen', Sent as a Gift: Eight Correspondences from the Eighteenth Century, ed. Alan T. McKenzie (Athens, Georgia, and London: University of Georgia Press, 1 9 9 3 ) , pp. 1 8 0 - 4 . Most recently, Terry Castle, in 'Sister-Sister', London Review of Books (3 August, 1995), attributes Cassandra's 'high-handed' editing of Austen's letters to a (passionately) 'jealous winnowing down of her brilliant younger sister's person­ ality in the name of a judicious decorum' (3). Castle's suggestions of Austen's 'homophilic fascination' with women and the 'primordial bond' between the sisters (5) provoked outraged letters which sometimes revealed a homophobic fetishization of 'Jane' that inspired misreadings of the review itself. 4 Memoir of Jane Austen, ed. R. W. Chapman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 2 6 ) , pp. 59-60. 5 'Letters/Correspondence', The Jane Austen Handbook, ed. J . David Grey (London: Athlone Press, 1986), p. 2 7 7 . 6 Kaplan argues in 'Representing T w o Cultures: Jane Austen's Letters', The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women's Autobiographical Writings, ed. Shari Benstock (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), pp. 2 1 1 - 1 9 , and more fully in Jane Austen among Women (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1992), that Austen created within a framework of both 'gentry' and 'women's cultures'. Chapter 3, 'The Women's Culture', locates Austen's epistolary habits firmly within a feminine context. Whealler argues that it is in the collection and dissemination of 'the minute details of domestic life' that Austen finds the source of 'private power', p. 1 9 5 .

113

CAROL HOULIHAN FLYNN

7 Kaplan, Jane Austen among Women, pp. 4 7 - 5 0 . 8 I am citing Marianne Dashwood's resolution, one which Austen certainly shows signs of taking to heart (55 3 4 7 ) . 9 In 'Jane Austen and the Look of Letters', Romantic Correspondence: Women, Politics and the Fiction of Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 9 3 ) , Mary Favret argues for the importance of 'even lines' and 'close writing'. Since the recipients of a letter were usually required to pay postage upon delivery, letters needed to 'look as if they were worth the cost of postage', pp. 1 3 6 - 7 . 1 0 See Favret on the importance of the post office for Jane Fairfax, pp. 1 5 8 - 6 2 . 1 1 Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, pp. 1 9 8 , 249. 1 2 'Preface in the Desobligeant', Sentimental Journey. 1 3 'I want to tell you that I have got my own darling Child from London', she reports after receiving her first copy of Pride and Prejudice (L 2 0 1 ) . Real babies do not inspire such rejoicing. Austen complains to Fanny Knight that Anna Austen Lefroy, pregnant again, 'has not a chance of escape . . . Poor Animal, she will be worn out before she is thirty. - I am very sorry for her. - Mrs Clement too is in that way again. I am quite tired of so many children' (336). 1 4 Quoted in John Halperin, The Life of Jane Austen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 1 8 6 . 1 5 Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 1 9 9 . 1 6 John Halperin, The Life of Jane Austen, p. 265. 1 7 Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, pp. 2 5 2 - 3 .

114

7 JULIET McMASTER

Class

W e hear of L a d y Catherine de B o u r g h , one of the m o s t m e m o r a b l e a n d least likeable characters in J a n e Austen's n o v e l s , that 'she likes to h a v e the distinction of r a n k preserved' (PP 1 6 1 ) . T h e o b s e q u i o u s M r . C o l l i n s enjoins her guest Elizabeth Bennet to dress simply, a n d not to emulate the elegant apparel of her high-ranking hostess: the differences in station are not only present, but must be

seen

to be present.

Class difference w a s of course a fact of life for A u s t e n , a n d a n acute observation of the fine distinctions between one social level a n d another w a s a necessary p a r t of her business as a writer of realistic fiction. N o r w o u l d she have wished it a w a y , although at the time of w r i t i n g her n o v e l s , she herself - as the unmarried daughter of a deceased c o u n t r y c l e r g y m a n , like M i s s Bates - k n e w w h a t it w a s to suffer from the class system. H e r favourite niece, F a n n y K n i g h t , ' w h o m she h a d seen g r o w up from a period w h e n her notice w a s an h o n o u r '

( E 3 7 5 ) , w a s shamelessly patronizing

after

she

married a lord, a n d said her aunt, but for the a d v a n t a g e s she gained at G o d m e r s h a m , w o u l d h a v e been 'very m u c h b e l o w p a r as to g o o d Society and its w a y s ' .

1

In certain w a y s Austen w a s ideally p l a c e d to observe the

finely nuanced social distinctions a r o u n d her. A s a n u n m a r r i e d w o m a n she w a s to some extent outside the g a m e (since w o m e n w e r e a s s u m e d to take their status from their husbands)

a n d hence c o u l d see the m o r e of it.

M o r e o v e r , she h a d different vantage points: she c o u l d alternate between her relatively humble position of living with her w i d o w e d m o t h e r a n d u n m a r ­ ried sister in the C h a w t o n house by the grace a n d f a v o u r of her landlord brother, and visiting that brother's family at his c o u n t r y estate of G o d ­ mersham, and drinking French w i n e (a rare treat) w i t h the opulent (L 1 3 9 ) . 'There are far finer a n d m o r e numerous grades of dignity in this country than in a n y other', claimed E d w a r d L y t t o n B u l w e r , w h o w a s g r o w i n g up in 2

England while Austen w a s writing her n o v e l s . H e a n d other V i c t o r i a n s like Carlyle a n d T h a c k e r a y became excellent a n d explicit analysts of class a n d class difference in E n g l a n d ; but Austen h a d a l r e a d y specialized in

"5

the

JULIET

McMASTER

dramatizing of the nuances a n d intricacies of the subject. M y procedure in this essay will be first to turn snob myself, a n d erect a social ladder as she represents it, w i t h the personnel of her novels arranged on its rungs in order of precedence; then to try to extract A u s t e n ' s o w n attitude to class distinction, a n d the immense importance that some of her characters assign to it. A l t h o u g h in her o w n life A u s t e n did h a v e some dealings w i t h royalty, h o w e v e r mediated, w h e n she w a s graciously invited to dedicate Emma

to

the Prince R e g e n t , she never presents r o y a l t y in her fiction, nor a n y of the great aristocrats w h o still o w n e d great tracts of the country, a n d w e r e prominent in its g o v e r n m e n t . S o w e must start several rungs d o w n the ladder. A m o n g the onstage characters (as o p p o s e d to those w h o are merely mentioned), L o r d O s b o r n e in the fragment The Watsons

is p r o b a b l y the one

w i t h the highest r a n k in her fiction, a n d he is not m u c h better than a fool. T h e indications are that he will be sufficiently educated by the heroine to learn to v a l u e her a n d to p r o p o s e to her; but that she will turn him d o w n [MW

3 6 3 ) . S o m u c h suggests that for Austen there is nothing divine a b o u t

r o y a l t y , a n d not m u c h that is special a b o u t peers. In fact characters with titles - o r 'handles to their n a m e s ' , as the V i c t o r i a n s used to say - are s e l d o m a d m i r a b l e in the novels. Sir T h o m a s B e r t r a m , a baronet, is the best of them, but even he overestimates his o w n a n d his family's importance. Sir W a l t e r Elliot's obsession w i t h his status a n d the B a r o n e t a g e in w h i c h it is published is m a d e not o n l y c o m i c but contemptible. (In Sir Walter, A u s t e n anticipates the V i c t o r i a n social criticism of C a r l y l e , w h o characterized the aristocrat as ' T h e D a n d y ' , obsessed w i t h appearances, and sick w i t h self3

l o v e . ) Sir J o h n M i d d l e t o n , w h o is also p r e s u m a b l y a baronet, is wellm e a n i n g but v a c u o u s , w i t h a 'total w a n t of talent a n d taste' (SS 3 2 ) . A servant's rendering of the title as ' a baronight' suggests that being a baronet can be a s o m e w h a t benighted condition (P

106).

A baronetcy is an inherited title, passed d o w n from father to son; a k n i g h t h o o d , also signalled b y the title ' S i r ' attached to the first n a m e , is a w a r d e d for a particular service; since it is not hereditary, it carries less prestige. E v e n a M r . L u c a s , 'formerly in trade in M e r y t o n ' (PP 1 8 ) , can b e c o m e a ' S i r W i l l i a m L u c a s ' of L u c a s L o d g e , a n d introduce 'St. J a m e s ' s ' , the p a l a c e w h e r e he received his k n i g h t h o o d , into every conversation. ' T h e distinction [of being knighted] h a d perhaps been felt too strongly', notes the n a r r a t o r drily (PP 1 8 ) . A title, it seems, is sometimes almost a guarantee of fatuousness in A u s t e n ' s fiction. ' T h e D o w a g e r Viscountess D a l r y m p l e , a n d her daughter, the H o n o u r a b l e M i s s Carteret', merely from the stately p a r a d e of their n a m e s , are a l m o s t b o u n d to be the kind w h o s e status is their

n é

Class only attraction

(P 1 4 8 ) . S o t o o w i t h the H o n o u r a b l e J o h n Y a t e s , w h o

spends his time in solitary d e c l a m a t i o n as he rehearses the role of a b a r o n ( M P 1 6 9 ) . ( ' H o n o u r a b l e ' is a courtesy title given to y o u n g e r sons a n d daughters of peers b e l o w the r a n k of M a r q u e s s . ) W o m e n too sometimes h a v e handles to their names, although they c o u l d not inherit a peerage or a baronetcy. L a d y Catherine de B o u r g h w o u l d not w a n t us to miss the fine shades in the title ' L a d y ' . W h e n it comes attached to the first n a m e - as w i t h L a d y Catherine, her sister L a d y A n n e D a r c y , a n d the unscrupulous L a d y S u s a n V e r n o n - it signifies that the l a d y in question has the title 'in her o w n right', as the daughter of an earl; she is thus 'to the manner born', as the e x p r e s s i o n g o e s , a n d she retains her title irrespective of her husband's status. L a d y B e r t r a m of Mansfield Lady Middleton, Sanditon,

Lady

R u s s e l l of Persuasion,

Park, h o w e v e r , a l o n g w i t h and

Lady

Denham

of

w h o s e titles are attached only to the last n a m e , hold them o n l y by

virtue of being married to a b a r o n e t o r knight; a n d the l a d y w o u l d lose it if she were remarried to a plain ' M r . ' In such circles, such things matter. L a d y A n n e D a r c y is m a r r i e d to plain M r . D a r c y , a n d L a d y C a t h e r i n e makes a point of D a r c y ' s family as being 'untitled'. It is nevertheless 'respectable, h o n o r a b l e , a n d ancient', a n d D a r c y ' s fortune, at £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 a year, is 'splendid' ( P P 3 5 6 ) . T h e long-established but untitled l a n d o w n i n g family does seem to gather A u s t e n ' s deep respect, especially if its i n c o m e comes from land a n d a rent-roll; a n d her t w o most eligible heroes, M r . D a r c y of Pemberley a n d M r . K n i g h t l e y of D o n w e l l A b b e y , c o m e from this class, the landed gentry. S o does M r . R u s h w o r t h of Sotherton, h o w e v e r , w h o despite his long rent-roll is m o r a l l y a n d intellectually not w o r t h m u c h more than his n a m e signifies. Austen is often h a p p y to f o l l o w the Cinderella plot, a n d to m a k e a h a p p y ending out of m a r r y i n g her heroine to a m a n notably a b o v e her in i n c o m e and social prestige. T h e l a n d o w n i n g country gentleman is as close to a prince as her heroines a p p r o a c h . A s to income, they usually f o l l o w , in effect if not in intention, the prudent a d v i c e of T e n n y s o n ' s ' N o r t h e r n F a r m e r ' : ' D o à n t thou m a r r y for m u n n y , but g o à w h e e r m u n n y is!' Elizabeth's initial rejection of D a r c y usefully assures us that she is not m a r r y i n g him for his £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 a y e a r . B u t she half-jokingly admits that her love has

been

influenced by 'his beautiful g r o u n d s at Pemberley' ( 3 7 3 ) . M o n e y is o n l y o n e of a number of factors that count, h o w e v e r . Elizabeth's m a r r i a g e to D a r c y is the greatest ' m a t c h ' in the n o v e l s , a n d M r s . Bennet has every right to rejoice in it. B u t w e h a v e different v i e w s o n the extent of the social disparity between them. In L a d y Catherine's eyes Elizabeth is a n o b o d y , w i t h 'upstart pretensions', a w o m a n s h r e w d l y o n the m a k e , w h o will pollute 'the shades of Pemberley' ( 3 5 6 - 7 ) . Elizabeth herself, 117

JULIET

McMASTER

h o w e v e r , is not o v e r w h e l m e d by the social difference. ' H e is a gentleman; I a m a gentleman's daughter; so far w e are e q u a l ' , she claims calmly ( 3 5 6 ) . A u s t e n seems to a p p r o v e of this relative flattening of the degrees of distinc­ tion a b o v e the country gentry. B u t she notes t o o , w i t h irony, the tendency to be acutely a w a r e of the degrees of distinction in the scale b e l o w . E m m a W o o d h o u s e is enraged that M r . Elton should ' l o o k d o w n u p o n her friend, so well understanding the gradations of r a n k b e l o w him, a n d so blind to w h a t rose a b o v e , as to fancy himself s h o w i n g n o presumption in addressing her!' (E 1 3 6 ) . E m m a too has a vivid sense of the gradations b e l o w . T h e c o u n t r y gentleman, w h o leads a leisured existence a n d w h o subsists on i n c o m e from land a n d inheritance, is at his best the m o r a l and social ideal as a partner for a heroine. B u t the condition takes some living up to: A u s t e n , like other social c o m m e n t a t o r s , insists that w i t h the privileges g o extensive responsibilities. Elizabeth freezes D a r c y off w h e n he is p r o u d and pretentious; but she w a r m s to him w h e n she discovers h o w as master of Pemberley he uses his extensive p o w e r for the g o o d of those a r o u n d him. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship! - H o w much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! - . . . Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character. (PP 2 5 0 - 1 ) Emma

strikes us as a g l o w i n g a n d optimistic c o m e d y partly because the

hero M r . K n i g h t l e y stands highest in the m o r a l as well as the social scale: he lives, after all, at ' D o n w e l l ' A b b e y . T h e H i g h b u r y of Emma

is close to presenting a m i c r o c o s m of Austen's

social w o r l d . H e r e , from M r . Knightley (whose knightly m o r a l status is expressed in his n a m e rather than a literal title) to the p o o r family to w h i c h E m m a dispenses charity, w e h a v e assembled nearly all the levels of society that A u s t e n presents. M o r e o v e r , the novel's heroine is one w h o specializes in social discrimination, a n d m a k e s p r o m p t though often inaccurate judg­ ments a b o u t the social station of the people a r o u n d her. I will use

Emma,

therefore, to p r o v i d e the m a i n e x a m p l e of the levels of the social ladder, w h i l e d r a w i n g freely o n e x a m p l e s from the other novels as well. H i g h e s t in the H i g h b u r y circle, then, is M r . Knightley of D o n w e l l A b b e y , the first in virtue as in place. A u s t e n insists that part of his virtue is that he refuses to trade o n his r a n k . H e w a l k s , w h e n status-conscious people like the O s b o r n e s in The Watsons

w o u l d m a k e a point of riding in a carriage.

W h e n he does get out his c a r r i a g e , it is to transport M i s s Bates and J a n e F a i r f a x , not himself. T h o u g h he could leave the m a n a g e m e n t of his estate to 118

Class an employee, he takes an active interest, is often in conference w i t h his steward W i l l i a m L a r k i n s , a n d is w a r m l y interested in the domestic affairs of his tenant farmer, R o b e r t M a r t i n . In Persuasion,

by contrast, w e are invited

to consider the derogation of such duties by the b a d l a n d l o r d , Sir W a l t e r Elliot, w h o is consequently exiled from his estate, a n d even leaves the farewells to his daughter (P 3 9 ) . Sir Walter is enraptured by the prestige of his position, but neglects the responsibilities. N e x t in status in H i g h b u r y is M r . W o o d h o u s e of Hartfield. Hartfield is a gentleman's residence, a n d it has a farm attached; but M r . W o o d h o u s e clearly has nothing to d o w i t h its m a n a g e m e n t , a n d w e hear of n o tenants. T h e fact that E m m a has a fortune of £ 3 0 , 0 0 0 suggests that m u c h of his income comes from investment rather than from land: hence his status is relatively l o w e r than K n i g h t l e y ' s . M r . Bennet of L o n g b o u r n in Pride Prejudice

a n d old M r . D a s h w o o d in Sense and Sensibility

and

also belong in this

category. T h o u g h gentlemen of property, a n d o w n e r s of estates, they lack the long-term commitment to the land that m a k e s g o o d s t e w a r d s a n d m o r a l aristocrats of D a r c y a n d Knightley. One might suppose that the siblings in a single family w o u l d be a l m o s t by definition of the same rank. B u t even here there are m a r k e d differences in status, not only between sons a n d daughters, but also between one s o n a n d another. T h e aristocracy a n d the inheritance of land depended h e a v i l y o n the system of primogeniture. J u s t as o n l y the eldest son c a n inherit a peerage, sp the bulk of land w o u l d n o r m a l l y descend by the s a m e system. T h e entail, so prominent in Pride

and

Prejudice,

legally formalizes this

c u s t o m a r y practice of inheritance. If a n estate w e r e divided equally between all siblings, as o u r understanding of equitable practice w o u l d suggest t o d a y , the estate w o u l d be dispersed, a n d w o u l d ultimately cease to exist. T h e system of primogeniture, w h i c h unfairly privileges one family m e m b e r by accumulating all property in his hands, w a s developed as an a r r a n g e m e n t for the preservation of the family n a m e a n d the family estate t h r o u g h the generations. Austen highlights the injustices of this system of inheritance. A t the beginning of Sense and Sensibility

the narrator informs us h o w a rich

old gentleman, M r . D a s h w o o d , so ties up both his m o n e y a n d his estate that it must stay in the male line, a n d m a y not be alienated to the girls of the family, even though the son is already a m p l y p r o v i d e d for. 'Wife a n d daughters' are deprived; a n d the estate and the m o n e y as well must descend 'to his son, a n d his son's s o n ' (SS 4). H e n c e there is a considerable difference in prestige a n d between elder sons a n d y o u n g e r sons, as between sons a n d

expectation daughters.

Austen notices this, a n d dramatizes it; but not w i t h o u t c o n v e y i n g a strong sense of the inequity of such arrangements. T h e five Bennet girls are to be 119

JULIET

McMASTER

turned o u t of L o n g b o u r n w h e n their father dies, since the estate is entailed o n a distant male cousin, M r . Collins, w h o s h o w s precious little sign of being m o r a l l y w o r t h y of it. E v e n a m o n g these five girls, too, there are notable shades of difference in prestige. J a n e , the eldest, is called ' M i s s Bennet', w h i l e her y o u n g e r sisters are referred to as ' M i s s Eliza', ' M i s s M a r y ' , a n d so on. T h e elder m a y be 'out' in society before the y o u n g e r , and should

be, a c c o r d i n g to L a d y Catherine; but in this matter, in this family,

equity prevails. ' I think it w o u l d be very hard upon y o u n g e r sisters', says Elizabeth, 'that they should not h a v e their share of society and amusement because the elder m a y not h a v e the means or inclination to m a r r y early. T h e last b o r n has as g o o d a right to the pleasures of youth, as the first' (PP 1 6 5 ) . O n c e m a r r i e d , a sister gains prestige over a sister, w h a t e v e r her place in the a g e sequence. ' L o r d ! h o w I should like to be married before any of y o u ' , L y d i a tells her elder sisters ingenuously; 'and then I w o u l d chaperone y o u a b o u t to all the balls' ( 2 2 1 ) . A n d presently - though not without some m o r a l sacrifice - she gains her w i s h , and takes pride of place at table at her mother's right h a n d , saying to her eldest sister, ' A h ! J a n e , I take y o u r place n o w , a n d y o u must g o l o w e r , because I a m a married w o m a n ' ( 3 1 7 ) . A m o n g the brothers at this level of society the difference is even greater. T h e eldest, w h o c a n e x p e c t to inherit the estate a n d the income that goes with it, if not a title as well, is often bred to idleness; a n d Austen s h o w s h o w such expectations c a n m a k e him spoilt a n d frivolous, like Frederick Tilney in North anger Abbey

a n d T o m B e r t r a m in Mansfield

F ark.

A y o u n g e r son,

like H e n r y T i l n e y o r E d m u n d B e r t r a m , w h o has his living to earn, is sympathetically treated, a n d becomes a suitable mate for the heroine. M a r y C r a w f o r d has every intention

of m a r r y i n g an elder

brother, a n d is so

discontented w i t h herself for falling in love with E d m u n d by mistake that she wishes his elder brother dead ( M P 4 3 4 ) . E d w a r d Ferrars, w h o is an elder son by birth but not by temperament, chafes at the idleness expected of him. 'Instead of h a v i n g anything to d o , instead of having any profession chosen for

m e , o r being a l l o w e d to chuse any myself, I returned

h o m e to be

completely idle' (SS 3 6 2 ) . H i s mother, the rich a n d powerful M r s . Ferrars (one wishes A u s t e n w o u l d sometimes s h o w a powerful w o m a n in a favour­ able light!) in effect turns him into a y o u n g e r son (at least economically s p e a k i n g ) , by transferring all her m o n e y to his y o u n g e r brother R o b e r t , w h o relishes idleness. E d w a r d turns to m a k i n g his living as a country p a r s o n . So m u c h suggests that A u s t e n ' s best sympathies rest with the professional class - her o w n , that is. A l t h o u g h her most vivacious heroines ( M a r i a n n e , Elizabeth,

and

Emma)

marry

upwards

into

the

landowning

gentry,

Catherine, E l i n o r , F a n n y , a n d (probably) E m m a W a t s o n m a r r y clergymen; clergymen, m o r e o v e r , w h o are usually y o u n g e r brothers. Austen represents

120

Class the sterling virtues of the profession to w h i c h her father a n d t w o of her brothers belonged, although she doesn't d w e l l on their duties o r their status within their profession, as T r o l l o p e w a s to d o a generation later. In novels where the heroine marries into the gentry, h o w e v e r , A u s t e n permits herself some satire of the ministry. M r . Collins a n d M r . Elton are p a r s o n s o n their preferment, servile t o w a r d s a ' p a t r o n ' , a n d eager to m a r r y m o n e y . E v e n the highly principled E d m u n d Bertram, after he has 'been m a r r i e d long e n o u g h to begin to w a n t an increase of i n c o m e ' , submits to taking a second living, and so becomes a pluralist ( M P 4 7 3 ) . A gentleman's son w h o must earn his living has still rather limited choices in Austen's w o r l d : the church, the a r m y , the n a v y , the l a w , a n d medicine (and the last w a s still of dubious gentility). T h e a r m y w a s a

doubtful

proposition as a living, since an officer's c o m m i s s i o n h a d to be purchased. Captain Tilney, an eldest son, can expect p a t r o n a g e , as he is f o l l o w i n g his father's profession. (General Tilney must h a v e inherited his estate, as his army p a y w o u l d not suffice to buy an abbey.) C o l o n e l B r a n d o n w a s originally a y o u n g e r son, but inherits his estate o n the early death of his elder

brother.

Wickham,

a lieutenant,

is chronically

short

of

funds.

M r . Weston, as a C a p t a i n in the a r m y , w a s considered beneath the gentry family of the Churchills; a n d before he c a n buy himself into R a n d a l l s a n d gentlemanhood he must m a k e his m o n e y in trade (E 16). T h e a r m y , that is, though it has prestige, is not a reliable source of i n c o m e . B u t E m m a , s n o b as she is, w o u l d p r o b a b l y not h a v e taken so kindly to M r . W e s t o n as the husband of her friend if he h a d not once been ' C a p t a i n ' W e s t o n . T h e n a v y , of course, is the profession A u s t e n f a v o u r s n e x t after clergy. In Persuasion

the

she uses it as the model of a system of p r o m o t i o n by

merit, to contrast with the o l d - w o r l d system of heredity that Sir W a l t e r Elliot considers s a c r e d .

4

H e objects to the n a v y 'as being the m e a n s of

bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, a n d raising men to honours w h i c h their fathers a n d grandfathers never d r e a m t o f (P 1 9 ) . Sir Walter's d i s a p p r o v a l signals Austen's a p p r o v a l . In her famously demotes

last n o v e l she

the landed gentry a n d replaces them b y the

navy,

substituting A d m i r a l Croft for Sir W a l t e r as the proprietor of K e l l y n c h H a l l , and a l l o w i n g her heroine to reject W i l l i a m Elliot, heir to the estate, in favour of a relatively self-made m a n , the gallant C a p t a i n

Wentworth.

W e n t w o r t h , m o r e o v e r , has m a d e m o n e y by his profession. Since E n g l a n d w a s at w a r with France a n d its allies, and m o r e o v e r d o m i n a n t at sea, a Captain and his c r e w (whose shares of profits w e r e minutely discriminated) could take 'prizes', capturing enemy ships at sea a n d realizing huge profits. ' A h ! those w e r e pleasant d a y s w h e n I h a d the L a c o n i a ' , muses C a p t a i n W e n t w o r t h . ' H o w fast I m a d e m o n e y in her' (67). T h e w o m a n

121

author's

JULIET

McMASTER

s h a r p recognition of the economic motive for w a r f a r e is implicit in A d m i r a l Croft's bluff hopes for 'the g o o d luck to live to another w a r ' (70). A u s t e n s h o w s herself quite k n o w l e d g e a b l e not only a b o u t prizes and m o n e y - m a k i n g in the n a v y , but a b o u t its internal hierarchy and systems of p r o m o t i o n . It w a s n e x t to impossible to be genuinely 'self-made': in the absence of m o n e y , a m a n o n his p r o m o t i o n w o u l d need 'interest', and/or luck. W e n t w o r t h ' s first c o m m a n d , the A s p , is p r o n o u n c e d unfit for overseas service; but A d m i r a l Croft insists, ' L u c k y fellow to get any thing so soon, w i t h n o m o r e interest than his' ( 6 5 ) . W e see s o m e of this 'interest' at w o r k w h e n H e n r y C r a w f o r d procures W i l l i a m Price's lieutenancy by using his influence with his uncle the A d m i r a l ( M P 2 9 8 - 9 ) . A u s t e n ' s preference for the n a v y o v e r the a r m y is signalled by the notice she takes of their uniforms. T h e susceptibility of y o u n g Kitty and Lydia Bennet to 'the regimentals of an ensign' m a r k s them as ' t w o of the silliest girls in the c o u n t r y ' , in their father's opinion; a n d their foolish mother's wistful fondness for 'a red c o a t ' puts her in the same c o m p a n y (PP 2 9 ) . (There is often a sense of s e x u a l threat attached to a r m y characters, as to the seducers W i c k h a m a n d C a p t a i n Tilney.) O n the other hand, w e are invited to participate in F a n n y Price's association of the naval profession w i t h pride a n d virtue w h e n she l o o k s o n her brother, 'complete in his Lieutenant's uniform, looking a n d m o v i n g all the taller, firmer, a n d more graceful for it, a n d with the happiest smile o v e r his face' ( M P 3 8 4 ) . A s usual, h o w e v e r , A u s t e n provides a qualification. Lest she be thought to generalize in her a p p r o v a l of the n a v y , she provides us with a negative e x a m p l e in A d m i r a l C r a w f o r d , w h o has considerable p o w e r and wit, but w h o keeps a mistress. H e is considered partly responsible for the vitiated m o r a l i t y of his niece a n d nephew, M a r y a n d H e n r y C r a w f o r d . F o r representatives of the other professions w e h a v e to turn to relatively m i n o r characters. T h e l a w is represented

in Emma

by M r . Knightley's

y o u n g e r brother, J o h n Knightley, w h o is a respectable attorney in L o n d o n . C o u n t r y attornies, such as M r . Phillips in Pride W a t s o n in The Watsons,

and

Prejudice,

or the C o x e s , father a n d son, in Emma,

Robert

are seen as

verging o n the v u l g a r . W h e n M a r y C r a w f o r d urges E d m u n d to ' g o into the l a w ' , she p r o b a b l y hopes he w o u l d b e c o m e a L o n d o n barrister, the more distinguished branch of the legal profession, a n d one that w a s frequently a route to political office. Austen's sympathies are clearly with E d m u n d in his defence of his choice to be a c l e r g y m a n as the m o r e honorable calling (MP 9 3 ) . Physicians a n d surgeons, too, are relegated to the sidelines, although A u s t e n notes their rising social status in m a k i n g a m e m o r a b l e incident out of M r . Perry's changing decision a b o u t setting u p a carriage in Emma. 122

Like

Class an expensive car t o d a y , carriages w e r e status s y m b o l s . T o maintain one's o w n carriage and horses w a s a considerable expense, a n d the decision to d o so must be taken with care. F o r this time Perry postpones the purchase; but w e are given reason to believe that in due course he will indeed rise to the carriage-owning class (E 3 4 4 - 6 ) . Perhaps in the heroine's brother S a m , in The Watsons,

'only a S u r g e o n , y o u k n o w ' (MW 3 2 1 ) , w e w o u l d h a v e h a d a

sympathetic picture of a medical m a n ; but in the fragment as w e h a v e it, he is in a fair w a y to being cut out in his courtship of the heiress by the 'Military M e n ' ( 3 2 8 ) . Austen locates few major characters in 'trade', a n d for m a n y of her characters the w o r d has a ring that seems to require a p o l o g y . It is not surprising that the gentry a n d professional classes felt s o m e w h a t threatened by the large changes that w e r e c o m i n g w i t h the Industrial R e v o l u t i o n , a n d tended to close ranks against the n e w l y powerful a n d the nouveaux

riches.

T r a d e represents n e w m o n e y , a n d m o n e y , like w i n e , isn't considered quite respectable until it has a g e d a little. A u s t e n is clearly fascinated by this process: though she doesn't share the snobbish prejudice against trade, she pays close attention to the g r a d u a l assimilation of the trading classes into gentility. E m m a W o o d h o u s e a g a i n c a n represent the snobbish position, at least in her initial reaction, on the rise of the C o l e family in H i g h b u r y . B u t it is important to notice that E m m a ' s attitude evolves a n d changes. T h e C o l e s , as E m m a places them, are 'of l o w origin, in trade, a n d only m o d e r a t e l y genteel' ( £ 2 0 7 ) . H o w e v e r , they h a v e prospered financially, a n d they h a v e 'added to their house, to their n u m b e r of servants, to their expenses of every sort; and by this time w e r e , in fortune a n d style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield' ( 2 0 7 ) . ( M r . K n i g h t l e y , strictly speaking, is from

the

nearby parish of D o n w e l l . ) T h e i r place a n d their mobility in society are exactly rendered; Austen p a y s attention to the assault on gentility of the new mercantile middle class. E m m a is stand-offish; she severely d i s a p p r o v e s of M r . Elton's 'propensity to dine with M r . C o l e ' ( 2 1 3 ) , a n d she l o o k s forward to refusing a n y invitation they m a y h a v e the presumption

to

address to her. H o w e v e r , she must learn to s w a l l o w her pride. B y the time she k n o w s that all the people she likes best are to be assembled at the C o l e s ' dinner party, she is very g l a d to accept the invitation w h e n it comes. B u t she is careful not to s h o w a n y eagerness. 'She o w n e d that, considering e v e r y thing, she w a s not absolutely w i t h o u t inclination for the p a r t y ' ( 2 0 8 ) : the sentence, with its careful qualifications a n d h u m o r o u s signals the condescension of the grande

double negative,

dame of H i g h b u r y in thus confer­

ring her stamp of a p p r o v a l o n the p a r v e n u s . Hereafter, apparently,

the

Coles, for all their tincture of 'trade', will be on visiting terms even w i t h the most exclusive families of H i g h b u r y ; a n d perhaps the y o u n g C o l e s of the

123

JULIET

McMASTER

n e x t generation m a y aspire to m a r r y the W e s t o n s ' daughter, or even the offspring of M r . a n d M r s . Knightley of D o n w e l l A b b e y . M u c h has to d o w i t h manners a n d tact. H o w e v e r reluctantly, E m m a accepts the

C o l e s into the genteel society of H i g h b u r y , because they

'expressed themselves so p r o p e r l y ' , they s h o w 'real attention' ( 2 0 8 ) . T h e n e w M r s . E l t o n , h o w e v e r , is another matter. Before meeting her E m m a has ascertained that she is 'the youngest of the t w o daughters of a Bristol merchant, of c o u r s e , he must be called' (the dread w o r d 'tradesman' m a y not be uttered) ( 1 8 3 ) . B u t she conscientiously withholds judgment until she meets the bride in person. W h e n she does a p p e a r , M r s . Elton confirms E m m a ' s w o r s t prejudices: E m m a can't stand her 'airs of pert pretension and under-bred finery' ( 2 7 9 ) . M o r e o v e r , nor can most readers. It is a difficult exercise in discrimination to pick a p a r t social standing, manners,

and

m o r a l s . B u t A u s t e n enables us to distinguish between E m m a ' s u n a p p r o v e d social s n o b b e r y a n d her p r o p e r m o r a l aversion to M r s . Elton's loud­ m o u t h e d s e l f - a p p r o v a l . F o r instance, like M i s s Bingley M r s . Elton regularly uses her n e w l y acquired status to put d o w n others. A later stage of this assimilation of one class into another is seen in the Bingleys of Pride

and Prejudice.

Y o u n g Charles Bingley is a gentleman of

leisure, a n d a l r e a d y associates w i t h such a prestigious m e m b e r of the country gentry as D a r c y . B u t his is n e w m o n e y , 'acquired by trade' in the industrial north of E n g l a n d (PP 1 5 ) . W e see him in the process of buying his w a y into the gentry. H i s father 'had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to d o it' ( 1 5 ) . Bingley, then, in a leisurely manner, is shopping; by renting Netherfield m a n o r , he is trying out country g e n t l e m a n h o o d . Once he marries J a n e , he does buy an estate near Derbyshire ( 3 8 5 ) ; so the 'next g e n e r a t i o n ' will be correspondingly a step u p w a r d in the social hierarchy. In Bingley w e see the best of social mobility. H e is g o o d - h u m o u r e d

and

c h a r m i n g , a n d he never stands o n c e r e m o n y . L i k e Elizabeth w h e n she m o v e s into Pemberley, he will benefit his n e w social level by not trying to live up to it all the time. H i s sisters, h o w e v e r , s h o w the aspect of social mobility that A u s t e n distrusted. T h e y are status-hungry, ' p r o u d and con­ ceited' ( 1 5 ) , a n d C a r o l i n e Bingley is over-eager to ally herself and her brother w i t h the prestige of the D a r c y family. Conveniently forgetting that her

own

fortune

was

made

in

trade,

she

is spitefully

scornful

of

M r . G a r d i n e r , the Bennet sisters' merchant uncle, ' w h o lives somewhere near C h e a p s i d e ' , she sneers. 'If they h a d uncles enough to fill all C h e a p s i d e ' , Bingley bursts out w a r m l y , 'it w o u l d not m a k e them a jot less agreeable' ( 3 6 - 7 ) . G e n e r o u s l y undiscriminating a b o u t shades of social distinction, he cares m o r e a b o u t their manners, the a m e n a b l e social conduct that makes them ' a g r e e a b l e ' . H i s is the a p p r o v e d attitude.

124

Class O n this issue, h o w e v e r , D a r c y realistically a r g u e s that the Bennet sisters' connection with trade 'must very materially lessen their chance of m a r r y i n g men of a n y consideration in the w o r l d ' ( 3 7 ) . H i s qualification is presented as a point of fact, and he is not malicious, like M i s s Bingley. B u t still, D a r c y is to g o through an evolution in his attitude, at last m a r r y i n g , like Bingley, one of the Bennet girls, C h e a p s i d e uncle notwithstanding. Indeed, he c o m e s to value the G a r d i n e r s , despite their connection w i t h trade, m o r e highly than his father-in-law the country gentleman. T h e quality of h u m a n i t y is to be judged by m o r a l a n d h u m a n e standards, A u s t e n suggests, not by social status; but like her o w n t e m p o r a r y s n o b s , D a r c y a n d E m m a , she p a y s full attention to their social status first. Since the union of the merchant's daughter w i t h the earl's son depicted in H o g a r t h ' s ' M a r r i a g e à la M o d e ' ( 1 7 4 5 ) , E n g l a n d has been f a m o u s for its alliances between ' b l o o d ' and m o n e y , the b a r g a i n by w h i c h the aristocracy is enriched, and the merchant class can p r o m o t e its grandchildren into r a n k and title. ' B y this intermixture of the highest aristocracy w i t h the

more

subaltern ranks of society', B u l w e r e x p l a i n e d , 'there are far finer a n d m o r e numerous grades of dignity in this country than in a n y other' ( B u l w e r ,

England and the English

3 1 ) . In e x p l o r i n g s o m e of the finely n u a n c e d

distinctions that can arise from the subtle intermixture of birth a n d cash, he notes one m a r k e r of consequence that can easily be o v e r l o o k e d . You see two gentlemen of the same birth, fortune, and estates - they are not of the same rank, - by no means! - one looks down on the other as confessedly his inferior. Would you know why? His connexions are much higher! (Bulwer, England and the English 31 ) Austen is alert to this distinction

as to others.

Emma Woodhouse

is

indignant that the c l e r g y m a n , M r . Elton, s h o u l d dare to p r o p o s e m a r r i a g e to her, or to ' s u p p o s e himself her equal in connection or mind!' ( £ 1 3 6 ) . ' C o n n e c t i o n ' , like the 'interest' that W e n t w o r t h needs in order to get a g o o d c o m m a n d in the n a v y , is a term fraught w i t h significance. Bingley raises his status (though in his case it is unconsciously done) by being the friend of D a r c y , as Harriet begins to be out of R o b e r t M a r t i n ' s reach w h e n she becomes the friend of M i s s W o o d h o u s e . If those involved in trade h o v e r on the brink of gentility, there are m a n y grades and degrees b e l o w them. M r s . a n d M i s s Bates in

Emma

are similarly

poised, and a gulf of poverty y a w n s b e l o w them. T h e y are of a class that w a s later to be called 'shabby-genteel', people w h o h a v e c o m e d o w n in the w o r l d . Once prominent as the wife of the v i c a r , M r s . Bates as a w i d o w lives on slender means, in c r a m p e d quarters in a n upstairs a p a r t m e n t , w i t h o n l y one servant, a maid-of-all-work. B u t though she a n d her daughter are short 125

JULIET

McMASTER

of m o n e y a n d c a n ' t entertain, they still h a v e

connections:

they are on visiting

terms w i t h the best families of H i g h b u r y ; a n d that's m o r e than can be said, as w e h a v e seen, for the C o l e s , w i t h all their m o n e y and servants. A n o t h e r kind of a m p h i b i a n , one w h o can m o v e u p w a r d s or sink d o w n w a r d s in society, is the g o v e r n e s s . J a n e F a i r f a x , for instance, is well bred a n d well educated, beautiful a n d talented. B u t because her relatives cannot support her, she must earn her living at one of the only professions available to w o m e n , as a governess. T h e novels of Charlotte and A n n e Brontë a m p l y dramatize the painful position of well-educated girls from the impoverished upper classes w h o become virtually the servants of families often much less well bred than themselves. J a n e F a i r f a x speaks in p o i g n a n t terms of employment agencies for governesses: 'offices for the sale - not quite of h u m a n flesh - but of h u m a n intellect' ( £ 3 0 0 ) . T h e alignment w i t h the slave trade is explicit; there is a passing hint, t o o , of prostitution. J a n e F a i r f a x , like J a n e E y r e , is one of those governesses w h o survive by m a r r y i n g into the gentry. But her escape from a life of d r u d g e r y , l o o k i n g after M r s . Smallridge's three children for a pittance, is a n a r r o w one. T h e governess in the nineteenth-century novel becomes a culture heroine for the sad a r m y of e c o n o m i c a l l y vulnerable single w o m e n , w h o h a d virtually n o means of acquiring independence outside m a r r i a g e , a n d little hope of independence within it either. ' Y o u k n o w w e must m a r r y ' , sighs Elizabeth W a t s o n , one of four u n m a r r i e d daughters of an impecunious clergyman. ' . . . It is v e r y b a d to g r o w old & be p o o r & laughed at' (MW 3 1 7 ) . Charlotte L u c a s chooses to m a r r y the p o m p o u s a n d inept M r . Collins, not for love, but because her only alternative is to live as a spinster on the charity of her o b n o x i o u s y o u n g e r brother. Herself a single w o m a n of small means, Austen can represent the bleak existence of such w o m e n , as well as the happier fate of the heroine w h o finds fulfilment in m a r r i a g e to the right m a n . T h o s e w h o m a k e big m o n e y in ' t r a d e ' are the merchants a n d wholesalers. But their great houses are dependent on the small tradesmen, the retailers, w h o distribute the g o o d s . T h e r e is a large social difference between the t w o . In T h a c k e r a y ' s

Vanity Fair,

a satirical p a n o r a m a of the

nineteenth-century

class scene, the hero D o b b i n is sneered at a n d called ' F i g s ' in school, because his father is a retail g r o c e r , w h e r e a s the other b o y s are wholesalers' sons. ' M y father's a gentleman, a n d keeps his c a r r i a g e ' , boasts one y o u n g snob

(chapter

5). T h e ladies a n d gentleman w h o are Austen's

major

characters exist in a c o m m o d i t y culture that depends on the retail trade for its luxuries, its status s y m b o l s , often its very food and drink. M r s . Allen in

North anger Abbey can think of nothing but her clothes; Sense and Sensibility brings his w h o l e personality to bear

R o b e r t Ferrars in in the choice of a

toothpick-case; Sir W a l t e r Elliot praises the efficacy of G o w l a n d ' s lotion in

126

Class removing freckles: such characters suggest an idle upper class obsessed w i t h material luxuries, a n d ironically dependent

on the v e r y tradesmen

they

affect to despise. A u s t e n sets some m e m o r a b l e scenes in s h o p s : H a r r i e t a n d E m m a define themselves a n d their relationship in the matter of buying ribbons, feminine fripperies, in F o r d ' s of H i g h b u r y . A n n e Elliot has a nervous reunion w i t h W e n t w o r t h at M o l l a n d ' s in B a t h , w h e r e the c r o w d s of the fashionable gather a n d assert their status: 'altogether there w a s a delay, and a bustle, a n d a talking, w h i c h must m a k e all the little c r o w d in the s h o p understand that L a d y D a l r y m p l e w a s calling to c o n v e y M i s s E l l i o t ' (P 1 7 6 ) . M a r y C r a w f o r d in

Mansfield Park

h u m o r o u s l y notices the e l a b o r a t e lines of

communication in a country community: she gets w o r d of the h a r p , o n its w a y to the country from L o n d o n , only w h e n 'it w a s seen by s o m e farmer, and he told the miller, and the miller told the butcher, a n d the

butcher's

son-in-law left w o r d at the s h o p ' ( M P 5 7 - 8 ) . T h e s e retailers a n d small tradesmen d o not figure prominently as characters, but their presence as part of the busy scene of life is carefully registered. T h e r e are m a n y other relatively ' l o w ' a n d minor characters w h o help to m a k e society w o r k smoothly in A u s t e n ' s novels. M r s . Smith's N u r s e R o o k e , in

Persuasion,

though not in genteel society, k n o w s a n d transmits m o r e of w h a t goes o n there than people w h o are.

Emma, w h i c h

provides unobtrusive information o n the w h o l e c o m m u n i t y

of H i g h b u r y , right d o w n to the p o o r a n d the g y p s y v a g r a n t s , has a n u m b e r of minor characters w h o o c c u p y places in the social hierarchy w e l l b e y o n d the gentry a n d professional classes w h e r e A u s t e n ' s m a j o r characters

are

situated. She writes no explicit analysis, but by passing details, she fills in the large social picture a n d provides indirect c o m m e n t a r y . W e hear of W a l l i s the baker, w h o b a k e s M r s . B a t e s ' apples; of the village s h o p , F o r d ' s ; of M r . Knightley's steward,

William

L a r k i n s ; his tenant

farmer,

Robert

M a r t i n , a sensitive y o u n g m a n w h o is bettering himself by reading; of M r s . G o d d a r d ' s s c h o o l , an unpretentious establishment ' w h e r e girls m i g h t be sent to be out of the w a y a n d scramble themselves into a little e d u c a t i o n ' ( E 2 2 ) . T h e leisured a n d professional classes of R e g e n c y E n g l a n d w e r e sustained by a great a r m y of servants, an a r m y w h i c h like the actual military had its o w n internal hierarchy a n d pecking order. T h o u g h A u s t e n d o e s n ' t usually give servants s p e a k i n g parts, she recognizes the unobtrusive influence they have on the lives of their m a s t e r s .

5

It is a material convenience to M r .

W o o d h o u s e of Hartfield, for instance, that his c o a c h m a n ' s daughter

is

placed as h o u s e m a i d at R a n d a l l s : J a m e s therefore never objects to harnes­ sing the horses to the carriage, even though it is a v e r y short drive ( £ 8 - 9 ) . Such little negotiations between one social level a n d another are the stuff of life.

127

JULIET

McMASTER

B e y o n d the servants c o m e s the great m a s s of w h a t w a s yet to be named the w o r k i n g class; but w i t h them A u s t e n ' s m a i n characters h a v e little to d o . L i k e m o s t 'ladies a n d gentlemen' of their d a y , their acquaintance with this h u g e section of the p o p u l a t i o n w o u l d be only through their servants, w h o a r e not truly representative. H o w e v e r , w e get glimpses. M a r y C r a w f o r d learns of the 'sturdy independence' of rural labourers at h a y harvest time (MP 5 8 ) . H a r r i e t Smith a n d a schoolfriend h a v e a disturbing encounter with disreputable gypsies, but the ' w h o l e g a n g ' is swiftly dispersed w h e n F r a n k C h u r c h i l l arrives; a n d w e h e a r that M r . K n i g h t l e y , as magistrate, is to be informed 'of there being such a set of people in the n e i g h b o u r h o o d ' (E 334). D i c k e n s might give us scenes of the unleashed fury of the m o b in the G o r d o n riots o r the French R e v o l u t i o n ; but in A u s t e n ' s novels, by and large, l a w and order prevail. ' T h e p o o r ' are seldom mentioned, but they are there, for L a d y Catherine to 'scold . . . into h a r m o n y a n d plenty' (PP 1 6 9 ) o r for A n n e Elliot and E m m a to visit c o m p a s s i o n a t e l y . A l t h o u g h E m m a is a w a r e she will p r o b a b l y s o o n forget the distress of the p o o r sick family she visits, she p a y s them full attention w h i l e she is w i t h them, a n d she is neither a r r o g a n t nor sentimental: ' S h e u n d e r s t o o d their w a y s , c o u l d a l l o w for their ignorance and their temptations, h a d n o r o m a n t i c expectations of e x t r a o r d i n a r y virtue from those, for w h o m education h a d done so little, . . . a n d a l w a y s g a v e her assistance w i t h as m u c h intelligence as g o o d - w i l l ' (E 8 6 ) . W e have the sense of those ' t w o nations,' as Disraeli w a s later to characterize rich and p o o r in

Sybil;

but A u s t e n a l l o w s for s o m e h u m a n e contact between them, h o w e v e r

minimal. L i o n e l Trilling h u m o r o u s l y quotes a reader exasperated by the obsessive attention p a i d to social class in the English novel: ' W h o cares whether P a m e l a finally e x a s p e r a t e s M r . B . into m a r r i a g e , whether M r . Elton is more o r less than m o d e r a t e l y genteel, . . . whether L a d y Chatterley ought to be m a d e love to by the g a m e - k e e p e r , even if he w a s an officer during the w a r ? Who

cares?'

6

T h e novelist, a n d especially J a n e A u s t e n , a l w a y s cares,

because it is the business of the n o v e l to represent people - not exclusively, but prominently -

in their social roles, a n d to be precise about

the

differences between them. It sometimes seems that if class difference did not exist, the novelist w o u l d h a v e to invent it, because of the rich potential it p r o v i d e s for definition a n d fine distinction. A u s t e n , as w e have seen, goes in for fine distinctions, w h e t h e r between the degrees of quality of mind in her characters o r the fine shades of difference in their social standing. But to say s o m u c h is not to contend that she a p p r o v e d of the bastions of privilege in her v e r y hierarchical society, o r resisted the changes t o w a r d s freer m o v e 128

Class ment between the classes that she s a w happening a r o u n d her.

N o r did she

subordinate m o r a l a n d aesthetic judgments to issues of social r a n k . T o use that term of later development that I h a v e applied to E m m a , A u s t e n w a s n o snob, though she k n e w all a b o u t s n o b b e r y . According to L i o n e l Trilling's definition, ' S n o b b e r y is pride in status without pride in function' ( 2 0 3 ) . T h i s applies perfectly to Sir W a l t e r Elliot, w h o wants all the privilege a n d prestige belonging to his baronetcy, but none of the responsibilities. T h a c k e r a y , the m o s t prominent of the m a n y nineteenth-century commentators o n class difference, supplies a definition that emphasizes the vitiated v a l u e system of the person w h o considers social station to be all-important: a things'.

8

snob,

he s a y s , is 'he w h o m e a n l y admires m e a n

T o such a person social station is the defining condition that

overrides all other categories of j u d g m e n t , p h y s i c a l , intellectual, o r m o r a l . In J a n e Austen's w o r l d , h u m a n w o r t h is to be j u d g e d by s t a n d a r d s better and more enduring than social status; but social status is a l w a y s relevant. With amused detachment, she registers exactly the social p r o v e n a n c e of each of her characters, a n d judges them for the w a y s in w h i c h they judge each other. T h e importance assigned to class distinction is the source of much of her c o m e d y a n d her i r o n y , as of her social satire. In

Emma,

for

instance, the snobbish heroine b e c o m e s both o u r guide as to w h e r e each character in the novel should be ' p l a c e d ' , a n d o u r negative e x a m p l e of one w h o assigns far too m u c h importance to the matter of status. A n d the best treatment for her self-importance is laughter. ' N o n s e n s i c a l girl!' laughs M r . Knightley, w h e n she has indulged in one of her elaborately classconscious flights of fancy (E 2 1 4 ) . B u t s n o b b e r y unchecked raises indigna­ tion t o o . M a n y of Austen's m o s t contemptible characters are those w h o place undue emphasis on social station; a n d they c o m e from all levels of the social ladder: Isabella T h o r p e a n d G e n e r a l Tilney; M r . a n d M r s . J o h n D a s h w o o d ; L u c y Steele and M r s . Ferrars; M i s s Bingley; M r s . N o r r i s ; M r . Collins a n d L a d y Catherine de B o u r g h . T h o s e principal characters w i t h an overdeveloped pride in their position, like D a r c y a n d E m m a , must learn the error of their w a y s . Before E m m a has met M r s . Elton, she reflects that

'what she

w a s , must be

uncertain; but who she w a s , might be found out' ( 1 8 3 ) . It is the l a d y ' s social identity that can be discovered in a d v a n c e : w h o s e daughter she is, w h e r e she comes from, h o w m u c h m o n e y she has, a n d h o w it w a s m a d e . B u t

what

she

is - that is, w h a t sort of person, v i v a c i o u s or reserved, kind o r a r r o g a n t , intelligent or silly: all the things that really matter altogether,

and

can

is another

be established only by personal contact.

issue

Austen

brilliantly dramatizes these essential matters of personal identity in the personnel of her novels, a n d w e c o m e to k n o w her people a n d the individual

129

JULIET

feel

McMASTER

of them as intimately as w e k n o w a n y in fiction; but in this essay I have

necessarily concentrated o n who they are (in E m m a ' s terms), rather than on

what they

are.

' T i n k e r , tailor, soldier, sailor,' goes the r h y m e , as the child divines possibilities from the cherry-stones left o n the plate; ' R i c h m a n , p o o r man, b e g g a r - m a n , thief.' T h e folk imagination, like the individual's, necessarily busies itself w i t h such matters. A u s t e n ' s heroines p l a y the cherry-stone g a m e t o o , a n d w e learn to care whether they will c o m e to reside in ' B i g house, little h o u s e , pig-stye, barn,' a n d dress in 'Silk, satin, cotton, [or] r a g s . ' H e r novels are rich in detail of the status s y m b o l s and cultural m a r k e r s of her society:

the

estates,

lands,

houses,

cottages;

the

coaches,

carriages,

b a r o u c h e - l a n d a u s , hatchments, lozenges, liveries; the silks, satins, muslins, pearls, a m b e r

crosses, rings, and

beads. A s a sensitive a n d

informed

c o m m e n t a t o r o n class, that huge topic of the nineteenth century, Austen s h o w s us a m p l y h o w such things matter. She also s h o w s us h o w they should not matter t o o m u c h .

NOTES 1 2 3 4

5 6 7

8

Park Honan, Jane Austen: Her Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), p. 1 1 8 . Edward Lytton Bulwer, England and the English ( 1 8 3 1 ) , ed. Standish Meachum (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 3 1 . Thomas Carlyle,

Sartor Resartus,

first edition 1 8 3 3 - 4 (New York: Odyssey

Press, 1 9 3 7 ) , P- 2.72'Persuasion ... [has] the distinction in Austen's novels of celebrating the professional ranks frankly and openly, of placing them above the aristocracy and gentry as responsible economists.' Edward Copeland, 'The Austens and the Elliots: A Consumer's Guide to Persuasion', in Jane Austen's Business, ed. Juliet McMaster and Bruce Stovel (London: Macmillan, 1 9 9 5 ) , p. 1 5 0 . For a study of the servant classes in Austen's novels, see Judith Terry's 'Seen but not heard: Servants in Jane Austen's England', Persuasions, 1 0 (1988), 1 0 4 - 1 6 . Quoted by Lionel Trilling, in 'Manners, Morals, and the Novel', in The Liberal Imagination (New York: Doubleday, 1 9 5 3 ) , p. 2 0 5 . M a r k Parker, 'The End of Emma: Drawing the Boundaries of Class in Austen', JEGP, 9 1 : 3 (July 1 , 1 9 9 2 ) , 34, notes, 'She produces a narrative voice at once . . . inside and outside ideology: able to perceive bourgeois subjects (like herself) making decisions about class in ways that smack of false consciousness, yet arguing, subtly but firmly, for a maintenance of the system.' While I agree with much of what he says, I read Austen as much more critical of the operation of class ideology than Parker allows. William Makepeace Thackeray, A Book of Snobs, by One of Themselves (1846), ch. 2.

130

8 EDWARD COPELAND

Money

Once upon a time, as the story goes, there lived a beautiful y o u n g w o m a n of modest r a n k and excellent manners, but no significant income to s p e a k of, and a h a n d s o m e y o u n g m a n of great r a n k , h a u g h t y m a n n e r s , a n d an estate 'ten miles r o u n d ' . T h e beautiful y o u n g w o m a n a n d the h a n d s o m e y o u n g man meet, his haughty manners i m p r o v e , they fall in love, he p r o p o s e s marriage, and, in the concluding p a g e s , her very m o d e s t m e a n s are joined to his very great estate in an event that surpasses even the wildest d r e a m s of her ambitious mother. It's an irresistible story, so irresistible, in fact, that g a r b l e d accounts from the p o p u l a r press fluttered readers for three y e a r s a n d m o r e with r u m o u r s that J a n e Austen's text w a s not only being readied for television, but w a s going to feature a

nude M r .

D a r c y - as if A u s t e n ' s e c o n o m i c r o m a n c e w e r e

not m o r e c o m p l e x , shaded, a n d , well, m o r e passionate, than mere flesh. If sex w e r e all there were to it, w e ' v e seen it before. B u t w h e n the B B C c a m e r a turns its yearning gaze on Britain's Historic H o u s e s , Castles, a n d G a r d e n s , their vast acres smiling in the sunshine, their s w e e p i n g C a p a b i l i t y B r o w n p a r k s , the splendid house presiding o v e r it all, then the b l o o d begins to p u m p in earnest. F o r the B B C executives, of course, the yearning gaze of the c a m e r a a n d the rising heart of the v i e w e r are little m o r e than tokens in their o w n g a m e of con­ sumer desire. Industry m o g u l s care nothing for Pemberley a n d its ten miles round except as it attracts the consumer eye. P a r a d o x i c a l l y , J a n e A u s t e n ' s position as a ' v i e w e r ' of Pemberley is a c o n s u m e r ' s point of v i e w as w e l l . If desire is m o s t likely to afflict the viewer w h o is outside the gates, one w h o does not naturally belong within the charmed circumference of the Pemberley

tempted, become an a p p r e c i a t o r convinced, contemplate becoming a a n d her readers qualify in Pride and

estate, that is to say, a person w h o could, if of such an estate, a n d w h o could, if consumer of it, then both J a n e Austen

Prejudice. In

short, Pemberley exists as a c o n s u m e r token in A u s t e n ' s novels,

even as it does for the B B C , but in a m u c h deeper g a m e of desire.

131

EDWARD

COPELAND

T h r o u g h o u t her career, w o u l d - b e c o n s u m e r s , over-consumers, and wise consumers turn A u s t e n ' s attention to the e c o n o m y . F r o m the focus of

and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice,

and

Northanger Abbey,

Sense

where the

single most significant e c o n o m i c p r o b l e m for w o m e n is the lack of a fortune, A u s t e n ' s w o r k s steadily engage w o m e n in more and m o r e c o m p l e x relationships to the e c o n o m y .

Mansfield Park, Emma, a n d Persuasion,

each

in turn, m o v e through a n e x a m i n a t i o n of the e c o n o m y as measure of social morality, as agent of social disruption, as source of national identity, and, in the final fragment

Sanditon,

as ' A c t i v i t y run m a d ! '

It m a y , in fact, surprise s o m e readers to k n o w that J a n e Austen does not write as a m e m b e r of the landed gentry, or as a representative of the proprietors of such piles as Pemberley, Netherfield, R o s i n g s , N o r w o o d , Mansfield P a r k , Sotherton, D o n w e l l A b b e y , K e l l y n c h H a l l , or any other of the imagined great houses of her novels, but as a member of a s o m e w h a t humbler r a n k that the historian D a v i d Spring calls the

'pseudo-gentry':

that is, a g r o u p of u p p e r professional families living in the country

-

clergymen or barristers, for e x a m p l e , o r officers in the a r m y a n d n a v y ,

rentiers, great

retired

merchants - allied by kinship and social ties, and by

social aspirations as w e l l , to their landed-gentry neighbours, but different in an essential e c o n o m i c condition: they d o not themselves possess the p o w e r a n d w e a l t h invested in the o w n e r s h i p of land, but depend earned i n c o m e s .

1

upon

Nevertheless, they are gentry of a sort, Spring notes

w r y l y , 'primarily because they sought strenuously to be taken for gentry', through

the acquisition of the m a n n e r s , the education, and the

m a r k e r s of station as their landed-gentry neighbours

same

(60). T h e conse­

quence of such aspirations, h o w e v e r , presents this class with a two-fold e c o n o m i c burden:

first, of c o u r s e , the need to p a y for the necessary

m a r k e r s of their genteel a p p e a r a n c e ; a n d , second, the need to soften the inherent

w e a k n e s s of

breadwinner,

their

there is the

economic

position:

with

the

loss of his income as w e l l .

2

loss of

the

This essential

e c o n o m i c fact attaches itself firmly to J a n e Austen's fiction and to her life. H e r father, a c l e r g y m a n living in rural H a m p s h i r e , later retired to Bath, with

a moderately

good

i n c o m e , moderately

poor

health,

and

three

dependent w o m e n (his wife a n d t w o spinster daughters), headed a family e x p o s e d to e x a c t l y the k i n d of sudden a n d irreversible fall in

fortune

implicit to their station in life. A s a consequence,

money,

especially m o n e y as spendable income, is the

love-tipped a r r o w a i m e d at the hearts of J a n e Austen's heroines and her readers: first of all, for its p o w e r to acquire the material g o o d s that can support the all-important signs of her r a n k ' s claims to genteel station; second, as the p r o d of a n x i e t y that focuses its o w n potential for loss. In her

132

Money novels, Austen a p p r o a c h e s the subject, m o n e y , from three different,

but

related, points of v i e w . First, as a m e m b e r of the pseudo-gentry, that is to say, the upper professional r a n k s of her rural society; second, as a w o m a n in that society, severely handicapped by l a w a n d c u s t o m from possessing significant p o w e r o v e r money; finally, as a novelist w h o joins other w o m e n 3

novelists in a larger conversation about m o n e y . A n d , as J a n Fergus reminds us in this v o l u m e , novel writing is itself an e c o n o m i c activity, w i t h m o n e y the importunate force that m o v e s this conversation a l o n g . T h e heartbeat of r o m a n c e lies in a g o o d income. T h a t is the universal truth about w h i c h there is n o d o u b t in c o n t e m p o r a r y w o m e n ' s fiction. T h e D a s h w o o d w o m e n , for e x a m p l e , Elinor a n d M a r i a n n e in Sense and Sensibility, name their hearts' desires: ' A b o u t eighteen hundred o r t w o thousand a-year; not m o r e than that, M a r i a n n e confides. 'Two

t h o u s a n d a-

year!' cries Elinor, shocked: 'One is m y w e a l t h ! ' (SS 9 1 ) . M a r i a n n e defends t w o thousand a y e a r as she specifies the c o n s u m e r expenses a p p r o p r i a t e to it: T a m sure I a m not e x t r a v a g a n t in m y d e m a n d s . A p r o p e r establishment of servants, a carriage, perhaps t w o , and hunters, c a n n o t be supported on less.' Elinor smiles to hear her y o u n g e r sister 'describing so a c c u r a t e l y ' , and so transparently,

the e x a c t consumer expenses suited to the

potential

income of her lover, the soon-to-prove-faithless W i l l o u g h b y . B u t in her o w n turn, Elinor's projection of 'one thousand p o u n d s ' is the income of the prosperous clergyman family that she longs to be mistress of. T h e r e is n o r o o m for error in this novel's system of accounting. In the concluding p a g e s , M a r i a n n e gets her t w o thousand pounds a y e a r , though from a different lover, and Elinor gets her one thousand a y e a r , o r suitably near it. Incomes are openly discussed in all of A u s t e n ' s novels, a n d , w h e n the significant details are not given in the first pages of the n o v e l , a n d they usually are, they f o l l o w w h e n it is most useful for them to a p p e a r .

Pride and

Prejudice, for e x a m p l e , commences with the g r a n d a n n o u n c e m e n t of the arrival of M r . Bingley w i t h his fortune of £4,000 o r £ 5 , 0 0 0 a y e a r (PP 4). It is followed by the arrival of M r . D a r c y and the invigorating n e w s of his £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 a y e a r ( 1 0 ) . C o m m o n conversation has it in

Sense and Sensibility

that W i l l o u g h b y spends beyond his income of £ 6 0 0 or £ 7 0 0 a y e a r (SS 7 1 ) ; that the D a s h w o o d w o m e n have only £ 5 0 0 a y e a r for the four of them ( 1 2 ) ; and that C o l o n e l B r a n d o n has £ 2 , 0 0 0 a y e a r and a v e r y nice estate to g o with it (70). W h e n incomes are not specifically n a m e d by A u s t e n , then the signs of them are: the house, the furnishings, the g a r d e n , the p a r k , the number of servants, the presence of a carriage. C o n s u m e r m a r k e r s of income and r a n k regularly p a c e the r o m a n c e s of J a n e Austen's novels. In each novel, decisions of domestic e c o n o m y define 133

EDWARD

COPELAND

the heroine - a n d the hero - o n a scale of e x p e n s e familiar to contemporary readers. A s distant from us as late eighteenth- a n d early nineteenth-century i n c o m e s a n d spending practices are, there is n o real difficulty in learning the system.

Except

for heiresses, almost all incomes in w o m e n ' s fiction are announced

u n a m b i g u o u s l y as

yearly

incomes: ' t w o t h o u s a n d a-year', or 'one thousand

a - y e a r ' , just as the D a s h w o o d sisters refer to t h e m .

4

Heiresses, h o w e v e r ,

h a v e their fortunes reported in l u m p sums, like the ' p r o u d and conceited' M i s s Bingley in

Pride and Prejudice

w h o has a fortune of 'twenty thousand

p o u n d s ' (PP 1 5 ) , or M i s s K i n g , Elizabeth Bennet's richer rival for W i c k h a m ' s attentions, w i t h her 'ten thousand p o u n d s ' ( 1 4 9 ) . B u t these heiresses' fortunes are understood immediately by contemporaries as

yearly

incomes

t h r o u g h multiplying them by 5 per cent, a procedure that reveals their y e a r l y i n c o m e from investment in the 5 per cent g o v e r n m e n t funds. M i s s B i n g l e y ' s y e a r l y income from her £ 2 0 , 0 0 0 fortune is, thus, £ 1 , 0 0 0 a year; a n d M i s s K i n g ' s y e a r l y income from £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 , figuring it the same w a y , constitutes a lure of £ 5 0 0 a y e a r for the impecunious W i c k h a m . Elizabeth Bennet's pitifully small fortune of £ 1 , 0 0 0 is a m i n o r exception, invested at a l o w e r rate of 4 per cent ( £ 4 0 a y e a r ) , a fact M r . Collins notes w i t h some minuteness w h e n he p r o p o s e s to Elizabeth ( 1 0 6 ) . With this formula for turning inherited m o n e y into y e a r l y incomes (as investment at 5 per cent), heiress fortunes quickly c o m e into focus as y e a r l y income - the significant b o t t o m line for r o m a n c e . F o r the present-day reader, h o w e v e r , there remains a problem in h o w to recognize w i t h A u s t e n ' s contemporaries the style of life attached to a specific i n c o m e . E v e n though A u s t e n herself generally explains each case as it arises, specific incomes also operate as shorthand in her fiction a n d in the rest of w o m e n ' s fiction - three hundred a y e a r , four hundred a y e a r , five hundred a y e a r , a n d so on - to express r a n k , social aspirations, a n d consumer p o w e r . T h e telling r a n g e in w o m e n ' s fiction, h o w e v e r , is not large, being m a d e up of those fine gradations of income that m a r k the aspirations of the middle r a n k s of society, each income bringing w i t h it a set of specific consumer signs that reveal to the w o r l d both the income a n d the social level attached to its p o s s e s s o r .

5

N u m b e r s of servants m a r k incomes at the l o w e r levels; the acquisition of a c a r r i a g e does it for incomes that are a bit higher; a n d 'the house in t o w n ' certifies the presence of great incomes, usually those belonging to

the

p r o s p e r o u s landed gentry. Servants, an unfamiliar reckoning device these d a y s , might be considered as the equivalent of m o d e r n household conve­ niences: a d d a servant, a d d a convenience - hot w a t e r , central heating, a w a s h i n g m a c h i n e , a n d so on.

134

Money £100

a year: this

is the l o w e s t income that can support the price of a

ticket to a circulating library. It embraces p o o r curates, clerks in government office (both only m a r g i n a l l y genteel), a n d

moderately

prosperous tradesmen. It could supply a family only w i t h a y o u n g maid servant, and at a very l o w w a g e . W h e n E d w a r d Ferrars a n d Lucy Steele seem a b o u t to m a r r y o n an income of £ 1 0 0 a y e a r , M r s . J e n n i n g s ' immediate reaction is to trim the n u m b e r of servants she h a d imagined for them: ' T w o m a i d s a n d t w o men indeed! - as I talked of t'other d a y . - N o , n o , they must get a stout girl of all w o r k s . - Betty's sister w o u l d never d o for them

now' {SS 2 7 7 ) .

In

Emma,

the presence

of Patty, M i s s Bates' only servant, suggests the fragility of the B a t e s ' present claims to genteel station. £200

a year:

A u s t e n ' s father a n d mother married in 1 7 6 4 on a church

living of only £ 1 0 0 a y e a r , plus the use of 2 0 0 acres of land as a second source of income, but found that even w i t h a n increase to £ 2 0 0 a year four years later, then £ 3 0 0 a y e a r , their g r o w i n g family m a d e it difficult to maintain the a p p e a r a n c e of genteel station. M r . A u s t e n w a s driven to take in students to increase the family's i n c o m e . hundred

pounds

m a k e s a claim to gentility, but

6

only w i t h

Two the

narrowest style of life. T h e £ 2 0 0 a y e a r income supplies a better servant, 'a S e r v a n t - M a i d of all W o r k ' , at a higher s a l a r y . £300

a year:

7

' C o m f o r t a b l e as a b a c h e l o r ' , C o l o n e l B r a n d o n says of

£ 3 0 0 a y e a r for E d w a r d F e r r a r s , but 'it c a n n o t enable him to m a r r y ' {SS 2 8 4 ) .

8

T h e income brings t w o servants. A u s t e n ' s brother J a m e s

married on this sum, but found it decidedly insufficient to maintain his elevated notions of c o n s u m e r display: a carriage for his bride a n d a p a c k of harriers for himself. £400

a year: A n

9

income that a p p r o a c h e s the comforts of genteel life,

but not readily. It brings a c o o k , a house m a i d , a n d , p e r h a p s , a b o y . Isabella T h o r p e turns up her nose at J a m e s M o r l a n d w h o is granted this income in

Northanger Abbey.

In

Mansfield Park,

F a n n y Price's

mother has just this a m o u n t per y e a r for domestic expense a n d the requisite n u m b e r of servants (two), but she m a n a g e s v e r y b a d l y . F a n n y ' s p a r s i m o n i o u s A u n t N o r r i s , F a n n y notes, w o u l d h a v e done better. £500

a year: This

cup of h u m a n

s u m , according to the domestic economists, fills the

happiness. J a n e A u s t e n is not so confident. 135

Five

EDWARD

COPELAND

h u n d r e d p o u n d s a y e a r is the very income that in

Sense and Sensibility

gives rise to such malicious gloating from the D a s h w o o d w o m e n ' s prosperous sister-in-law, F a n n y : 'and w h a t on earth can four w o m e n w a n t for m o r e than that? - T h e y will live s o cheap! Their house­ keeping will be nothing at all. T h e y will h a v e n o carriage, no horses, a n d hardly a n y servants' [SS 1 2 ) . F a n n y is absolutely right on the first t w o counts (no carriage and n o horses), and as for the third, the n u m b e r of servants, she k n o w s that her mother-in-law, the former mistress of N o r l a n d , and her sisters-in-law will n o w have only the three servants, t w o w o m e n and a m a n , prescribed by the professional economists for that income. Austen speaks from experience on this one: it is the sum, even a bit m o r e , that she a n d her mother and her sister had to live on after M r . Austen's d e a t h . £700

to £1000

10

a year: This higher range of upper professional

incomes m a r k s the m o s t prosperous pseudo-gentry families, though M a r y C r a w f o r d , the rich L o n d o n heiress in

Mansfield Park, doesn't

think m u c h of its potential: ' Y o u w o u l d l o o k rather b l a n k , H e n r y , ' she tells her brother, 'if y o u r menus plaisirs w e r e to be limited to seven h u n d r e d a y e a r ' (MP

2 2 6 ) . Its most significant consumer

marker

becomes the o w n e r s h i p of a carriage. J a n e Austen's father took a carriage w h e n his income reached £ 7 0 0 , though expensive to maintain on that i n c o m e . in

11

he found it too

M r . Perry, the local physician

Emma, lets his income be k n o w n to H i g h b u r y w h e n M r s . Perry Emma rubs

begins to long for a carriage. T h e ambitious M r s . Elton in

e v e r y o n e ' s nose in her o w n e r s h i p of a carriage: ' I believe w e drive faster than a n y b o d y ' , she boasts ( £ 3 2 1 ) .

a year: A t t w o thousand pounds a y e a r (the landed-gentry Pride and Prejudice and of C o l o n e l B r a n d o n in Sense and Sensibility), domestic e c o n o m y must still hold a tight rein, especially in Pride and Prejudice w h e r e there are five daughters in £2,000

income of M r . Bennet in

need of d o w r i e s . M r s . Bennet is noted as a p o o r economist; M r . Bennet is better, though still inadequate considering his daughters' situation. M r s . J e n n i n g s in at-home

Sense and Sensibility emphasizes the quiet,

pleasures of £ 2 , 0 0 0 a y e a r w h e n she describes Colonel

B r a n d o n ' s D e l a f o r d as 'without debt or d r a w b a c k ' : 'every thing, in short, that one could w i s h for . . . O h ! 'tis a nice place!' (SS

196-7).

Above £4,000 a year: Incomes of £4,000 a y e a r and a b o v e (Darcy's, B i n g l e y ' s , C r a w f o r d ' s , R u s h w o r t h ' s ) leave behind the cheese-paring 136

Money cares of middle-class incomes - the p r o b l e m s of £ 1 0 0 to £ 1 , 0 0 0 a y e a r , and even £ 2 , 0 0 0 a y e a r - to enter a r e a l m of unlimited genteel c o m f o r t s . T o spend m o r e , according to c o n t e m p o r a r y w i s d o m , a m a n 'must g o into horse-racing or illegitimate p l e a s u r e s ' .

12

In terms of

c o n s u m e r s h o w , any income o v e r £4,000 a y e a r is characterized by its ability to provide a house in L o n d o n for the social season,

the

beguiling consumer temptation that brings r o m a n t i c disaster to both M a r y C r a w f o r d and M a r i a Bertram. T h e great incomes of this last category comprise those h a n d s o m e landbased fortunes in J a n e Austen's novels that could put to rout, if only they were m a n a g e d by the prudent economic principles of A u s t e n ' s o w n class, all economic anxieties for w o m e n . But in A u s t e n , this a l m o s t never happens and for g o o d reason. A s G a r y Kelly notes, a n d others as w e l l , the larger social picture tends to place Austen, along w i t h other w o m e n novelists, in an a d v a n c e g u a r d of middle-class encroachers o n the political a n d e c o n o m i c turf of the landed i n t e r e s t . in

13

M r . D a r c y ' s a n d M r . K n i g h t l e y ' s great estates

Pride and Prejudice and in Emma are under the safe g u i d a n c e of heroes

w h o share

the

author's

economic principles, but

Northanger

Abbey,

R o s i n g s , N o r w o o d , Mansfield P a r k , Sotherton, a n d K e l l y n c h are b y w o r d s for e x t r a v a g a n c e and/or faulty domestic e c o n o m y . Representatives of this monied class s h o w a regular pattern of catastrophe as they stumble w i t h o u t the aid of the economic principles of A u s t e n ' s o w n m o r e humble

rank:

W h a t if H e n r y C r a w f o r d had remained at E v e r i n g h a m to m a n a g e his estate properly? W h a t if M a r y C r a w f o r d h a d given u p her u n r e a s o n a b l e d e m a n d for a house in t o w n ? W h a t if W i l l o u g h b y h a d k e p t out of debt? W h a t if Sir Walter Elliot w e r e not a fool? In the more intimate, domestic negotiations of the n o v e l , w o m e n ' s

fiction

turns to the particular relationship that w o m e n h a v e w i t h m o n e y - that is, n o legal title to it for married w o m e n , and rights severely curtailed for unmarried w o m e n .

1 4

In a frustrating social irony, the pseudo-gentry w o m a n

finds herself responsible for the m a n a g e m e n t of the h o u s e h o l d , but pre­ vented by l a w and custom from exercising a n y significant control o v e r the m a n a g e m e n t of the family's income, a male prerogative. If m o n e y affairs g o badly, as they certainly will with a feckless, foolish, i m p r o v i d e n t m a n like W i l l o u g h b y , o r w i t h an out-and-out scoundrel like W i c k h a m , the w o m a n is still responsible for the economic consequences, a victim herself of course, but still responsible. Elinor D a s h w o o d has n o illusions a b o u t this harsh double bind w h e n she consoles M a r i a n n e for the loss of W i l l o u g h b y :

Had you married, you must have been always poor . . . His demands and your 137

EDWARD

COPELAND

inexperience together on a small, very small income, must have brought on distresses which would not be the less grievous to you, from having been entirely unknown and unthought of before. Your sense of honour and honesty would have led you, I know, when aware of your situation, to attempt all the economy that would appear to you possible; and perhaps, as long as your frugality retrenched only on your own comfort, you might have been suffered to practise it, but beyond that - and how little could the utmost of your single management do to stop the ruin which had begun before your marriage? (SS 3 5 0 - 1 ) ' J u s t suppose it w a s y o u r h u s b a n d ! ' cries a character in E u d o r a W e l t y ' s Southern gothic tale, ' T h e Petrified M a n ' - a twentieth-century outcry, but one that names the s a m e fear haunting most w o m e n ' s fiction conceived in the 1 7 9 0 s , including of c o u r s e and

Pride and Prejudice.

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility,

W h a t is w o m a n ' s defence? Principles of domestic

e c o n o m y offer at least the protection of a m a p . Catherine M o r l a n d , for e x a m p l e , w a r m l y defends her brother J a m e s for not keeping a horse a n d gig of his o w n : ' I a m sure he c o u l d not afford it' (NA

89). Elinor D a s h w o o d

prevents her sister M a r i a n n e from accepting a horse from W i l l o u g h b y and thus o v e r b u r d e n i n g the f a m i l y ' s £ 5 0 0 a y e a r income. Elinor earlier en­ c o u r a g e s her m o t h e r to sell the c a r r i a g e , an inappropriate expense on that income. W i t h

such a n

understanding,

w e can appreciate, a l o n g

with

A u s t e n ' s c o n t e m p o r a r i e s , w h y E l i n o r D a s h w o o d a n d E d w a r d Ferrars ' w e r e neither of them quite e n o u g h in love to think that three hundred and fifty p o u n d s a-year w o u l d s u p p l y them w i t h the comforts of life' (55 3 6 9 ) , a n d w e c a n calculate in p o u n d s sterling their later happiness w h e n they d o agree to m a r r y o n £ 8 5 0 to £ 9 0 0 a y e a r . in

Northanger Abbey

1 5

W e also understand h o w H e n r y Tilney

is just the right m a n for Catherine w h e n the h a p p y

couple retire to their cottage at W o o d s t o n on his c l e r g y m a n ' s income 'of independence a n d c o m f o r t ' (NA 2 5 0 ) , plus her m a r r i a g e portion of £ 3 , 0 0 0 , w h i c h , invested in the g o v e r n m e n t funds, of course, adds a £ 1 5 0 a y e a r to their income. A n d as for the e x t r a o r d i n a r y g o o d luck of Elizabeth Bennet in meeting up w i t h £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 a y e a r , ' A house in t o w n ! Every thing that is c h a r m i n g ! ' (PP 3 7 8 ) , it is a telling triumph of Austen's economic ideology to turn so fabulous a landed-gentry income into the earnest, cash-conscious p r o g r a m m e of her o w n r a n k .

B u t m o n e y in J a n e A u s t e n ' s first three novels exists for the most part as a set of restrictive anxieties attached

to the r o m a n c e plot by the

narrowest

definition of domestic e c o n o m y - fear of debt. In Austen's last three novels, a n d in the fragmentary final piece,

Sanditon,

far more c o m p l e x relationships

between income a n d r o m a n c e are held in centre focus. D e b t remains an 138

Money anxiety of course: T o m Bertram w r e a k s disaster on the family i n c o m e in

Mansfield Park; M i s s niece in Emma; Sir

Bates w o r r i e s a b o u t the cost of m e d i c a l care for her W a l t e r Elliot loses his estate

M r . Parker seems headed for financial trouble in

in

Sanditon.

Persuasion;

and

B u t the omnipre­

sent fear of loss n o longer holds s w a y o v e r the n a r r a t i v e . Instead, A u s t e n sets w o m e n into an active, w o r k i n g relationship w i t h the e c o n o m y in a w o r l d w h e r e e c o n o m i c choice tests the strengths a n d the limitations of female p o w e r .

Income takes

o v e r as the leading e c o n o m i c trope of

Mansfield Park.

Tom

Bertram's debts, of course, are a prominent irritant, but A u s t e n seems little interested in them or in T o m . T h e novel begins, instead, w i t h the income portfolio of the ' h a n d s o m e ' W a r d sisters: M i s s M a r i a has d o n e w e l l , 'at least three thousand pounds short of a n y equitable c l a i m ' , by m a r r y i n g the wealthy Sir T h o m a s B e r t r a m , B a r o n e t , of M a n s f i e l d P a r k ; M i s s W a r d , less well, being 'obliged to be attached to the R e v . M r . N o r r i s ' a n d his i n c o m e of 'very little less than a thousand a y e a r ' ; a n d M i s s F r a n c e s h a s d o n e very badly indeed, 'fixing on a Lieutenant

of M a r i n e s , w i t h o u t

education,

fortune, or connections' (MP 3 ) . M a r r i a g e , s a y s M a r y C r a w f o r d , w h o s e assessment of the state never w a v e r s from this focus, 'is a m a n o e u v r i n g business. I k n o w so m a n y w h o h a v e m a r r i e d in the full e x p e c t a t i o n a n d confidence of s o m e one particular a d v a n t a g e . . . w h o h a v e found themselves entirely deceived, a n d been obliged to put up w i t h e x a c t l y the reverse! W h a t is this', she a s k s , 'but a take i n ? ' (46). M a r y ' s o p i n i o n of M a r i a B e r t r a m ' s marriage to the rich, but stupid, M r . R u s h w o r t h simply varies the trope: '[S]he will o p e n one of the best houses in W i m p o l e Street . . . a n d certainly she will then feel - to use a v u l g a r phrase - that she has g o t her p e n n y - w o r t h for her p e n n y ' ( 3 9 4 ) . But, in truth, there is nothing w r o n g w i t h i m p r o v i n g one's income in this novel. D r . G r a n t a n d E d m u n d B e r t r a m engage in a n earnest c o n v e r s a t i o n 'The most interesting in the w o r l d ' , H e n r y C r a w f o r d tells his sister, M a r y : ' h o w to m a k e m o n e y - h o w to turn a g o o d income into a better' ( 2 2 6 ) . Sir T h o m a s conscientiously travels to the W e s t Indies to i m p r o v e the income of his estates in A n t i g u a . But H e n r y a n d M a r y C r a w f o r d ' s notion of a better income - solely as a higher income, the c o m m o n understanding

of the

matter - is challenged by A u s t e n . M a r y must decide w h e t h e r she is willing to m a r r y the m a n she loves, E d m u n d B e r t r a m , o n their potential married income of £ 1 , 7 0 0 a y e a r (his moderate-to-good c l e r g y m a n ' s income of £ 7 0 0 a year, plus an additional £ 1 , 0 0 0 a year from the 5 per cent interest on her £ 2 0 , 0 0 0 fortune), o r to try for better stakes in the L o n d o n m a r k e t . In a n y pseudo-gentry accounting, £ 1 , 7 0 0 a y e a r is a strikingly g o o d i n c o m e for a clergyman,

handsome,

but it is not g o o d e n o u g h for M a r y , w h o w a n t s a

139

EDWARD

COPELAND

h o u s e in t o w n a n d the income to g o w i t h it. In the end, she w a n t s this more than she w a n t s E d m u n d . T h e C r a w f o r d s , both H e n r y a n d M a r y , possess an unyielding and near p a t h o l o g i c a l blindness to a n y but the m o s t simplistic notion of incomes. In fact, F a n n y Price is the o n l y person in the entire novel canny enough to recognize that there is a n option of choice a n d that this complicates the c o m m o n , u n e x a m i n e d notions

of acquisition held by the rest of

the

characters. A u s t e n , h o w e v e r , gives F a n n y n o p o w e r to m a k e her opinion k n o w n . After reading E d m u n d ' s letter pledging his undying devotion to M a r y C r a w f o r d , F a n n y cries out in e x a s p e r a t i o n , to herself alone, of course: ' H e is blinded, a n d nothing will open his eyes, nothing can, after having had truths before him so long in v a i n . -

H e will m a r r y her, and be p o o r and

m i s e r a b l e ' ( 4 2 4 ) . B u t even for F a n n y , the dialectic stands in a kind of immiscible suspension in the phrase, ' p o o r and

miserable'. She cannot

escape the logic herself. H e r only revenge is to 'hint' to E d m u n d , gently of course, of ' w h a t share his brother's state of health' - potentially fatal illness of the heir - 'might be s u p p o s e d to h a v e in her [ M a r y ' s ] w i s h for a complete reconciliation' w i t h E d m u n d , the y o u n g e r brother

( 4 5 9 ) . T h a t gets his

attention. B u t the information is gratuitous, a n d it only returns choice, m a r r i a g e , l o v e , to the s a m e corrupt relationship w i t h m o n e y that it has been in t h r o u g h o u t the n o v e l , of being a 'take in'. If this is not the opinion shared by A u s t e n , w h a t can w e m a k e of F a n n y Price's t r i u m p h in her m a r r i a g e to E d m u n d ? M r s . N o r r i s ' sanguine promise to Sir T h o m a s , ' G i v e a girl an education, a n d introduce her properly into the w o r l d , a n d ten to one but she has the m e a n s of settling well, without farther e x p e n s e to a n y b o d y ' , turns out to be absolutely on the m o n e y , t h o u g h not e x a c t l y as she predicts (6). F a n n y ' s career in the Bertram family is little m o r e , in these terms, than a low-cost/high-yield investment saga, softened h a p p i l y in the anaesthesia of Sir T h o m a s ' self-serving sentiments, but ledger-like nonetheless: ' F a n n y w a s indeed the daughter that he w a n t e d . H i s charitable kindness h a d been rearing a prime comfort for himself. H i s liberality h a d a rich r e p a y m e n t ' ( 4 7 2 ) , t h o u g h in truth, he h a d

tried,

unsuccessfully, to u n l o a d the girl w h e n the pressure of T o m ' s debts m a d e it 'not undesirable to himself to be relieved from the expense of her support, a n d the o b l i g a t i o n of her future p r o v i s i o n ' ( 2 4 ) . T h e novel concludes with a rousing p a e a n to the industrious Price children, those ideal representatives of their r a n k , 'all assisting to a d v a n c e each other' ( 4 7 3 ) . H e n r y C r a w f o r d w i t h his inherited income is sent p a c k i n g , a n d F a n n y marries E d m u n d , h a p p i l y , o n his income from the T h o r n t o n L a c e y living. B u t there is n o compelling logic to m a k e the h a p p y c o u p l e ' s £ 7 0 0 a y e a r c l e r g y m a n ' s i n c o m e necessarily m o r e virtuous than the £ 4 , 0 0 0 a y e a r inherited income

140

Money of H e n r y C r a w f o r d ( 1 1 8 ) . H e n r y , if J a n e A u s t e n h a d e x c u s e d him from the obligatory sexual excess w i t h M a r i a R u s h w o r t h , could h a v e h a d equal, o r better, title to F a n n y than E d m u n d , as A u s t e n admits: ' W o u l d he h a v e persevered, and uprightly, F a n n y must h a v e been his r e w a r d - a n d a r e w a r d very voluntarily b e s t o w e d ' ( 4 6 7 ) . I n c o m e , the e c o n o m i c p a r a d i g m which Austen seeks to measure the social a n d m o r a l dilemmas of

Park, fails to

with

Mansfield

clarify.

In her next novel, Austen c h o o s e s c o n s u m e r signs, those social m a r k e r s so important to her o w n class, to e x p l o r e society. T h e action in

Emma

rides

f o r w a r d on a great tide of n e w c o n s u m e r display. M r . W e s t o n buys a small estate; the former M i s s T a y l o r , n o w M r s . W e s t o n , gets a n e w h o u s e , a n e w husband, and a n e w carriage; J a n e F a i r f a x receives, mysteriously, a B r o a d w o o d p i a n o ; the C o l e s h a v e a n e w dining r o o m a n d a n e w pianoforte that none of them can play; E m m a has a n e w r o u n d

dining table;

Frank

Churchill buys gloves at F o r d ' s , a n d H a r r i e t Smith buys ribbons; M r . E l t o n goes to Bath for a n e w wife a n d a n e w carriage; M r s . Elton boasts lace a n d pearls and more servants than she c a n remember; M r s . Perry yearns for a new carriage; and the M a r t i n s h a v e 'a very h a n d s o m e summer-house, large enough to hold a dozen p e o p l e ' (E 2 7 ) . T h e r e are also m o r e h o m e l y items on offer: plenty of g o o d w i n e at M r . W e s t o n ' s ; sweetbreads a n d a s p a r a g u s at M r . W o o d h o u s e ' s ; a hind quarter of p o r k for M i s s Bates from Hartfield; apples for M i s s Bates from D o n w e l l A b b e y ; a r r o w r o o t for J a n e F a i r f a x from Hartfield; and walnuts for H a r r i e t Smith from M r . M a r t i n , w h o w a l k s 'three miles a r o u n d ' to get them, t h o u g h he forgets to enquire for the novels she had mentioned. W h a t can it all m e a n ? Mr.

Knightley p r o v e s himself the hero of the piece by possessing the

sensibility that is the key by w h i c h these material g o o d s are to be under­ stood. H e keeps w a r n i n g E m m a , o v e r a n d o v e r , that

things are

not w h a t

they seem, or, at least, they are not w h a t she thinks they seem. C o n s u m e r signs, it is true, p r o v i d e the system of order that keeps e v e r y d a y life ticking along in

Emma.

Servants a n d carriages, for e x a m p l e , bring the B o x H i l l

episode to a w e l c o m e close: ' T h e a p p e a r a n c e of the servants l o o k i n g out for them to give notice of the carriages w a s a joyful sight' ( 3 7 4 ) . T e a saves M r . Weston

from m o r e u n w a n t e d

n e w s of M a p l e G r o v e : ' T h e y w e r e

interrupted. T e a w a s carrying a r o u n d , a n d M r . W e s t o n , h a v i n g said all that he wanted, soon t o o k the opportunity of w a l k i n g a w a y ' ( 3 1 0 ) . ' T h e saddle of mutton' sets the pace of conversation at R a n d a l l s ( 1 1 9 ) , a n d tea sets the time for departure. ' M r . W o o d h o u s e w a s s o o n r e a d y for his tea; a n d w h e n he had drank his tea he w a s quite r e a d y to g o h o m e ' ( 1 2 4 ) . Finally, the length of a carriage ride provides the beginning a n d the end to M r . E l t o n ' s declarations to E m m a of 'violent l o v e ' ( 1 2 9 ) .

141

EDWARD

B u t c o n s u m e r g o o d s in

COPELAND

Emma also

trace a society in restless motion. T h e

C o l e s are o n the w a y up with their n e w dining r o o m , n e w pianoforte, and an increase in their servants; M r s . a n d M i s s Bates a n d J a n e F a i r f a x are on their w a y d o w n w i t h their economies, modest quarters, a n d one maid. M r . M a r t i n is o n the w a y up, as are the Eltons, the C o x e s , the Smallridges, a n d the S u c k l i n g s . People are passing so rapidly through the gradations of income a n d the c o n s u m e r m a r k e r s associated with them that the old rules of birth a n d social o r d e r are t h r o w n into question. M r . W o o d h o u s e , w h o likes everything that is old a n d settled, m a r k s one end of the scale; M r s . Elton, w h o likes everything that is n e w a n d in motion, m a r k s the other. E m m a herself is in a state of confusion, blinded by vanity a n d social s n o b b e r y , but also blinded by the very c o n s u m e r signs that offer themselves s o temptingly to her imagination. H e r conclusions a b o u t J a n e F a i r f a x ' s pianoforte are her most e m b a r r a s s i n g l y public mistake, but her persistent inability to judge b e h a v i o u r in her society turns, like a scorpion, on the n o v e l itself, the c o n s u m e r object w h o s e self-proclaimed m a n d a t e to interpret social signs m o s t consistently misleads her. T h e plot of J a n e A u s t e n ' s in the

Lady's Magazine

Emma is, in

fact, preempted by a tale published

( N o v e m b e r 1 8 0 2 . ) , a p o p u l a r monthly c o m p e n d i u m

of fiction a n d fashion. T h e tale begins w i t h eerie familiarity: Mr. Knightley, a country-gentleman of not very large fortune, but such as was amply sufficient for his mode of living - as he rarely visited the capital, and had an aversion to the expensive pleasures of dissipated life - had married from the purest affection, and an esteem which grew with his knowledge of its o b j e c t . . . a deserted orphan [left] at a boarding-school near the residence of a relation of his whom he sometimes visited. As by this union he made no addition to his property, nor formed any advantageous connexion, he was by some blamed, and by others ridiculed. He however found himself amply compensated, both for the censure and the sneers which he encountered, by the amiable qualities and virtues of his wife; who, like himself, despised ambition, and sought only the genuine enjoyments of domestic happiness.

(563)

Lady's Magazine version of con­ Emma. H e r heroine, h o w e v e r , the Lady's Magazine version of

A u s t e n , of c o u r s e , pointedly rejects the

t e m p o r a r y social life in the conclusion to swallows

hook,

line,

and

sinker

M r . Knightley-and-the-amiable-orphan,

w h i c h , of course, is e x a c t l y the

a d m o n i t o r y point A u s t e n intends. C h e a p fiction is an untrustworthy system for interpreting social signs: E m m a ' s fantasy of Harriet's b a c k g r o u n d , for e x a m p l e , a classic gothic plot - ' T h e r e can be no doubt of y o u r being a gentleman's d a u g h t e r ' (E 3 0 ) ; o r another old chestnut, an affair of the heart 142

Money between J a n e F a i r f a x and her rescuer from the sea, M r . D i x o n ; o r the romance of F r a n k Churchill a n d H a r r i e t p r o m p t e d by the story of H a r r i e t and the gypsies. Finally, w h e n Harriet c o m e s to E m m a w i t h her fantasy of M r . Knightley's love, yet another rescue story, E m m a falls into the t r a p again, exactly in the m o d e of the

Lady's Magazine: 'It

w a s horrible to E m m a

to think h o w it must sink him in the general o p i n i o n , to foresee the smiles, the sneers, the merriment it w o u l d p r o m p t at this e x p e n s e . . . C o u l d it be? N o ; it w a s impossible. A n d yet it w a s far, v e r y far, from i m p o s s i b l e ' ( 4 1 3 ) . It is, of course,

impossible.

If E m m a h a d o n l y read past the

consumer

signs of her society (false a n d misleading) to see a n d r e a d the ' r e a l ' signs of social b e h a v i o u r before her eyes (true a n d a b i d i n g ) , then she w o u l d not h a v e made such a distressing hash of the situation. B u t here c o n s u m e r proves d o u b l y false. T h e story from the

Lady's Magazine,

fiction

flattering fantasy

as it is for tradesmen's daughters, is not necessarily w r o n g . A u s t e n ' s society is experiencing major social change, fuelled in s o m e degree by the v e r y goods - novels a m o n g the first - that set themselves u p as signs of social truths. T h e most unexpected people are indeed climbing the social ladder with the aid of m o n e y and the social m a r k e r s it b u y s . A u s t e n rejects the

Lady's

story for a m o r e acceptable ideological resolution - H a r r i e t Smith

gets a farmer a n d E m m a W o o d h o u s e gets M r . K n i g h t l e y - but a conflicting set of social patterns, also e x p l o r e d in A u s t e n ' s n o v e l , points the other w a y . M r . Knightley might just as w e l l h a v e m a r r i e d H a r r i e t as not. After all, Austen's

Emma

is only one novel a m o n g m a n y v y i n g to p r o m o t e its o w n

reading of the 'real' signs of social b e h a v i o u r .

Persuasion turns

to

credit as

the issue that opens the e c o n o m y , but w i t h a

spin that sets the topic apart from the c o m p u l s i v e debtors

(Wickham,

W i l l o u g h b y ) found in Austen's early w o r k s . A u s t e n sends her t w o old-style debtors in this novel, Sir W a l t e r Elliot a n d his d a u g h t e r Elizabeth, to B a t h

good credit that is, becomes the Persuasion. In fact the central r o m a n t i c

for an early, e m b a l m e d retirement. Credit, talisman for future expectations in

dilemma of the novel is, by extension, one of credit: w h e t h e r A n n e Elliot should h a v e w a i t e d for C a p t a i n W e n t w o r t h , as she w a n t e d to d o . T h a t is, should she h a v e taken him on credit, or should she h a v e remained w i t h her dreadful father a n d sister in the conservative, but u n h a p p y position of a n unvalued dependent as L a d y Russell p e r s u a d e d her to do? T h e a n s w e r , according to A n n e , is a negotiated qualification, but one turned strongly to the side of credit: 'Tell m e ' , C a p t a i n W e n t w o r t h

asks A n n e , 'if, w h e n I

returned to E n g l a n d in the y e a r eight, with a f e w t h o u s a n d p o u n d s , a n d w a s posted into the L a c o n i a , if I had then written to y o u , w o u l d y o u h a v e answered m y letter? w o u l d y o u , in short, h a v e r e n e w e d the then?' A n n e ' s a n s w e r is short, but decisive: ' W o u l d I ! ' (P 2 4 7 ) .

143

engagement

EDWARD

COPELAND

A n n e marries W e n t w o r t h a n d thus joins the active, h a r d - w o r k i n g and p r o s p e r o u s pseudo-gentry r a n k she has learned to admire, a class of people who

w o r k for their living a n d k n o w h o w to live within their means, as

o p p o s e d to her father, the 'spendthrift baronet', or even as o p p o s e d to her gentry brother-in-law, the slack, unfocused C h a r l e s M u s g r o v e , future heir to U p p e r c r o s s , w h o agrees w i t h his wife in only t w o things: 'the w a n t of m o r e m o n e y , a n d a strong inclination for a h a n d s o m e present from his father' (44). T h e upbeat credit i d e o l o g y of

Persuasion rests

on t w o assump­

tions: first, that the future holds prosperity for the British e c o n o m y , and second, that a person w h o w o r k s for a living will p a y his bills to uphold 'the character', as L a d y Russell terms it, 'of an honest m a n ' ( 1 2 ) . ' A n d she might h a v e said, for in

Persuasion

woman\

A u s t e n m a k e s w o m e n active

m a n a g e r s of the family i n c o m e . ' W h i l e L a d y Elliot lived', Austen notes, as the first in a string of g o o d w o m e n m a n a g e r s in this n o v e l , 'there had been m e t h o d , m o d e r a t i o n , a n d e c o n o m y ' , w h i c h h a d 'just kept' Sir Walter within his income (9). W h e n bill collectors begin to h o v e r a r o u n d Sir Walter, L a d y Russell and A n n e , both excellent economists, r e c o m m e n d ' v i g o r o u s mea­ sures' of e c o n o m y that c o u l d h a v e released him from debt in a reasonable a m o u n t of time ( 1 2 - 1 3 ) . W h e n A d m i r a l a n d M r s . Croft negotiate for the lease on K e l l y n c h H a l l , the l a w y e r , M r . Shepherd, notes that M r s . Croft ' a s k e d m o r e questions a b o u t the h o u s e , a n d terms, a n d taxes, than the a d m i r a l himself, a n d seemed m o r e c o n v e r s a n t with business' ( 2 2 ) . M r s . H a r v i l l e in L y m e is another m o d e l economist, a n d on a very small income ( 1 1 3 ) . M r s . Smith, in B a t h , remains cheerful a n d competent on an even smaller income ( 1 5 4 ) . Partnership marriages b e c o m e the k e y n o t e of the n e w economic arrange­ ment, demonstrated by the H a r v i l l e s a n d the Crofts for the edification of the future C a p t a i n a n d M r s . W e n t w o r t h . W e n t w o r t h a n d A n n e , 'a sailor's wife',

both

belong 'to that profession w h i c h is, if possible, m o r e distin­

guished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance' ( 2 5 2 ) . T h e income of the h a p p y c o u p l e is reported as w e l l , stamping Austen's seal of e c o n o m i c a p p r o v a l o n the m a r r i a g e at the highest reaches of pseudo-gentry prosperity: they will h a v e £ 1 , 2 5 0 from the interest on W e n t w o r t h ' s £ 2 5 , 0 0 0 prize m o n e y , plus a small addition from the interest on one-third of the £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 of A n n e ' s mother's fortune (when Sir W a l t e r is able to p a y it), and the promise of m o r e m o n e y to c o m e in the n a v y . It is as if Austen has singlehandedly revised the e c o n o m i c priorities of her society: a higher credit line for the pseudo-gentry W e n t w o r t h s , a n d a l o w e r one for the baronet Elliots. In

Sanditon

the e c o n o m i c future is not so cloudless. M r . Parker, land­

o w n i n g gentry, has invested heavily in a seaside bathing spa, Sanditon, w h e r e it a p p e a r s likely that he is a b o u t to experience some financial rough

144

Money weather. Investment as 'speculation' seems to be the e c o n o m i c focus of the piece. T h e failure of A u s t e n ' s brother H e n r y ' s b a n k in w h i c h her uncle, M r . Leigh-Perrot, a n d her brother E d w a r d lost huge sums of m o n e y in M a r c h , 1 8 1 6 , m a y well be the inspiration for this n e w line of e c o n o m i c exploration -

Sanditon w a s

r o u g h e d out less than a y e a r after the b a n k ­

ruptcy, between J a n u a r y a n d M a r c h , 1 8 1 7 , w h e n illness forced her to put the

fragment

aside

unfinished.

It

seems

likely that

the

fragility

of

M r . P a r k e r ' s hold o n the e c o n o m y will be a central issue. M r . P a r k e r ' s partner in the enterprise is L a d y D e n h a m , a p a r s i m o n i o u s , tyrannical old w o m a n , a n d a fearful investor, w h o will be n o s u p p o r t w h e n e c o n o m i c storms arrive. His wife, w e a k , dependent, a n d ignorant of business, does not promise to be a n y assistance either, a n d his t w o sisters, professional invalids, are equally ineffectual. 'Activity run m a d ' , thinks the

heroine,

Charlotte H e y w o o d , w h o is a shocked witness of their fumbling interference in the Sanditon enterprise ( M W 4 1 0 ) . Austen, as usual, sets out squarely the social a n d e c o n o m i c corners of her universe. T h e r e is the usual cast of e c o n o m i c scavengers: y o u n g e r relatives of L a d y D e n h a m w i t h a hungry eye for a n inheritance, a n d , of c o u r s e , the overspending M i s s Beauforts, pretenders to elegance. T h e r e is the figure of conservative e c o n o m i c s , Charlotte's father, M r . H e y w o o d - farmer, land­ o w n e r with modest investments in the funds - w h o seems to represent a sound, but old-fashioned a n d rather out-of-the-fray

position. A n d then

there is M r . P a r k e r , the 'enthusiast' for S a n d i t o n , his financial speculation. T h e investment will p r o b a b l y not be a l l o w e d to g o under completely: the t o w n is attractive, the sea is beautiful, a n d there is the competent y o u n g e r brother of M r . P a r k e r , Sidney, w h o puts in a brief a p p e a r a n c e right before the fragment breaks off - ' w e l l bred', ' v e r y g o o d l o o k i n g ' , ' 7 o r 8 & 2 0 ' , and perhaps a future suitor for the heroine ( 4 2 5 ) . Sidney suggests a J a n e Austen signature hero for the future: a y o u n g e r son, rich by 'collateral' inheritance ( 3 7 1 ) , s o not himself l a n d o w n i n g gentry, t h o u g h a p s e u d o gentry m e m b e r of such a family - of 'superior abilities', ' a v e r y clever Y o u n g M a n ' , ' a l w a y s said w h a t he chose of & to us, a l l ' ( 3 8 2 ) , a n d he laughs at the youngest brother, A r t h u r , for being 'so delicate that he can e n g a g e in n o profession' ( 3 8 5 ) .

F r o m the start of her career, Austen is a s h r e w d observer of the e c o n o m i c terrain of her class, t h o u g h a l w a y s from the chilly a n d e x p o s e d position of an economically m a r g i n a l female m e m b e r of it - herself related to

the

landed gentry through the g o o d fortune of her brother E d w a r d (adopted by wealthy gentry relations), but really n o m o r e than a maiden-aunt visitor to his estate and his c l a s s .

1 6

In fact, the s h a d o w of the single w o m a n w i t h o u t 145

EDWARD

COPELAND

m o n e y , C h a r l o t t e L u c a s s y n d r o m e , continues to haunt her w o r k s to the end. In

Sanditon,

C l a r a Brereton fits the position, a n d though she is only vaguely

sketched-in, her e c o n o m i c position is clear enough: 'more helpless & more pitiable of course than a n y - a dependent

o n Poverty - an

additional

Burthen o n a n encumbered C i r c l e ' ( 3 7 9 ) . J o s e p h Wiesenfarth's useful distinctions between the novel of manners a n d the gothic n o v e l in

Gothic Manners and the Classic English Novel

( 1 9 8 8 ) p r o v i d e a p r o b e for e x a m i n i n g the unresolved presence of this economic s h a d o w .

1 7

T h e novel of manners

presents

a rational

'case',

Wiesenfarth argues, w h e r e a s the gothic novel presents a 'riddle'. Obviously, A u s t e n presents a ' c a s e ' for the operation of m o n e y in each of her novels in fact, she presents several different cases. O n the other hand, the single, u n p r o v i d e d w o m a n carries in her very existence a gothic 'riddle' that underscores the m o r a l entanglements cast up by her a n o m a l o u s position in the e c o n o m y . In the early novels, m o n e y comes to her through

courtship

windfalls - M r . Collins is one of these - a resolution that Austen rejects in her last three novels to m o u n t the ' c a s e ' for m o r e rational relationships to the e c o n o m y for w o m e n . B u t in each of these later novels, the 'case' r e g u l a r l y falls short before the i m m o v a b l e plight of the single w o m a n w i t h o u t m o n e y . F a n n y Price, J a n e F a i r f a x , even A n n e Elliot, are, in the end, left dependent u p o n purest chance for their entrance into the monied w o r l d of the ' c a s e ' . M o r e o v e r , the m o r a l identity of each one of these w o m e n must first be asserted

against the

e c o n o m i c ' c a s e ' that eventually defines her social

identity. A u s t e n a c k n o w l e d g e s the m o r a l confusion w h e n she has E m m a say feelingly of J a n e F a i r f a x , w h o s e secret engagement to F r a n k Churchill w o u l d never h a v e been c o n d o n e d by his rich, capricious aunt: 'Of such, one may

a l m o s t s a y , that "the w o r l d is not their's, nor the w o r l d ' s l a w ' "

(E 4 0 0 ) . A n n e Elliot's situation is equally ambivalent. In A n n e ' s situation, w h e r e ' a d v i c e is g o o d o r b a d only as the event decides' (P 2 4 6 ) , the clarity of right a n d w r o n g , w h i c h is the rightful province of romance, edges t o w a r d s Wiesenfarth's 'gothic confusion', a tribute to that deeper g a m e of desire, the elusive force that A u s t e n has pursued all along.

NOTES 1 David Spring, 'Interpreters of Jane Austen's Social World: Literary Critics and Historians', Jane Austen: New Perspectives, ed. Janet Todd (New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1 9 8 3 ) , pp. 5 3 - 7 2 . 2 R. S. Neale, in Bath, 1680-1850: A Social History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 9 8 1 ) , writes that, 'If . . . a woman through death or desertion should find herself the sole support of a family, the impoverishment of the family was virtually certain' (279-80). 146

Money

3 See Edward Copeland, 'Introduction', Women Writing about Money: Women's Fiction in England, 1790-1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 9 5 ) , pp. 1 - 1 4 . 4 The major exception for men in Austen's novels occurs in Persuasion where Captain Wentworth's profits from his naval career are reported in lump sum only: a fortune of £25,000. 5 See Copeland, Women Writing about Money, pp. 2 2 - 3 3 . Contemporary domestic economists include Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant, first published 1 8 2 5 (Chichester: Southover Press, 1989); James Luckcock, Hints

for Practical Economy, in the Management of Household Affairs, with Table Shewing Different Scales of Expenses, from £ 5 0 to £400 Per Annum (Birmingham: James Drake; London: Longman, et al., 1 8 3 4 ) ; John Trusler, The 6

Economist (London: printed for the author, 1 7 7 4 ) . Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (London:

The British Library, 1989), pp. 1 4 , 1 9 , 2 3 . 7 Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant, p. 1 6 . 8 Edward's potential income of £ 3 0 0 a year comes from the Delaford living of £200 a year, plus his personal income of £ 1 0 0 a year from an inheritance of £2,000 (SS 276).

9 Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 67.

1 0 Ibid., p. 1 3 1 . 1 1 Ibid., p. 1 0 2 . 1 2 W. Bence Jones, 'Landowning as a Business', The Nineteenth Century, vol. 11 (1882), p. 254. Cited by F. M . L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 9 6 3 ) , pp. 2 5 - 6 . Sir Thomas Bertram's fortune in Mansfield Park is a marked exception, severely shaken by the eldest son Tom's gambling debts and expenses in London and by poor returns from his West Indian estates. 1 3 Gary Kelly, English Fiction of the Romantic Period, 1789-1830 (London and New York: Longman, 1989), p. 1 9 . See also, Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 8 - 1 0 . 14 William Chester Jordan, Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial and Developing Societies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1 9 9 3 ) , cites studies of rich widows with disposable capital, but concludes that 'risk-taking English women investors' in the early modern period seem 'exceptional' (pp. 67-9). Susan Staves examines the limitations of women's economic independence in Married Women's Separate Property in England, 1660-1833 (Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press, 1990); also, Staves, 'Pin Money', Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 1 4 (Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1 9 8 5 ) , 4 7 - 7 7 ; Ida Beatrice O'Malley presents a general account in Women in Subjection: A Study of the Lives of Englishwomen before 1832 (London: Duckworth, 1 9 3 3 ) , pp. 2 2 - é ; and Kaplan, in Jane Austen among Women, cites anecdotes from Jane Austen's own neighbourhood (pp. 4 3 - 6 1 ) . 1 5 Edward and Elinor's joint income comes from the following sources: £ 1 0 0 a year interest from Edward's inheritance of £2,000 (SS 276); £ 5 0 a year from the interest on Elinor's £ 1 , 0 0 0 inheritance (4) - Mrs. Ferrars mistakenly thinks Elinor has 'three' (373); £ 2 5 0 a year, 'at the utmost', from the Delaford living

147

EDWARD

COPELAND

(374), though valued by Colonel Brandon at only £ 2 0 0 a year (283); finally, £ 5 0 0 a year from Mrs. Ferrars' grudging marriage gift of £ 1 0 , 0 0 0 (374). 16 This is how her favourite niece, Fanny Knight, remembered her visits: 'Both the Aunts (Cassandra & Jane) were brought up in the most complete ignorance of the World & its ways (I mean as to fashion Sec) &C if it had not been for Papa's marriage which brought them into Kent, &C the kindness of Mrs. Knight, who used often to have one or the other of the sisters staying with her, they would have been, tho' not less clever & agreeable in themselves, very much below par as to good Society &c its ways.' Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 2 5 3 . 1 7 Joseph Wiesenfarth, 'Introduction', Gothic Manners and the Classic English Novel (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 3 - 2 2 .

148

9 GARY

KELLY

Religion and politics

For J a n e A u s t e n and the majority of her c o n t e m p o r a r i e s ,

religion

and

politics w e r e inextricably intertwined a n d of central ideological a n d material interest, a n d h a d long been s o . A u s t e n belonged to the C h u r c h of E n g l a n d , or A n g l i c a n church, established as the state church in the sixteenth century. It w a s Protestant, headed b y the m o n a r c h , a n d episcopal in structure. Its theology a n d ecclesiastical structure w e r e a c o m p r o m i s e between R o m a n Catholicism

and

non-Calvinist

Protestantism.

Anglican

theology

was

A r m i n i a n , rejecting the C a l v i n i s t doctrine of predestination a n d affirming salvation by a combination of true faith a n d g o o d w o r k s , free will a n d divine grace. T h e r e w e r e some g r o u p s w h o rejected v a r i o u s aspects of the established church a n d its theology, h o w e v e r , a n d w h o w e r e accordingly k n o w n as 'Dissenters' o r ' N o n c o n f o r m i s t s ' a n d e x c l u d e d from certain civil rights. T h e s e differences a n d inequalities resulted in social, cultural, a n d political tensions that reached a particular crisis in A u s t e n ' s d a y . T h e C h u r c h of E n g l a n d itself w a s not monolithic, h o w e v e r . Since the late seventeenth century a ' H i g h C h u r c h ' g r o u p h a d a d v o c a t e d alliance w i t h government to suppress religious Dissent a n d b e c a m e associated w i t h the T o r y faction in politics. A ' L o w C h u r c h ' o r ' L a t i t u d i n a r i a n '

movement

a d v o c a t e d an ' E r a s t i a n ' policy subordinating church to state a n d tolerating religious differences within a national ' B r o a d C h u r c h ' . T h i s g r o u p b e c a m e associated with the W h i g political faction w h i c h f a v o u r e d a constitutional m o n a r c h y ruling in collaboration w i t h the landed class a n d supported by a broad coalition of public opinion that w o u l d include m o s t Dissenters. T h e Whigs dominated politics from the H a n o v e r i a n succession in 1 7 1 4 a n d brought the established church into the p a t r o n a g e system b y w h i c h the political, social, and e c o n o m i c life of the country w a s m a n a g e d . A s a result, the C h u r c h of E n g l a n d became increasingly secularized a n d integrated in the civil order a n d culture w h i c h w e r e d o m i n a t e d b y the upper a n d upper middle classes. These relations between religion a n d politics conditioned links between 149

GARY

religion a n d social class.

KELLY

C e r t a i n classes w e r e m o r e likely than others to

benefit from the social status a n d p a t r o n a g e connections conferred by m e m b e r s h i p in the established church. T h e s e included the upper class or landed gentry a n d m o s t of the u p p e r middle classes, including the elite professions

to w h i c h A u s t e n ' s family belonged, a n d

many

well-to-do

middle-class people in 'trade', o r c o m m e r c e a n d manufacture. M a n y of their lower-class dependents identified w i t h these interests and thus remained A n g l i c a n s . W i t h i n the C h u r c h of E n g l a n d , h o w e v e r , M e t h o d i s t and E v a n g e ­ lical m o v e m e n t s h a d developed in the eighteenth century, appealing mainly to g r o u p s within the w o r k i n g a n d middle classes. T h e various Dissenting sects a p p e a l e d m a i n l y to those outside the d o m i n a n t social order, especially the t o w n - b a s e d c o m m e r c i a l a n d professional middle class a n d the skilled w o r k i n g class, o r artisans. B y A u s t e n ' s d a y , h o w e v e r , m a n y Dissenters were demanding full civic rights a n d the social status a n d political influence they felt they merited. B y the time A u s t e n reached

adulthood

these relations and

tensions

between religion a n d politics h a d a g a i n b e c o m e the subject of intense public debate. In the late 1 7 8 0 s Dissenters r e n e w e d their c a m p a i g n for parliamen­ tary repeal of their civil disabilities. In the early 1 7 9 0 s the French R e v o l u ­ tionary g o v e r n m e n t legislated religious toleration, s h o w i n g Dissenters w h a t might be d o n e in Britain. M a n y Dissenters believed religious toleration c o u l d not be achieved in E n g l a n d w i t h o u t b r o a d e r political reform, and m a n y supported other reform m o v e m e n t s such as feminism, prison reorga­ nization, relief of the p o o r , a n d abolition of the slave trade. It s o o n became difficult to p r o p o s e the French R e v o l u t i o n as a m o d e l , h o w e v e r , with successive episodes of R e v o l u t i o n a r y violence, w a r between France and its neighbours, the J a c o b i n T e r r o r of 1 7 9 3 - 4 ,

t n e

r a m p a n t commercialism and

m o r a l permissiveness of the D i r e c t o r y period in the m i d - 1 7 9 0 s , a n d the long military and imperial struggle against N a p o l e o n i c France from the late 1 7 9 0 s to 1 8 1 5 . T h e term ' J a c o b i n ' , referring to radical French R e v o l u t i o n ­ aries, w a s used by counter-revolutionaries in Britain to discredit a n y kind of reformer, including Dissenters, M e t h o d i s t s , a n d Evangelicals. Austen w r o t e the early versions of

Sensibility just

Pride and Prejudice

and

Sense and

as public o p i n i o n in Britain w a s becoming decisively counter­

revolutionary. D u r i n g the m i d - 1 7 9 0 s , reform legislation w a s defeated in Parliament, A n t i j a c o b i n o r g a n i z a t i o n s harassed reformers, a n d government repression b r o k e up reform societies a n d d r o v e m a n y reformers into exile. B y the early 1 8 0 0 s , w h e n A u s t e n

Northanger Abbey,

finished

a n d sold the manuscript of

public o p i n i o n rallied against N a p o l e o n i c France in a

n e w ' R o m a n t i c ' nationalism. M a n y reformers subsumed their earlier aims in b r o a d schemes of social a n d e c o n o m i c improvement, some turned their

150

Religion and politics reformist political enthusiasm into zealous religious activism, a n d others promoted

c o m m o n social, cultural, a n d political identities rather

than

particular a n d contested ones. R e l i g i o n w a s used to p r o m o t e post-revolu­ tionary social mediation, h a r m o n y , and national unity, a n d to justify m o v e ­ ments

of

ideological indoctrination,

cultural

reformation,

and

social

control. Austen w r o t e the rest of her novels a n d r e w r o t e her earlier ones t o w a r d s the end of this period of p r o l o n g e d crisis, a crisis in w h i c h she a n d her family, closely connected to the established order in c h u r c h a n d state, had a direct interest. A s a novelist, A u s t e n h a d an additional interest in this crisis, h o w e v e r . A t that time novels of all kinds w e r e in effect fictitious a n d narrative ' c o n d u c t b o o k s ' , or manuals for social a n d private life in the u p p e r a n d u p p e r middle classes that comprised the reading public. Y e t m o s t p r o s e

fiction

was

considered inartistic, unrealistic, intellectually s h a l l o w , o v e r l y stimulating o r even addictive, and thus m o r a l l y and socially corrupting. T h e

'modern

novel', as it w a s often called, w a s distinguished from the ' r o m a n c e ' , w i t h the former supposedly representing

' p r o b a b l e ' characters

and

incidents

in

contemporary life, especially 'fashionable' or courtly society, w h i l e the latter w a s thought to present eccentric characters in i m p r o b a b l e circumstances and exotic or unusual locations. A c c o r d i n g l y , s o m e critics defended

the

'modern n o v e l ' as m o r e 'realistic', but others c o n d e m n e d it for s p r e a d i n g false upper-class values a n d social expectations. B o t h the ' m o d e r n n o v e l ' and the ' r o m a n c e ' w e r e c o n d e m n e d for distracting readers from 'solid a n d useful reading', a n d e n c o u r a g i n g imagination, fantasy, a n d desire t h r o u g h fictitious narratives of social a d v a n c e m e n t through love a n d m a r r i a g e , at the expense of the reason, self-discipline, a n d p r a g m a t i s m s u p p o s e d l y required in 'real' middle-class life. Since ' m o d e r n n o v e l s ' w e r e w i d e l y t h o u g h t to encourage social a n d cultural emulation of the decadent courtly

upper

classes by the middle classes, s o m e blamed them for contributing to the supposed m o r a l decline that h a d precipitated the R e v o l u t i o n a r y crisis in Britain. Since ' r o m a n c e s ' w e r e w i d e l y believed to inspire a taste for the improbable

and

sensational, some blamed them for e x p o s i n g gullible

readers to the a p p e a l of R e v o l u t i o n a r y 'speculation' a n d v i o l e n c e . S u c h negative associations w e r e reinforced by the belief that m o s t n o v e l s of a n y type w e r e written

b y a n d for w o m e n , w h o w e r e w i d e l y seen as

vulnerable point in class solidarity, the social order, a n d n a t i o n a l

the and

imperial strength. In fact, men w e r e as active as w o m e n in w r i t i n g a n d reading n o v e l s .

2

A s Austen w r o t e her first full-length novels, s o m e writers w e r e attempting to reform the novel artistically, morally, a n d intellectually, thereby m a k i n g it a m o r e effective instrument in the R e v o l u t i o n debate, since it c o u l d reach 151

GARY

KELLY

readers w h o w o u l d seldom pick up a polemical pamphlet or political treatise. T h e s e writers incorporated in their novels explicit social, cultural, a n d political critique; n e w aspects of social, cultural, and linguistic reality; a n d elements from m o r e prestigious learned a n d literary discourses. T h e y also d e v e l o p e d n e w formal devices a n d restructured

established ones,

especially narration, plot, a n d character. T h e m o s t prominent of these novelists w e r e 'English J a c o b i n s ' led by R o b e r t B a g e , W i l l i a m G o d w i n , M a r y H a y s , a n d M a r y Wollstonecraft a n d including D r . J o h n M o o r e , C h a r l o t t e Smith, M a r y R o b i n s o n , and perhaps A n n Radcliffe. Antijacobin o r ' l o y a l i s t ' critics c o n d e m n e d m a n y of these novels as unrealistic 'political r o m a n c e s ' . A n t i j a c o b i n novelists such as Elizabeth H a m i l t o n , J a n e West, a n d H a n n a h M o r e satirized their o p p o n e n t s ' politics, private lives, and literary i n n o v a t i o n s , a n d claimed to present 'reality' rather than political fantasy in their o w n w o r k . A u s t e n k n e w the w o r k of m o s t if not all of these novelists. In the i 8 o o s a n d 1 8 1 0 s , just before Austen w r o t e her later novels and r e w r o t e her earlier ones, certain writers tried a d a p t i n g the novel to create a post-Revolutionary

social consensus

for

national

unity

and

imperial

defence. N o v e l i s t s such as M a r i a E d g e w o r t h , S y d n e y O w e n s o n

(Lady

M o r g a n ) , J a n e Porter, a n d W a l t e r Scott a p p r o p r i a t e d elements from histor­ i o g r a p h y , p o p u l a r literature, social studies, and political e c o n o m y in order to represent

v a r i o u s kinds of relationship

between

'national'

history,

identity, a n d destiny a n d the individual and the local c o m m u n i t y . Both loyalist a n d reformist novelists used narration, characterization, and lan­ g u a g e in n e w w a y s to represent nation a n d empire as socially diverse and needing unifying values. Footnotes a n d other learned a p p a r a t u s w e r e often used to give authority to such representations. S o m e novelists, such as M a r i a E d g e w o r t h , A m e l i a O p i e , Elizabeth H a m i l t o n , a n d H a n n a h M o r e devised n e w techniques of formal realism a n d focused on supposedly 'ordinary'

characters

in

e v e r y d a y settings

experiencing

commonplace

events, thereby suggesting that the public political sphere w a s remote from 'reality' as lived by m o s t p e o p l e . Austen k n e w the w o r k of some, if not all of these novelists, t o o . She w o u l d h a v e k n o w n a n d understood

both the interconnection of

religion a n d politics a n d the w a y other writers used the novel to disseminate their religious a n d political v i e w s during the period w h e n she herself w a s w r i t i n g n o v e l s . She left little direct comment, h o w e v e r , in her novels or her letters, o n these matters. A c c o r d i n g to her family she practised an unostenta­ tious y e t consistent a n d m a i n s t r e a m A n g l i c a n faith. Scattered remarks on religion in her letters indicate that she placed great importance on taking h o l y c o m m u n i o n , r e g a r d e d religiosity u n f a v o u r a b l y , a n d sometime between

152

Religion and politics 1 8 0 9 and 1 8 1 4 came to v i e w the E v a n g e l i c a l s with less d i s a p p r o v a l than before (L 1 7 0 , 2 8 0 ) . She also left three highly penitential prayers (MW

manuscript

4 5 3 - 7 ) . L i k e m o s t A n g l i c a n s of her time, she seems to h a v e

had a 'latitudinarian'

o u t l o o k , t h o u g h she preferred T h o m a s S h e r l o c k ' s

High Anglican sermons

' a l m o s t to a n y ' (L 2 7 8 ) . She left even fewer

comments on politics, though her letters s h o w that she f o l l o w e d current events and especially n a v a l affairs, as they involved t w o of her brothers. H e r few references to the novels of her time d o not constitute a significant b o d y of criticism. Paucity of direct c o m m e n t does not necessarily m e a n indifference

to

issues of religion and politics a n d their representation in the n o v e l , a n d it is likely that she s a w these issues a n d representations

as a w o m a n of her

religion and class. H e r father a n d t w o of her brothers w e r e C h u r c h of England clergymen, so she h a d both a familial a n d a personal c o m m i t m e n t to the established C h u r c h . She a l s o h a d a n interest in the social hierarchy that supported and w a s supported b y the C h u r c h . H e r brother E d w a r d w a s adopted as heir by a gentry family a n d thereby joined the historically dominant social class. It w a s he w h o p r o v i d e d his sisters C a s s a n d r a a n d J a n e with the h o m e at C h a w t o n w h e r e J a n e w r o t e (or rewrote) all her novels. Y e t Austen could sympathize w i t h reformers' claims for merit o v e r inherited rank and status. T w o of her brothers, Francis a n d C h a r l e s , w e n t into the n a v y , a profession open to merit, a n d did well. In addition, A u s t e n w o u l d k n o w that writers from M a r y Wollstonecraft to H a n n a h M o r e called for w o m e n of merit to reform the domestic a n d local sphere a n d thus, indirectly, the public a n d political sphere. It seems likely, then, that a w o m a n like Austen w o u l d s u p p o r t the historic hierarchical social structure and constitution of church a n d state, yet c o u l d recognize that they s h o u l d be open to merit - including female merit in the domestic sphere - if they w e r e to a v o i d the closedness a n d rigidity that m a n y b l a m e d for causing the social and political upheavals of the R e v o l u t i o n a n d its aftermath.

Since Austen's d a y , critical a n d scholarly interest in her religion a n d politics has focused on her novels. Interest in their religious aspect a p p e a r e d s o o n after she died but reflected changes in religion a n d the C h u r c h that t o o k place after her time. M u c h of this interest has centred o n her representation of clergymen - the R e v . H e n r y T i l n e y a n d the R e v . R i c h a r d M o r l a n d in

Northanger Abbey,

Sense and Sensibility, the R e v . W i l l i a m Collins in Pride and Prejudice, the R e v . Philip Elton in Emma, E d m u n d Bertram a n d the R e v . D r . G r a n t in Mansfield Park, a n d the R e v . Charles H a y t e r a n d the R e v . D r . Shirley in Persuasion. T h e y h a v e been seen Edward

Ferrars

in

as realistic representations of w h a t one twentieth-century historian calls 'the

153

GARY

KELLY

church in a n age of negligence' a n d w h a t another sees as the culmination of a century

of secularization or laicization of the A n g l i c a n c h u r c h .

3

By

A u s t e n ' s d a y c l e r g y m e n of all sects engaged in party politics, the patronage systems in church a n d state w e r e intertwined,

and the A n g l i c a n clergy

increasingly c a m e from the landed gentry a n d pursued that class's w a y of life. T h e clergy w a s v i e w e d as one 'learned' o r elite profession

among

others, not necessarily requiring a special spiritual calling, though there w e r e exceptions, especially a m o n g Methodists a n d E v a n g e l i c a l s . O n l y after her death did such movements effect w i d e s p r e a d changes in religion a n d the established church, a n d these changes affected the w a y readers a n d critics interpreted A u s t e n ' s treatment of religious a n d ecclesias­ tical matters in her n o v e l s . A s early as 1 8 1 8 her brother H e n r y felt it necessary to assure readers that the m o s t important fact a b o u t her life w a s that she ' w a s t h o r o u g h l y religious and d e v o u t ' , w a s 'well-instructed' on 'serious [i.e., religious! subjects', and that 'her opinions accorded strictly w i t h those of o u r Established C h u r c h ' . B y the 1 8 3 0 s , w h e n her novels began to be regarded as literary classics, the C h u r c h of E n g l a n d h a d changed c o n s i d e r a b l y from w h a t she h a d experienced in life a n d represented fiction.

in

In 1 8 3 7 , for e x a m p l e , J o h n H e n r y N e w m a n , leader of the O x f o r d

a n d T r a c t a r i a n m o v e m e n t s for spiritual a n d ecclesiastical reform of the C h u r c h of E n g l a n d , found that her parsons w e r e 'vile creatures' a n d that she herself h a d 'not a d r e a m of the high C a t h o l i c [i.e., A n g l i c a n ] ethos'. Such v i e w s persisted into the twentieth century: in 1 9 3 1 a magazine for religious Dissenters concluded, ' w e need never regret that the d a y s of J a n e A u s t e n are g o n e b e y o n d recall a n d that her type of c l e r g y m a n n o longer controls the religious life of rural E n g l a n d ' . Others a p p r o v e d

4

of A u s t e n ' s apparent

reticence a b o u t

secularized attitude to it. In 1 8 1 6 a reviewer praised

Emma

religion

and

'because it does

not d a b b l e in religion; of fanatical novels a n d fanatical authoresses w e are a l r e a d y sick'. In 1 8 7 0 , R i c h a r d S i m p s o n praised A u s t e n because she 'let the church stand in the c h u r c h y a r d , a n d did not attempt to transport it into her n o v e l s ' . Twentieth-century a c a d e m i c a n d professional critics, predominantly secular in o u t l o o k , h a v e questioned the relevance of A u s t e n ' s religion to her fictional

art. In a n e x c h a n g e of letters in the

Times Literary Supplement for

J a n u a r y a n d F e b r u a r y 1 9 4 4 , Q. D . L e a v i s a r g u e d that A u s t e n ' s personal beliefs could only interest the literary critic if they w e r e manifested in the novels. In 1 9 6 7 L a u r e n c e L e r n e r argued that, h o w e v e r pious Austen the person m a y h a v e been, A u s t e n the novelist did not believe in G o d , because 'a belief or a value only matters artistically if it is artistically present' in the writer's w o r k .

5

Others did find A u s t e n ' s religion to be 'artistically present' in her novels. 154

Religion and politics R i c h a r d W h a t e l y w a s a latitudinarian

a n d anti-Evangelical a n d later a n

anti-Tractarian and reforming A r c h b i s h o p of D u b l i n ; in 1 8 2 1 he declared in the influential

Quarterly Review,

' M i s s A u s t e n has the merit

(in

our

judgment most essential) of being evidently a C h r i s t i a n writer: a merit which is m u c h enhanced, both on the score of g o o d taste, a n d of practical utility, by her religion being not at all obtrusive.' E d m u n d K n o x , the late nineteenth-century

conservative

Bishop of M a n c h e s t e r , praised

theologian

and

Mansfield Park

Evangelical,

and

later

for g i v i n g 'a convincing a n d

reasoned estimate of the C h u r c h in country life'. In 1 9 3 9 C a n o n H a r o l d A n s o n argued that A u s t e n ' s novels are religious not because they contain religious controversy or 'a strong ecclesiastical m o t i f , as in the novels of A n t h o n y T r o l l o p e , but because they s h o w 'the underlying principles u p o n which men live their lives a n d by w h i c h they j u d g e the characters others'.

6

This has become the d o m i n a n t v i e w of those critics w h o

of find

7

Austen to be a religious n o v e l i s t . S o m e critics h a v e even a r g u e d that her portrayal of clergymen w a s intended to p r o m o t e greater spirituality a n d social responsibility in the c h u r c h .

8

Discussion of Austen as a political novelist h a s d e v e l o p e d fairly recently, and has also reflected differing political interests of times later than her o w n . T h r o u g h the nineteenth century her novels w e r e seen as indifferent to or a b o v e the politics of her d a y , for better or w o r s e . S u c h v i e w s reflected the tendency of m a n y though not all V i c t o r i a n critics a n d writers to distinguish art from politics and to place the former a b o v e the latter. T h i s critical tradition

continued

into the twentieth

century

and

Austen's

supposed

neglect of the politics of her d a y has been seen as the necessary condition of her novels achieving 'classic' literary s t a t u s .

9

C e r t a i n l y politics are less

o b v i o u s in Austen's novels than in those of the English J a c o b i n s a n d Antijacobins, but during a period of political crisis this fact w o u l d itself m a k e a political point. F u r t h e r m o r e , the n o v e l s ' few direct references to politics are satirical. This fact m a y still m a k e a political point, h o w e v e r . Some critics argue that to m o c k politics is to d i s p a r a g e the importance of the 'masculine' public a n d political sphere in relation to the

'feminine'

domestic a n d local sphere. Others argue that ignoring politics casts d o u b t on the k n o w a b i l i t y o r reality of the public a n d political sphere in contrast to the domestic s p h e r e .

10

After the mid-twentieth century, increasing numbers of critics challenged the v i e w that A u s t e n ignores politics. T h i s shift w a s signalled in the 1 9 5 0 s by R e b e c c a W e s t . W e s t accepted the older v i e w that A u s t e n ' s

novels

'contain n o mention of the N a p o l e o n i c w a r s ' because 'she h a d nothing to say a b o u t them', but also insisted that Austen ' w a s not apolitical, for she had m u c h to say a b o u t those parts of the social structure w h i c h she h a d

155

GARY

KELLY

opportunities to o b s e r v e ' , including 'the inequality presumed a m o n g people w h o w e r e in fact equal, a n d w h o h a d to be dishonest to ignore their equality'. Since then historians a n d critics h a v e identified particular political themes in A u s t e n ' s novels, including the French R e v o l u t i o n , imperialism and capitalism, R e g e n c y politics, a n d the culture of Sensibility as an inspiration for cultural, social, a n d political ' i n n o v a t i o n ' a n d i n s u b o r d i n a t i o n .

11

Y e t those w h o agree that A u s t e n addresses politics in her novels disagree o n the nature of those politics. S o m e see her as a political 'conservative' because she seems to defend the established social o r d e r . sympathetic

to

12

Others see her as

' r a d i c a l ' politics that challenged the established

especially in the f o r m of p a t r i a r c h y .

13

order,

C o n s e r v a t i v i s m meant something

different in A u s t e n ' s d a y than it does n o w , h o w e v e r , and criticism of patriarchy, o r the system of hierarchical gender relations, did not necessarily involve criticism of p a t r o n a g e a n d paternalism, or the system of hierarchical class relations. A u s t e n , like m a n y men a n d w o m e n of her class, could s u p p o r t partial reform of this system w i t h o u t advocating its o v e r t h r o w . T h u s s o m e critics see A u s t e n ' s novels as neither conservative nor subversive, but c o m p l e x , criticizing aspects of the social order but supporting stability a n d a n open class h i e r a r c h y .

14

W h a t most readers could agree is that, if politics concern relations of p o w e r , then A u s t e n ' s novels deal w i t h politics in private and local life. This w a s the conventionally accepted subject of the novel of manners and the convention­ ally accepted d o m a i n of the w o m a n writer. Y e t readers in Austen's d a y w e r e a c c u s t o m e d to seeing such politics as a m e t o n y m or metaphor

for the

politics of the public sphere. T h o u g h m a n y readers m a y have found Austen's novels free from political o r religious doctrine, they d o contain

both

particular a n d general references to religious a n d political topics of her d a y .

Mansfield Park,

for e x a m p l e , contains A u s t e n ' s most extensive discussion

of the clergy, a n d indicates her s y m p a t h y w i t h Evangelicalism. T h e richly comfortable but u n i m p o s i n g a n d unused chapel at Sotherton could s y m b o ­ lize critically the

'church

in an

a g e of negligence'. M a r y

reluctance to be a c o u n t r y c l e r g y m a n ' s wife (MP

Crawford's

9 1 - 4 ) contrasts with

F a n n y Price's eagerness for the role, a n d F a n n y disapproves w h e n H e n r y C r a w f o r d s a y s he c o u l d be a c l e r g y m a n only if he could have a fashionable L o n d o n c o n g r e g a t i o n able to appreciate his artistry as preacher ( 3 4 1 ) . Later r e a d e r s ' preference for M a r y o v e r F a n n y exemplifies a secularization of literary culture since A u s t e n ' s d a y that has m a d e it difficult to understand h o w A n g l i c a n s such as A u s t e n w o u l d h a v e considered it vital in

the

R e v o l u t i o n a r y aftermath to fill c o u n t r y v i c a r a g e s with E d m u n d s and F a n n y s rather than H e n r y s a n d M a r y s . 156

Religion and politics

Northanger Abbey,

completed and sold immediately after the 1 7 9 0 s a n d

revised just before A u s t e n ' s death, contains several direct references

to

politics. H e n r y Tilney attempts to instruct Catherine in the theory of the picturesque a n d she seems responsive: Delighted with her progress, and fearful of wearying her with too much wisdom at once, Henry suffered the subject to decline, and by an easy transition from a piece of rocky fragment and the withered oak which he had placed near its summit, to oaks in general, to forests, the inclosure of them, waste lands, crown lands and government, he shortly found himself arrived at politics; and from politics, it was an easy step to silence. (NA i n ) T h e p a s s a g e refers to the c o n t e m p o r a r y debate a b o u t enclosure of c o m m o n lands by local gentry, w h i c h deprived the l o w e r classes of a historic a n d customary 'right' by w h i c h they could supplement their i n c o m e a n d diet. T h e passage lightly m o c k s the tendency of political writers, especially reformists, to link small a n d local issues to large national ones. It also refers to the cultural convention that w o m e n w e r e not o r o u g h t not to

be

interested in politics - a convention challenged by m a n y w o m e n writers during the R e v o l u t i o n debate. Immediately after this p a s s a g e the difference between w h a t w e r e seen as the 'masculine' discourse of politics a n d the 'feminine' discourse of r o m a n c e is treated h u m o r o u s l y w h e n T i l n e y teases Catherine a n d his sister a b o u t some imminent 'very s h o c k i n g ' event that c o u l d be either a p o p u l a r uprising or publication of a n e w gothic r o m a n c e . T i l n e y imagines his sister's vision of revolution a n d tells Catherine: 'You talked of expected horrors in London - . . . she immediately pictured to herself a mob of three thousand men assembling in St. George's Fields; the Bank attacked, the Tower threatened, the streets of London flowing with blood, a detachment of the 12th Light Dragoons, (the hopes of the nation,) called up from Northampton to quell the insurgents, and the gallant Capt. Frederick Tilney, in the moment of charging at the head of his troop, knocked off his horse by a brickbat from an upper window. Forgive her stupidity. The fears of the sister have added to the weakness of the woman.' (113) This w a s just w h a t m a n y people did fear, h o w e v e r , a n d troops of d r a g o o n s were raised, ostensibly to resist a French invasion but actually to suppress a p o p u l a r uprising of the kind imagined here. Tilney also refers to the w i d e l y held belief that w o m e n s a w such political incidents purely from a p e r s o n a l and familial point of v i e w , and m a n y w o m e n writers did treat politics in that w a y .

1 5

A m o r e central

p a s s a g e in

Northanger Abbey

contains

an

oblique

reference to c o n s p i r a c y theories of upper-class o p p r e s s i o n a n d r e v o l u t i o n a r y 157

GARY

KELLY

intrigue, but rendered, as the novel requires, in personal and

domestic

terms. W h e n H e n r y Tilney realizes w h a t Catherine's gothic imaginings have led her to believe a b o u t his family's history he asks: 'What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observa­ tion of what is passing around you - Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing; where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay every thing open?' (197-8) T i l n e y a p p e a l s to the same idea of E n g l a n d as a n open civil society that w a s a d v a n c e d b y Antijacobins against English J a c o b i n s ' claims to the contrary in gothic 'political r o m a n c e s ' . Such novels are w h a t the y o u n g and naive C a t h e r i n e h a s 'been judging f r o m ' , as Antijacobin novelists had w a r n e d .

Mansfield Park

also contains political allusions that most readers w o u l d

h a v e recognized. S o m e , at least, of the y o u n g people at Mansfield w i s h to p e r f o r m a translation of K o t z e b u e ' s

Lovers' Vows

so that they can court a

partner under c o v e r of theatrical performance. Furthermore, the play had a d u b i o u s reputation for treating a pre-marital s e x u a l liaison not only without m o r a l d i s a p p r o v a l but as a laudable e x p r e s s i o n of 'natural' love. M a n y readers w o u l d h a v e k n o w n that such literature w a s associated with socially a n d politically transgressive attitudes during the 1 7 9 0 s . Indeed,

Hannah

M o r e ' s w i d e l y k n o w n counter-revolutionary polemic addressed to w o m e n h a d called them to lead national a n d imperial resistance to R e v o l u t i o n a r y a n d N a p o l e o n i c F r a n c e by banishing such supposedly subversive literature from their h o m e s .

1 6

Post-colonial critics h a v e recently d r a w n attention to the fact that the patriarch of M a n s f i e l d P a r k , Sir T h o m a s B e r t r a m , o w n s property in Antigua that w o u l d h a v e been w o r k e d by black s l a v e s .

1 7

Significantly, Sir T h o m a s '

forced absence attending to his W e s t Indian interests a l l o w s ambitious and ' i n s u b o r d i n a t e ' elements at h o m e to introduce the subversive text of

Vows,

Lovers'

suppressed o n l y w i t h his sudden return, though the insidious effects

m a y be seen in the later misconduct of his daughters. This passage could dramatize a neat political allegory, w i t h Sir T h o m a s representing Britain's ruling class distracted by colonial affairs and inadvertently loosing subver­ sive forces that might o v e r t h r o w the established order 'at h o m e ' . M a n y readers w o u l d also k n o w that J o h n M o o r e ' s w i d e l y read reformist novel,

Zeluco

( 1 7 8 9 ) , represented a direct connection between the slave system

158

Religion and politics and decadent a n d despotic court g o v e r n m e n t . A u s t e n ' s treatment of this matter is a m b i g u o u s , h o w e v e r . O n the one h a n d , her apparent failure to condemn

the

slave system, after

several decades

of vociferous

public

campaigning against slavery and the slave trade in a b r o a d front of reform, could be read as tacit a p p r o v a l of the colonial a n d slave systems a n d of firm social control in Britain. O n the other h a n d , her apparent e x p o s u r e of the limitations of patriarchal a n d authoritarian

rule at h o m e , a n d

perhaps

a b r o a d , could be read as tacit a p p r o v a l of at least a measure of reform a n d liberalization.

Persuasion contains

o b v i o u s references to the domestic a n d

international

political situation at the end of the N a p o l e o n i c w a r s . Sir W a l t e r Elliot criticizes n a v y men such as C a p t a i n W e n t w o r t h a n d A d m i r a l C r o f t because they 'spoil' their c o m p l e x i o n s by being out in all weathers and because the w a r has enabled them to rise in status 'too q u i c k l y ' . Y e t Sir W a l t e r ' s o w n vanity and e x t r a v a g a n c e force him to rent his m a n o r to A d m i r a l Croft, a n d his daughter marries the n a v a l captain once considered unsuitable because of his uncertain profession, but n o w able to purchase the estate a n d status of gentleman thanks to the financial r e w a r d s of his martial success in capturing French ships. M o s t readers w o u l d h a v e c o n d e m n e d Sir W a l t e r ' s criticism of a profession largely responsible for Britain's victory in the long struggle with R e v o l u t i o n a r y a n d N a p o l e o n i c F r a n c e . M a n y readers m i g h t also associate Sir Walter w i t h the v a i n a n d e x t r a v a g a n t Prince R e g e n t , symbol of decadent p r e - R e v o l u t i o n a r y court culture a n d of the upper-class snobbery, corruption, a n d incompetence that h a d imperilled nation

and

empire during the R e v o l u t i o n a r y a n d N a p o l e o n i c w a r s . T h o u g h Austen's letters

reveal little a b o u t

her religious a n d

political

principles or her v i e w of religious a n d political novels, they d o reveal her deep concern with the art of the n o v e l . It could be, then, that A u s t e n addresses religion a n d politics in her novels less through content a n d theme than through literary form. A s a parodist a n d practitioner of the n o v e l during the period of R e v o l u t i o n a n d aftermath, Austen w o u l d h a v e under­ stood h o w other

novelists of the time represented

their religious

and

political beliefs through form as well as through theme a n d content. It c a n be argued that A u s t e n , too, uses the novel form to e m b o d y her response, based on her A n g l i c a n faith a n d culture, to the related religious a n d political issues of her time. T h r o u g h the R e v o l u t i o n a r y crisis a n d aftermath

many

polemicists declared that sustaining this faith a n d culture w a s of vital national importance a n d that n o person or instrument w a s t o o h u m b l e for the task. Austen might well think this could include a country daughter w h o s e instrument w a s 'only a n o v e l ' .

159

parson's

GARY KELLY

It is a l s o true that the m e a n i n g of a n y novel or literary w o r k , at least for its original readers, depends partly on those readers recognizing its resem­ blances to o r differences from other w o r k s of a similar kind from the same period. M a n y of A u s t e n ' s original readers w o u l d recognize that her novels seem to e s c h e w f o r m a l elements used by novelists ideologically different from her a n d to a d a p t f o r m a l elements used by novelists ideologically similar to her. T h e differences could imply rejection of the politics of the former a n d the a d a p t a t i o n s could imply modification of the politics of the latter. T o readers w i t h social a n d religious commitments similar to her o w n , a n d w h o t o o k the art of the novel as seriously as she did, the form of A u s t e n ' s novels can even seem consistent w i t h a specifically A n g l i c a n view of the intertwined religious a n d political issues of the time. For

e x a m p l e , choice of narrative m o d e seems to h a v e h a d

political

implications for m a n y of A u s t e n ' s c o n t e m p o r a r y novelists. Writers of the p r e - R e v o l u t i o n a r y culture of Sensibility w h o use the novel for social and political criticism often e m p l o y

first-person

narration, including the episto­

lary f o r m , to focus o n individual subjectivity afflicted by a supposedly c o r r u p t a n d vitiated public a n d political sphere. English J a c o b i n novelists often use forms of

first-person

narration in this w a y , but also to s h o w that

individual experience a n d reflection suffice for political understanding and a g e n c y , a n d to e n g a g e r e a d e r s ' sympathies w i t h the oppressed narratorprotagonist

and

thus w i t h the social and

political reform

supposedly

necessary to end such oppression. S o m e writers, h o w e v e r , such as Austen's m o d e l , F r a n c e s B u r n e y , a n d m o s t Antijacobin novelists, seem to have felt that

first-person

n a r r a t i o n could engage readers' sympathies so powerfully

that it d i s a r m e d j u d g m e n t . O n e result could be to hinder development of the disciplined subjectivity considered essential to middle-class domestic and professional life. A n o t h e r result could be to w e a k e n readers' ability to resist the ideological - a n d s e x u a l - seductiveness of R e v o l u t i o n a r y rhetoric. This result w a s s h o w n in several Antijacobin novels that depicted reading

heroines

politically converted

and

then

romance-

s e x u a l l y seduced

by

' J a c o b i n ' villains skilled in the ' j a r g o n ' of 'political r o m a n c e s ' . C o n s e ­ quently, m o s t A n t i j a c o b i n novelists used authoritative third-person narra­ tion, s u p p o s e d l y implicating the reader in a m o r e detached, rational attitude a n d a l s o serving as a f o r m a l h o m o l o g y for defence of social hierarchy and political a u t h o r i t y .

18

A u s t e n ' s narrative m e t h o d could be seen as mediating between

such

o p p o s i n g political associations of form. A p p a r e n t l y she experimented with first-person

epistolary f o r m in the 1 7 9 0 s , but finally opted for third-person

n a r r a t i o n w i t h restricted free indirect discourse, o r n a r r a t o r ' s representation of the p r o t a g o n i s t ' s i n w a r d speech a n d thought. T h e effect is to retain

160

Religion and politics narrative authority but a l l o w the reader considerable k n o w l e d g e of a n d thus s y m p a t h y for the protagonist. A u s t e n ' s use of this narrative

method

can be read as a formal h o m o l o g y for a hierarchical yet open social structure, stabilized by inherited authority based o n w e a l t h a n d p o w e r but open to individual merit a n d responsive to individual rights based o n it, while a v o i d i n g extremes of authoritarianism a n d i n d i v i d u a l i s m . H e r narrative method

has historical religious implications, t o o .

The

R o m a n C a t h o l i c church insisted on the authority of priest a n d church, but m a n y Protestant Dissenting sects based religious authority on individual religious experience a n d based ecclesiastical authority o n the will of the c o m m u n i t y of believers. T h e C h u r c h of E n g l a n d t o o k a middle w a y , m a k i n g salvation the responsibility of the individual, t h o u g h guided by priest a n d church

doctrine and authorized

by an a p o s t o l i c succession of

bishops

claiming direct succession from Christ's disciples. A u s t e n ' s narrative struc­ ture can be read as a secularized h o m o l o g y for the A n g l i c a n position. In this h o m o l o g y the protagonist is responsible for her w o r l d l y ' s a l v a t i o n ' , o r m o r a l condition a n d social destiny, g u i d e d b y a sympathetic yet critical narrator, w h o a l l o w s the reader to identify w i t h the protagonist's struggle, and thus to experience that struggle v i c a r i o u s l y , a g a i n guided by

the

narrator. Other fictional elements in the form of A u s t e n ' s novels can be seen as supporting such implications of narrative m e t h o d . F o r e x a m p l e , A u s t e n ' s characters are fictitious, d r a w n from c o n t e m p o r a r y life, relatively few in number, a n d mostly from the professional middle class a n d gentry. Such a repertory enables A u s t e n to emphasize the p r o t a g o n i s t ' s m o r a l deliberations and ethical commitments through similarities a n d differences of character and action, as in the stark contrast between E l i n o r D a s h w o o d , her sisters, and the Steele sisters, or the challenging contrast between F a n n y Price, Mary

Crawford, and

the

B e r t r a m sisters. A u s t e n

omits

the

kinds

of

characters found in the gothic r o m a n c e s , historical fiction, a n d regional novels, w h i c h often p r o m o t e d reforming a g e n d a s . T h u s her novels c o u l d be seen to imply that true or important social m e a n i n g is found not a m o n g such people a n d places but a m o n g the rural upper a n d professional middle classes she represents, and to w h i c h her family a n d their friends belonged. M o r e o v e r , by keeping to a relatively n a r r o w r a n g e of character

types

Austen both concentrates her social satire a n d emphasizes m o r a l discern­ ment a n d ethical interaction in daily life a n d in local rural society. Such interaction w a s seen as the main arena of religious practice, a n d such a social space w a s the typical stronghold of the A n g l i c a n church. Significantly, such people and places w e r e also the basic unit of national life according to E d m u n d B u r k e ' s counter-revolutionary

161

Reflections on the

GARY

Revolution in France

KELLY

( 1 7 9 0 ) , a n d A u s t e n uses setting to reinforce

the

impression that the segment of society she represents is of central impor­ tance. She a v o i d s the e x o t i c settings f a v o u r e d in gothic, historical, and 'national' tales, m a n y of w h i c h h a d reformist themes. She places her characters in settings that are p r e d o m i n a n t l y domestic or semi-public, on country estates o r in places of fashionable resort, w h e r e upper and profes­ sional middle classes met to create the kind of open civil society lauded by Henry Tilney. H e r range of incident is similarly n a r r o w a n d includes the protagonist's solitary

reflections;

intimate

dialogue

between

close

friends,

family

m e m b e r s , or couples; a n d socializing in local civil society during visits, dinners a n d dances, a n d e x c u r s i o n s a n d amusements. Occasional trips farther afield c o m p r i s e the preceding kinds of incident rather than the scenes a n d episodes in high society f a v o u r e d by 'fashionable' novelists of manners. A u s t e n uses incidents dealing w i t h 'the anxieties of c o m m o n life' rather than 'the alarms of r o m a n c e ' (NA 2 . 0 1 ) , w i t h the exception of C o l o n e l B r a n d o n ' s a u t o b i o g r a p h i c a l tale in reader's

Sense and Sensibility (SS 2 0 5 - 1 0 ) ,

attention to the

a n d d r a w s the

fact b y occasionally burlesquing

sensational

incidents such as m u r d e r , r a p e , abduction, duels, and other forms of violence found in gothic a n d historical r o m a n c e s , and even some novels of manners. A u s t e n reduces range a n d 'intensity' of incident in order to achieve three effects. T h e first is to emphasize m o r a l reflection a n d ethical action in domestic a n d local life, rather than the intense sensation and experience often celebrated in the literature of Sensibility. T h e second effect is implicit rejection of the sensational or e x t r a o r d i n a r y as a basis for m o r a l education of characters or readers, let alone for political action on a local or national level. T h e final effect is implied criticism of extremists in both past and recent history for sensationalizing issues of religion a n d politics, thereby polarizing public o p i n i o n , disrupting civil society, a n d undermining national unity. A u s t e n ' s plots m a y l o o k c o n v e n t i o n a l e n o u g h , but plot, too, h a d political a n d even religious implications in m a n y novels of her time. English J a c o b i n novelists f o l l o w e d the 'necessitarian' or determinist theories of Enlight­ enment materialist p h i l o s o p h e r s , a n d

so use plot to illustrate h o w a

particular political regime conditions social practice, thereby

determining

individual character a n d necessitating certain kinds of action, usually for the w o r s e . A n t i j a c o b i n novelists deny necessary connections of this sort and assert that individuals should f o l l o w the m o r a l and political authority of those born o r appointed to it. A c c o r d i n g l y , Antijacobin novelists often attribute character to innate o r family traits a n d base plots on coincidence, 162

Religion and politics often with the intervention of a

deus ex machina, or

force outside the plot -

usually a n authoritative male. T h e r e w e r e also religious implications

to

these different plot forms. T h e English J a c o b i n p h i l o s o p h y of determinism w a s widely seen as a secularized version of C a l v i n i s t Dissenters' t h e o l o g y of predestination. T h e English J a c o b i n belief that h u m a n r e a s o n c o u l d achieve individual and social 'perfectibility' without divine assistance w a s seen as a secularized version of Calvinist Dissenters' theology of salvation by faith alone. Antijacobins insisted on the limits of ' p h i l o s o p h y ' a n d the need for practical virtue, o r ' g o o d w o r k s ' . P a r a d o x i c a l l y , English J a c o b i n a n d A n t i jacobin novels, a n d More's

fiction

by E v a n g e l i c a l A n g l i c a n s (such as

Cœlebs in Search of a Wife, 1 8 0 9 ) ,

Hannah

often present characters w h o are

virtually perfect, irredeemably vicious, or dramatically converted at the end, exemplifying

idealist o r puritan

principles a n d

heightening

ideological

conflict. Austen's use of plot can be read as mediating, from an A n g l i c a n v i e w point, between these different

forms a n d their

o p p o s i n g political

and

religious implications. T h e central doctrine of A n g l i c a n t h e o l o g y asserts that G o d has k n o w l e d g e of predestination to salvation but that individuals still have free will to be s a v e d o r d a m n e d , that g o o d w o r k s are useful but true faith matters m o r e , a n d that neither faith nor w o r k s c a n guarantee salvation without the intervention of grace, or divine p o w e r , infusing the individual life and actions. A u s t e n ' s plots are resolved by neither the

protagonist's

rational will n o r the force of systemic injustice, by neither

machina

a

deus ex

nor coincidence, but by a convergence of will a n d circumstance, or

something like g r a c e . A u s t e n links this plot form to t w o different kinds of protagonist, the active a n d the passive, d e p l o y e d in alternation.

Sensibility

Sense and

Pride and Prejudice a n d Emma h a v e active Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, a n d Persuasion h a v e

has both kinds,

protagonists, a n d

passive protagonists. T h e active protagonists err repeatedly, but act correctly a n d s o m e w h a t unexpectedly, at the decisive m o m e n t . Passive p r o t a g o nists h a v e correct judgment, but seem unable to act, a n d destined to endure rather than to prevail, until circumstances unexpectedly present the o c c a s i o n to receive their merited happiness. For active protagonists the turning point is a n act of self-abnegation or humility that c o u l d be described as Christian a n d that seems to o c c u r against the run of the plot and thus to be providential, o r the effect of g r a c e . Passive protagonists practise a Christian-like humility a n d self-abnegation throughout, t h o u g h they are often undervalued by the other

characters,

until the mistaken selfish action of another character brings a b o u t protagonist's

o b v i o u s l y merited happiness. In

Sense and Sensibility

the the

impulsively active M a r i a n n e prides herself on the a c c u r a c y of her j u d g m e n t

163

GARY

KELLY

a n d correctness of her actions since both are sanctioned by her 'sensibility', represented by A u s t e n as a form of excessive will. In fact, M a r i a n n e errs repeatedly, a n d d a n g e r o u s l y , until she learns some humility and then achieves, o r rather receives happiness. T h e self-disciplined and self-sacrifi­ cing E l i n o r is m o r e prominent in the novel, a n d seems destined to lose her happiness to the actively scheming L u c y Steele. L u c y ' s scheming leads her to w h a t is o b v i o u s l y a m o r a l l y mistaken choice, a b a n d o n i n g E d w a r d Ferrars for his selfish a n d decadent brother, thereby leaving Elinor to be r e w a r d e d for her self-sacrifice a n d endurance in love. A similar pattern is used in

Mansfield Park, w i t h M a r y a n d H e n r y C r a w f o r d as the over-reaching schemers a n d F a n n y Price as the steadfast a n d enduring winner, a n d in

Persuasion, w i t h A n n e eventually if poignantly r e w a r d e d for the steadfast­ ness in love she claims for her s e x against the scepticism of C a p t a i n Harville

(P 2.35). In

Emma the protagonist, like M a r i a n n e D a s h w o o d a n d Elizabeth

Bennet, prides herself o n her j u d g m e n t a n d acts accordingly, almost produ­ cing

her

own

unhappiness.

E m m a goes farther

than

Marianne

and

Elizabeth, h o w e v e r , interfering as a m a t c h m a k e r in the lives of others. H e r ill-judged activity produces several embarrassments, until she realizes that she loves M r . K n i g h t l e y but seems to h a v e unwittingly encouraged him to love H a r r i e t Smith. W h e n Knightley seems a b o u t to tell E m m a of this, she silences him to protect her o w n feelings, but w h e n she sees his 'deep mortification', she sacrifices her o w n feelings out of love for him, and encourages him to s p e a k . She hears that it is she w h o m he loves, and soon realizes, from his surprise at her reversed decision, h o w providential her act of self-abnegation w a s . In all of A u s t e n ' s novels the ending could h a v e been other than happy, a n d the protagonist's recognition of her fallibility or endurance in virtue provides a turning point in the plot that enables her to achieve happiness, or s h o w s that she deserves it. T h e turning point also discloses that merit and will alone cannot guarantee happiness, h o w e v e r ; circumstances must also be propitious. T h i s linking of character a n d plot could be read as an optimistic belief in the ultimate defeat of the selfish a n d self-serving and the ultimate triumph of the selfless a n d self-sacrificing. Such a reading w o u l d conform to both conventional

Christian m o r a l teaching a n d the secular morality

a d v a n c e d in m a n y novels, including reformist novels of Austen's d a y . Y e t A u s t e n ' s linking of merit a n d circumstance seems to lack the sense of inevitability or determinism found in both reformist novels and m a n y didactically religious novels of the period. T u r n i n g points in the plotted destiny of A u s t e n ' s protagonists seem unexpected, at least at the m o m e n t the protagonist a n d the reader encounter 164

Religion and politics them, whether they be the treachery of L u c y Steele, Elizabeth's reflection o n D a r c y ' s letter and subsequent

discovery of his intervention

on

Lydia's

behalf, H e n r y C r a w f o r d ' s elopement w i t h M a r i a B e r t r a m , E m m a ' s recogni­ tion

of her love for Knightley after

Wentworth's

unexpected

near-disastrous

second p r o p o s a l

matchmaking,

to A n n e . Y e t in

or

retrospect,

protagonist and reader can see h o w the interaction of character a n d plot m a d e the turning points possible, a n d even likely. It c o u l d be a r g u e d that such decisive, unexpected yet possible moments c o r r e s p o n d to w h a t w o u l d be recognized as instances of grace by a Christian, a n d especially a Christian like Austen, w h o s e ' o p i n i o n s ' , by her brother's testimony, ' a c c o r d e d strictly with those of our Established C h u r c h ' (NA,

PS).

For Anglican theology

places particular emphasis on grace as the instrument of salvation. It could be argued that Austen's plots depend on instances of such g r a c e , even if apparently secular in character. Austen does prepare the reader for these turning points a n d

happy

endings by use of comic form a n d tone. She excludes a n d even m o c k s the dire incidents a n d foreboding tone of gothic a n d political r o m a n c e , a n d she builds the reader's expectation that g o o d rather than evil will p r e v a i l , using narrator's irony, occasional c o m i c dialogues a n d incidents, evident generic markers of romantic c o m e d y , a n d lightness of tone. In these w a y s , A u s t e n constructs

the novel as a c o m i c universe in w h i c h an omniscient

yet

sympathetic narrator presides o v e r a r o m a n c e plot of error, suffering, a n d eventual h a p p y ending, a n d in w h i c h tone prepares the reader for such an outcome. A g a i n , this formal structure is consistent w i t h an A n g l i c a n reading of human history as a form of r o m a n c e journey in w h i c h an omniscient yet benevolent deity presides o v e r a historical plot of h u m a n error, fall, a n d redemption by both free will a n d g r a c e , a n d w h i c h instructs the reader to hope for and aspire to redemption. advanced

by opposing

religious a n d

Such a reading differs from

those

political ideologies of the

time.

Anglicans had long criticized as g l o o m y the C a l v i n i s t theology of predesti­ nation and reserving of salvation for m e m b e r s of a particular sect. A n t i jacobins criticized the political purism a n d factionalism of French

and

English J a c o b i n s as secularized forms of such e x c l u s i v i s m a n d sectarianism. Austen's use of form a n d tone to create a c o m i c universe a n d r o m a n c e plot presided over by a judging yet sympathetic a n d forgiving omnipotence c a n be read as a secular literary expression of a 'latitudinarian'

Anglican

position (despite A u s t e n ' s admiration for the H i g h A n g l i c a n sermons of T h o m a s Sherlock) that w a s n e w l y a p p r o p r i a t e for the p o s t - R e v o l u t i o n a r y need to reconstruct a national religious a n d political consensus. Austen's novels c a n be read as representing the protagonist's 165

destiny

GARY

KELLY

a c c o r d i n g to a n A n g l i c a n v i e w of the h u m a n condition. It c a n be argued that the novels a l s o implicate the reader in this condition by using form to tempt the reader, t o o , into erring by misreading. In their three-volume format, title-pages, a n d generic elements, A u s t e n ' s novels resemble the stock novel of m a n n e r s , e n c o u r a g i n g the original reader to r e g a r d them as u n d e m a n d i n g f o r m u l a fiction (unlike m a n y later readers taught by educa­ tion, the heritage industries, a n d television adaptations that A u s t e n ' s novels are 'classics', to be read with respect a n d care). Such a condescending attitude to the n o v e l w a s c o m m o n in A u s t e n ' s d a y , though it is r e b u k e d in the w e l l - k n o w n p a s s a g e , ' o n l y a novel . . . ' ( N A 37-8). T h u s the a p p e a r a n c e of A u s t e n ' s novels c o u l d e n c o u r a g e careless reading o r misreading. Further­ m o r e , A u s t e n ' s use of third-person narration w i t h free indirect discourse m a k e s it possible for the reader to ignore the n a r r a t o r ' s ironic distance from the p r o t a g o n i s t a n d identify w i t h the protagonist a n d her 'readings', or rather misreadings, thereby experiencing w i t h the protagonist her r o m a n c e j o u r n e y t h r o u g h error a n d suffering to a well deserved ' h o m e ' , w h i c h is in fact m a r r i a g e as represented in the A n g l i c a n l i t u r g y .

19

F o r e x a m p l e , after Elizabeth rejects D a r c y ' s p r o p o s a l a n d receives his letter of e x p l a n a t i o n , she r e v i e w s past events a n d reluctantly recognizes that she has indulged her pride a n d prejudice in interpreting them a n d so misjudged D a r c y a n d others; it is here that her r o m a n c e j o u r n e y of suffering a n d endurance begins {PP 2 0 5 - 9 ) . Inclined by acquired habits of reading to identify w i t h the protagonist, the first-time reader of the novel p r o b a b l y has read o r m i sr e a d events a n d characters as Elizabeth has, a n d will recognize this fact w h e n Elizabeth does. T h e case is s o m e w h a t different w i t h the selfdoubting p r o t a g o n i s t such as F a n n y Price or A n n e Elliot, w h o is tempted to accept the j u d g m e n t of others - as the reader is likewise. A u s t e n ' s narrative m e t h o d discloses this k i n d of protagonist's subjective merit to the reader, w h o v i c a r i o u s l y experiences the protagonist's r o m a n c e trial of frustration a n d neglect until the other characters, especially the right suitor, are unexpectedly b r o u g h t to extend this recognition. A g a i n the evidence for this o u t c o m e a p p e a r s in retrospect to h a v e been there all a l o n g . T h e consequences of misreading w e r e m u c h debated in A u s t e n ' s d a y , and still are. N o v e l s in general a n d ' r o m a n c e s ' in particular w e r e often con­ d e m n e d for furnishing readers w i t h false images of life a n d encouraging fantasy a n d desire at the e x p e n s e of the m o r a l a n d intellectual discipline considered necessary for 'real life'. A u s t e n a l l o w s her readers to indulge these desires by reading o r misreading with the protagonist, despite the w a r n i n g s of n a r r a t o r i a l irony, a n d then teaches her readers h o w to read better. C h a s t e n e d , the reader c a n reread Austen's novels w i t h instructed interest. A u s t e n ' s novels h a v e indeed been found eminently rereadable, a 166

Religion and politics fact w h i c h has m a d e them into 'classics', o r literature. T h u s it c o u l d be argued that Austen used the very seductions of the n o v e l to teach readers to overcome them, a n d thereby transformed w h a t w a s then considered 'only a novel' into literature, as it w a s then c o m i n g to be u n d e r s t o o d : written v e r b a l art of m o r a l value, intellectual w o r t h , a n d ethical utility to its readers, o r at least readers of certain classes and w i t h certain material interests. In Austen's d a y these w e r e the interests of the classes to w h i c h she, her fictional characters, a n d the majority of the 'reading p u b l i c ' belonged. In Austen's d a y this reading public w a s critically divided by interconnected issues of religion a n d politics, a n d writing of all kinds, including the n o v e l , w a s used to a d v a n c e or repair those divisions. A u s t e n , t o o , used the novel in this w a y , less to address particular issues of religion a n d politics directly, as part of the public sphere, a n d m o r e to treat these issues within the w i d e r and, to Austen and m a n y others, m o r e i m p o r t a n t c o n t e x t of m o r a l j u d g m e n t and ethical action in e v e r y d a y a n d local life. L i k e m a n y writers of the R e v o l u t i o n a r y aftermath, A u s t e n sought to repair the d a n g e r o u s divisions opened by differences of religion a n d politics in the classes her novels address. She sought to repair those differences, h o w e v e r , from a particular religious-political position, that of a w o m a n i n v o l v e d in a n d supporting an open coalition of gentry a n d upper middle classes b a s e d o n the values a n d teachings of the historic English national church. In d o i n g so she created w h a t could be called the A n g l i c a n r o m a n c e .

NOTES

Religion and Society in Industrial England: Church, Chape and Social Change, 1 7 4 0 - 1 9 1 4 (London and N e w York: Longman, 1976),

1 See R. D. Gilbert,

part I. 2 Cf. Cheryl Turner, Living by the Pen: Women Writers in the Eighteenth Century (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), ch. 3. 3 Peter Virgin, The Church in an Age of Negligence: Ecclesiastical Structure and Problems of Church Reform 1700-1840 (Cambridge: James Clarke and Co., 1989), and Norman Sykes, Church and State in England in the XVIIIth Century (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1 9 3 4 ) , pp. 4 0 7 - 8 . See also Marion Lochhead, 'Literature versus Celibacy', Quarterly Review, 294 (April 1 9 5 6 ) , 2 0 7 - 1 7 ; John Walsh and Stephen Taylor, 'Introduction: The Church and Anglicanism in the " L o n g " Eighteenth Century', in The Church of England c. 1681 - c. 1833, edited by John Walsh, Colin Haydon, and Stephen Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 9 3 ) , pp. 1 - 6 3 ; Irene Collins, Jane Austen and the Clergy (London and Rio Grande: Hambledon 1994); Ivor Morris, Mr Collins Considered: Approaches to Jane Austen (London and N e w York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 9 8 7 ) . 4 [Henry Austen,] 'Biographical Notice of the Author', prefixed to 167

Northanger

GARY

KELLY

Abbey

and Persuasion, The Novels of Jane Austen, ed. R. W. Chapman, vol. 5, p. 8; Newman cited in Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian C. Southam (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968), p. 1 1 7 ; John A. Patten, ' J Austen's Clergymen', Congregational Quarterly, 9:3 (July 1 9 3 1 ) , 3 1 0 - 1 5 ( 3 1 5 ) . British Critic, in Southam, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, p. 7 1 ; Simpson in Southam, p. 264; Laurence Lerner, The Truthtellers: Jane Austen; George Eliot; D. H. Lawrence (London: Chatto and Windus, 1967), p. 20. Whately in Southam, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, p. 95; Knox quoted in Andrew L. Drummond, The Churches in English Fiction (Leicester: Edgar Backus, 1 9 5 0 ) , p. 5; Harold Anson, 'The Church in Nineteenth-Century Fiction: I - J a n e Austen', The Listener, 2 1 , no. 5 3 6 (20 April 1939), 8 4 1 - 2 (841). See Edward M . Chapman, English Literature and Religion 1800-1900 (London: Constable &c Co., 1 9 1 0 ) , pp. 2 4 5 - 8 ; Rowland Grey, 'The Religion of Jane Austen', The Bookman, 78 (Sept. 1 9 3 0 ) , 3 3 2 - 4 ; Lesley Willis, 'Religion in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park\ English Studies in Canada, 1 3 : 1 (March 1987), 6 5 - 7 8 ; Gene Koppel, The Religious Dimension in Jane Austen's Novels (Ann Arbor and London: U M I Research Press, 1988). E. G . Selwyn, 'Jane Austen's Clergymen', Jane Austen Society Report for the Year 1959, 1 1 - 2 1 ; Raymond A. Cook, 'As Jane Austen Saw the Clergy', Theology Today, 1 8 : 1 (April 1 9 6 1 ) , 4 1 - 5 0 . See, for example, Roger Gard, Jane Austen's Novels: The Art of Clarity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992). See, for example, Mary DeForest, 'Jane Austen and the Anti-Heroic Tradition', Persuasions, 1 0 (Dec. 1988), 1 1 - 2 1 ; John A. Dussinger, 'Jane Austen's Political Silence', The Dolphin (Aarhus University Press), 1 6 (1990), 3 3 - 4 2 . Rebecca West, The Court and the Castle: A Study of the Interactions of Political and Religious Ideas in Imaginative Literature (London: Macmillan, 1958), p. 9 3 . See also Warren Roberts, Jane Austen and the French Revolution (1979; reprinted London and Atlantic Highlands: Athlone, 1995); Jennifer Fitzgerald, 'Jane Austen's Persuasion and the French Revolution', Persuasions, 1 0 (Dec. 1988), 3 9 - 4 3 ; Maaja A. Stewart, Domestic Realities and Imperial Fictions: Jane Austen's Novels in Eighteenth-Century Contexts (Athens, Georgia, and London: University of Georgia Press, 1 9 9 3 ) ; Roger Sales, Jane Austen and Representa­ tions of Regency England (London and New York: Routledge, 1994); Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 7 5 ) . See, for example, Alistair M . Duckworth, The Improvement of the Estate ( 1 9 7 1 ; reprinted Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). See, for example, Nina Auerbach, Communities of Women: An Idea in Fiction (Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press, 1978); Sandra M . Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979); Claudia L. Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988). See, for example, Edward Neill, 'The Politics of "Jane Austen"', English, 40 (Autumn 1 9 9 1 ) , 2 0 5 - 1 3 , and Sales, Austen and Regency England. See Gary Kelly, Women, Writing, and Revolution 1790-18x7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 9 3 ) . a n e

5

6

7

8

9 10

11

12 13

14 15

168

Religion and politics

1 6 Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799), ch. 1 . 1 7 See, for example, Edward W. Said, 'Jane Austen and Empire', in Raymond Williams: Critical Perspectives, edited by Terry Eagleton (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989), pp. 1 5 0 - 6 4 . 18 See Gary Kelly, English Fiction of the Romantic Period 1789-1830 (London and New York: Longman, 1989), ch. 2. 19 Cf. recent critics who recruit Austen to post-modern writing by arguing that she uses narrative method to question the nature of narrative authority: see Barbara M . Benedict, 'Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility: The Politics of Point of View', Philological Quarterly, 69 (Fall 1990), 4 5 3 - 7 0 ; and Tara Ghoshal Wallace, Jane Austen and Narrative Authority (New York: St. Martin's Press; Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Press, 1995).

169

10 J O H N F. B U R R O W S

Style

Miss Crawford's countenance, as Julia spoke, might have amused a disinter­ ested observer. She looked almost aghast under the new idea she was receiving. Fanny pitied her. 'How distressed she will be at what she said just now,' passed across her mind. (MP 89)

A l t h o u g h J u l i a B e r t r a m ' s allusion to E d m u n d ' s forthcoming ordination is a i m e d at her sister a n d H e n r y C r a w f o r d , its m o s t visible effect is on a b y s t a n d e r . T h e potency of the ' n e w idea' M a r y C r a w f o r d is receiving is m a r k e d by the use of ' a g h a s t ' , a strong w o r d for J a n e Austen, and soon a f t e r w a r d s b y the reference to her 'rallying her spirits, a n d recovering her c o m p l e x i o n ' . It is also m a r k e d by the w o r d ' i d e a ' , w h o s e flat, modern sense of ' c o n c e p t ' w a s still enriched, in J a n e A u s t e n ' s use, by m o r e pictorial c o n n o t a t i o n s : M i s s C r a w f o r d , the w o r d suggests, gives one of life's long m o m e n t s to a mental rehearsal of her comments o n the clergy a n d E d m u n d ' s firm rejoinders. She then puts the question to him and, o n hearing his plans, m a k e s as graceful a gesture as her situation a l l o w s : 'If I h a d k n o w n this before, I w o u l d h a v e s p o k e n of the cloth w i t h m o r e respect' (89). B u t the matter is t o o important to be d r o p p e d a n d she reverts to it as s o o n as courtesy permits: ' S o y o u are to be a c l e r g y m a n , M r . Bertram. T h i s is rather a surprise to m e ' ( 9 1 ) . 'Surprise' is honest if l o w key, and the ' r a t h e r ' p l a y s it d o w n . T h e a n a p h o r i c use of ' s o ' (where the w o r d takes its w e i g h t from w h a t has g o n e before a n d carries it o n into the sequel) is more revealing. O n this o c c a s i o n it has an almost e x c l a m a t o r y force far r e m o v e d from its o r d i n a r y task of tacking up loose s y n t a x like that of Harriet Smith. W h i l e its strength is evident, the precise nature of M a r y C r a w f o r d ' s response is not easy to determine. T h e amusement open to a 'disinterested o b s e r v e r ' doubtless lies in w a t c h i n g M i l l a m a n t , in full sail, brought hard a b o u t b y a sudden gust from n o w h e r e . F a n n y ' s sense of pity, by contrast, is a d d r e s s e d to w h a t her c o m p a n i o n must be feeling. But, even if 'distress' is the right w o r d for it, that emotion w o u l d not take a form that F a n n y could

170

Style share or understand.

N o t for M a r y a deep sense of mortification,

an

o v e r p o w e r i n g conviction of her o w n worthlessness, a lasting desire to sink out of sight. Consternation, n o d o u b t , for her

gaucherie

in pressing her

opinions u p o n uncertain c o m p a n y a n d not giving e n o u g h t h o u g h t to the likely future of a y o u n g e r son. A n n o y a n c e w i t h E d m u n d for not thinking better of himself? A touch of scorn, even, for these solemn p r o v i n c i a l s , w h o s h o w so little k n o w l e d g e of the w a y of the w o r l d ? B u t not a m o m e n t ' s consideration of the possibility that her opinion of c l e r g y m e n m a y be at fault? T h e m a i n point is that w e are left w i t h inferences. A l t h o u g h J a n e Austen differs from most of her predecessors in taking us within the minds of her heroines, she f o l l o w s Fielding in her treatment of s o m e other m a j o r figures, including M a r y C r a w f o r d a n d J a n e F a i r f a x . W i t h them, as w i t h o u r fellows in real life, w e are obliged to interpret o u t w a r d signs as best w e can. T h e rendering of F a n n y ' s u n s p o k e n t h o u g h t in the f o r m of direct speech ( ' H o w distressed she will be . . . ' ) lies at one end of a stylistic spectrum. T h e opposite pole is visible w h e n e v e r the free indirect style used to render A n n e Elliot's impressions a n d

Persuasion c o n v e r g e .

the reflective parts of the m a i n

narrative

of

If w e w e r e left, in the present case, to take F a n n y ' s

assessment of M a r y ' s feelings at face v a l u e , the effect w o u l d be sentimental and misleading. T h e overt contrast between her ' u n s p o k e n speech' a n d the cool tone of the disinterested o b s e r v e r prevents us from doing s o . T h i s is a n area in w h i c h J a n e Austen s h o w s increasing stylistic subtlety as her career proceeds. W h e r e a s the

unspoken

thoughts of Catherine

Morland

are

rendered in strong colours a n d those of E l i n o r D a s h w o o d are usually couched in a stilted sort of indirect speech, the w i d e narrative r a n g e in the later novels from ' u n s p o k e n speech' to free indirect style admits

many

unobtrusive but powerful effects. T h e little mismatch between F a n n y a n d the disinterested o b s e r v e r a l s o epitomizes J a n e A u s t e n ' s characteristic use of disjunction as a source of comic energy. It appears openly in a b s u r d turns of phrase like

'mediocre

to

the last degree' (E 2 7 6 ) ; ' O h ! cruel C h a r l e s to w o u n d the hearts & legs of all the fair' ('Jack a n d A l i c e ' , MW

2 2 ) ; a n d 'Prudence obliged him to prefer the

quietest sort of ruin & disgrace for the object of his Affections, to the m o r e r e n o w n e d ' (S 4 0 6 ) . It a p p e a r s in straightforward displays of self-deception like 'We h a v e all the G r a n d e u r of the S t o r m , with less real d a n g e r , because the W i n d meeting w i t h nothing to o p p o s e or confine it a r o u n d o u r H o u s e , simply rages & passes o n ' ( 5 3 8 1 ) . A n d it appears also in large discrepancies between the apparent a n d the real, as in Elizabeth's original assessment of D a r c y , his assessment of Elizabeth a n d J a n e , o r A d m i r a l C r o f t ' s w e l l meaning attempt to enlist an ally in a g o o d cause: T think w e m u s t get him to Bath. S o p h y must write, a n d beg him to c o m e to B a t h . H e r e are pretty

171

JOHN F. BURROWS

girls e n o u g h , I a m sure. It w o u l d be of n o use to g o to U p p e r c r o s s again, for that other M i s s M u s g r o v e , I find, is b e s p o k e by her cousin, the y o u n g p a r s o n . D o not y o u think, M i s s Elliot, w e h a d better try to get him to B a t h ? '

(Pi73). S o far, then, o u r p a s s a g e from

Mansfield Park

has yielded e x a m p l e s of

such topics as generally arise in discussions of an a u t h o r ' s literary style. T h e w o r d ' a g h a s t ' , so I h a v e claimed, is unusually strong in tone for J a n e A u s t e n . She usually e m p l o y s the a n a p h o r i c ' s o ' for a certain

syntactic

p u r p o s e but departs from it on this o c c a s i o n . H e r emphasis on

sharp

disjunction is essential to her c o m i c style. T h e m a n n e r in w h i c h she renders F a n n y ' s thoughts is p a r t of a major d e v e l o p m e n t o v e r the length of her literary career. H e r m a n a g e m e n t of narrative in such a w a y as to enter the minds of s o m e m a j o r characters but not others m a r k s a particular moment in the history of the n o v e l as a literary form. H e r use of the w o r d 'idea' m a r k s a m o m e n t in the history of the l a n g u a g e . T h e general validity of such claims w i l l be tested as w e continue. W e should first glance at w h a t w e are dealing w i t h w h e n w e s p e a k of style in prose fiction. T h e cruel C h a r l e s of ' J a c k a n d A l i c e ' , he w h o contrives to ' w o u n d the hearts 8c legs of all the fair', is something m o r e than a faithless lover and a l a n d l o r d w h o plants his estate with m a n t r a p s . H e is m a d e the focal point of the rhetorical figure of syllepsis, in w h i c h a v e r b takes t w o different objects. T h i s figure o p p o s e s a w e a r y m e t a p h o r from r o m a n c e ('wound the hearts') w i t h the demotic literality of prose chronicle ( ' w o u n d the legs'). T h a t the n o v e l is of m i x e d style is a simple truth w h i c h has m a d e a persistent obstacle for scholarly analysis. A s m y last e x a m p l e suggests, the novel can d r a w o n diverse literary a n d non-literary forms of language. G r a h a m H o u g h identifies another difficulty: w h e r e a s the different voices of a

p l a y are all on

the

s a m e epistemological plane, the

chief stylistic

c o m p o n e n t s of a n o v e l (from the narrative voice at its most detached to the voices of the several characters) lie on different p l a n e s .

1

S o m e scholars

r e s p o n d by confining themselves to such stylistic features as run throughout the w h o l e . Others undertake the long and fruitless task of enumerating all feasible categories a n d sub-categories, setting neat lines in shifting sand. Others a g a i n , in the tradition of H e n r y J a m e s , bring v a l u a b l e light to bear o n large matters of ' c o m p o s i t i o n ' but are unable to connect them w i t h the particularities of 'style'. T h e R u s s i a n literary theorist, M i k h a i l Bakhtin, carries the w h o l e subject f o r w a r d by defining the novel as essentially an orchestration of stylistic conflicts, a 'dialogic relationship' between different sorts of l a n g u a g e .

2

Such relationships, o b v i o u s l y , are most direct w h e n the characters speak 172

Style with each other. A s a writer of d i a l o g u e , J a n e A u s t e n lies at a m o m e n t of transition in the history of the n o v e l , a n d her o w n contribution is significant. D r a w i n g u p o n the conventions of prose r o m a n c e , her predecessors present sharp distinctions between 'high style' a n d ' l o w ' in m u c h the s a m e fashion as their Elizabethan forebears. In ' l o w style,' the a r c h a i c redolence of A n n Radcliffe's Italian peasants a n d servants is w e l l k n o w n . H e r 'high style', even w h e n she is representing a gentleman of the 1 7 6 0 s , is also remote from the quotidian: ' " T h i s is astonishing!" said the E n g l i s h m a n ; " o f w h a t a v a i l are y o u r l a w s , if the most atrocious criminal m a y thus find shelter from them? B u t h o w does he contrive to exist h e r e ! " ' But other novelists of the day carried the

3

genre

f o r w a r d . In ' l o w style',

w h e r e they m a d e most change, they turned from the literary to the demotic in a prose version of the 'selection of l a n g u a g e really u s e d ' that W o r d s w o r t h advocated in the Preface to

Lyrical Ballads.

T h e m o s t sustained achievement

is that of Walter Scott and M a r i a E d g e w o r t h in representing Scottish a n d Irish vernacular speech. But, in her vivid rendering of a v u l g a r L o n d o n

Evelina

idiom in

( 1 7 7 8 ) , Frances B u r n e y forestalled them both. A n d ,

though her attempts are crude, Charlotte Smith goes o n from the semantic level to the phonetic: ' O h ! L o r d a m a r c y o n m e ! - to be shore I be g o t here at last! B u t indeed if I had a k n o w n w h e r e a b o u t I w a s a c o m i n g to, 'tis not a double the w a g e r s as should a hired m e . L o r d ! w h y w h a t a r a m s h a k e l o u l d place it is!' S o , again, in another of her n o v e l s : T a s h o r e y o u , M i s s , if it a d not bin that hive a somethink of a n u n a c c o u n t a b l e sort of a attachment for y o u r p a r s o n ['person'?], it is not y o u r fortin as w o u l d a v e induced m e . ' T h e speech of T h o m a s , the f o o t m a n from

Sense and Sensibility,

4

shows

none of this straining for effect: ' s o I t o o k off m y hat, a n d she k n e w m e a n d called to me, a n d inquired after y o u , m a ' a m , a n d the y o u n g ladies, especially Miss Marianne, and

bid me I should give her compliments

and

Mr.

Ferrars's, their best compliments a n d service' (SS 354). T h i s easier m a n n e r a l l o w s J a n e Austen an increase in versatility. W h e r e a s F a n n y B u r n e y ' s p o o r l y educated speakers, like the B r a n g h t o n s of

Evelina,

can h a r d l y be told

apart, their distant cousins in J a n e A u s t e n ' s novels all h a v e their separate idiolects.

5

A t the other end of the spectrum, in the m a n a g e m e n t of 'high style', J a n e Austen's contemporaries d o not greatly differ from their forebears. Scott's heroes are as colourless as any. A s he himself put it, in a n

anonymous

review of his o w n early novels, they are 'all brethren of a family; v e r y amiable a n d very insipid sort of y o u n g m e n ' .

6

H i s emphasis is o n their

habitual passivity, but their habits of speech are not dissimilar. T h e chief characters of M a r i a E d g e w o r t h ' s English novels often slide into affectation and e x t r a v a g a n c e . A n d the platitudes of the fine gentleman c o m e as easily to

173

J O H N F. BURROWS

F a n n y B u r n e y ' s L o r d Orville as to Sir Charles G r a n d i s o n or any of his r o m a n c e ancestors: 'Far be it from me,' said Lord Orville, 'to dispute the magnetic power of beauty, which irresistibly draws and attracts whatever has soul and sympathy: and I am happy to acknowledge, that though we have now no gods to occupy a mansion professedly built for them, yet we have secured their better halves, for we have goddesses to whom we all most willingly bow down.' 7

T h e dignified but unpretentious English of D a r c y and M r . Knightley is so far from this k i n d of thing that J a n e A u s t e n ' s fops a n d c o x c o m b s can be set in

firm

contrast

to them while still lying well within

the

bounds of

credibility: ' " L e t me entreat y o u , " cried M r . Elton; "it w o u l d indeed be a delight! Let me entreat y o u , M i s s W o o d h o u s e , to exercise so charming a talent in f a v o u r of y o u r friend. I k n o w w h a t y o u r d r a w i n g s a r e " ' (E 43). B y w i t h d r a w i n g , in this w a y , from both the higher a n d lower extremities of eighteenth-century istic preference

fictional

d i a l o g u e , J a n e Austen displays a character­

for ' s h a l l o w m o d e l l i n g ' .

8

Since this a l l o w s the

reader's

attention to be concentrated on subtler differences of attitude a m o n g her characters, it has the p a r a d o x i c a l effect of intensifying their conflicts. T h e onward-moving

energy of their disputes is another stylistic

innovation.

W h e r e some of her predecessors, like S a r a h Fielding a n d H a n n a h M o r e , engage their characters in s l o w debates on large topics of the d a y like g a m b l i n g , prostitution, a n d duelling, a n d some of her successors, true novelists of ideas like P e a c o c k a n d G e o r g e Eliot, give their large topics a fair hearing but often reduce their characters to mouthpieces, J a n e Austen takes a n o t h e r path. O r d i n a r y w o r d s like ' a m i a b l e ' and 'family', e v e r y d a y objects like a novel o r a p o e m lately read, a p a i r of ornamental screens, o r a portrait of a friend m a k e focal points for unostentatiously

presented

but freely

m o v i n g a n d far-reaching e x c h a n g e s . C a p t a i n B e n w i c k , for e x a m p l e , goes swiftly on from discussing r a n k e d the

Giaour

Giaour

and

The Bride of Abydos;

and m o r e o v e r , h o w

'how the

w a s to be p r o n o u n c e d ' to repeating 'the various lines w h i c h imaged

a b r o k e n heart' a n d l o o k i n g 'entirely as if he meant to be

understood'

(P 1 0 0 ) . A t this point, A n n e 'ventured to recommend a larger a l l o w a n c e of prose in his daily study' ( 1 0 1 ) . T h e tone of this exchange remains halfc o m i c , but its bearing o n A n n e ' s situation is apparent. Both its lively energy a n d its concealed depths represent m a j o r features of J a n e Austen's style. W h e n M r . Knightley quarrels w i t h E m m a ' s use of ' a m i a b l e ' a n d 'sensa­ tion', it is because he has been forced, step by unwilling step, into their most bitter disagreement. A n d w h e n E d m u n d B e r t r a m supports F a n n y ' s idea of family p r a y e r , he rashly begins in the belief that he is resolving a semantic 174

Style misunderstanding: '

"That

is hardly F a n n y ' s idea of a family a s s e m b l i n g " ,

said E d m u n d . " I f the master and mistress d o not attend themselves, there must be m o r e h a r m than g o o d in the c u s t o m " ' ( M P 8 7 ) . B u t M i s s C r a w f o r d ' s objections to public w o r s h i p are m o r e deeply seated than she has s h o w n so far. H e r only a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t of w h a t F a n n y might h a v e m e a n t o r w h y E d m u n d might s p e a k as he does is a token-phrase, ' A t a n y rate . . . ' T h e n she is off again, in a flurry of w o r l d l y w i s d o m a n d he m u s t h u r r y to catch u p . H i s next, m o r e seriously considered response, including a stiff

ad feminam

rebuke ( ' Y o u r lively mind can hardly be serious even on serious subjects' [87]), evokes a trenchant epigram. His final attempt is interrupted by his sister but, only a m o m e n t after this, M i s s C r a w f o r d is b r o u g h t l o w . Eighteenth-century fiction offers few models for the sheer mobility of such exchanges. S o m e comedies of the period -

School for Scandal

She Stoops to Conquer

are m o r e relevant than their glittering

and

The

Restoration

predecessors - c o m e nearer to the m a r k . B u t B a k h t i n ' s claim that the n o v e l has an o m n i v o r o u s linguistic appetite suggests that J a n e A u s t e n ' s m o d e l s 9

m a y not all be literary. T h i s doctrine sets him a p a r t from those structuralist theorists w h o hold that w o r k s of literature feed chiefly o r e x c l u s i v e l y off each other and are therefore to be studied as m e m b e r s of a m o r e o r less hermetic tradition. J a n e Austen does not lend herself so easily as B u r n s , Scott, a n d M a r i a E d g e w o r t h to the simplest w a y of supporting the idea that the language of every d a y affects the l a n g u a g e of literature. Since they h a d n o significant literary precursors in representing the Scottish a n d Irish v e r n a ­ cular, the form taken by m u c h of the dialogue in their writings must be explained either as an attempt to represent the speech-habits of their people or else as an elaborate construct of the authorial imagination. F r o m such constructs, the second e x p l a n a t i o n w o u l d g o , the Scots a n d the Irish h a v e since derived w h a t are n o w regarded as salient features of their national habits of speech. T h e second e x p l a n a t i o n , once set out, is patently a b s u r d . Because she does h a v e literary precursors, J a n e A u s t e n ' s debt to

the

'natural l a n g u a g e ' of her time must be a p p r o a c h e d in a different w a y . W h e n H e n r y Tilney holds forth a b o u t ' a m a z i n g l y ' a n d 'nice', E l e a n o r w a r n s Catherine that they are in d a n g e r of being ' o v e r p o w e r e d w i t h J o h n s o n a n d Blair' {NA 1 0 8 ) . H e r c o m m e n t glances at the fact that the late eighteenth century s a w the publication, in unprecedented profusion, of English g r a m ­ mars and studies of English r h e t o r i c .

10

A l t h o u g h these w o r k s are sometimes

at odds with each other, they can help us to f o r m a picture of the l a n g u a g e as it w a s w h e n G e o r g e A u s t e n w a s a y o u n g m a n a n d , a f t e r w a r d s , w h e n J a n e Austen w a s a girl. J a n e Austen's letters m a k e it clear that she a n d her family w e r e keenly interested in niceties of usage a n d amused by solecisms of every k i n d . In her 175

J O H N F. BURROWS

novels, the d i a l o g u e s h o w s m a n y traces of this attitude. J o h n T h o r p e omits his p r o n o u n s in just the w a y that B u c h a n a n deplores as a 'Style too much used b y T r a d e s m e n ' ( 1 0 8 ) . T h e Steele sisters are his rivals here but they surpass him in the habit of confusing past tense w i t h past participle as in 'I d r u n k ' a n d T h a v e d r a n k ' . L o w t h calls this ' a v e r y great C o r r u p t i o n ' (85) a n d B u c h a n a n calls it 'a ridiculous Solecism' that began a m o n g 'Females a n d m e a n A u t h o r s ' ( 1 7 8 ) . Such affectations as M r s . E l t o n ' s ' c a r o s p o s o ' and ' H y m e n ' s saffron r o b e ' {E 3 0 8 ) d r a w u n f a v o u r a b l e c o m m e n t from C a m p ­ bell a n d B l a i r . In m o d e r n use, to turn to something m o r e p e r v a s i v e , the contracted forms of a u x i l i a r y verbs are used so freely in conversation a n d personal letters that the full forms c a n s o u n d pedantic. But, w h i l e granting that some contrac­ tions m a k e for a 'clashing together consonants of most obdurate

sound',

C a m p b e l l w o u l d r e l a x the general prohibition then prevailing. F o l l o w i n g 'the a n i m a d v e r s i o n of some of o u r ablest pens, A d d i s o n , Swift, Pope, and others', he s a y s , contractions of every kind have ever since been in disgrace, even those of easy pronunciation, and which had been in use long before [italics added] . . . And though I am sensible that wasn't, didn't, shouldn't, and couldn't are intoler­ ably bad, there are others of more pleasant sound, to which our critics, without any injury to the language, might have given a pass . . . Some indulgence, I think, may still be given to the more familiar style of dialogues, letters, essays, and even of popular addresses. (Campbell III.iv.404-5) T h r o u g h o u t her writings, from

Volume the First to Sanditon, J a n e

a l m o s t never uses a n y of those contractions

Austen

that C a m p b e l l regards as

'intolerably b a d ' . A few contractions of less ' o b d u r a t e s o u n d ' like 'that's', ' d o n ' t ' , a n d " t i s ' o c c u r in the speech of her well-spoken characters. But she treats m o s t of the contractions that w e take for granted n o w a d a y s as the p r o v i n c e of the v u l g a r . A s this w o u l d suggest, they occur most freely in

Sense and Sensibility and The Watsons. T h e y rarely occur in Northanger Abbey a n d Persuasion (where the manuscripts m a y well h a v e been purified after J a n e A u s t e n ' s death). In the later novels, they are most freely used by Lieutenant Price a n d H a r r i e t Smith a n d , n o w a n d then, by consciously ' s m a r t ' characters like M a r y C r a w f o r d and T o m B e r t r a m . It emerges, then, that in a linguistic area w h e r e F a n n y B u r n e y is profuse but undiscriminating a n d w h e r e a m o d e r n reader m a y not even notice w h a t is g o i n g o n , J a n e A u s t e n m a k e s consistent a n d e x a c t distinctions a m o n g her characters in a m a n n e r c o n s o n a n t w i t h the prescripts of her d a y . Within the novels themselves, these distinctions

serve v a r i o u s expressive purposes.

T h e y a l s o a d d w e i g h t to the idea that J a n e A u s t e n ' s models are not entirely 176

Style literary. A n d , ultimately, they raise i m p o r t a n t questions a b o u t the processes by which, and the purposes for w h i c h , society creates its national a n d even tribal c o d e s ,

11

processes in w h i c h J a n e A u s t e n ' s novels certainly participate.

In the course of the eighteenth century, 'correct u s a g e ' became a n important shibboleth for the English gentry a n d w a s to serve its purposes long a n d well. If this seems to put undue w e i g h t u p o n small points of usage a n d if Campbell's rationalizations

a b o u t m o r e a n d less obdurate

sounds

seem

comical, a modern instance m a y be w o r t h a m o m e n t ' s thought. T h o s e of us w h o n o w say ' A n y o n e w h o w a n t s their hat' are forsaking logic for a genderdriven shibboleth. T h o s e others of us w h o w e r e b r o u g h t up to s a y ' A n y o n e w h o wants his hat' and w h o will rephrase, h o w e v e r a w k w a r d l y , rather than give w a y have logic on our side - but at the price of living in the past. W e all have our stylistic niceties and our o w n reasons for observing them. But most of us w o u l d n o w agree that those w h o habitually contract their auxiliary verbs, those w h o often turn to slang, a n d even those w h o slip into tautologies like 'a faithful p r o m i s e ' (NA

1 9 6 ) a n d 'the sort of self-evident

proposition which m a n y a clearer head does not a l w a y s a v o i d ' (MP

89)

need not be denied all g o o d society. W e m a y nevertheless find it possible to agree that there is a truly a d m i r a b l e lucidity a n d not merely a reinforcement of tribal solidarity in the sort of prose w h i c h w a s the staple of educated English in J a n e Austen's d a y . Of the m a n y personal letters a n d periodical essays that survive to represent it, I take t w o tiny specimens, both written in J a n e Austen's lifetime. M y p u r p o s e is to suggest that w e need not seek particular models for J a n e A u s t e n ' s m o r e articulate characters a n d need not feel that our inability to recover the s p o k e n English of her d a y leaves us entirely ignorant of w h a t , at its best, it m u s t h a v e been. T h i s gives rise to the objection that a style permeable to the w o r l d a r o u n d must lack indivi­ duality: as I hope to s h o w a little later, that is not the case. M y first specimen is from Hester T h r a l e ' s letters to S a m u e l J o h n s o n , published in 1 7 8 8 , w h i c h were w e l l k n o w n to the A u s t e n sisters. M r s . Thrale's c u s t o m a r y effusiveness is p a r o d i e d in one of J a n e A u s t e n ' s letters and genially derided in another ( L 4 4 , 1 5 6 ) . B u t w h e n J o h n s o n r e b u k e d her for allying herself with G a b r i e l Piozzi after

her h u s b a n d ' s

death,

she

answered him, point by point, with a n unaffected dignity:

Sir - I have this Morning received from Y o u so rough a Letter, in reply to one which was both tenderly &c respectfully written, that I am forced to desire the conclusion of a Correspondence which I can bear to continue no longer. The Birth of my second Husband is not meaner than that of my first, his sentiments are not meaner, his Profession is not meaner, - and his Superiority in what he professes - acknowledged by all M a n k i n d . 12

177

J O H N F. BURROWS

M y other specimen is taken from a letter of thanks from E d w a r d G i b b o n to his old friend L o r d Sheffield ( 1 7 8 9 ) . I could not easily forgive myself for shutting you up in a dark room with parchments and attorneys, did I not reflect that this probably is the last material trouble you will ever have on my account; and that after the labours and delays of twenty years, I shall at last attain what I have always sighed for, a clear and competent income, above my wants, and equal to my wishes. 13

W h i l e they c a n n o t be m i s t a k e n for each other, these t w o writers o b v i o u s l y h a v e m u c h in c o m m o n , a n d

stand

at a r e m o v e from such

breathless

adherents of the epistolary e x c l a m a t i o n m a r k as M a r i a E d g e w o r t h . T h e y share a m o r a l v o c a b u l a r y , a carefully marshalled s y n t a x , and an exactitude of focus. In such p a s s a g e s , w e are not far from D a r c y a n d M r . Knightley. W i t h only a slight r e l a x a t i o n in their formality, w e are within easy reach of F r a n k C h u r c h i l l , M a r y C r a w f o r d , a n d A n n e Elliot. A n d , with a necessary adjustment of perspective, J a n e Austen's narrative style is also in clear v i e w . T h e m o s t notable feature of J a n e Austen's narrative is that there is so little of it. It comprises o n l y a b o u t three-fifths of the w o r d s used in her six novels a n d , in

Emma,

o n l y a trifle over half. (Something like a quarter of the

narrative c o m p o n e n t , m o r e o v e r , is couched in 'free indirect style', some of w h i c h verges o n dialogue.) W h i l e there are novels, including those of Ivy Compton-Burnett and

The Awkward Age, w h e r e

the p r o p o r t i o n of narra­

tive runs l o w e r still, they are decidedly the exception. W h a t is it, then, that m a k e s for the deficiency? J a n e A u s t e n ' s narrative, in the first place, avoids the sort of c o m m e n t a r y that conceals deficiencies in the dialogue, telling even the inattentive reader w h a t the characters h a v e just been saying. In her novels a n d those of other c a n o n i c a l writers, interpretative c o m m e n t a r y is usually associated w i t h disjunctions, often ironical in cast, between dialogue a n d narrative. T h e p a s s a g e cited at the beginning of this essay is a fair specimen. M o s t c a n o n i c a l novelists, h o w e v e r , give m o r e attention than J a n e Austen to descriptions of p e r s o n a n d place. O n e reason w h y she can afford to leave m u c h unsaid is that, w h e n they w e r e written, her novels w e r e so immediate in time a n d place. If, b y contrast, the re-creation of a lost national culture lies at the heart of W a l t e r Scott's w h o l e literary enterprise, he must needs stand, as he does, at the opposite end of the descriptive spectrum from J a n e A u s t e n . T h e i m m e d i a c y of her emphasis can n o w best be recovered from the letters a n d diaries of her time. T h e youthful letters of E m i l y E d e n , for e x a m p l e , shed a clear and often a m u s i n g light o n life in circles not unlike those frequented by H e n r y and M a r y C r a w f o r d . T h e E d e n family, it is true, w e r e W h i g grandees rather 178

Style than country gentry. But as one reads w h a t E m i l y , w h o w a s b o r n in 1 7 9 7 and w h o s e earliest surviving letter c o m e s from 1 8 1 4 , tells her older sister and her o w n friends of w h a t she sees a n d hears, the life of J a n e A u s t e n ' s characters generally a n d of the C r a w f o r d s in particular comes constantly to mind. A sister has just heard from M i s s M i l b a n k e that she is e n g a g e d to m a r r y L o r d B y r o n . T h e i r M a m a does not think he is likely to m a k e a n y w o m a n very h a p p y , but they hear that he 'is g o i n g to be a g o o d b o y , a n d will never be n a u g h t y n o m o r e ' .

1 4

She receives a letter a b o u t the ' w o r l d l i -

ness' of a m a n w h o has 'a notion that it d o n ' t signify w h a t p e o p l e d o , so they keep it quiet, a n d m a k e no o p e n H e r brother

scandale' (Miss Eden's Letters 7 2 ) .

reports that an early attempt b y L a d y M e l b o u r n e to

do

something a b o u t the failure of her son's m a r r i a g e ended abruptly w h e n she found 'the h a p p y couple at breakfast, a n d L a d y C a r o l i n e d r a w l i n g out

-

" W i l l i a m , s o m e m o r e m u f f i n ? " - a n d everything m a d e u p ' ( 3 ) . O n a visit to N e w b y H a l l , she is given a b e d r o o m 'peculiarly liable to m u r d e r a n d that sort of accident', s w a r m i n g w i t h ghosts a n d banditti, ' o n l y I w a s m u c h t o o sleepy to lay a w a k e and look at t h e m ' ( 2 4 ) . A visit to D e r b y s h i r e brings Radcliffean memories of the Pyrenees: ' s o m e p e o p l e might think it verging on the extreme of picturesque a n d call it w i l d , but I love a m o u n t a i n o u s country' (88). H e r style is light-hearted a n d inventive, a n d it is punctuated by the polite slang of the d a y . T h e w o m a n w h o w i l l a c c o m p a n y her brother when he goes as G o v e r n o r - G e n e r a l to India lies in the future - but the England of J a n e Austen is a l w a y s close at h a n d . A l t h o u g h her 'gothic' account of the b e d r o o m w a s written in 1 8 1 8 , s o m e m o n t h s after publication of

Northanger Abbey,

the

it need not be a n echo of that n o v e l . B y

1 8 2 6 , she will allude to 'the i m m o r t a l Collins . . . " P r i d e a n d P r e j u d i c e " Collins' ( 1 0 4 ) . F o r the rest, h o w e v e r , I think it likely that w e are seeing independent versions of the s a m e k i n d of thing a n d being reminded that J a n e Austen h a d n o need to set it all out in lavish detail. In those passages w h e r e J a n e A u s t e n ' s narrative does take o n a truly descriptive cast, a strong d r a m a t i c function is rarely far to seek. T h e early passages a b o u t the D e v o n countryside give rise to suggestive disagreements a m o n g the D a s h w o o d s a n d their visitors. T h e a c c o u n t of D a r c y ' s estate gives substance to Elizabeth's j o k i n g claim that she must date her love for him 'from m y first seeing his beautiful g r o u n d s at P e m b e r l e y ' (PP 3 7 3 ) . Similar purposes are served, in their several w a y s , by the p o r t r a y a l of the park at Sotherton, the s u m m e r d a y at D o n w e l l A b b e y , a n d the little sojourn at L y m e R e g i s . These full-bodied passages differ only in degree, of course, from

the

c o m m o n fabric of J a n e A u s t e n ' s narrative p r o s e , that w h i c h G r a h a m H o u g h characterizes as 'objective narrative' a n d w h i c h he distinguishes, o n one 179

J O H N F. BURROWS

side, from 'the a u t h o r i a l v o i c e ' and, on the other, from the sort of 'coloured n a r r a t i v e ' that flows easily into free indirect s t y l e .

1 5

Objective narrative, he

rightly claims, m a k e s u p those m a n y p a s s a g e s w h e r e 'the facts are presented to us as facts . . . uncontaminated either by the subjectivity of the author or that of a n y of the characters' ( H o u g h , ' N a r r a t i v e and D i a l o g u e in J a n e A u s t e n ' 2 0 4 ) . It is c o u c h e d in 'the c o m m o n form of decent

educated

discourse' ( 2 0 7 ) , m u c h like that of the best-spoken characters, and it derives a n underlying strength

from an accepted scheme of values, 'Christian

m o r a l s in a temperate English v e r s i o n ' ( 2 0 9 ) . With a single reservation, one c a n readily accede. L i k e m a n y other c o m m e n t a t o r s , H o u g h takes Samuel J o h n s o n as J a n e A u s t e n ' s m o d e l for this w a y of writing. A s I have tried to s h o w , m a n y other a d m i r a b l e models w e r e a v a i l a b l e . A n d , in any event, her style is generally so m u c h lighter a n d m o r e spirited than J o h n s o n ' s that a brief J o h n s o n i a n p a r o d y is e n o u g h to set the c u r m u d g e o n l y side of J o h n Knightley in high relief: 'A man,' said he, 'must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him . . . Here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in another man's house, with nothing to say or hear that was not said and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow.' (£113) J a n e A u s t e n ' s ' c o l o u r e d n a r r a t i v e ' reveals her increasingly subtle parodie skills. T h e treatment of the gothic style in the narrative of

Abbey

a n d of the picturesque in

Sense and Sensibility is

Northanger

clear and powerful.

B u t in the C h a w t o n novels, a n 'over-literary' touch or t w o can be enough to mark

s o m e significant distortion

in a character's perspective. In such

phrases as 'the fair mistress of the m a n s i o n ' ( £ 2 2 ) , E m m a W o o d h o u s e is established as a n e w female q u i x o t e , rescuer of romantic orphans like H a r r i e t Smith, lodestone for w a n d e r i n g princes like F r a n k Churchill, social arbiter of all H i g h b u r y , a n d patroness of w o r t h y people like the Coles, with w h o m she 'left a n a m e behind her that w o u l d not soon die a w a y ' ( 2 3 1 ) . 'Delighted to connect a n y thing w i t h history already k n o w n , or w a r m her imagination w i t h scenes of the past' ( M P 8 5 ) , F a n n y Price looks vainly for traces of medieval antiquity in the chapel at Sotherton. M a r y C r a w f o r d sets off the episode w h i c h has served us as a focal point by evoking a counteri m a g e of a past in w h i c h 'the former belles of the house of R u s h w o r t h did m a n y a time repair to this c h a p e l ' ( M P 8 7 ) . Bakhtin's idea of a dialogic relationship between different sorts of l a n g u a g e goes to the heart of J a n e A u s t e n ' s shifts of narrative voice a n d of the stylistic modulations c o n v e y them. 180

that

Style A n d n o w h e r e m o r e than in the juxtaposition of her ' a u t h o r i a l v o i c e ' w i t h all the rest. F o r this voice breaches the J a m e s i a n illusion, the

'precious

illusion' that, for the time being, the w o r l d within the story is the reader's only w o r l d . O n some occasions, w h e r e it scarcely b r e a k s the surface of the narrative, J a n e Austen's authorial voice encourages o b s e r v a n t readers to keep their wits a b o u t them: J a n e F a i r f a x ' s ' a c c o u n t to her a u n t contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths not t o l d ' (E 1 6 6 ) . O n others, w h e r e a certain asperity can be felt, it is often highlighted by an epigrammatic polish. T h e visitors to Sotherton are s h o w n ' m a n y

more

r o o m s than could be s u p p o s e d to be of a n y other use than to contribute to the w i n d o w t a x , and find e m p l o y m e n t for h o u s e m a i d s ' ( M P 8 5 ) . D i n n e r at the C o l e s ' offers 'the usual rate of conversation; . . . nothing w o r s e than every d a y r e m a r k s , dull repetitions, old n e w s , a n d h e a v y j o k e s ' (E 2 1 9 ) . M i s s Bates 'had no intellectual superiority to m a k e atonement to herself, or frighten

those w h o might hate her, into o u t w a r d respect'

(21). Mary

C r a w f o r d is not alone in thinking m a r r i a g e 'a m a n o u e v r i n g business' (MP 4 6 ) , for, after all, 'It is a truth universally a c k n o w l e d g e d , that a single m a n in possession of a g o o d fortune, must be in w a n t of a w i f e ' (PP 3 ) . A n d u n m i x e d pity for M r s . M u s g r o v e is not

easily a c h i e v e d . E v e n if her

lamentations for her worthless son w e r e not slightly factitious, an aesthetic difficulty w o u l d remain: ' A large bulky figure has as g o o d a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the w o r l d . B u t , fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, w h i c h r e a s o n will patronize in vain, - w h i c h taste cannot tolerate, - w h i c h ridicule will seize' (P 6 8 ) . In this aspect, J a n e A u s t e n ' s authorial voice is aptly said to betray a 'regulated h a t r e d ' .

16

In another, of no less i m p o r t a n c e , it s p e a k s for a

regulated but unconventional sense of literary p u r p o s e . Catherine's return to Fullerton, 'a heroine in a hack post-chaise' (NA

2 3 2 ) , m a k e s for a little

pretence of authorial self-mockery. E m m a ' s response to M r . K n i g h t l e y ' s p r o p o s a l of m a r r i a g e need not be m a d e explicit ('What did E m m a say? J u s t w h a t she ought, of course. A lady a l w a y s does' [E 4 3 1 ] ) . T h e p e r i o d that must elapse before 'the cure of unconquerable passions, a n d the transfer of unchanging attachments' ( M P 4 7 0 ) can be effected is best left for readers to determine. T h e sort of guilt a n d misery that darkens the ending of

Park

Mansfield

for m a n y of its characters is best left to 'other pens' ( 4 6 1 ) .

B y placing a n u m b e r of the m o r e satirical a n d the m o r e c o m p o s i t i o n a l remarks that are offered in J a n e Austen's authorial voice side b y side, one gains an increased a w a r e n e s s of her willingness to disrupt the

smooth

surface of her fiction. A l m o s t every passage cited in m y last t w o p a r a g r a p h s has caught the attention of her critics. H o w they - h o w w e - s h o u l d r e s p o n d to these outspoken comments is, w i t h one p r o v i s o , a matter for each one of 181

JOHN F. BURROWS

us. O u r entitlement ends, I maintain, w h e n w e begin to infringe upon her 'intellectual p r o p e r t y ' by giving free rein to o u r subjectivity: for (to use a topical p h r a s e for a n unfashionable doctrine) her m o r a l right to be met on her o w n terms is tacitly asserted in the style of every p a g e she writes. M y o w n assertions need firmer s u p p o r t than the conventions of literary a r g u m e n t c a n ordinarily yield. A conventional a c c o u n t of an author's style might consist, like m y a r g u m e n t so far, in a series of propositions about its several facets, each supported by e x a m p l e s from that author's w o r k and by c o m p a r i s o n s w i t h the w o r k of other authors. Such evidential strength as it might c l a i m w o u l d consist in nothing m o r e secure than the acceptability of the p r o p o s i t i o n s a n d the aptness of the associated e x a m p l e s and c o m p a r ­ isons. E s p e c i a l l y at a time w h e n style itself is w i d e l y regarded as a subject for impressionistic flights a n d w h e n 'the a u t h o r ' a n d even 'the authorial function' are c o m m o n l y treated as empty vessels, such 'evidence' m a y seem deficient a n d the strong claims that ended m y preceding section m a y seem imprudent. Statistical a n a l y s i s , likewise, can never yield absolute support for any p r o p o s i t i o n . T h e possible occurrence of a n exceptional case cannot

be

e x c l u d e d a n d the link between data a n d inference is a l w a y s likely to be imperfect. A s a c o m p l e m e n t to the methods of literary argument, h o w e v e r , it h a s virtues that are gaining increasing attention as its applications become m o r e sophisticated. It offers quite another perspective o n a p r o b l e m and, instead of relying u p o n a f e w select e x a m p l e s , it c a n embrace all members of a chosen class of p h e n o m e n a - all instances, even, of w o r d - t y p e s like and and

the.

F o r a g l i m p s e of these possibilities, I h a v e a n a l y s e d selections of several t h o u s a n d w o r d s apiece from the personal letters of a dozen writers ranging from the seventeenth century to the early twentieth, a n d c o m p a r e d them w i t h s o m e extracts from J a n e A u s t e n ' s writings - a set of her o w n letters; the fictional letters of D a r c y , F r a n k Churchill, a n d M a r y C r a w f o r d ; and the 'histories' recounted by C o l o n e l B r a n d o n , W i l l o u g h b y , a n d M r s . Smith. T h e question at issue is w h e t h e r the A u s t e n extracts, t h o u g h differing in literary k i n d , h a v e e n o u g h in c o m m o n to distinguish them from the other, formally m o r e h o m o g e n e o u s set of texts. If s o , the claim that it is possible to identify J a n e A u s t e n ' s style is strengthened. A p a r t from J a n e A u s t e n , the letters are by: E d m u n d B u r k e ( 1 7 2 9 - 9 7 ) ; George

Gordon, Lord Byron ( 1 7 8 8 - 1 8 2 4 ) ;

Emily Eden

(1797-1869);

M a r i a Edgeworth ( 1 7 6 7 - 1 8 4 9 ) ; Henry James ( 1 8 4 3 - 1 9 1 6 ) ; William King, A r c h b i s h o p of D u b l i n ( 1 6 5 0 - 1 7 2 9 ) ; K a t h e r i n e M a n s f i e l d Mary

Wortley

Montagu

(1689-1762); 182

Dorothy

Osborne

(1888-1923); (1627-95);

Style Walter Scott ( 1 7 7 1 - 1 8 3 2 ) ; J o n a t h a n

Swift

(1667-1745);

and Virginia

Woolf ( 1 8 8 2 - 1 9 4 1 ) . The data used for the present demonstration consist of frequency-counts for the sixty most c o m m o n w o r d - t y p e s . T h e s e a m o u n t , all told, to a b o u t half the w o r d - t o k e n s used in each text. O v e r the last ten y e a r s , data of this kind h a v e been yielding w o r t h w h i l e results in the field of c o m p u t a t i o n a l stylistics. T h e y can d o so because the very c o m m o n w o r d s h a v e closely constrained functions: as a result, their relative frequencies across a r a n g e of texts m a r k subtle but r e m a r k a b l y consistent differences of reference, of syntax, and

of emphasis. T h r o u g h

the

use of a p p r o p r i a t e

statistical

methods, like principal c o m p o n e n t analysis, these frequency-counts enable us, therefore, to identify significant resemblances a n d differences a m o n g the members of a set of t e x t s .

1 7

Figure 1 s h o w s h o w the c o m m o n w o r d s of the present set of texts respond to principal c o m p o n e n t a n a l y s i s . T h o s e w o r d s w h i c h b e h a v e m o s t like each other lie t o w a r d s the four extremities a n d are o p p o s e d by the w o r d s that behave least like them. ( T o b e h a v e alike, in this context, is to exhibit concomitant frequencies by occurring m o r e - o r less - frequently in the same texts as each other.) S o m e predictable sets of partners lie at the

she/her reflect a c o m m o n by/from/of/to a n d which/who reflect t w o sorts of

northerly edge of the figure, w h e r e tendency, w h i l e

referential connective

tendency. T h e s e last are o p p o s e d , in the e x t r e m e south, b y the relative pronoun

that

extremity has

in territory w h e r e

my/me not

I/you m a k e natural I/you; he/him/his;

far from

partners. T h e western a n d a set of past tense

and subjunctive forms of the m a j o r a u x i l i a r y v e r b s . T h e s e last are a c c o m ­ panied by the infinitive form of to. T h e definite a n d indefinite articles lie at the eastern extremity, w i t h an not far inland from a. R e a d e r s w h o are not interested in statistical technicalities m a y prefer to envisage Figure 1 as a n abstract space in w h i c h the w o r d s are a l l o w e d to array themselves according to their frequency-patterns in the present g r o u p of texts. Let us consider the stylistic implications of one small set of entries. In Figure 1 ,

which a n d who lie at almost the opposite extremity from the that. T h i s means that w h e n the first t w o o c c u r m o r e often

relative p r o n o u n

than usual, the third is very likely to occur less often (and vice v e r s a ) . S u c h sharp contrasts of frequency m a r k the difference b e t w e e n texts in w h i c h relative clauses are mostly embedded a n d those in w h i c h they are a p p e n d e d . Since w e are not c o m p a r i n g the w o r k of British a n d A m e r i c a n writers

(that

being the preference of most A m e r i c a n s ) , the o p p o s i t i o n w e are seeing is between writers w h o s e s y n t a x tends, at least in one significant respect, to be formally constructed a n d those w h o s e sentences s h o w a n affinity for the spoken w o r d . T h e location of / a n d

183

you

in the n e i g h b o u r h o o d of

that

JOHN F. BURROWS

• b y . from which. • been

.to(p)*

w h o

• of • her • she

• his • was

• the

were w e

• or

• could

'.on(p)

• did

• at

• had • him «for(p) . . ^ ' M

•be

h

t 0

• (') n o #

and*

e

• my .what

.more

• them

they

there this* . a n • then • when

that(d) • »so(ad) • would • if

you

-300

-200

• all

said

• but • me not*

with*

• is

into* • out

• that(rp)

-100

0

100

200

300

Vector A (19.34%) Figure i Thirteen letter-writers and four special cases ( w o r d plot) (for the sixty most c o m m o n w o r d s of the main corpus)

supports this interpretation. T h e presence just there of it is also a m a r k of the v e r n a c u l a r : w h e n that p r o n o u n a b o u n d s it tends to be in frequent use as a 'place-holder' ('It is a b o u t time', 'it is a g o o d thing', a n d so o n ) . T h e crucial point is that the interconnection of w o r d - c o u n t s , represented in Figure i , carries us b e y o n d the study of separate v e r b a l entities and reveals an aspect of their interrelationships, the very substance of the language in action. Figure 2 , constructed by a technique that aligns the word-frequencies for each text against the pattern of Figure 1 , gives a clear stylistic significance to the results. T h e entries for the t w e l v e sets of personal letters form a loose cluster, w i t h J a n e A u s t e n ' s personal letters standing out as a thirteenth, m o s t northerly m e m b e r . T h e fictional letters of J a n e A u s t e n ' s characters lie 184

Style 20Thirteen letter-writers

10-

Four special cases

DARCY I

FRANK •

Austen

0AU

•

STEN2•

Eden •

Scott Byron

-10-

Edgeworth

•Burke •Swift •James

MARY I

-20•Woolf •King

-30Mansfield i

•Montagu

-40-60

•Osborne 1

"I— -20

1—

-50

-40

-30

-10

0

Vector A

Figure z Thirteen letter-writers and four special cases (based on the sixty most c o m m o n w o r d s of the main corpus)

further to the north and west, along w i t h

AUSTENz,

the entry for her

fictional 'histories'. T h e result of the a n a l y s i s , therefore, is u n e q u i v o c a l : despite their differences in literary form, the five Austen entries c a n be distinguished from the rest. This is n o place for additional a n a l y s e s . B u t I shall offer a few m o r e comments o n the shape of these t w o figures. D a r c y ' s letter to Elizabeth is in m a n y w a y s the m o s t formal of all these texts, its s y n t a x m a r k e d by a m o r e than usual p r o p o r t i o n

of embedded relative clauses a n d

phrases. Its referential structure is m a r k e d not only by

prepositional

she/her/he/him/his

but also by its retrospective verb-forms. Such features e x p l a i n w h y it lies s o far from the m o r e colloquial a n d m o r e descriptive letters that yield the m o s t easterly entries a n d from the highly personal

I/you

letters that lie furthest to

the south. T a k e n in this light, the location of the entry for M a r y C r a w f o r d ' s oppressively intimate letters to F a n n y is easily u n d e r s t o o d . M o s t of the sets of personal letters lie in r o u g h c h r o n o l o g i c a l order from south-west to north-east with the m o s t demotic of them lying, a little out of order, at the 185

JOHN F. BURROWS

latter e x t r e m e . B u t the three m o s t recent of these sets are all displaced t o w a r d s the eastern extremity, the territory of strong descriptive markers like

a/an/the.

T h e feverishly impressionistic letters in w h i c h Katherine

M a n s f i e l d tells M i d d l e t o n M u r r y of her o w n g r a v e illness and describes the things that t a k e her mind off it set her a m o n g the furthest to the south and furthest of all to the east. T h e unique c o m p o u n d of high frequencies for / /

y ou/a/an/the/and/is

m o v e s her letters a w a y from all the rest. But the present

analysis w a s not designed to e x a m i n e such large, Bakhtinian matters as evidence of c h r o n o l o g i c a l c h a n g e across a range of texts. Its purpose, w h i c h it satisfies, w a s to s h o w w h e t h e r these specimens of J a n e Austen's literary a n d non-literary writing c a n be distinguished from the rest. T h i s o u t c o m e is m u c h like those yielded by similar analyses of m a n y other texts by m a n y other writers. B u t the identification

of

authorial

'signatures', the stuff of literary forensics, is not the only use of computa­ tional stylistics. In m y o w n

Computation into Criticism (to

stay with J a n e

A u s t e n ) , this sort of analysis s h o w e d potent contrasts between narrative and d i a l o g u e , w i t h 'free indirect style' emerging as an intermediate form. It s h o w e d r e m a r k a b l e similarities a n d differences a m o n g her characters. A n d , especially a m o n g her later heroines, it s h o w e d subtle but revealing forms of c h a n g e . In literary studies generally, computational methods of analysis offer us n e w instruments. T h e y are least useful in treating powerful but infrequent stylistic effects, w h e r e traditional methods are at their best. But they give a n unprecedented access to m a n y small touches that g o o d readers recognize but can seldom quite define. 'Style', it seems, is not a belletristic fancy but a real presence, recognized as long a g o as Aristotle a n d n o w responsive to straightforward computa­ tional procedures. T h a t m a k e s it a g o o d g r o u n d on w h i c h to contest the doctrine, w i d e s p r e a d in recent y e a r s , that literary studies should admit the unfettered e x p r e s s i o n of o u r precious subjectivities. ' M y s e l f creating w h a t I s a w ' (E 344), the evidence suggests, is neither necessity nor desideratum but a n intellectual blind alley. H o w , then, should w e think of style? N o w that so m a n y national and regional varieties of English are accepted, style cannot

reasonably

be

r e g a r d e d as either a c o n f o r m i t y to or a n apotheosis of a preferred variety. It is n o w m o r e fruitful, I suggest, to r e g a r d it as w h a t e v e r m a r k s the distinct identity of a n a u t h o r o r a s c h o o l , a set of loosely consistent features ranging from the surface to the depths, from p h e n o m e n a that can readily be listed, classified, o r counted to those larger ' c o m p o s i t i o n a l ' phenomena

whose

existence they register. In J a n e A u s t e n ' s case, as in a n y other, every reader will have a different perspective - just as the w a t c h e r s at the w i n d o w s of J a m e s ' house of fiction 186

Style look from different angles over the same ground. But while their interpreta­ tions of the novels differ greatly, her published critics (those readers whose opinions are on record) show a broad consensus on such important stylistic features, many of them now measurable, as her economy of description, her customary formality of tone, her subtle mingling of styles, and her creation of so smooth a surface that every ripple repays our attention.

NOTES 1 Graham Hough, 'Narrative and Dialogue in Jane Austen', Critical Quarterly, 1 2 (1970), 2 0 1 . 2 For a characteristic discussion of the subject, see his 'Discourse in the Novel', in Michael Holquist, ed., The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M . Bakhtin (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1 9 8 1 ) , pp. 2 5 9 - 4 2 2 . Bakhtin's ideas are not all congenial to our present enterprise. In his concern for the evolution of the novel as a genre, he holds that it is trivial to focus on the style of any single novelist and brushes aside the fact that large movements consist of small moments. In emphasizing the stylistic differences among the various facets of a novel, he makes too little of those characteristics that do pervade them all. 3 Ann Radcliffe, The Italian (1797) (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 2. 4 Charlotte Smith, Emmeline (1788) (London: Oxford University Press, 1 9 7 1 ) , p. 1 0 ; and The Young Philosopher (1798) (New York: Garland, 1 9 7 4 ) , i v : 2 2 i . 5 Such individual differences are examined in my Computation into Criticism: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels and an Experiment in Method (Oxford: Clarendon, 1 9 8 7 ) . 6 [Walter Scott,] review of The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality, Quarterly Review, 16 ( 1 8 1 7 ) , 4 3 0 - 8 0 : reprinted in John O. Hayden, ed., Scott: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, 1970), p. 1 1 5 . 7 Frances Burney, Evelina (1778) (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 1 0 7 . 8 Mary Lascelles, Jane Austen and her Art (Oxford: Clarendon, 1 9 3 9 ) , p. 9 5 . 9 Mikhail Bakhtin, 'Discourse in the Novel', passim. 1 0 These works include: James Harris, Hermes ( 1 7 5 1 ) ; Samuel Johnson, Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language ( 1 7 5 5 ) ; Robert Lowth, A Short Introduc­ tion to English Grammar (1762); James Buchanan, The British Grammar (1762); George Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric ( 1 7 7 6 ) ; and Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783). 1 1 See E . D. Hirsch J r . , Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1 9 8 7 ) , ch. 3. 1 2 R. W. Chapman, ed., The Letters of Samuel Johnson, with Mrs. Thrale's Genuine Letters to Him (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 5 2 ) , 1 1 1 : 1 7 5 . 13 J . B. Bury, ed., Autobiography of Edward Gibbon (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 2 3 1 . 14 Violet Dickinson, ed., Miss Eden's Letters (London: Macmillan, 1 9 1 9 ) , p. 3. 1 5 Graham Hough, 'Narrative and Dialogue in Jane Austen', 2 0 3 - 4 . 187

JOHN F. BURROWS

1 6 D. W. Harding, 'Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen', Scrutiny, 8 (1940), 3 4 6 - 6 2 . 1 7 For a detailed account of these procedures and a large-scale comparison between tragedies of two literary periods, see J . F. Burrows and D. H. Craig, 'Lyrical Drama and the "Turbid Mountebanks": Styles of Dialogue in Romantic and Renaissance Tragedy', Computers and the Humanities, 28 (1994), 63-86.

188

11 ISOBEL G R U N D Y

Jane Austen and literary traditions

Jane Austen inherited no obvious, no precisely defined tradition: not the classical canon which her brothers studied at school, not (like so many of her literary granddaughters) the canon as studied for a B.A. in English literature; not the full sweep of her predecessors in English fiction, many of whom remained unknown to her; not the intellectual framework offered by any regular course of study. 'Her reading was very extensive in history and belles lettres' (NA, P 7). But it was desultory. She was never in a position, even had she wished it, to work through the kind of subject-bibliography which Emma is always drawing up; instead, she was dependent on titles which happened to come her way. What came her way was by no means negligible. She was luckier than some of her heroines: Marianne Dashwood, who thinks her family library 'too well known to me' to provide 'anything beyond mere amusement' {SS 3 4 3 ) , or Catherine Morland, who says, 'new books do not fall in our way' {NA 4 1 ) . Austen's first library, her father's, ran to more than 5 0 0 books. Though her school experience was brief and insignificant, most of the usual school books were accessible at home. Most importantly, the whole family were avid book-borrowers and book-exchangers. Chawton, scene of her most sustained and productive period of writing, had a better reading group than she had found at Steventon and Manydown, as she was at pains to point out. Her letters teem with every possible kind of reference to books: simple reports of what she or the family is reading; opinions; quotations applied sometimes straightforwardly but more often with multiple layers of irony; loving, joking mention of details from novels in which she treats them just like real life. Only a highly literary sister would write to a brother about to visit Sweden: 'Gustavus-Vasa, 8c Charles 1 2 t h , 8c Christiana, 8c Linneus - do their Ghosts rise up before You?' (L 2 1 4 ) . This remark alone would place Austen squarely in the centre of the Enlightenment tradition of European learning of the long eighteenth century. 1

2

189

ISOBEL GRUNDY

We have, therefore, a paradox of real knowledge and expertise combined with real intellectual deprivation (of which she probably became more conscious as her literary career gathered momentum). She picked her reading matter for herself from a wide range of rich and multiple traditions; but she knew no tradition systematically or comprehensively. One result of this situation is that she never assumes the role of disciple or student, let alone that of pedagogue. She recognizes no canonical status, acknowledges no literary authority. She assumes the sufficiency of her own taste as guide to literary value, admiring authors because she likes them and not because of their currency value as great or respected names; when she admires a Great Name she expresses that admiration in terms of personal friendship, not literary appreciation. 3

She seems not to have thought in terms of a Great Tradition. She does not, like many of her contemporaries, seek to raise the status of the novel and confer authority on her own fictions by heading chapters with literary quotations. Nor does she seek to endow fictional characters with status and value by making them familiar with great writers. Henry Fielding uses the latter technique for Parson Adams and Will Booth; but both are popular among contemporaries of Austen whose literary quality is questionable. Eleanor Sleath, for instance, in The Orphan of the Rhine (one of Isabella Thorpe's choices) is unreliable as to grammar but uses Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Burns, and other canonical authors to head her chapters; her heroine at thirteen is keen on Ariosto and Petrarch. Sleath's next novel, The Nocturnal Minstrel, quotes Ariosto in Italian and Horace in Latin. 4

5

Austen's way of using the tradition is not Sleath's. Books are of service to her novels because of the daily uses that people make of their reading, in conversation, argument, and the shaping of imaginative experience. She presents them through the minds of her characters, coloured and differ­ entiated by the imagined reader. They are a vital part of the flow of life surrounding her; knowledge of books is, for her, continuous with other forms of knowledge. I hope to establish here the broad outlines of Jane Austen's reading, and some slight sketch of the uses to which she puts it in her fiction. From an early age she read like a potential author. She looked for what she could use - not by quietly absorbing and reflecting it, but by actively engaging, rewriting, often mocking it. Evidence of her reading comes largely from her letters; it is, therefore, always fragmentary. At most times the Austen family group would be reading some book together; Jane would be reading another book on her own. Her letters mention only a very small proportion of all these books; and what they mention is not designed to convey meaning to a twentieth-century reader, but only to the letter's original 6

190

Jane Austen and literary traditions

recipient, who shared all kinds of private knowledge with which to make sense of what the letter says. Almost every item of evidence, therefore, requires analysis and explana­ tion, and this must necessarily be speculative. Austen's references to authors do not flatly deliver approval or disapproval: she has less direct, but perhaps more interesting, impressions to convey. This is not to say that her approval or disapproval is unimportant. As with characters, so with books: judgment, both moral and intellectual, is an important part of the response she solicits. But judgment is invited (against Mrs. Norris and Mr. Elton, for Miss Bates and Mrs. Smith) under the cloak of amusement and pleasure in the quirks of individuality. In the same way Austen does not, like a reviewer, attach quality rankings to books. She leaves it to her readers (the beloved recipients of letters, the anonymous public of novels) to discover her judgments for themselves. She does not praise or analyse George Crabbe: instead she launches a long-running joke about her hopes of seeing him in London and her efforts to detect his marital status from his writings, culminating in a resolve, elaborated with curlicues of fantasy, to marry him now he is a widower. She disguises her admiration for Thomas Clarkson, historian of the slave trade, and for Charles Pasley, writer on British governance in India, under the same metaphor of a woman assessing a man as husband material. 7

A disciple who mocks discipleship under the guise of husband-hunting, a critic who mocks assessment of poetry under the guise of vulgar personal curiosity, is not one to signpost her favourites or her influences, if any. In fact in her own work she is chary of influence, taking pains always to avoid anybody else's manner of doing anything. She is little given to direct imitation, let alone allusion, let alone the canonical epigraph as chapterheading. In the teeth of her reticence and non-cooperation, I shall endeavour to reconstruct an outline of her extremely catholic reading, with some com­ ments on its contribution to her work, although traces of influence have often been carefully erased. I shall comment on her relationship with books as it appears in her letters (where the issues of revelation and concealment are different from what they are in her published work) and on the reading of her fictional characters (not only what they read, but how they in turn use their reading). We no longer find it easy to believe Austen's claim to be 'the most unlearned, &C uninformed Female who ever dared to be an Authoress' (L 3 0 6 ) . She was, after all, crafting a graceful but absolute refusal of James Stanier Clarke's invitation to build a novel around a clergyman 'entirely engaged in Literature', who, as she herself noted, would discourse 'on 191

ISOBEL GRUNDY

subjects of Science & Philosophy' and 'be occasionally abundant in quota­ tion & allusions' (L 2 9 6 - 7 , 3 0 6 ) . The meaning of 'occasionally' here is not 'from time to time' but 'to match the occasion'. Clarke means the kind of clergyman whose response to the daily events of life draws habitually on the tags and phrases provided by his reading. Such a man is moulded by his 'Classical Education', his 'very extensive acquaintance with English Litera­ ture, Ancient & Modern'. We may suppose that Austen, as she made, 'with all possible Vanity', her boast of ignorance, felt profoundly grateful to be disqualified from writing about him; occasional abundance in quotation is not something that appeals to her. Most of her own quotations and allusions are deliberately mismatched to their occasion. She takes a rhapsodic description of natural beauty and yokes it by violence with news of an unsatisfactory social occasion: ' "T'is Night &: the Landscape is lovely no more", but to make amends for that, our visit to the Tyldens is over' (L 2 2 6 ) . She echoes Falstaff's (disingenuous) appeal to time measured by Shrewsbury clock, on no better excuse than the fact that someone involved in her story 'once lived at Shrewsbury, or at least at Tewksbury' (L 6 4 ) . The target of her mockery here is the seizing of occasions for quotation, and the vapidity of the tags quoted. Austen's letters consistently debunk literary tradition, but of course such debunking is a tradition in itself. The Augustan writers loved to make fun of reference to canonical authors: mocking not the authors themselves, but pedantic dependence on them. Pope's T cough like Horace', Henry Fielding's mock-epic descriptions of vulgar brawls, innumerable half-sub­ merged references in Johnson's letters, indulge themselves in this kind of fun. Austen herself, in mocking avid Shakespearians, is nonetheless also indicating familiarity with Henry IV, Part I. Today acceptance of Austen's 'ignorance' at face value has given place to steady growth in critical attention to her reading and her influences. A century ago, just as the university syllabus for English literature was beginning to emerge, the American literary journalist William Branford Shubrick Clymer began the 'placing' of Austen in literary history. Together with her contemporary Sir Walter Scott, he said, she marked the half-way point between Richardson's day and Clymer's own. Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, the first novelists in England (for Defoe's stories of adventure are not precisely novels as the term is now understood), had been followed by a romantic and by a sentimental school, the former growing from Horace Walpole, through Clara Reeve and Mrs Radcliffe, to Scott; and the latter including men so dissimilar as Sterne, Mackenzie, and Goldsmith. The sentimentalists were virtually a thing of the past, and the romanticists were in full career when Jane Austen, cutting loose from both 192

Jane Austen and literary traditions influences, set again on a firm basis the realistic study of manners taught her by Richardson and Fielding . . . She belongs to a small group of women who excelled in what has been well called 'fictitious biography'; of that group comprising Miss Edgeworth, Miss Ferrier, and herself . . . she is incontestably the finest artist.

Her work, he says, is the slender thread which carried the strain of realism safely through the Romantic age from the hands of Fielding and Richardson to those of Thackeray and Trollope. This account is now itself historical. It is an early act of canon-construc­ tion, open-minded and non-rigid in its judgments. Four female contempor­ aries of Austen's appear (though not Frances Burney), along with several men - Horace Walpole, Henry Mackenzie, Goldsmith as novelist - who did not retain their place in a central canon. Canon-construction also involves pigeonholing. Austen is a novelist; fiction must be her tradition. In fact she cares nothing for generic bound­ aries, but a great deal for the way the tradition of fiction flowed outwards to mix with those of history, and essays, and drama, and poetry. The English novel was seen in her day as a legitimate heir of Shakespeare, working as it did with dialogue and character and passion and interaction. Defoe did not yet enjoy the paternal status which historians of the novel later accorded him, and the works of Defoe's female predecessors and contemporaries (Behn, Davys, Barker, Aubin, Haywood) had already been forgotten. For Austen as for Clymer the great age of the novel had dawned with Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. Fiction moved between the poles repre­ sented by these two, and Austen, alert to their unlikenesses, learns from and disputes with each. 8

More recent critics have charted the broad range of influences on Austen's art. Detailed and sensitive attention has been paid to the ties that link her with the Augustan tradition of Addison and Johnson, to the landscape writing of Gilpin, and to a broad range of fiction including that by women, by Richardson, and by her immediate contemporaries. She has been discussed as a novelist of ideas, with views on political, philosophical and legal issues of her day. 9

This new willingness to take her seriously as a thinker does not involve forgetting her own statements about disliking to be taken too seriously. Now we know she never turned her back or closed her ears to the intellectual debates raging around her, we should also remember her necessarily tenuous and deliberately oblique relation to such debates. She says that 'a Woman . . . like me' cannot abound in quotation and allusion; none of her writings suggests for an instant that she wanted to. Quoting 193

ISOBEL GRUNDY

many writers, she almost without exception quotes them 'slant'. Whether to read this as female outsidership or as traditional Augustan irony is a matter of taste. While maintaining the superiority of the Chawton to the Steventon reading club, she inveighs against 'enormous great stupid thick Quarto Volumes'. For herself, she 'detest[s] a Quarto', does not want to learn 'everything in the World', and prefers 'a Man who condenses his Thoughts into an Octavo' (L 2 0 6 ) . Such anti-pedantry is not anti-intellectualism; but it keeps a deliberate toehold in irresponsibility. Both in letters and fiction, Austen mock-curtseys to or answers back at books which have caught her interest, disregarding their canonical or noncanonical status. Her reprocessing often makes strange bedfellows. For instance, Oliver Goldsmith's History of England, a text regularly fed to passive pupil consumers, is pressed into service in her History of England, 1 7 9 1 ; but so is the essence of innumerable novels treating the opposition between Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots - which, for devotees of the novel, was a more compelling pair of alternatives than Roundhead and Cavalier. Goldsmith on the one hand, historical novelists on the other: the sixteen-year-old Austen takes the classic ruling that literature should combine instruction and pleasure, and divides it between two parties, neither of which, therefore, conforms fully to the rule. It is safe to assume that even at this age Austen would know this classical rule, would know it was propounded by the Roman poet Horace, and would know the much-quoted tags {utile dulci, useful and sweet, and the slightly less hackneyed jucunda et idonea, merry and proper) in which it was embodied. Above all, however, she would know, more deeply and feelingly with advancing years, every shade of pedantry, or superiority, or self-importance, with which such tags were trotted out in mixed conversation. Her enquiring mind and retentive memory could not fail to pick up a good smattering of classical learning: what she did not pick up was any faith that these fragments carried the stamp of exceptional value. Like George Eliot later, she connected the idea of classical authors with the idea of little boys studying them. For her the ancients remained subject to the same kind of critical scepticism (whether feminist or Augustan scepticism) as other sources. She calls a woman in childbed a 'sister in Lucina'; but she detects 'pedantry & affectation' in the title of Hannah More's Cœlebs [that is, celibate or bachelor] in Search of a Wife, 1 8 0 8 : 'Is it written only to Classical Scholars?' 10

11

12

These are not the uses to which the classics are put by a devotee of a Great Tradition. Austen did not turn to the Latin language for authority or authorization. Yet, though she dislikes pedantry, I would not accept that she dislikes scholarship. She went to some trouble to ensure factual 13

194

Jane Austen and literary traditions

accuracy in works by herself and her nieces. She likes to let foolish characters expose their foolishness by garbling texts. John Thorpe categori­ cally misstates what is and is not contained in Burney's Camilla, A Picture of Youth, 1 7 9 6 : he has got only as far as chapter 4 of a voluminous novel, as readers of it will recognize. In the first chapter of Sanditon Mr. Parker garbles the context of a quotation from Cowper: what Cowper praises as a virtue in an old woman is confusingly converted into a deficiency in a seaside resort. The reader feels licensed to despise these inadequate readers but no more than we feel free to despise Mrs. Elton for garbling a traditional saying or cliché by making Surrey, instead of Kent, 'the garden of England'. Mrs. Elton is an inadequate listener in just the way that Thorpe and Mr. Parker are inadequate readers. While she came to the classics filtered through the minds of others, Austen had direct, almost continuous contact with another body of texts whose roots lie far back in antiquity. The texts of the Christian religion, and of the Anglican branch of it, were variously written by nomadic desert chiefs and priests, by poorly educated rural folk in a province of the Roman Empire, by a Roman ex-civil-servant (St. Paul), and by English Renaissance churchmen. They were either written or translated nearly two hundred years before Austen as a child first became familiar with them; their language was obsolete as well as their morality (in the Old Testament) often alien or unacceptable. The Bible (Authorised Version or King James Bible) and the Book of Common Prayer, as Austen used them, dated from 1 6 1 1 and 1 6 6 2 respectively; but they were closely based on work done by Tyndale and Cranmer during the sixteenth century. Linguistically, therefore, they were a door opening backwards into 'English Literature, Ancient'; and they were familiar to her in a way that only a few texts become familiar to anyone: familiar from daily or weekly or yearly repetition, aloud, marked with the different speech habits of the different voices that pronounced them. Even if she had never read the Bible herself (as she did) she would have heard the passages appointed to be read at the services of the church (no doubt with varying degrees of expertise). The passages appointed for Sundays and for the great festivals would be heard every year. The book of Psalms would be worked through during the church's year; in addition, certain psalms, as well as canticles and prayers, occurred every week as part of the service. The prayers which Austen wrote herself reflect her familiarity with prayerbook rhythms: her words compose themselves into an order which is perfectly in tune with Elizabethan liturgical discourse, foreign to her usual practice but none the less securely hers. 14

15

16

Austen's fictional style or styles may seem remote indeed from anything in 195

ISOBEL GRUNDY

the Bible or prayer-book: not only from ancient annals or martial poetry, but from St. Paul's letter-sermons and St. John's apocalyptic visions. Careful scrutiny, however, reveals the traces left by some of these familiar cadences. The almost prehistorical authors of the Old Testament have bequeathed her their rapidity and spareness of narrative, the New Testament writers their remarkable ability to enter the common mind and to conjure an illusion of verisimilitude by means of a single detail - the qualities that Auerbach notices when he writes about St. Mark's gospel in Mimesis. The Bible, Austen's daily bread, must have helped her to plot the moral consequences (momentous for them) of Elizabeth's feeding her vanity with Wickham, or Emma's feeding hers with Harriet, while most novelists needed at least the idea of some momentous causes for what deeply affected their heroines. The Bible also helped to keep her rhythms free from the verbosity which afflicts so many of her contemporaries. In narrative passages (a comparatively small part, but an important one, of her novels) her taste for brief declarative sentences is something she shares with the gospels. 'Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang, and every body smiled' (NA 2 5 2 ) . That is in its way a very New Testament sentence. 17

These original Anglican texts had their later descendants. As well as listening regularly to sermons, Austen read them in printed form, subscribed to one collection, and transcribed her father's sermons (L 388 n. 1 2 ; xviixviii). Jacobean churchmen and later preachers contributed their copia and orotundity, their preference for using two words where one would do, if not directly to Austen then certainly to Mr. Collins. After the Bible, Shakespeare is 'part of an Englishman's constitution' {MP 338). The implications of Henry Crawford's remark reach beyond his intention, particularly in view of the exclusion of women from public life, and of Austen's generally mocking attitude to the institutional or propertyowning approach to texts. It is, perhaps, an English birthright to know Shakespeare, as Edmund Bertram says, 'in bits and scraps', to refer parrotfashion to Shrewsbury clock without recalling anything about Falstaff's deplorable conduct on the battlefield and without being able to tell Shrews­ bury from Tewkesbury. (I believe that the frequent, minute inaccuracies which are sometimes stigmatized as misquotation are better seen as what the eighteenth century accepted as 'ease': a sign that quotations come from knowing an author 'pretty thoroughly', not from thumbing through texts; that the relation of reader to author is relaxed and unpedantic. Changing Shrewsbury into Tewkesbury is a different class of inaccuracy.) 18

Austen takes familiarity with Shakespeare for granted; but she makes a good deal hang on Fanny Price's delight in Crawford's reading; and at least once I believe she makes a good deal hang on a quotation from Shakespeare. 196

Jane Austen and literary traditions

Ronald Blythe, who believes that Highbury society is essentially Philistine, omits from his sparse enumeration of its literary references a Shakespearian quotation from Emma. 'The world is not theirs, nor the world's law', she says of governesses, echoing (approximately) what Romeo says of the starving apothecary who sells him poison. This is an interesting case. Some might argue that it proves Emma, like Catherine Morland, to have been reading selectively, on the lookout for pathos to grace the speech of a heroine. But, quite apart from the fact that Emma leans less towards the role of heroine than that of producer or director, quite apart from the fact that her reading of Romeo and Juliet got all the way to the last act, her picking her example of pathos from this speech about need and oppression, contempt and beggary, rather from the emotional pathos of the lovers, indicates a strong mind reading against the grain, ignoring hackneyed phrases but taking sustenance from a canonical text for her own indepen­ dent thinking. Her Shakespeare allusion is one of several straws in the wind to suggest that marriage to the tirelessly, practically benevolent Mr. Knightley will suit her down to the ground. 19

Those critics are surely right who see Austen's natural place in the course of English literature as being among the Augustans. She knows the established canon: Addison, Pope, Gay, the Swift of Gulliver's Travels Thomson, Gray, Goldsmith, and Charlotte Lennox, whose Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella, 1 7 5 2 , renews her admiration on rereading (L 1 1 6 ) . Marianne Dashwood's requiring Willoughby to admire Pope 'no more than is proper' (SS 4 7 ) may imply that only Eloisa to Abelard and Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady are acceptable to her; or it may be a sly hint that Marianne's acquaintance with Pope has not extended so far as these rather early, highly emotional poems. In a letter Austen writes, ' "Whatever is, is best." - There has been one infallible Pope in the World' (L 2 4 5 ) , which besides repeating a well-worn anti-Catholic joke is surely a signal that she relished Pope the poet's insight as well as his ex cathedra manner. 20

21

Austen's best-loved authors are those with Augustan affinities: apart from Crabbe, they are Richardson, Johnson, Cowper, and Burney. To all these she pays the compliment of frequent and familiar reference. Not only does she quote them from memory, as she quotes Shakespeare or Pope; she also takes liberties with them, using them freely as part of the background of her life. She 'could not do without a Syringa' for the garden because of the way Cowper described it; she writes that 'like my dear Dr Johnson . . . I have dealt more in Notions than Facts' (L 1 1 9 , 1 2 1 ) . This is what Johnson says he does in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, with which Austen thus demurely ranks her own letter. At one point she owned a set 22

197

ISOBEL GRUNDY

of the standard poetry anthology, Dodsley's Collection of Poems, originally published in 1 7 4 8 . Her Augustan texts are not limited to books. She is able to project on Cassandra's mind's eye the whole trajectory of Hogarth's 'Harlot's Progress', by observing that if she travelled to London with nowhere to stay, T should inevitably fall a Sacrifice to the arts of some fat Woman who would make me drunk with Small Beer' (L 8 8 , 1 2 ) . Cowper threads through Austen's novels, loved passionately by Marianne and soberly by Fanny Price, and quoted by Mr. Knightley. Edward Ferrars, having been judged deficient in spirit and animation by Marianne on the basis of his reading of Cowper aloud, demonstrates both qualities in imagining how Marianne, if she had money, would buy up every extant copy of Cowper and other favourites, 'to prevent their falling into unworthy hands'. His combination of shyness, secret anguish, and whimsical humour in private might even suggest a hint of Cowper in character. Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison, 1 7 5 3 - 4 , and Burney's Camilla probably share the palm for frequency of mention in Austen's surviving letters, though Evelina, or, A Young Lady's Entrance into the World, 1 7 7 8 , runs them close. (Camilla, so far as we know, is the only novel which she honoured by continuing its story beyond the ending, as she sometimes did for her own books). She indulges in comic self-identification with their heroines: T shall be just like Camilla in Mr Dubster's summer-house'; 'Like Harriet Byron I ask, what am I to do with my Gratitude?' (In each case the joke lies in the discrepancy between the heroine's situation and Austen's less extreme one.) But minor characters, minor situations in these novels are reckoned to be equally memorable. She writes of the thirst for travelling 'which in poor James Selby was so much reprobated' or of 'Our own particular little brother', confident that her correspondent will pick up her allusions. John Thorpe cannot get through Grandison, but thinks Tom Jones the best novel written until Matthew Lewis' charnel gothic The Monk, 1796. Thorpe's admiration is damning indeed, and from it we might surmise that Austen prefers Richardson to Fielding. Yet what could be more Fieldingesque than the technique she uses to undermine Fielding here, the technique of praising with loud damns from a bad judge? Thorpe praising Fielding, dispraising Richardson, owes something to the famous scene in Tom Jones where Partridge praises the loud voice and stiff action of the actor playing Claudius, and dispraises Garrick as too natural to be good acting. To attribute favourites to Austen is not to suppose she failed to appreciate the rest of the Augustan tradition. 23

24

25

26

Johnson is a special case in Austen's letters and novels. Opinions shared with him pervade her fiction at a deep level vital to meaning and structure. She knew his correspondence with Hester Thrale, which the latter published 198

Jane Austen and literary traditions

in 1 7 8 8 , as well as letters printed in BoswelPs Life, 1 7 9 1 . Her letters resemble his in their minute detail and in their guessing games of halfsubmerged, shorthand reference. She might have modelled all her letters to Cassandra on his injunction about the need for 'petty talk upon slight occurrences', for letters to prevent the 'great inconvenience of absence, that of returning home a stranger and an enquirer'. The letter in which she quotes his 'more in Notions than Facts' is explicitly presented as an exercise in the art of writing a letter with nothing to say: what he called the 'great epistolick a r t ' . Besides his minute particulars, Austen relished Johnson's habits of playful intertextuality and hidden meanings. Thus he implies an equation of himself with Lovelace's rakish friends when he writes, 'So I comforted and advised him.' When she writes 'Now this, says my Master will be mighty dull', she is assuming the language and therefore the mantle of the Johnson-Thrale correspondence, in which Henry Thrale is regularly 'my Master'. In the passage mentioning ordination, which has been so widely misread, the real joke lies in Austen's claim that she is making 'a complete change of subject' - which turns out to be a change from Pride and Prejudice and its reception to Mansfield Park and its planning. She presents herself as someone too egotistical to write of anything except her own works, though 'I will try to write of something else; - it shall he a complete change of subject.' Austen makes Cowper stand generically for rural, domestic life and Johnson for urban, social life when she writes (of a manservant who prefers the country) 'He has more of Cowper than of Johnson in him, fonder of Tame Hares &c Blank verse than of the full tide of human Existence at Charing Cross' (L 2 5 0 ) . In calling this preference 'a venial fault', she implies that she herself might side with Johnson, in spite of Cowper's remarkable power to unite in his support Marianne Dashwood, Edward Ferrars, Fanny Price, and George Knightley. Another kind of opposition between Johnson and Cowper implicitly underlies Sense and Sensibility: between Elinor's Johnsonian attempts to combat grief and depression through mental activity, and Marianne's Cowperesque savouring of melancholy. Fanny Price unites Johnson and Cowper, sense and sensibility. 27

28

While so many of her characters thus admire Cowper, their narrator is consistently Johnsonian. The spoof aphorism which opens Pride and Prejudice is not mockery of Johnson, but Johnsonian mockery: he too loves to burlesque the aphoristic manner with unreliable matter, as he does with the 'great truth', 'In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked.' Marianne in her penitence and self-knowledge acquires Johnsonian senti­ ments and Johnsonian cadences: 'His remembrance can be overcome by no change of circumstances or opinions. But it shall be regulated, it shall be 199

ISOBEL GRUNDY

checked by religion, by reason, by constant employment.' When Elinor smiles to see her sister 'introducing excess' into her scheme for rationality and self-control, she might have practised exactly the same smiles in response to a reading of Rasselas (SS 3 4 7 , 3 4 3 ) . While Henry Tilney uses Johnson's dictionary to overpower ladies in debate (as if he is copying Johnson in 'talking for victory' as well as in his linguistic views), the novelist draws on Johnson's ideas about history to allocate to both Eleanor Tilney and Catherine: the latter's perception of history as a dark record of wars and pestilences, the former's philosophical speculations as to the reliability of sources (NA 1 0 7 - 9 ) . Critics have noted that Fanny Price and Anne Elliot are both reliant on Johnson for their moral thinking. (It is with Johnson that Anne seeks to counter the influence of Scott and Byron on Captain Benwick.) His effect on Emma is perhaps more surprising, but equally important. In her Box Hill experience of causing pain through over-eagerness to display her wit, she follows in the footsteps of a number of Rambler examples (e.g. nos. 1 6 , 1 0 1 , 1 4 1 , 1 7 4 ) of the potential of intellectual excellence to lead its possessor astray. In her struggles for self-knowledge, when presented with detachment and irony, she recalls young female characters who take up their pens in the Rambler (e.g. nos. 5 1 , 5 5 , 6 2 , 84, 1 9 1 ) ; but in her thoughts in the final chapters, in her steady aspiration after self-knowledge, rationality, and candour, she recalls the persona of Mr. Rambler himself. Austen's tradition did not close with Johnson's death or with Boswell's Life - which, along with his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, the Austen family sought out to buy (L 2 2 ) . Throwaway reference to the plays of Hannah Cowley suggests they had an established status in her mind. She also read pedagogical works, books of travel, history, political and medical pamphlets. At dates close to their publication, the Austens read Francis Lathom's The Midnight Bell, 1 7 9 8 , Samuel Egerton Brydges' Arthur FitzAlbini, 1 7 9 8 (which receives perhaps Austen's worst review ever), Genlis' Alphonsine (which displeased by being indelicate), Southey's Letters from England, 1 8 0 7 , Anne Grant's Memoirs of an American Lady, 1 8 0 8 , and Henrietta Sykes' Margiana, or Widdrington Tower, A Tale of the Fifteenth Century, 1 8 0 8 . 29

30

3 1

Austen's judgments of those publishing contemporaneously with herself are complicated by a new element of irony and indirection: that of feigned or exaggerated envy and rivalry. In another reminiscence of Johnson, she repeatedly asserts her refusal to admire any work that might compete with her own. Hannah More, Jane West, Sir Walter Scott, all fall under this ban. She first implies prejudice against Scott (feeling not 'very much pleased' with Marmion, though perhaps she ought to be); then promotes him to the 200

Jane Austen and literary traditions

honour of affectionately inappropriate citing and quoting; then, when he switches from poetry to fiction, reverts to rivalry, and does not 'mean to like Waverley if I can help it - but fear I must'. In this context, her judgments on contemporaries are particularly slippery to assess. The accolade to Edgeworth (the only novelist, with herself and her niece, she is willing to like) is considerable. Her delight in Barrett's satirical The Heroine, her disappointment at Sarah Harriet Burney's debut in Clarentine, 1 7 9 6 , are directly expressed and can be trusted. So can her recommendation of Germaine de Steel's Corinne, 1807. A relative, Cassandra Cooke, author of Battleridge, 1 7 9 9 , is apparently exempt from professional envy. But when Austen salutes Elizabeth Hamilton as 'such a respectable Writer', the compliment may be as back-handed as 'good Mrs West' or the expectation that Ida of Athens by Sydney Morgan (later Owenson) must be 'very clever' because written in only three months. 32

3 3

34

There has been debate over the question whether Austen's literary judgments reflect any partiality towards her own sex (who, by this date, dominated the field of fiction). Such partisanship, like concern for her own fame, she would express only by indirection, with playful hyperbole or understatement. One can hardly mistake her treatment of the 'very Young Man, just entered of Oxford, wears Spectacles', who 'has heard that Evelina was written by Dr Johnson'. His so easily believing (and so authoritatively communicating?) what he has heard invites the reader to convict him of having a prejudice against women writers and no ear for style (L 4 3 ) . When Austen disliked Sir Jenison Gordon for uttering 'once or twice a sort of sneer at Mrs Anne Finch', it seems probable that the sneers were directed at Anne Finch, Lady Winchilsea, an important poet of a century earlier. She was well known by the name she bore before her husband inherited the title; she lived at, and loved, and wrote about, the Finch family seat at Eastwell (where, during a visit, the sneers were uttered), and lay buried in the church there. This sentence is probably Austen's strongest expression of solidarity with another women writer; but as so often her meaning remains obscure. 35

Austen's own sex is exempt neither from her serious literary judgment nor from her outrageous teasing. Mary Brunton's Self-Control, 1 8 1 1 , is 'excellently-meant, elegantly-written', but its failures in nature and prob­ ability invite, and receive, severe ribbing. Rosanne; or, A Father's Labour Lost, 1 8 1 4 , by Laetitia Matilda Hawkins, is 'very good and clever, but tedious'. Delightful on religion and other serious subjects (the heroine has a father influenced by Voltaire and a governess believing in human perfectability), it becomes, 'on lighter topics', improbable and absurd. The flamboyant Wild Irish Girl, by Sydney Owenson, later Morgan, would be worth reading in cold weather if only 'the warmth of her Language could 201

ISOBEL GRUNDY

affect the Body'. Hester Piozzi's colloquialisms are taken off in a sentence which is repeatedly, ramblingly prolonged by further second or third thoughts tacked on the end. Mme de Genlis' Olimpe et Théophile is energetically repudiated for tormenting its characters; even at Austen's 'sedate time of Life', she tells her niece Caroline, she could not reread it 'without being in a rage. It really is too bad! . . . Don't talk of it, pray' (L 3 1 0 ) . Here Piozzi and Genlis, though they are targets of mockery, are also offered a slightly dubious compliment: Austen has clearly enjoyed the former's self-indulgence in the slapdash and slipshod, and been moved, albeit against her better judgment, by the latter's sentiment. For failure of original thought, for re-hashing of stereotypes (by writers of either sex), she has no mercy. In fiction she reprobates 'thorough novel slang', 'the common Novel style': diction like 'vortex of Dissipation', characters like the handsome, amiable young man who loves desperately and in vain (L 2 7 7 ) . The cant of critics fares no better. Early in her career, in Northanger Abbey, and at its end, in Sanditon, she holds up in disgust the well-worn phrases: 'threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans'; the 'mere Trash of the common Circulating Library' [NA 3 7 ; MW 4 0 3 ) . The pedagogical tradition (which dealt largely in stereotypes) gets short shrift. Catherine Morland is right to hate the lamentable 'Beggar's Petition' by the Rev. Thomas Moss. Lydia Bennet is never more sympa­ thetic than when she meets James Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women, 1766, with yawning and interruption, in contrast to her sister Mary's eternal copying of extracts. 36

37

38

Austen treats the exaggerated conventions of the novel of terror rather differently from other stereotypes. Her father borrowed from the library at least one novel admired by Isabella Thorpe: Francis Lathom's The Midnight Bell. Austen's delight in Henrietta Sykes' fifteenth-century Margiana equals Henry Tilney's in Radcliffe's Udolpho; as usual she signifies pleasure by pretending the action is real, and pretending she can participate. The family, she says, 'like it very well indeed. We are just going to set off for Northumberland to be shut up in Widdrington Tower, where there must be two or three sets of Victims already immured under a very fine Villain' (L 1 6 4 ) . 39

She responded rather similarly to Mrs. Rachel Hunter of Norwich, using her twice (in collaboration with two of her nieces) for the favourite game of taking fiction to be true stories about actual people. Twelve-year-old Fanny Austen (later Knight) used the opening story from Hunter's Letters from Mrs. Palmerstone to convey a private message about her own behaviour; Anna Austen (later Lefroy) received a letter ostensibly addressed in the third person to Mrs. Hunter herself, chatting about the most pathetic characters 40

202

Jane Austen and literary traditions

in her Lady Maclairn, the Victim of Villainy, 1 8 0 6 . Since Austen also alluded to another episode in Lady Maclairn in the elopement of Lydia Bennet, she surely felt some affection for Hunter. It would take too much space to set about tracing the ways in which Austen learned from the writers who made up her tradition: how she developed her mastery of balance from Pope, wisdom and playfulness from Johnson, gendered power-struggle and immediacy of representation from Richardson, relation of books to life from Lennox, pathos and domesticity from Cowper, grotesquerie from Burney, etc. She tends to stand a little outside the beaten paths of discipleship. While she reflects some of Johnson's opinions, she never calls on his authority or copies his style. She avoids both the unmixed models of virtue and vice and the heavy-handed poetic justice which often characterize the followers of Richardson. 41

42

Each of Austen's works occupies a particular position in relation to the community of literary texts. She commonly defines her characters in part through their reading habits; and the text itself inevitably engages in dialogue with texts by others. The juvenile volumes First, Second, and Third make explicit reference to sixteen works or writers. Their parodie spirit gives way to the self-sufficient imaginative world of Lady Susan, where books are never mentioned, but where the epistolary novel's traditional inclusion of some callously self-seeking, cynical character is transformed by the simple device of switching this person's gender. Emma Watson turns thankfully to a book in time of trouble, for 'the employment of mind, the dissipation of unpleasant ideas which only reading could produce' (MW 3 6 1 ) . If her reading is fiction, it depicts a level of society closer to the one she has just lost than to the one she has just found, for The Watsons' low level of social and financial status is its chief claim to originality. It was conventional for a heroine's financial affairs to have a certain substance. (Eliza Parsons was creating fictional problems involving £4,000 at a time when she was in danger of debtors' prison for the sum of £ i z . ) The Watsons presents, in Elizabeth, a woman who is vulgar and obsessively concerned with getting married, yet who has none of the complementary negative qualities of an Anne Steele or a Mrs. Bennet, but only a warm heart and strong sense of duty. Even in this fragment Austen has found space to challenge several conventions of the contemporary novel. 43

4 4

Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey each makes fun of a particular literary ideology; yet the Dashwoods are probably Austen's most studious family, and Catherine is far better educated than many readers notice. Elinor's pity for Lucy Steele's lack of education, her 'illiterate' state, is genuinely felt. Marianne's 'knack of finding her way in every house to the 203

ISOBEL GRUNDY

library, however it might be avoided by the family in general' is not an aspect of her behaviour that needs modification (SS 1 2 7 , 3 0 4 ) . Mrs. Dash­ wood can allude to a little-known novel by Richard Graves (Columella, the Distressed Anchoret, 1 7 7 6 ) and expect to be understood by her daughters and Edward Ferrars. Plans of study (Marianne's after her heart is broken, and their mother's for young Margaret) are subjected to some teasing from the narrator. Still, the atmosphere overall is far more favourable to reading and study than is usual in either of Sense and Sensibility's two prototype genres: the novel of misguided reading, like Lennox's Female Quixote, or the novel of good and bad sisters, as written by Elizabeth Helme, Jane West, and others. If books and ideas have led Marianne astray, encouraging her to seek intensity of emotion as the greatest good, then books and ideas, and especially meditation and self-examining, are to play some part in her redemption. This makes another highly original resolution of a familiar fictional dilemma. 45

Catherine Morland is educated squarely within the Augustan tradition. She resists the 'trembling limbs' and emotional blackmail of Moss's aged beggar; but she has no trouble learning a poem from fifty years earlier, 'The Hare and Many Friends' by the under-rated John Gay (a little gem of irony and black humour). The hunted hare evidently wrings her heart as the beggar does not. At fourteen her dislike for 'books of information' is matched by delight in those which are 'all story and no reflection'. At seventeen she has read Shakespeare, Pope, Thomson, and Gray, even if only in order to comb them for aphorisms and sentiment. Austen's supposed dislike of scholarship is hard to square with Henry Tilney. He has scholarly tastes; he delights in the cut-and-thrust of argu­ ment; on linguistic niceties he overpowers ladies with Johnson's dictionary and Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric. His sister (herself a reader of the historians David Hume and William Robertson) thinks the scholar in him liable to prevail over the gentleman. Where Edgar Mandlebert as Camilla's mentor acts repressively, issuing no instructions but finding fault later, Henry behaves like a skilled tutor, eliciting Catherine's ideas, consistently questioning received opinion, playing down his pleasure in conscious intellectual superiority (NA 1 0 6 - 1 4 ) . 46

Northanger Abbey famously defends novels by setting them, too, squarely at the centre of the literary tradition. Novels exhibit 'genius, wit, and taste'. They display, in 'the best chosen language', 'the greatest powers of the mind . . . the most thorough knowledge of human nature . . . the liveliest effusions of wit and humour'. This praise would be as apt for Pope or Johnson as for Burney and Edgeworth. But while novelists shine so brightly, says Austen, modern men of letters (reviewers, editors, anthologizers) do not; the revered 204

Jane Austen and literary traditions

Spectator is really guilty of the 'improbable circumstances, unnatural characters' of which the novel stands accused. While she defends her own 'literary corporation', Austen engages it in debate. Having introduced Henry challenging received opinion (the cliché that women write better letters than men) she quickly issues her own challenge to Samuel Richardson's opinion 'that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared' (NA 2 9 - 3 0 ) . This was also, famously, the view of Camilla's father; so Camilla, explicitly lauded by the narrator, is also criticized, implicitly but radically, in the action. Catherine must learn to throw off her gothic illusion and cease to expect in life the trappings of villainy: concealment of suspected horrors, as in Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, 1 7 9 4 , or ancient texts testifying to female suffering, as in Parsons' Castle of Wolfenbach, 1793( ° f Isabella's favourites), Eliza Kirkham Matthews' What Has Been, 1 8 0 1 , and many, many more. But first and more importantly she must learn to throw off the social timidity which makes her vulnerable to the Thorpes' social tyranny, as Evelina was vulnerable to that of the Branghtons. Catherine trapped in John Thorpe's carriage, breaking her word to the Tilneys against her will, strongly recalls Evelina trapped in Lord Orville's carriage which has been borrowed in her name against her will. If Radcliffe is reproved, Burney is endorsed; so is Johnson, who made one woman advise another to consider herself 'a being born to know, to reason, and to a c t ' . Literary reference is less central to Pride and Prejudice. Burney contri­ butes the novel's title; but Cecilia's pride and prejudice belong to the older generation, while Elizabeth's and Darcy's are their own. Elizabeth may be less of a reader than Elinor, Marianne, or Catherine, but her impromptu comment on picturesque grouping shows she knows her Gilpin (PP 5 3 ) . Free spirit that she is, she is hedged around with ineffectually repressive texts: her father's library, Mary's improving books, the gender-obsessed Fordyce, with whom Mr. Collins replaces more solid Christian thinkers. 47

48

o n e

49

50

51

Mansfield Park is another battleground of texts. It has been shown that Austen was familiar with contemporary pro- and anti-slave-trade debates. (Johnson's letters on the Mansfield case would have brought the matter to her attention, even if she had not read and fallen 'in love with' Thomas Clarkson.) Issues of governance at Mansfield therefore (like Mrs. Norris's Popean meanness to servants) are related to issues of governance in the West Indies, whence Sir Thomas returns as more of an oppressor than he was before. But behind the heavyweight 'books of information', used for this novel only, stand the familiar books of imagination which feed all of Austen's work. Sir Charles Grandison and his loving extended family 52

205

ISOBEL GRUNDY

provide a silent commentary on that of the Bertrams. The caged starling in Sterne's Sentimental Journey (which is agonized over but never let out) provides a sudden, shocking parallel to Maria's prospects in marriage. Kotzebue's Lovers' Vows (a play of passion, translated by the radical Elizabeth Inchbald, 1 7 9 8 ) offers the delusory escape of fiction. Fanny keeps both her heart and mind alive with books. Cowper (well known as an opponent of the slave trade) is her alter ego, Lord Macartney on China her serious reading, Crabbe and (especially) Johnson her relaxations (MP 1 5 6 , 3 9 2 ) . Against her heartfelt reading of, for instance, Scott (86, 2 8 1 ) is set the uncommitted facility with which the Crawfords can summon Milton or poems of seduction, or imitate an imitator of Pope (43, 1 6 1 , 2 9 2 ) . The literary situation in Emma resembles that in Pride and Prejudice. Emma is a woman of action who knows the world of ideas through bibliographies, but never actually reads the books; still, her use of Shake­ speare is significant. Mr. Knightley is an outdoors man, a glutton for practical work; yet he is familiar with Cowper. Books are not forgotten. Robert Martin's knowledge of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, 1 7 6 2 , and the Elegant Extracts edited by Vicesimus Knox in 1 7 8 9 , his ignorance of Radcliffe or Regina Maria Roche, mark him squarely as an unmodish, middlebrow reader; only Harriet finds this dismaying. Mrs. Elton, raised like Catherine Morland on Gay's 'Hare and Many Friends', shows it by shatteringly inappropriate quotation. Austen's last completed novel brings two of her traditions, the writers of feeling and the writers of thinking, into direct confrontation for the soul of the bereaved Captain Benwick. As Anne urges him to read moralists, letterwriters, and 'memoirs of characters of worth and suffering', Johnson makes another masked appearance in the text at two levels. Along with sermonwriters like Austen's favourite Thomas Sherlock (L 2 7 8 ) , he is the most obvious moralist for Benwick to read; he is also an important source of Anne's own creed of activity and benevolence and self-control. Anne shows that knowledge of fiction can be illuminating, not misleading: she compares herself both with an exaggeratedly self-abnegating romantic heroine of Matthew Prior and with the awful Miss Larolles in Burney's Cecilia, 1 7 8 2 . 53

5 4

Austen's final novel, the fragment Sanditon, would have been her most literary. Charlotte Heywood's reading habits recall Anne's: she is 'a very sober-minded young Lady, sufficiently well-read in Novels to supply her Imagination with amusement, but not at all unreasonably influenced by them' (MW 3 9 1 - 2 ) . Comparing herself with Camilla leads her to deliver a mental coup de grace to that tale of outrageous female suffering which had haunted Austen's imagination for years: 'She had not Camilla's Youth, &C had no intention of having her Distress' (390). The misreaders here are 206

Jane Austen and literary traditions male: Mr. Parker and Sir Edward Denham. Sir Edward can quote without conveying meaning of any kind (by repeating, for instance, 'Oh! Woman in our Hours of Ease - ' without a verb, without a statement). He races from Scott to Burns to Montgomery to Wordsworth to Thomas Campbell and back; but none of these writers is to blame for his incoherence. As always in Austen, what matters is what you make of your reading. Sir Edward's intellectual digestion malfunctions: he draws 'only false Principles from Lessons of Morality, &c incentives to Vice from the History of it's Over­ throw . . . only hard words 8c involved sentences from the style of our most approved Writers' ( 4 0 4 - 5 ) . 55

Austen returns at last to Lennox's Female Quixote, to reverse the gender of its protagonist and to present, so far as I know unprecedentedly, a man misreading the world in the light of his misreading fiction. In a typically daring reversal, the female protagonist is a reader in calm control of her texts. Her literary traditions give depth to Austen's fiction. It depicts a society whose overall level of interest in ideas and books is very high, in which novels rank with poetry, drama, and 'Essays, Letters, Tours 8c Criticisms' (404). For her and for her central characters books and life are not divided; books are a vital part of life. In this as in other matters, her manner of proceeding sets her squarely in the steps of Richardson and Burney, Johnson and Cowper, and closely in touch with neglected fields and forgotten chambers, with John Gay and Richard Graves, Rachel Hunter and Henrietta Sykes.

NOTES 1 D. J . Gilson, 'Jane Austen's Books', The Book Collector, 23 (1974), 27. 2 Letters, 3rd ed., collected and edited by Deirdre Le Faye (Oxford and N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 1 9 8 - 9 . Twelve years after visiting Dawlish she remembered its 'particularly pitiful & wretched' library (L 267). 3 Sometimes her stance is jokingly appropriative: Dr. Edward Percival wrote 'Moral Tales for Edward to give to me' (L 1 4 5 ) . 4 Joseph Andrews, 1 7 4 2 , 1 , ch. 1 7 ; Amelia, 1 7 5 1 , vin, ch. 5. 5 The Orphan of the Rhine, ed. Devendra P. Varma (London: Folio Press, 1968), p. 3 1 ; The Nocturnal Minstrel, ed. Varma (New York: Arno Press, 1 9 7 2 ) , pp. 1 , 64, 209. Austen owned Ariosto's Orlando furioso in John Hoole's translation, 1 7 8 3 , copy later bought by Virginia Woolf (Gilson, 'Jane Austen's Books', 30-1). 6 Lascelles says this of her presentation of the natural world [Jane Austen and her Art, 1939 (London: Athlone Press, 1995), p. 1 ) . 7 1218,220-1,243,198. 8 'A Note on Jane Austen', Scribner's Magazine, Feb. 1 8 9 1 , repr. in B. C. 207

ISOBEL GRUNDY

Southam, ed., Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage: Volume n 18j0-1940 (London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), pp. 1 9 9 - 2 0 0 . 9 See, among several valuable studies, Jocelyn Harris, Jane Austen's Art of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 1 0 Its popularity was fostered though not begun by Sophia Lee, The Recess, 1783-5. 1 1 She wrote for Frank some verses which 'seemed to me purely classical - just like Homer &c Virgil, Ovid &c Propria que Maribus' (L 1 7 0 ) . 1 2 L 2 2 4 , 1 7 2 . She had another reason to dislike More, whose Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, 1 7 9 9 , called novels a principal source of moral corruption: 'The glutted imagination soon overflows with the redundance of cheap sentiment and plentiful incident' (422-3). 1 3 In his edition of Emma, Ronald Blythe says she disliked it 'very much' (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. 467. 1 4 Perhaps the nearest parallel for Austen would be the motley collection of plays her family performed at home, from Susanna Centlivre and (probably) Fielding to Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (London: British Library, 1989), pp. xvi-xvii. 1 5 Said rather than sung. See Irene Collins, Jane Austen and the Clergy (London: Hambledon, 1994), p. 1 8 1 . 1 6 See Bruce Stovel, ' "The Sentient Target of Death": Jane Austen's Prayers', Juliet McMaster and Bruce Stovel, eds., Jane Austen's Business (London: Macmillan, 1 9 9 5 ) , PP- 192.-2-05. 1 7 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 1 9 4 6 , trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 9 5 3 ) , pp. 4 0 - 9 . Auerbach does not, regrettably, mention Austen. 1 8 PP 1 0 5 - 6 . Note his repetitions and self-elucidations, his firstly, secondly, thirdly. 1 9 E 400. 'The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law' (Romeo and Juliet, V. i; £ , ed. Blythe [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966], pp. 467-8). 20 L 47. 2 1 Catherine Morland finds a line to remember in the Elegy (NA 1 5 ) . 2 2 Samuel Johnson, Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, ed. Mary Lascelles (New Haven: Yale, 1 9 7 1 ) ; to Boswell, July 7, 1 7 7 4 . Lascelles borrowed the phrase Notions and Facts from Johnson and Austen, as the title of a book, 1 9 7 3 . 23 SS 1 8 , 47, 9 2 ; MP 56, 4 3 1 ; E 344. 24 L 3 5 7 , 6, 2 3 4 ; also 9, 220. 25 L 9 3 , 38. It is unfortunate that this new edition does not index authors or titles of books, so that these allusions remain untraceable in the volume. Evelina is referred to on pp. 1 2 0 , 3 0 2 . 26 Tom Jones, x v i , ch. 5. This novel enters her letters in connection with the dashing Tom Lefroy's white coat, Tristram Shandy in connection with a praiseworthy servant, Robinson Crusoe only as a servant's reading (L, 9 3 , 95). 27 T o Hester Thrale, The Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. Bruce Redford (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 9 9 2 - 4 ) , 111:50, 89. 28 L 2 0 2 . Italics added. See also Johnson, Letters, 11:328 29 As well as being acted by request of Eliza de Feuillide at Tunbridge Wells in 1 7 8 6 (L 74; MW 65; Le Faye, Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. A Family Record, 57).

208

Jane Austen and literary traditions 30 L 1 5 , 2 2 , 1 1 5 . 3 1 L 1 4 1 , 1 6 4 . Attribution from Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy, The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). 32 L 1 3 1 (1808), 1 9 4 and 202 ( 1 8 1 1 , 1 8 1 3 ) , 277 ( 1 8 1 4 ) . 33 £ 2 7 8 , 2 5 5 , 1 2 0 , 1 6 1 . 34 L 252, 3 2 1 , 1 6 6 . 3 5 Austen, who was particular about modes of address, normally uses 'Miss Finch' for the present-day Anne Finch, and 'Mrs Finches' for her and her sister (L, 1 0 6 ; e.g. 8, 38, 1 0 7 , 108). 3 6 'He is more comfortable here than I thought he would be, Sc so is Eliz: tho' they will both I believe be very glad to get away, the latter especially - Which one can't wonder at somehow' (L 44). Footnoted as referring to Piozzi's edition of Johnson's letters, this is far more likely aimed at her Observations in the Course of a Journey through Italy . . . , 1789, whose style was widely reprobated as too like gossipy speech. 37 NA 1 4 . Written when its author was an undergraduate and frequently anthol­ ogized or reprinted in periodicals, it voices a flatly pathetic appeal to 'Pity the sorrows of a poor old man!' Moss, Poems on Several Occasions ( 1 8 2 7 ) , pp. 1 8 - 2 1 . 38 PP 68. Against her expectations, however, Austen enjoyed Thomas Gisborne's Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (L 1 1 2 ) . 39 L 1 5 ; NA 40. 40 L 1 0 7 ; Letters from Mrs. Palmerstone to her Daughter, Inculcating Morality by Entertaining Narratives (1803), first story. 4 1 Hunter's eloping Lydia resembles Austen's in character; her family resembles Austen's in reaction. Lady Maclairn, in: 223; iv: 1 4 4 - 8 . 42 L 1 9 5 , 407 n. 3, 408 n. 6, 269. Cf. Deirdre Le Faye, 'Jane Austen and Mrs Hunter's Novel', N&Q, 2 3 0 (1985), 3 3 5 - 6 ; Isobel Grundy, 'Rachel Hunter and the Victims of Slavery', Women's Writing: The Early Modern Period, ed. Janet Todd and Marie Mulvey Roberts, 1 (1994), 2 5 - 3 4 . 43 Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life, p. 39. 44 Blain et al., Feminist Companion, p. 8 3 5 . 45 There is something highly instructive in way she uses, casually and unexplained, the name of its protagonist, and the way that Austen scholars (versed in the classical tradition but not in that of eighteenth-century fiction) at first supposed she meant an obscure Latin writer who shares that name (55 103 and Chapman's note at 384). 46 NA 1 4 - 1 6 . Her mother later selects for her improvement a periodical, The Mirror, which, although written by Henry Mackenzie, belongs not in the sentimental but the social-Addisonian category. Mrs. Morland is mistaken in thinking that pedagogy can help in this crisis; but her choice of pedagogue is traditional and sound. (Alyson Bardsley and Jeff Ewing pointed this out on the Eighteenth-Century List.) 47 NA 3 7 - 8 . Some surprise has been expressed at Austen's finding the Spectator's language coarse; but a word-count of a few terms like 'whore' and 'cuckold' would explain her reasons. 48 'A Sermon', Camilla, v, ch. 5.

209

ISOBEL GRUNDY

49 NA 8 7 - 8 ; Evelina, 11, letter 2 3 ; Rambler 1 3 3 . 50 Burney, Cecilia, final chapter. The words 'pride and prejudice' also occur in Robert Bage's Hermsprong; or, Man as he is not, 1 7 9 6 , which Austen owned (Gilson, 'Jane Austen's Books', 3 1 ) . 5 1 Mary even parodies Evelina's M r . Villars in the aftermath of Lydia's loss, with parrotted comment on female reputation: 'no less brittle than it is beautiful' (PP 289; Evelina, 11, letter 8). 52 L 1 9 8 . R. W. Chapman once supposed this referred to Clarkson's Memoirs of William Penn, 1 8 1 3 ; but his History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade, 1808, is immeasurably more likely. 53 She embarrasses Jane Fairfax and no doubt amuses Emma with 'For when a lady's in the case, / Y o u know all other things give place' (lines 4 1 - 2 ) - originally said by a bull intent on sex ( £ 4 5 4 ) . 54 P 1 5 0 , n é , 1 8 9 . Lady Mary Wortley Montagu thought the 'monstrous folly' of Prior's heroine in 'Henry and Emma' (1709) likely to lead young readers astray. Complete Letters, ed. Robert Halsband (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 6 5 - 7 ) , 111: 68. 55 Presumably James Montgomery ( 1 7 7 1 - 1 8 5 4 ) , another poet who wrote against the slave trade.

210

12 C L A U D I A L. J O H N S O N

Austen cults and cultures

Ever since Henry James, early in this century, observed that a 'body of publishers, editors, illustrators, [and] producers of the pleasant twaddle of magazines' found 'their "dear", our dear, everybody's dear, Jane so infinitely to their material purpose', two things have been abundantly clear: first, that Austen has been not a mere novelist about whom one might talk dispassio­ nately, but a commercial phenomenon and a cultural figure, at once formid­ able and non-threatening; second, that many of Austen's most acute admirers have been unhappy with this extravagant popularity. An Austenian descen­ dant himself, James aims his criticism not so much at Austen but at her faddish commodification by publishers and marketers. He had a point. Since 1 8 3 2 , Austen's six novels were available separately in the Standard Novels series published by Richard Bentley. But even though Bentley reprinted the novels at various times in the coming decades, joined by other printers once his copyrights expired, Austen's novels were hardly best sellers. Indeed, she remained an artist admired intensely by a few, such as George Lewes and Thomas Macaulay. 'Janeitism' - the self-consciously idolatrous enthusiasm for 'Jane' and every detail relative to her which James is alluding to - did not burgeon until the last two decades of the nineteenth century. It was spurred on by J. E. Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1 8 7 0 , which provided biographical information about the quaint and saintly obscure spinster aunt who lived in a quieter time, and by Bentley's deluxe Steventon Edition of Jane Austen's Work in 1 8 8 2 (the first collected edition of Austen's novels), which included Lady Susan, the Memoir, a frontispiece portrait of Austen, and woodcuts of Chawton Church and Steventon Parsonage, and which thus put most of Austen's famous little 'world' into a tidy bundle. Janeitism boomed with the wider publication of Austen's novels singly and in sets, ranging from Routledge's cheap issues of 1 8 8 3 , and the Sixpenny Novel series starting in 1 8 8 6 ; to Macmillan's 1 8 9 0 issues, lavishly if inanely illustrated by Hugh Thomson; to the quasi-scholarly ten-volume set of R. Brimley Johnson for Dent in 1 8 9 2 , reissued five times in as many years. 1

2

211

CLAUDIA L. J O H N S O N

Aggravated by such commercial promotion, James denounces the 'special bookselling spirit' which, with all its 'eager, active interfering force' (rather like a nautical Mrs. Norris), whips up a 'stiff breeze', driving the waters of reputation above their natural levels, and flooding the literary marketplace to promote the sales of its own titles. Though inclined to disparage Austen as an unconscious artist, James acknowledges that she would not be so 'saleable if we had not more or less . . . lost our hearts to her' in the first place. But the truth is that James cannot stand the fact that Austen is loved in the wrong ways by the wrong sorts of people, people evidently incapable of assessing her just value, or discriminating her real merits. If James, revolted by middlebrow culture and its purveyors, lambastes the ubiquity of Austeniana in 'pretty reproduction in every variety of what is called tasteful . . . form', how would he recoil today, when Austen comes to us in dazzling movies from Hollywood and the British film industry featuring our favourite stars, in more ponderous BBC adaptations, in published sequels, imitations and homages, on radio broadcasts and editorial pages, on bumperstickers announcing 'I'd rather be reading Jane Austen', on book bags and T-shirts sporting Cassandra's portrait of her sister, on coffee mugs averring, via Kipling, that there is no one to beat Jane when you're in a tight place? Clearly, once her reputation thrived beyond a small circle of enthusiasts, Austen's appeal has been wide enough to be a worry, for it reaches beyond the authority of those who consider themselves entitled to adjudicate not only who but how it is proper to enjoy 'great' literature. Other essays in this volume treat Austen and her novels as an object of study. This essay addresses not Austen's works per se, but our reception of them, the ideas about culture Austen has been thought to represent, and the uses to which we have put her and her achievement. Needless to say, the extent to which any writer can be pondered independently from her or his reception remains a vexed question. But Austen is a cultural fetish; loving or hating - her has typically implied meanings well beyond any encoded in her works. Because she has proved essential to the self-definition of so many contending interests - people who see themselves as delicate escapists or as hard-nosed realists, as staunch defenders of morality or as exponents of ludically amoral theatricality, as elitists or democrats, as iconoclasts or conventionalists, as connoisseurs or as common readers - it is conspicuously difficult to disentangle the 'real' Austen from the acknowledged or unac­ knowledged agendas of those discussing her. 3

One vociferous segment of Austen's reading public missing from the above assortment are professional academics, and I omitted us solely for the purpose of more exclusive emphasis here. The claim to unbiased enquiry is foundational to our enterprise as teachers and students, but we too have 212

Austen cults and cultures

been an interested and decidedly high-handed party contending for access to the real Jane Austen, and thus stand to learn a great deal from recognizing how some of our most basic assumptions about how to read her novels were calculated to consolidate the authority of a new professorate, with its distinctive programme and concomitant visions of class, gender, and national identity, and at a time when the novel was still entering the curriculum at Oxbridge (having been included decades earlier in the curricula of US colleges and universities, where classical models held less sway). What follows is not an exhaustive analysis of Austenian criticism among diverse readerships for the past two centuries, but a more modest attempt to historicize our notions about her, in the hopes of demonstrating the numerous ways in which she has been a cultural presence. Modern Austenian criticism begins not with a literary critic or a novel scholar, but with psychologist D. W. Harding. The fundamental principle of his pathbreaking 1 9 4 0 essay is that Austen's 'books are . . . read and enjoyed by precisely the sort of people whom she disliked'. To be sure, this was not the first time anyone had argued that Austen's relation to her subject matter was satirical rather than reverential - one thinks, for example, of Mrs. Oliphant's remarks on the 'feminine cynicism' and '[quiet] jeering' in Austen's works. Nor, as James' remarks above indicate, was this the first time anyone asserted the superiority of his own powers of discrimination by trashing others' love of Austen as mindless, excessive, or otherwise undisciplined. But it was, I think, the first time anyone claimed that Austen herself was above her admirers, and attempted to place criticism on a proper footing by rescuing her from them. But who were these admirers, and what is it precisely that Harding is trying to get away from? Not the hoi polloi, the philistine Janeites James had castigated, for whom an admiration of Austen stood as an example of high culture in its least challenging form, and for whom an admiration of her works served as a badge of gentility. The social and political horizon had radically changed, and when Harding thinks of Janeites, men of the upper classes come to his mind, the 'exponents of urbanity', the 'sensitive', and 'cultured', the 'Gentlemen of an older generation than mine' who disseminate Austeniana 'through histories of literature, university courses, literary journalism, and polite allusions'. Because we now live in a cultural environment when it can be assumed that literature written by women is literature written for women, it may at first seem counter-intuitive that, in its most influential forms, the Janeitism of the early twentieth century was, with the prominent exception of Shakespearian scholar Caroline Spurgeon, principally a male enthusiasm shared among publishers, professors, and literati such as Montague Summers, A. C. Bradley, Lord David Cecil, 4

213

CLAUDIA L. JOHNSON

Walter Raleigh, R. W. Chapman, and E. M. Forster. At the Royal Society of Literature in particular Austen's genius was celebrated with an enthusiasm that would be regarded as dotty in the conferences or classrooms of today. Far from regarding their interest in Austen as level-headed 'work' necessi­ tated by the complexity of her novels, Janeites flaunt it as ecstatic revelation: she was not merely their dear Jane, but their divine Jane, their matchless Jane, and they were her cult, her sect, her little company (fit though few), her tribe of ardent adorers who celebrate the miracle of her work in flamboyantly hyperbolic terms, archly suggesting - to my ear at least - the incommensurateness of their fervour to the primness of its object. Although their zeal is genuine, the self-parody implicit in these pronouncements tells us that we are in an insider's society of scholar gentlemen at play. 5

Janeites constituted a reading community whose practices transgress the dogmas later instituted by professional academics presiding over the emergent field of novel studies - dogmas holding, for example, that it is inappropriate to talk about characters as if they were real people or in any way to speculate upon their lives before, after, or outside the text itself; that biographical information about an author is irrelevant at best and heretical (i.e., a 'fallacy') at worst; that the business of studying is serious indeed, requiring analytic skills and specialist knowledges available through courses of study at colleges and universities; that Austen's novels are essentially about marriage, and that the courtship plot - rather than, say, the category character - is the major event in her fiction. To exemplify and to account for ways in which Janeite reading practices resist these truths not universally acknowledged, I will turn briefly to Rudyard Kipling's 'The Janeites', a story often alluded to in Austen criticism, but quite obviously not very often or very carefully read. A story within a frame story, 'The Janeites' is set in a London Masonic Lodge during 1 9 2 0 , where shell-shocked veteran Humberstall talks about a secret society into which he was inducted while serving under the super­ vision of Sergeant Macklin as an officers' mess-waiter with his World War I artillery battery in France. One day as the officers discuss whether or not 'Jane' died without leaving 'direct an' lawful prog'ny', Macklin (who is very drunk) loudly interrupts the officers' conversation with the claim 'She did leave lawful issue in the shape o' one son; an' 'is name was 'Enery James' ( 1 2 4 ) . Puzzled that the superior officers, far from punishing such insubordi­ nate intrusiveness, actually order him to be taken off to bed and cared for, Humberstall finds out more about the secret club whose membership brings such extraordinary privileges. After selling him the password ('Tilniz an' trap-doors', a phrase from Northanger Abbey), Macklin imparts to him the mysteries of Jane, which make the horrors of the front companionable: 'It 6

214

Austen cults and cultures

was a 'appy little Group' ( 1 3 2 ) , Humberstall later murmurs nostalgically. When half the battery is killed in a German artillery attack, Humberstall is the only Janeite to survive. As he struggles to board a hospital train, only to be put off by a chattering nurse insisting the train is too crowded, Humberstall implores the head nurse to 'make Miss Bates, there, stop talkin' or I'll die', and the head-nurse - evidently an initiate herself recognizes a fellow's password and eagerly obliges, even filching a spare blanket for his comfort ( 1 3 6 ) . As a story both about readings and readers of Austen's novels 'The Janeites' is highly suggestive. Unlike virtually all academic readers of Austen since the 1 9 5 0 s , Janeites in foxholes do not think Austen's novels are about courtship and marriage. The love story plot is less-than-inevitable for them. In their civilian lives, they are chilly towards women (Jane 'was the only woman I ever 'eard 'em say a good word for' [ 1 2 3 ] Humberstall remem­ bers), and chary of domesticity (the senior Janeites are a Divorce Court Lawyer and a Private Detective specializing in adultery cases). Even Humberstall himself, having been discharged from an earlier stint of service, can so little tolerate the company of his mother, sister, and aunts that he actually re-enlists. Of course, the Janeites recognize that novels are 'all about young girls o' seventeen . . . not certain ' 0 0 m they'd like to marry', but for them (unlike non-Janeites in the story) this narrative fact is levelled with other narrative facts that also constitute part of what the novels are 'all about' - including 'their dances 'an card parties 'an picnics, and their young blokes goin' off to London on 'orseback for 'aircuts an' shaves', a detail which, like the wearing of wigs, is especially engaging to a hairdresser like Humberstall. As far as Austenian plots are concerned, 'there was nothin' to 'em nor i n 'em. Nothin' at all' ( 1 2 8 ) .

Defended by mere school lads, equipped with superannuated cannons, and mobilized by a dilapidated train rather than modern transport cater­ pillars, the Janeites' battery is pitifully doomed. As readers they cathect onto Austen's novels precisely because they appear to have no plots. Again, unlike current students and scholars of narrative, for whom plot bears virtually all significance in narrative, Janeite readers resist plot with all its forward-moving momentums, its inevitabilities, and its closure, and they dwell instead on atemporal aspects of narration, such as descriptive details, catchy phrases, and especially characterization. As in the bulk of belletristic Janeite commentary from the mid-nineteenth century on, Janeites in the foxholes rhapsodize over the verisimilitude of Austenian characters. By identifying characters and things in their own experience and renaming them according to Austenian prototypes the soon-to-be-slaughtered Janeites piece out their brutally shattered world. 215

CLAUDIA L. JOHNSON

Because Janeites outside Kipling's story would be decried as escapists taking solace in the supposedly rehabilitative placidity of Austen's world, it is worth stressing that Kipling's Janeites do not quite fit this model, and indeed are drawn to Austen precisely because she is like the world of the foxholes. Their Jane Austen - as distinct from the Austen celebrated in the prefatory poem as 'England's Jane' ( 1 2 0 ) - is never described by them as a repository of ethical wisdom, nor is she linked with a feminine elegiac ideal of England whose very vulnerability is what knightly menfolk are fighting to protect. At the end of the story, Humberstall avidly reads Austen's novels not because they enable him to recapture the safe world which war has not shaken, but because they remind him of the trenches: 'it brings it all back down to the smell of the glue-paint on the screens. You take it from me, Brethren, there's no one to touch Jane when you're in a tight place' ( 1 3 7 ) . Since many within the academy and outside of it as well often assume that Austen and her admirers are hyper-conventional, it is also worth emphasizing that Janeite confederacies had rather little truck with bourgeois domestic morality. Kipling's story mentions two exclusive societies - the Masons and the Janeites - but several details suggest that Austen's fiction promoted a secret brotherhood of specifically homoerotic fellowship too. When Humberstall chalks the names of Austenian characters onto the casements of the guns, he rouses the ire of the Battery Sergeant Major, who reads HumberstalPs cockney spelling of 'De Bugg' for De Bourgh as a reference to sodomy. Determined to punish him and Macklin for 'writin' obese words on His Majesty's property', the BSM takes the case to the officers on the grounds that "e couldn't hope to preserve discipline unless examples was made' ( 1 3 1 ) . What he does not foresee is that the officers will not discipline one of their own: they dismiss the charges after perfunctory admonitions, send the BSM away, and proceed to entertain themselves by quizzing Humberstall on Jane. The narrator, not a Janeite, closes the story by observing that Austen was 'a match-maker' and her novels 'full of match-making' ( 1 3 8 ) , and by hinting at a secondary character's marriage to Humberstall's sister. And as if this were not going far enough, Kipling attaches a sequel-poem entitled 'Jane's Marriage', in which Jane enters the gates of Heaven and is rewarded by matrimony to Captain Wentworth. But these efforts to instate the marriage plot are not only risible (after all, Wentworth is both fictional and already married!) but are also at odds with the spirit of Janeiteism narrated within the story, and thus the frame itself appears to be a sop thrown to 'a pious post-war world' which requires what the narrator has already called 'revisionfs]' and deletions ( 1 2 9 ) . Janeites are committed to club rather than domestic society. The reproduction in which they are interested pertains not to spouses and children - in fact, they are as 216

Austen cults and cultures

barren of 'direct an' lawful prog'ny' as Austen herself, leaving no issue we know of, the surviving Humberstall being a stranger to women. The reproduction they engage in is the dissemination of Janeite culture itself. Just as Austen brought forth Henry James, Janeites bring forth other Janeites by recruitment, peopling the world with Austenian characters, thus continually enlarging her world beyond the confines non-initiates are wont to dismiss as narrow. Macklin is highly satisfied when Humberstall renames the guns after Austenian characters - 'He reached up an' patted me on the shoulder. "You done nobly", he says. "You're bringin' forth abundant fruit, like a good Janeite" ' ( 1 3 0 ) . As Kipling's story suggests, early twentieth-century Janeitism is a con­ struction that emerges from specific historical needs. Before World War I, Frederic Harrison described Austen as a 'heartless little cynic . . . penning satirettes against her neighbours whilst the Dynasts were tearing the world to pieces, and consigning millions to their graves'. Harrison of course deplored Austen's supposed isolation from the real world, but once the Dynasts of our own century went at it, many Janeites loved precisely this ahistoricity, indulging in a fantasy about the elegiac Austen which Kipling's story both conjures and also, in my view, undermines. To Janeites outside Kipling's story, her novels evoke a world before history blew up, before rules and codes lost their efficacy, particularly in defining masculinity in relation to other men. Christopher Kent has shown that Austen's novels were actually recommended to British veterans suffering post-traumatic shock syndrome in the years following the war. For soldiers whose minds were shattered by Dynastic history, the (in)famously limited dimensions of Austen's fictional world could feel rehabilitative; her placid interiors could feel manageable; her scepticism about the turbulence of sexual passion could feel a relief; her triviality could feel redemptive. Assumptions about feminine propriety embedded within this fantasy about Austen - about transparency, restraint, and poise - helped to shore up masculine lucidity and self-definition when these, along with English national identity itself, were under threat. The notion, then, that Austen could be therapy for people whom history has made sick has an origin in global crisis and in a profound yearning for a world still sufficient to its own forms and rituals. 7

8

9

Harding and the tradition of academic criticism he inaugurated ridiculed the idyllic figure of 'England's Jane' whose work 'provide[s] a refuge for the sensitive when the contemporary world grew too much for them', and he refers with contempt to those who place her beyond the ugly world of politics, crisis, and machine guns. But the Janeitism of this period was more productive than he admits. For one thing, it gave us Chapman's The Novels of Jane Austen, published by the Clarendon Press in 1 9 2 . 3 , and ever 10

217

CLAUDIA L. J O H N S O N

since acknowledged to be the authoritative edition of her works. Because novel studies have since moved to the centre of university curricula, while Greek and Latin departments are struggling to survive, it is easy to forget that Chapman's was the first scholarly edition of any English novelist male or female - ever to appear. His title page touted that 'The [Texts are} based on a Collation of the Early Editions', and, as reviewers were quick to note, he treated Austen's novels with a scrupulousness customarily reserved for classical authors. What prompted such anomalous magisteriality at such a moment? The answer can be found in the collection of short essays Chapman wrote during his own wartime duty in Macedonia, where he recurs to his birthright as a classically educated English gentleman as if to bolster his morale in an alien world: he recites Horace's odes from memory on long marches or on quiet nights at observation posts; he animadverts on the decline of English syntax, on proposals for British spelling reform which would 'involve us in dangers and inconveniences of unsuspected magni­ tude'; he muses on his passion for collecting silver spoons, closing on a note of imperial melancholy: 'There are no spoons in Macedonia.' Given Chapman's sense of his stewardship to English culture, felt acutely during his isolation from it, it is no wonder that he declared 'To restore, and maintain in its integrity, the text of our great writers is a pious duty.' Having fondly remembered not only Horace's odes, as it turns out, but also 'a series of summer evenings in Perthshire, when a lady read Persuasion to admiration', Chapman places Austen alongside Samuel Johnson as a monu­ ment to the redemptive glory of England's bygone days. To be sure, Victorian publishers preserved Austen too, and with hype loud enough to offend James' ears. But while their volumes, replete with Victorian-styled illustrations and typography, perforce made Austen one of their own, the edition Chapman prepared to preserve this treasure in its 'integrity' includes chronologies of plot events based on early nineteenth-century almanacs, reproductions of Regency fashion plates and dancing manuals, and not least of all facsimiles of the original title pages, thus placing Austen safely within the national past the better to secure her there as a refuge from the present. Most of Chapman's reviewers recognized and gratefully approved of this enterprise: the reviewer for The New Statesman specifically praises the illustrations and historical apparatus for helping to make Austen's novels 'a refuge from present realities'; while The Edinburgh Review, likewise bemoaning its modernity, maintains that 'It is something to have escaped, if only for a moment, from this "world" that is "too much with us" to that other world, the leisured, "country-featured" and homely world of Jane Austen'. Pressing Austen into the service of this national nostalgia, Chapman not only piously preserves the past, of course, but decides exactly 11

12

2.18

Austen cults and cultures

which past to preserve, tracking down allusions to Shakespeare, Johnson, and Cowper with indefatigable energy, but passing over references to slavery in Antigua or riots in London as if they and the unrest to which they allude did not exist. That past - which so compels our generation, with its very different premiums on ideological rupture and political conflict - was not to the purpose of Chapman and his fellows. Although some of the methods, if not the motives, of Janeiteism would surface in later academic criticism under the banner of historicism, it was foundational to the practice of Austenian criticism in the academy to discredit the Janeites such as existed in Kipling's story, in the Royal Society of Literature, and of course in later Jane Austen Societies in England and North America. Deploying an invidious distinction between the 'attentive' and 'urbane', Harding accomplished this by asserting that Austen's admirers are her worst readers: '[S]he is a literary classic of the society which attitudes like hers, held widely enough, would undermine.' Harding's own qualifica­ tions as a good reader, it is implied, derive from his own rigorously toughminded alienation from upper-class mores, an alienation Austen herself is said to have shared. Claiming Austen would never 'have helped to make her society what it was, or ours what it is', Harding trumps the Janeite 'posterity of urbane gentlemen' by disaffiliating Austen from them and the doddering, weak-minded complacency they are said to represent. Harding's depiction of Austen as a subversive opponent of dominant values proved helpful to the next generation of academics, especially feminists, who also considered Austen at odds with dominant values, and to all readers who took candidly non-moralistic and non-moralizing pleasure in her sarcasm. But Harding's intentions were anything but open-minded, and his immediate heirs were not slow to elaborate the nasty class- and gender-inflected attacks implicit in his essay. Defining Janeite escapists as effete gentlemen, Harding hinted that Austen was in some ways more of a real man, astringent and unblinking, than they were. F. R. Leavis is more direct in The Great Tradition ( 1 9 4 8 ) , which is among other things a running diatribe against Janeite extraordinaire, Lord David Cecil. Leavis dignifies Austen as well as the great tradition of English fiction she originated by insisting on her moral seriousness, and accordingly, the leisured amateurism of Janeites - with their fondness for entertainment, performance, and comedy - is noxious to him. His class-based attack upon Lord David, which includes charges of decadence, aestheticism, oversophistication, and evil, contains a homophobically charged gender compo­ nent as well, for when Leavis casts aspersions on Lytton Strachey and the culture of Bloomsbury, he is aiming to taint Lord David by association. 13

14

Citing the 'feral' animosity of writers like Twain, Lionel Trilling opined 219

CLAUDIA L. J O H N S O N

that Austen aroused 'man's panic fear at a fictional world in which the masculine principle, although represented as admirable and necessary, is prescribed and controlled by a female mind', but Trilling's explanation misrepresents the problem as a conflict between the two sexes rather than as a conflict about sexuality per se, regardless of the sex of the offender in question. The history of Austenian criticism has often been darkened by the umbrage Austen-haters have taken against her representations of men as idle creatures absorbed in village tittle-tattle, and male Janeites have had much to endure at the hands of a world that frowns upon their passion. H. W. Garrod's 'Depreciation', a virulent attack upon Austen and her admirers both, was written 'for a pleasant occasion, and in lightness of heart' as a lecture to fellow members of the RSL. But its misogyny is still toxic, and it spatters onto men as well. Garrod opens by questioning the virility of Janeites in his audience: 'There is a time to be born and a time to die, and a time to be middle-aged and read Miss Austen. Some men are born middle-aged, some achieve middle age of their preference, others have it thrust upon them.' A man content to read novels by 'a mere slip of a girl', Garrod suggests, must somehow be womanish as well. Having feminized themselves not simply by idolizing a woman writer - which is bad enough but even worse by then idolizing a sharp-tongued woman who fails to honour the virility of men, Janeites by Garrod's account are doubly queer. 15

16

What makes Harding's and Leavis' attacks on the unmanfulness of Janeites different from Garrod's and others' is that they like Austen, and seek to clear themselves from the charge of gender deviance by wresting Austen from gentlemen scholars and literati and making Austen safe for real men engaged in real study. C. S. Lewis' 1 9 5 4 essay 'A Note on Jane Austen' continues this process: '[Austen] is described by someone in Kipling's worst story as the mother of Henry James', he taunts, referring to 'The Janeites', '[but] I feel much more sure that she is the daughter of Dr. Johnson'. Engaging in a frontal assault on the playful, ironized Austen - which might make her fiction in his eyes a sort of Regency The Importance of Being Earnest - Lewis insists that Austen's comedy is inspired by 'hard core morality' and a vein 'of religion'. Post-World War II Austenian reception participates in that demand to consolidate and reinvigorate masculinity elsewhere visible in the larger context of British and American culture. Academic literary criticism of the 1 9 4 0 s and early 1 9 5 0 s saves Austen from her admirers and for a middleclass professorate by celebrating her acerbity and seriousness, championing her fiction as a legitimate object of study in the as yet young field of novel studies over and against the ostensibly frivolous appreciation of Janeites. But while this criticism - to which in varying degrees that of Lascelles, Watt, Z20

Austen cults and cultures

and Edmund Wilson could be added - conduced to the rise of Austen as an academic field, it did not as yet foster any particular method of reading narrative, nor did it privilege the marriage plot as the most important structural and thematic principle. Indeed, Austen's very scepticism about romantic love is in part what qualifies her as a tough-minded fellow traveller. True, Marvin Mudrick's profoundly influential Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery ( 1 9 5 2 ) moved in this direction, but this was by omission. For Mudrick, Austen's artistic brilliance - i.e., her formidable irony and control - results from her pathology as a woman - i.e., her formidable irony and control. Mudrick looks to Austen's novels for tender marriage plots, and is scandalized by their absence. He takes as his epigraph Harding's allusion to Austen being loved by people she hates; but while Harding likes Austen's steely lucidity, Mudrick deplores it as deviance cast, as in Emma Woodhouse's case, sometimes as frigidity and sometimes as lesbianism. 17

18

It was not until the 1 9 6 0 s that the marriage plot gained the prestige it still enjoys inside the academy, and this happened in a direct attempt to recuperate Austen's normality. Wayne Booth's widely reprinted 'Control of Distance in Jane Austen's Emma' ( 1 9 6 1 ) passionately defends Emma Woodhouse's heterosexuality, which Wilson and Mudrick had doubted. Chafing at the contention that Emma has infatuations with women even at the conclusion, he links the proper reading of Austen's novels with a proper respect for the self-evidence of marital felicity in novels and outside them: Marriage to an intelligent, amiable, good, and attractive man is the best thing that can happen to this heroine, and the readers who do not experience it as such are, I am convinced, far from knowing what Jane Austen is about whatever they may say about the 'bitter spinster's' attitude toward marriage.

When novels themselves lacked the cultural prestige of poetry and drama, people who studied them could be considered lightweight as well, for so long as novels were believed to be about characters, novel studies could seem to be a species of gossip of precisely the sort in which Janeites delight. But according to Booth's influential brand of Chicago-school formalism, marriage in Austen's novels is not a matter of who marries whom, as it is, say, in G. B. Stern's and Sheila Kaye-Smith's book Speaking of Jane Austen ( 1 9 4 4 ) , a Janeite repository of chit-chat, which Booth ridicules for treating characters like real people. Instead, the marriage plot becomes the novel's fundamental meaning, the telos towards which the narrative has moved since the first page. Booth endorses Mudrick's judgment that Emma's 'chief fault' is her 'lack of . . . tenderness', but to him plot itself brings about 'the reform in [Emma's] character' - a reform defined solely in terms of the 221

CLAUDIA L. J O H N S O N

destiny of heterosexual love: only when she 'learns' this is she 'ready for marriage with the man she loves, the man who throughout the book has stood . . . for what she lacks'; only then is the novel ready to end. Evidence is not necessary to sustain this view. Countless readers have claimed that the absence of 'love scenes' in Austen's novels must mean something. But for Booth, norms about gender and sexuality are encoded onto the plot, thus making the representation of the kisses or palpitations famously lacking in Austen's oeuvre superfluous to begin with. Compare this view of the courtship plot to that of self-confessed Janeite, E. M. Forster, whose Aspects of the Novel ( 1 9 2 7 ) was still taught in fiction courses as late as the 1 9 7 0 s , alongside Booth's Rhetoric of Fiction: 'a man and woman . . . want to be united and perhaps succeed'. The compulsory nature of the love story is acknowledged here, and that compulsion has obvious ideological import. But the marriage plot as Forster sceptically presents it falls not under the headings Plot or Story, but under the heading People. Considering the love plot as conventional rather than structural, Forster sees it as one among many 'facts of human life' - with people, birth, food, sleep, and death - that interest people and novelists who write about them. 19

20

Rescuing Austen from Mudrick, who held that she 'converged] her own personal limitations into the very form of her novel', Booth succeeded in celebrating Austen's mastery over point of view and plot as a positive thing, and contributed immeasurably to the development of novel study as an analytic discipline. But discipline obviously has repressive as well as productive elements. Booth's reading is as bullying as Harding's, equating the perversity of women who indulge same-sex 'infatuations' with the perversity of novel-critics who refuse to accept a happy ending when they see one. Eve Sedgwick has remarked that Austenian criticism belongs to the knuckle-rapping (or more pruriently spanking) 'Girl Being Taught a Lesson' model of narrative analysis, where that lesson is invariably accomplished through the 'discipline' of the marriage plot. As a description of academic criticism since the late 1 9 5 0 s , she is right. Critics as diverse as Mark Schorer, Lionel Trilling, Ian Watt, Arnold Kettle, Marilyn Butler, Tony Tanner, Patricia P. Brown, and Mary Poovey, among many others, tend to follow Booth in judging character development, formal control, and resis­ tance or compliance with norms as mediated through marriage, as an institution and plot device. 21

Indeed, so entrenched is this respect and so short our institutional memory about the history of novel criticism itself that we have forgotten that there are other ways to read, and the very different reading traditions of the Janeites can accordingly now enrich our own. Many of the Janeite reading practices discussed earlier with respect to Kipling's story flourish 222

Austen cults and cultures

today under less trying circumstances in the largely amateur Jane Austen Societies throughout English-speaking countries. When Mudrick wrote that Austen 'was interested in a person, an object, an event, only as she might observe and recreate them free of consequences, as performance, as tableau', he was complaining about Austen's detachment, but he might just as well have been describing the ludic enthusiasm of these amateur reading clubs, whose 'performances' include teas, costume balls, games, readings, and dramatic representations, staged with a campy anglophilia in North America, and a brisker antiquarian meticulousness in England, and whose interests range from Austenian dramatizations, to fabrics, to genealogies, and to weekend study trips, in no particular order and without any agendadriven priority. Even though lectures by academic Austenian scholars are featured at Jane Austen Society and Jane Austen Society of North America conferences, and even though JAS's Collected Reports and JASNA's Persua­ sions often publish a tremendous amount in the way of sheer information, most academics I know take a rather dim view of these galas, where enjoyment rather than hermeneutic mastery is assumed to be the reward of reading, where reading is sociable rather than solitary, and where the stuff of erudition itself seems so different. On quizzes - a staple of JASNA meetings - academics fare quite poorly: having been taught to regard only certain relationships, scenes and (typically, closural) structures as significant, we rarely recollect the colour of this character's dress or that servant's name. We sometimes suffer the additional mortification of discovering our own papers becoming yet another relatively undifferentiated, unhierarchicalized item in the great repository of Austeniana assiduously collected by Janeites and compiled in newsletters and reports, printed somewhere between recipes for white soup and the latest word jumble. Clearly more than a mood of reading is at stake here, but a method as well, one that strikes to the heart of our disciplinary self-identity. Trained to regard the text itself as a sacred boundary which must never be violated, we are confounded by the common Janeite game of imagining how a character in one novel might behave towards a character in another, or of speculating how the novels might continue after the wedding (a practice Austen herself authorized by gratifying the curiosity of her nephews and nieces). If for academics meaning is generally foreclosed by the comic ending of marriage, Janeites from Kipling on treat her novels instead as one capacious middle: balls, blunders, picnics, incomes, hunting-dogs, and marriages vie equally for our attention, none taking determinative priority over another, and where, moreover, all manner of 'extra-textual' material on sailors, Addison's disease, and petty-theft is welcome so long as it somehow qualifies as a Janean artefact. 223

CLAUDIA

L. JOHNSON

The process by which academic critics deprecate Austenian admirers outside the academy is very similar to the way, as Henry Jenkins has shown, trekkies, fans, and mass media enthusiasts are derided and marginalized by dominant cultural institutions bent on legitimizing their own objects and protocols of expertise. But there is an important difference: unlike Star Trek, Austen's novels hold a secure place in the canon of high as well as popular culture. Claiming the legitimacy of her novels as a subject for professional study has meant not assailing the object of amateur or belletristic study, but instead the triviality of its (non-)knowledge. But at a time when so many scholars and theorists worry that the grip of ideology upon representation is so withering that novels themselves are a form of the police, what Janeite readers supposedly do not know may help us all. By contextualizing Austenian commentary, examining the contrast between earlier reading practices and those that prevailed once novel study was professionalized, and by insisting that reading Austen is a social practice contingent upon our desires, needs, and historical circumstances, I would like to suggest that it may not be the novel that polices us, but novel criticism as a discourse that has done so. If Dr. Johnson, one of Austen's favourite writers, was correct in opining that the purpose of literature was to help us better to enjoy or endure life, then we must be glad, pace James, that 'Jane' is 'theirs', 'yours', and 'ours' after all. 22

NOTES 1 According to the Supplement to the OED, the word 'Janeite' entered the language in 1896, but the self-consciously hyperbolic zeal for her works surely pre-dates this. Although I cannot concur in his tendency to minimize the cultural importance of Janeites and anti-Janeites as an amusing controversy, I am much indebted to B. C. Southam for having uncovered so much fascinating material in his Critical Heritage volumes and in 'Janeite/Anti-Janeites', A Jane Austen Handbook, ed. J . David Grey. (London: Athlone Press, 1986), pp. 2 3 7 - 4 3 . For a brief but informative sketch of the term 'Janeite', see Lorraine Hanaway, ' "Janeite" at 100', Persuasions, 16 (1994), 2 8 - 9 . 2 For the publication history of Austen's novels, I am vastly indebted to B. C. Southam's invaluable 'Introduction' to Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, Volume ii: 1870-1940, (London and N e w York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), especially pp. 58-70; David Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 2 1 1 - 3 4 ; Geoffrey Keynes, Jane Austen: A Bibliography (London: The Nonesuch Press, 1929); and Jan Fergus' invaluable Jane Austen: A Literary Life (Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1 9 9 1 ) . 3 James, 'The Lesson of Balzac' (1905), in Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, vol. 11, p. 230. 4 From 'Miss Austen and Miss Mitford', Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 224

Austen cults and cultures

5

6

7

(March 1870), reprinted in B. C. Southam, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, vol. 1 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), p. 2 1 7 . Quoted from Montague Summers, 'Jane Austen: An Appreciation', Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, 3 6 ( 1 9 1 8 ) , 1 - 3 3 . Summers' language of divine election is typical of all Janeites. 'The Janeites' is included in Debits and Credits (1926). It was begun in 1 9 2 2 , finished in 1 9 2 3 , and was first published in 1 9 2 4 , in a slightly different version than that published in 1 9 2 6 . All quotations are from Debits and Credits, ed. Sandra Kemp (Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin, 1 9 8 7 ) , pp. 1 1 9 - 1 4 0 . I supply page references in the text. Letter to Thomas Hardy. Quoted in F. B. Pinion, A Jane Austen Companion (London: Macmillan, 1 9 7 3 ) , P- 4 According to Kent, H. F. Brett Smith, an Oxford tutor, served in World War I as an adviser in British hospitals, and his special responsibility was the prescription of salubrious reading for the wounded; and he recommended Austen's novels to 'severely shell-shocked' soldiers. I am much indebted to Kent's fine essay. Christopher Kent, 'Learning History with, and from, Jane Austen', in Jane Austen s Beginnings, ed. J . David Grey (Ann Arbor and London: U M I Research Press , 1989), p. 59. D. A. Miller admits to some Janeism when he says that he once - back in the days before the AIDS crisis - believed that Austen's novels could make him well. See 'The Late Jane Austen', Raritan, 1 0 (1990), 5 5 - 7 9 . 'Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen', in Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Ian Watt (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 1 6 7 . Harding singles out Eric Linklater's Janeite Prime Minister in The Impregnable Women and Beatrice Kean Seymour's Jane Austen, where she wrote: 'In a society which has enthroned the machine-gun and carried it aloft even into the quiet heavens, there will always be men and women - Escapist or not, as you please - who will turn to her novels with an unending sense of relief and thankfulness.' Chapman, 'Reading Aloud', in The Portrait of a Scholar and Other Essays Written in Macedonia, 1916-1918 (London: Oxford University Press, 1 9 2 0 ) , p. 46. The New Statesman, 22 (1923), 1 4 5 ; The Edinburgh Review, 239 (1924), 3 2 . Harding, 'Regulated Hatred', p. 1 7 0 . See The Great Tradition (Garden City, N Y : Doubleday and Co., 1 9 5 4 ) , p. 1 9 , p. 2 5 . Lionel Trilling, The Opposing Self (New York: Viking Press, 1 9 5 5 ) , p. 209. H. W. Garrod's 'Jane Austen: A Depreciation' was originally delivered at the Royal Society for Literature in M a y 1 9 2 8 , and published in Essays by Divers Hands: Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, v n i (1928): 2 1 - 4 0 ; and reprinted in numerous other places. I quote it as printed in William Heath, ed., Discussion of Jane Austen (Boston: Heath and Company, 1 9 6 1 ) , pp. 3 2 - 4 0 . If Garrod launched his attack because he suspected that Janeites liked women too much, B. C. Southam would hint that Garrod himself did not like women enough: 'a clue' to Garrod's dislike of Austen lies in the fact that he was 'a distinguished classical scholar who moved to English studies in the 1920s. He spent much of his life at Oxford, unmarried, where he had rooms in Merton 2

8

9

10

11

12 13 14 15 16

225

C L A U D I A L. J O H N S O N

7 8

9 0

1 2

College for over fifty years'; in Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1870-1940, vol. 2, p. 1 5 4 . Since many passionate Janeites, past and present, answer to this description, the 'clue' explains nothing. I examine the role Austen plays in the policing of gender as well as genre in 'The Divine Miss Jane: Jane Austen, Janeites, and the Discipline of Novel Studies', forthcoming in boundary 2, 23 (Fall, 1996). The brilliance of Mary Lascelles' Jane Austen and her Art (London: Oxford University Press, 1 9 3 9 ) 1 regard as exceptional to the argument I am making. In Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 9 5 2 ) , Mudrick holds that 'The fact is that Emma prefers the company of women' (p. 1 9 2 ) ; 'for a time at l e a s t . . . Emma is in love with [Harriet]' (p. 203). On the lesbianism question specifically, Mudrick acknowledges his debt to Edmund Wilson's 'A Long Talk on Jane Austen', which first appeared in The New Yorker, 20 (June 24, 1944). Booth's essay first appeared in Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 9 6 1 ) , pp. 2 4 3 - 6 6 . 1 quote from pp. 260, 2 6 3 , 244. Aspects of the Novel (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1 9 2 7 ) , pp. 6 7 - 8 2 . I quote from p. 54. In an excellent discussion of Forster's Aspects, Paul Morrison argues that Forster's remarks on narrative are much less emancipatory than what I suggest here. See 'End Pleasure', GLQ, 1 (1993), 53-78. 'Jane Austen and the Masturbating Heroine', in Tendencies (Durham: Duke University Press, 1 9 9 3 ) , p. 1 2 5 . Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1992). Jenkins draws from Michel de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984) and Pierre Bourdieu's Distinction (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979) to show how high culturalists feel tainted by the adoption of its protocols for use with respect to low culture objects, and to suggest that fans transgress against bourgeois structures of cultural valuation.

226

13 BRUCE STOVEL

Further reading

'It would be a delightful thing if a magazine could be started which should be devoted entirely to Miss Austen . . . We are never tired of talking about her; should we ever grow weary of reading or writing about her?' So wrote Walter Stafford, 2 n d Earl of Iddesleigh, in 1 9 0 0 , in an essay entitled 'A Chat about Jane Austen's Novels' ( 8 1 1 ) . One hundred years onward, Jane Austen Societies around the world talk, read, and write about Jane Austen, and the two largest of them have for many years produced annual volumes 'devoted entirely to Miss Austen'. Furthermore, these volumes are only a small portion of the library's-worth of writing about Jane Austen, nearly all of it published since 1 9 0 0 . What follows is a guide to that library, discussing first biographies of Jane Austen and then criticism of the novels. As we shall see, the Earl would be delighted.

BIOGRAPHY The dominant force in Jane Austen's life was her family, and her family has also been the dominant force in the study of her life. The major biographies of her for more than one hundred years after her death in 1 8 1 7 were written by family members, and the biographies since then have relied largely on unpublished or obscurely published family manuscripts. Furthermore, the Austen family has been determined from the start to present its most famous member to the world as a figure of exemplary gentility and piety. Some five months after her death, Jane Austen was introduced to her readers as the author of her six novels, in the 'Biographical Notice' at the front of the volume containing her two posthumously published novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, but this seven-page account by her favourite brother, Henry Austen, is in tone an obituary. Her life is depicted as faultless - 'She never uttered either a hasty, a silly, or a severe expression' (NA, P 6) - and the emphasis is upon the pious manner of her death. Thus Jane Austen the person remained unknown to her growing reader227

BRUCE

STOVEL

ship for the first half-century after her death. Tennyson, a great admirer and rereader of the novels, could say in about i 8 6 0 , 'He thanked God he knew nothing of Jane Austen, and that there were no letters preserved either of Shakespeare's or Jane Austen's, that they had not been ripped open like pigs' (cited in Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen, 4 9 1 ) . The public's curiosity was satisfied, and yet the author's dignity was preserved, in the first biography, A Memoir of Jane Austen ( 1 8 7 0 ) , by James Edward AustenLeigh, Jane Austen's nephew, a clergyman and the son of her eldest brother, James. He had been sixteen when his aunt died and had known her well. His book is a tribute from someone who feels great affection for both his aunt and her novels: it is filled with reminiscences, imbued with the nostalgia of a man in his seventies for a simpler age 'before express trains, sewing machines, and photograph books' (33), and celebrates its subject's wit and high spirits as well as her domestic virtues. The book is concise (less than 1 5 0 pages), elegantly written, and cites abundantly from Austen's letters. The main outlines of Jane Austen's life and personality are all there in the Memoir: the happy family life at Steventon, the precocious childhood writing as the family madcap, the attachment to Cassandra, the depression and sterility of the Bath and Southampton years, the renewed happiness and creative surge of the Chawton years, increasing admiration (from the Prince Regent among others) and her corresponding determination to maintain her privacy as the novels are published from 1 8 1 1 onwards, the tragic final illness and death at forty-one. Even Austen's three brushes with love and marriage - the youthful flirtation with Tom Lefroy, the relationship with a mysterious admirer met on the Devonshire coast in 1 8 0 1 , the acceptance and rejection the next morning of a marriage proposal by a wealthy neighbour, Harris Bigg-Wither - are described, if in general and muffled terms. As Tennyson's remark indicates, Jane Austen was a name and nothing more to her readers before 1 8 7 0 ; as Claudia L. Johnson shows elsewhere in this volume, the Memoir produces the engaging, if idealized, figure generally associated with that name. The Austen family divulged more information in the next few decades. The first (and incomplete) edition of her letters, with a rambling 110-page introduction on Austen family life, was published by Lord Brabourne, son of Jane Austen's favourite niece, Fanny Knight, in 1 8 8 4 . Constance Hill's Jane Austen: Her Homes and her Friends ( 1 9 0 2 ) cites from family manu­ scripts. In 1 9 0 6 J . H. Hubback and his daughter Edith Hubback (the grandson and great-granddaughter of Jane Austen's brother Frank) pub­ lished Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers, printing for the first time Jane's letters to Frank and tracing, in detail and with many anecdotes, the exciting war­ time careers of Frank and Charles Austen, who both became admirals. 228

Further reading The 'official' biography, Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. A Family Record, by William Arthur Austen-Leigh (son of James Edward) and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh (William's nephew), appeared in 1 9 1 3 . It is indeed a family record, bringing together material from the different branches of the family. In the Victorian life-and-letters manner, it cites virtually every one of the surviving letters and is, in fact, largely a running commentary on the letters. Much more readable is Elizabeth Jenkins' Jane Austen, which has gone through many editions since its first publication in 1 9 3 8 and is, remarkably, still in print. Unencumbered by footnotes, its tale of Jane Austen's matura­ tion as an artist and growing public success has the narrative drive of a novel - not surprisingly, since Jenkins was herself a popular novelist. She brings to life the society in which Jane Austen lived: the nuances of social rank and social occasion, the fad for the picturesque and the short-lived gothic craze, the fashions in clothes and carriages, the controversy over the Prince Regent. Like the Memoir, this forms an ideal place to begin reading about Jane Austen's life. Several other popularizing biographies have appeared since then. Jane Aiken Hodge's The Double Life of Jane Austen ( 1 9 7 2 ) takes up an idea implicit in Jenkins and makes it a thesis: that Jane Austen in private life was much more rebellious, much less conventional, than Jane Austen the dutiful family member. John Halperin's The Life of Jane Austen ( 1 9 8 4 ) takes this view to iconoclastic extremes: his Jane Austen is consumed by smouldering resentment at her lot, incapable of love, and cynical about personal relation­ ships, and her novels are for him correspondingly acrid. By contrast, Lord David Cecil's A Portrait of Jane Austen ( 1 9 7 8 ) is an affectionate tribute; a picture-book in form (with 1 0 1 illustrations), elegantly written, it presents the old-fashioned Jane Austen, cultivated, genteel, sensible, principled. Cecil's book nevertheless is meant to be read, as opposed to the coffee-table books on Jane Austen, to be browsed for their pictures. Three instances of the latter are Marghanita Laski's Jane Austen and her World ( 1 9 6 9 ) , Susan Watkins' Jane Austen's Town and Country Style ( 1 9 9 0 ) , and Nigel Nicolson's The World of Jane Austen ( 1 9 9 1 ) ; the last, following Hill, concentrates on the country houses in Jane Austen's life and fiction. Meanwhile, the Austen family has gone on publishing biographical information. Mary Augusta Austen-Leigh produced James Edward AustenLeigh, a memoir of her father, in 1 9 1 1 , and in 1 9 2 0 , at the age of 8 2 , published Personal Aspects of Jane Austen. Both books fill in details of the Chawton years. R. A. Austen-Leigh, co-author of the Life and Letters, produced a series of pamphlets and articles, as well as editing Austen Papers, 1704-1856 ( 1 9 4 2 ) , which contains a wealth of fascinating material: 229

BRUCE

STOVEL

letters by both of Jane Austen's parents, for instance, and the correspon­ dence from Steventon of Jane Austen's witty and dazzling cousin Eliza de Feuillide. The reminiscences of Caroline Austen, the sister of James Edward Austen-Leigh and his collaborator in the 1 8 7 0 Memoir, have been published in two slim volumes, My Aunt Jane Austen: A Memoir ( 1 9 5 2 ) and Reminiscences of Caroline Austen ( 1 9 8 6 ) . It is Caroline who tells us an important fact: Cassandra 'burnt the greater part' of Jane's letters to her ' 2 or 3 years before her own death' {My Aunt Jane Austen, 1 0 ) . Three excellent biographies have appeared in recent years. Park Honan's Jane Austen ( 1 9 8 7 ) is a sympathetic and thoroughly researched account: Honan, for instance, makes use throughout of unpublished family papers. Honan's main thesis is that Jane Austen was much more implicated in events of her revolutionary times than has been realized: significantly, the book's first chapter, introducing the Austen family, is preceded by an eightpage prologue following the twelve-year-old naval cadet, Frank Austen, as he rides inland to Steventon from the brutal naval academy at Portsmouth. Throughout, in fact, Honan narrates his story as if he were a novelist, providing, for instance, a ten-page account of the vacillations within Jane Austen's mind as she first accepts and then rejects Harris Bigg-Wither's proposal ( 1 8 9 - 9 8 ) . Thus, despite its length ( 4 5 0 pages) and thoroughness, this book is highly readable. Deirdre Le Faye's Jane Austen: A Family Record ( 1 9 8 9 ) also makes use of family papers, but has a very different way of presenting Austen's life: her book is authoritatively factual, from the ten-page 'Chronology' of Jane Austen's life with which it begins - reprinted in this volume - to the thirteen pages of family pedigrees (including a two-page chart entitled 'Origin and Descent of Biographical Information') with which it ends. Le Faye also draws on research of her own into parish records, county archives, wills, cemeteries, and other sources of information. The resulting account is meticulously accurate - unless one takes exception to the title page, which identifies this book as a revised and enlarged version of the 1 9 1 3 Life and Letters, when it is in fact a wholly new account which owes little more to the original than its chronological framework. The person who reads this book, even more than the reader of Honan's, experiences Jane Austen as an actual person - sharp-edged, various, untransparent - and not as the neat hypothesis (either delightfully good or secretly rebellious) of previous biographies. Jan Fergus' Jane Austen is much shorter than the Honan and Le Faye biographies, and does not make use of unpublished family papers, but has some definite advantages over them, including its very brevity ( 1 9 0 pages) and its critical insights. (Fergus is the author of one of the best books of 230

Further reading Austen criticism, Jane Austen and the Didactic Novel [ 1 9 8 3 ] , and she weaves five to ten pages of shrewd observations about each novel into the narrative.) The book is one in Macmillan's series of Literary Lives, which aim at tracing writers' professional careers and their contexts. As in her essay in this volume, Fergus provides fascinating information on the literary marketplace - the going price for a first novel, the kinds of contracts offered authors, publication runs, readership - and Jane Austen's place in it. More than ever before, Austen emerges as shrewd in her business dealings and ambitious as an author. The book's focus is on Jane Austen the professional woman: Fergus offers a carefully stated, and convincing, feminist interpreta­ tion of Jane Austen's personal situation and of her novels. More forthrightly feminist is Deborah Kaplan's Jane Austen among Women ( 1 9 9 4 ) ; using fresh research, Kaplan defines Austen's life by examining those of other women in her family circle and neighbourhood. Each of the biographies by Honan, Le Faye, and Fergus offers a state-ofthe-art portrait of Jane Austen. Two books by George Holbert Tucker are carefully researched and very readable: A Goodly Heritage: A History of Jane Austen's Family ( 1 9 8 3 ) , which devotes ten to fifteen pages to each of the family members in turn, and Jane Austen the Woman ( 1 9 9 4 ) , which has chapters on topics such as Jane Austen and Scandal or Jane Austen's Journeyings. And Deirdre Le Faye's new edition of Jane Austen's letters ( 1 9 9 5 ) contains a wealth of information in its notes, 'Biographical Index', and 'Topographical Index'. All in all, then, Jane Austen the person is no longer a cipher.

CRITICISM TO 1 9 7 0 Virginia Woolf said of Austen, 'Of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness' ('Jane Austen at Sixty', 1 5 ) . This obliqueness makes criticism of her novels necessary, challenging, ingenious, and various. The history of that criticism can be divided into four phases, with the help of the boundaries used in B. C. Southam's two anthologies of earlier criticism, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage ( 1 9 6 8 ) , which covers 1 8 1 1 to 1 8 7 0 , and Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, Volume 11: 1870-1940. The first phase of Austen criticism thus runs from the novels' publication to 1 8 7 0 , the date of the Memoir; a second phase continues up to 1 9 3 9 , the date of the first valuable full-length study, Mary Lascelles' Jane Austen and her Art ( 1 9 3 9 ) ; a third phase in which academic study of the novels becomes established extends from 1 9 4 0 till about 1 9 7 0 ; from that date onwards, new conceptions of Austen's achievement and rigorous new critical methods predominate. The summary of Austen criticism below 231

BRUCE

STOVEL

outlines the high points up to 1 9 7 0 and after that point, as books became more frequent and hindsight more scarce, offers a quick survey of all the critical books published on Austen's novels. Until the publication of the Memoir in 1 8 7 0 , Jane Austen's novels had a small, if growing and appreciative, audience. No books on Austen were published during this period, and of the few essays that appeared, three are particularly interesting. Sir Walter Scott's review-essay on Emma in 1 8 1 6 argues that Emma represented a major new kind of unromantic fiction. Richard Whately, reviewing Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in 1 8 2 1 but displaying a shrewd grasp of all six novels, shows that Austen is like Shakespeare in her vivid, carefully differentiated characterization, that her plots follow Aristotelian principles, and that her novels present, if indirectly, 'moral lessons': 'her's is that unpretending kind of instruction which is furnished by real life' ( 9 5 ) . Richard Simpson's 25-page 'review' of the Memoir in 1 8 7 0 outlines an original and searching conception of Jane Austen's novels. Drawing on the Memoir's account of the juvenilia, he argues that Jane Austen began as an ironic debunker of romantic love and developed her own ideal of 'intelligent love': 'Miss Austen seems to be saturated with the Platonic idea that the giving and receiving of knowledge, the active formation of another's character, or the more passive growth under another's guidance, is the truest and strongest foundation of love' (244).

After the Memoir's appearance in 1 8 7 0 , there was a flood of new editions of the novels, many of them illustrated, and a host of new biographical and critical studies. There is a cosy, self-congratulatory quality to almost all of this new enthusiasm: as early as 1 8 5 2 , an anonymous author claims, 'readers of more refined taste and critical acumen feel something like dissatisfaction with almost every other domestic novelist, after they have once appreciated Miss Austen' ('Female Novelists', 1 3 6 ) . One suspects that it is this 'refined' adulation, rather than the novels themselves, that accounts for the violent distaste for Austen's novels expressed in this period by Charlotte Brontë, Emerson, Mark Twain, and D. H. Lawrence (as well as Henry James' condescending praise). Surprisingly little in the seven decades between 1 8 7 0 and Mary Lascelles' book in 1 9 3 9 is of critical interest (as opposed to curiosity value) today. Two novelists, Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster, offer shrewd and illuminating comments in essays that, because of their authors' stature, received wide circulation in, respectively, Woolf's The Common Reader ( 1 9 2 5 ) and Forster's Abinger Harvest ( 1 9 3 6 ) ; Woolf's essay is especially eloquent, describing how different Persuasion is from Austen's earlier novels: 'She is beginning to discover that the world is larger, more 232

Further reading

mysterious, and more romantic than she had supposed' (22). A. C. Bradley, Professor of Poetry at Oxford and the author of Shakespearean Tragedy ( 1 9 0 4 ) , published an essay on Austen in 1 9 1 1 that gave her work an academic imprimatur. Beginning with the view, 'There are two distinct strains in Jane Austen. She is a moralist and a humorist' (7), he comments on the interrelationship of these two strains and suggests that stage comedy influenced her fictional comedies; he also explores for the first time her debt to eighteenth-century writers such as Johnson and Cowper. In 1 9 1 7 Reginald Farrer published a centenary tribute that was much more original, witty, penetrating, and provocative than anything since Simpson's essay. Writing for the general reader, he argues that the Jane Austen most readers know is largely a fiction produced by sentimental biography and the book trade - and that, instead, she is a conscious artist and a dispassionate critic of her own society. Farrer's comments on each of the six novels are bracing: he makes the case that Emma is the most complex - and best - of them. Mary Lascelles' Jane Austen and her Art forms a watershed: it was the first full-length, thorough, and searching study of the novels. Jane Austen's use of language, of narrative technique, of timing, and many other artistic issues were defined and explored with precision and sensitivity. Yet the book is stimulating at the same time for its old-fashioned judgments: Darcy's long letter to Elizabeth, for instance, is considered implausible - 'so much, and such, information would hardly be volunteered by a proud and reserved man' ( 1 6 2 ) . All in all, if one had to be marooned with the six novels and one critical book, this would still be the choice of many readers. Like the Jenkins biography, it remains in print some sixty years after its first publication. The following year, 1 9 4 0 , saw the publication of an influential revisionist essay, D. W. Harding's 'Regulated Hatred'. Harding took Farrer's concep­ tion of Austen several steps further, presenting her as a distinctively twentieth-century figure: isolated and misunderstood, protecting her integ­ rity as a person and an artist by subversive ironies. As a result, Austen 'is a literary classic of the society which attitudes like hers, held widely enough, would undermine' ( 1 6 7 ) . This view of Austen as an isolated ironist, critical of her society, received full-length exposition in Marvin Mudrick's Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery ( 1 9 5 2 ) . Mudrick's schematic, closely argued reading of the novels is one that few readers can accept in its entirety, but that all will find thought-provoking. If criticism of the novels could no longer be innocent after Lascelles, after Mudrick it would usually be strenuous and combative. Since then, critical books and essays - most by academics - have proliferated. Several studies from the fifties and sixties remain virtually 233

BRUCE

STOVEL

required reading. Lionel Trilling's essays championing Mansfield Park ( 1 9 5 4 ) and Emma ( 1 9 5 7 ) were frequently reprinted and still make exciting reading. B. C. Southam's Jane Austen's Literary Manuscripts (1964) remains the standard study on its subject - and is especially useful as a guide to the juvenilia and the three incomplete novels {Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon). Howard Babb's Jane Austen's Novels: The Fabric of Dialogue ( 1 9 6 2 ) argues that characters define themselves by the way they use (and misuse) general concepts in conversation. Joseph Wiesenfarth's The Errand of Form ( 1 9 6 7 ) provides a vigorous close reading of the novels, reinstating Jane Austen the moralist. Kenneth Moler's Jane Austen's Art of Allusion ( 1 9 6 8 ) is a pioneering detailed study of Austen's debt to Burney, Edgeworth, and other novelists of her time. Perhaps the most useful book of criticism in this period is A. Walton Litz's Jane Austen ( 1 9 6 5 ) ; concise, lucid, bringing into focus a great deal of previous scholarship and criticism, this volume is, like Lascelles' book, a one-volume critical compendium. Another useful compendium is Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Ian Watt ( 1 9 6 3 ) , which contains essays on Austen by Woolf, Harding, C. S. Lewis, and Edmund Wilson and critical essays on each novel.

CRITICISM SINCE 1 9 7 0 Beginning in about 1 9 7 0 , and running parallel to the general re-theorizing of literary study in the last two decades, Austen's novels were analysed more and more as products of a specific culture. Alistair Duckworth's The Improvement of the Estate ( 1 9 7 1 ) and Marilyn Butler's Jane Austen and the War of Ideas ( 1 9 7 5 ) regarded them as statements in the social and moral controversies of Austen's time, as did Warren Roberts' study of Austen's politics, Jane Austen and the French Revolution ( 1 9 7 9 ) . Julia Prewitt Brown's Jane Austen's Novels: Social Change and Literary Form ( 1 9 7 9 ) focused on society's changing conception of marriage; Susan Morgan's In the Meantime: Character and Perception in Jane Austen's Fiction ( 1 9 8 0 ) found in the novels Austen's response to the epistemological debates of the Romantic era; Jan Fergus in Jane Austen and the Didactic Novel ( 1 9 8 3 ) related Austen's first three novels to educational thinking. Education was the focus in D. D. Devlin's Jane Austen and Education ( 1 9 7 5 ) , Laura Mooneyham's Romance, Language, and Education in Jane Austen's Novels ( 1 9 8 8 ) , and Barbara Horwitz's Jane Austen and the Question of Women's Education ( 1 9 9 1 ) , whereas Jocelyn Harris explored Jane Austen's creative reading of earlier authors auch as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, and Richardson in Jane Austen's Art of Memory ( 1 9 8 9 ) . The historian Oliver MacDonagh, in Jane Austen: Real and Imagined Worlds ( 1 9 9 1 ) , linked the 234

Further reading novels and social history, as did Maija Stewart's Domestic Realities and Imperial Fictions: Jane Austen's Novels in Eighteenth-Century Contexts ( 1 9 9 3 ) and Roger Sales' Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England ( 1 9 9 4 ) . James Thompson saw the novels as dramatizing the conflict between landed and exchange values in Between Self and World: The Novels of Jane Austen ( 1 9 8 8 ) . The religious context was the subject of Gene Koppel's The Religious Dimension in Jane Austen's Novels ( 1 9 8 8 ) and Jane Austen and the Clergy ( 1 9 9 4 ) by the historian Irene Collins. Edward Copeland has a chapter on Austen's relation to economic realities in his Women Writing about Money: Women's Fiction in England, 17901820 ( 1 9 9 5 ) . John Wiltshire, in Jane Austen and the Body ( 1 9 9 2 ) , analyses the novels in the light of medical thinking about illness and the body. Two books that consider social rituals in the novels are David Monaghan's Jane Austen: Structure and Social Vision ( 1 9 8 0 ) and John Dussinger's In the Pride of the Moment: Encounters in Jane Austen's World ( 1 9 9 0 ) . K. C. Phillipps in Jane Austen's English ( 1 9 7 0 ) , Karl Kroeber in Styles in Fictional Structure: The Art of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot ( 1 9 7 1 ) , and Norman Page in The Language of Jane Austen (1972) concentrate on language conventions. These specialized studies are written for the academic, rather than the general, reader. They tend to replace traditional literary criticism with rigorous attention to cultural context - though, in fact, many, perhaps most, are gracefully written, and most (for instance, the books by Brown and Morgan) provide eloquent close readings of the novels. The older kind of criticism did not simply disappear, however, and many excellent studies of Austen appeared that owed little to the changed critical climate. Stuart Tave's Some Words of Jane Austen ( 1 9 7 3 ) is a showcase for sensitive close reading, as is Barbara Hardy's A Reading of Jane Austen {1.976) - which, unusually, consists of chapters on topics such as Storytelling or Properties and Possessions rather than novel-by-novel treatment. Several other notable books in this category are Jane Nardin's Those Elegant Decorums: The Concept of Propriety in Jane Austen's Novels ( 1 9 7 3 ) , Lloyd Brown's Bits of Ivory: Narrative Techniques in Jane Austen's Fiction ( 1 9 7 3 ) , Darrel Mansell's The Novels of Jane Austen ( 1 9 7 3 ) , John Hardy's Jane Austen's Heroines ( 1 9 8 4 ) , Roger Gard's significantly-titled Jane Austen's Novels: The Art of Clarity ( 1 9 9 2 ) , and Juliet McMaster's Jane Austen the Novelist U995) ~ which reprints three of the four essays in her earlier Jane Austen on Love ( 1 9 7 8 ) . Several helpful guides for the general reader appeared: Christopher Gillie's A Preface to Jane Austen ( 1 9 7 4 ) , Douglas Bush's Jane Austen ( 1 9 7 5 ) , and John Lauber's Jane Austen ( 1 9 9 3 ) , and in this category might be placed Tony Tanner's popularizing Jane Austen ( 1 9 8 6 ) , which 235

BRUCE

STOVEL

combines post-structural terminology and old-fashioned explication (and reprints Tanner's introductions to Penguin editions of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park). The most invigorating new approach has been feminism. Brief discussions of Austen's novels figured in several of the books that established feminism as a distinct form of literary analysis, notably Patricia Meyer Spacks' The Female Imagination ( 1 9 7 5 ) , Ellen Moers' Literary Women ( 1 9 7 6 ) , Elaine Showalter's A Literature of their Own ( 1 9 7 7 ) , Nina Auerbach's Commu­ nities of Women ( 1 9 7 8 ) , and Rachel Brownstein's Becoming a Heroine ( 1 9 8 2 ) . Two influential books contain extended discussions of Austen as a victim of the society she depicts: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic ( 1 9 7 9 ) , and Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer ( 1 9 8 4 ) . A similar view of Austen's novels as enacting a constricting ideology is presented in Nancy Armstrong's chapters on Pride and Prejudice and Emma in her Desire and Domestic Fiction ( 1 9 8 7 ) . Jane Spencer discusses Austen's novels as the culmination of a tradition of women's fiction in The Rise of the Woman Novelist ( 1 9 8 6 ) . The first book devoted to Austen as a feminist was Margaret Kirkham's Jane Austen, Feminism, and Fiction ( 1 9 8 3 ) , which argues that Austen dramatizes the concerns of Enlightenment feminists of her day like Mary Wollstonecraft. Three other books that offer feminist readings of Austen's novels are Leroy W. Smith's Jane Austen and the Drama of Woman ( 1 9 8 3 ) , Mary Evans' Jane Austen and the State ( 1 9 8 7 ) , and Alison Sulloway's Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood ( 1 9 8 9 ) . More sophisticated and provocative than any of these was Claudia Johnson's Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel ( 1 9 8 9 ) , which postulates that, in an England threatened by revolutionary France, the domestic novel became politicized, a forum in which Edmund Burke's favourite analogy of the ordered family to the conservative state could be tested. One recent essay shows how much a feminist reading opens up to view: Margaret Anne Doody's forty-page introduction to the Oxford World's Classics Sense and Sensibility ( 1 9 9 0 ) . Of course, many recent studies fit into none of the above categories. The most fascinating of these is no doubt J . F. Burrows' Computation into Criticism ( 1 9 8 7 ) . Using computer-based statistics, Burrows describes Aus­ ten's narration (showing that the three earlier novels differ markedly from the three later ones) and identifies the 'idiolects', or distinctive speechpatterns, of her major characters. Michael Williams' Jane Austen ( 1 9 8 6 ) applies reader-response theory to the novels, and John Odmark applies phenomenology in An Understanding of Jane Austen's Novels (1981). Richard Handler and Daniel Segal bring to bear anthropological ideas about ritual and class in Jane Austen and the Fiction of Culture ( 1 9 9 0 ) . Jane 236

Further reading Austen had a keen love of music, and two books relate her knowledge of music to the novels: Patrick Piggott's The Innocent Diversion: Music in the Life and Writings of fane Austen ( 1 9 7 9 ) and R. K. Wallace's Jane Austen and Mozart ( 1 9 8 3 ) . Two books of Austen criticism published in 1 9 9 5 illustrate its ongoing diversity: Tara Ghoshal Wallace's Jane Austen and Narrative Authority and Maggie Lane's Jane Austen and Food. Many helpful collections of critical essays have appeared since Watt's volume. The most notable of these are: Critical Essays on Jane Austen, ed. B. C. Southam ( 1 9 6 8 ) ; Jane Austen Today, ed. Joel Weinsheimer ( 1 9 7 5 ) ; Jane Austen: Bicentenary Essays, ed. John Halperin ( 1 9 7 5 ) ; Jane Austen's Achievement, ed. Juliet McMaster ( 1 9 7 6 ) ; Jane Austen in a Social Context, ed. David Monaghan ( 1 9 8 1 ) ; Jane Austen: New Perspectives, ed. Janet Todd ( 1 9 8 3 ) ; and Jane Austen's Business, ed. Juliet McMaster and Bruce Stovel ( 1 9 9 6 ) . The three volumes from the seventies are bicentennial tributes (Jane Austen was born in 1 7 7 5 ) ; special issues of two scholarly journals, Nineteenth-Century Fiction and Studies in the Novel, were devoted to essays on Austen in 1 9 7 5 . There are several casebooks gathering critical essays on individual novels, Norton Critical Editions of Pride and Prejudice and Emma, a dozen or so monographs devoted to a single novel, and scores of valuable introductions to paperback editions (such as those by Tanner and Doody already mentioned); R. W. Chapman's scholarly editions of the novels ( 1 9 2 3 ) and the minor works ( 1 9 5 4 ) contain valuable textual and background information. And then there are chapters in books on larger topics, such as Dorothy Van Ghent's much-reprinted essay on Pride and Prejudice in The English Novel ( 1 9 5 3 ) or Wayne Booth's chapter on Emma in The Rhetoric of Fiction ( 1 9 6 1 ) or Raymond Williams' pages on Austen in The Country and the City ( 1 9 7 3 ) or Claudia L. Johnson's essay on manhood in Emma in Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender and Sentimen­ tality in the 1790s ( 1 9 9 5 ) . The Annual Reports of the Jane Austen Society in England have been published since 1 9 4 9 , and Persuasions, the annual journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America, has appeared each year since 1 9 7 9 . The annual MLA (Modern Language Association) Biblio­ graphy lists the dozens of essays on Austen that appear in scholarly journals each year. Two earlier handbooks offer orientation. F. B. Pinion's A Jane Austen Companion ( 1 9 7 3 ) provides a running commentary on the novels and their background, as well as items such as a glossary of Austen's usage and an index of characters and places in the novels. A more ambitious and miscellaneous reader's guide, filled with up-to-date information and critical commentary, is The Jane Austen Companion ( 1 9 8 6 ) , ed. J . David Grey, with sixty-five essays by forty contributors on a vast range of topics. David Gilson's A Bibliography of Jane Austen ( 1 9 7 8 ) contains a list of all 237

BRUCE

STOVEL

biography and criticism published

up to 1 9 7 8 ; since then the ML A

bibliography, available now in up-to-date computer format as well as in annual volumes, has full entries on Jane Austen books and essays. Two books that contain detailed summaries of books and articles are An Annotated

Bibliography

of Jane Austen

Studies,

and Joel Weinsheimer, and An Annotated Studies,

1973-19

1952-1972,

Bibliography

by Barry Roth of Jane

Austen

82, by Barry Roth. A valuable critical tool is the three-

volume Concordance

to the Works

of Jane

Austen,

by Peter De Rose and

S. W. M c G u i r e ( i 9 8 3 ) . Today, readers who have enjoyed Austen's novels and begin reading criticism are almost too lucky: they may be blinded by too much light. Facing shelves full of critical writing on the novels, they can hardly feel the Earl of Iddesleigh's euphoria. However, as with our knowledge of Jane Austen's biography, what we have gained far outweighs what we have lost.

WORKS CITED Biography Austen, Caroline, My Aunt Jane Austen: A Memoir (London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne, 1952.). Reminiscences of Caroline Austen (Winchester: Jane Austen Society, 1986). [Austen, Henry,] 'Biographical Notice of the Author', in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, ed. R. W. Chapman (London: Oxford University Press, 1969). Austen, Jane, Jane Austen's Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye (Oxford and N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1 9 9 5 ) . Austen-Leigh, James Edward, A Memoir of Jane Austen, ed. R. W. Chapman (London: Oxford University Press, 1 9 2 6 ) . Austen-Leigh, Mary Augusta, James Edward Austen-Leigh: A Memoir by his Daughter (privately printed, 1 9 1 1 ) . Personal Aspects of Jane Austen (London: Murray, 1920). Austen-Leigh, Richard A., ed., Austen Papers, 1704-1856 (London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne, 1 9 4 2 ) . Austen-Leigh, William, and Richard A. Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. A Family Record (London: Smith, Elder, 1 9 1 3 ) . Brabourne, Edward, 1 s t Lord, 'Introduction', Letters of Jane Austen, 2 vols. (London: Bentley, 1884). Cecil, Lord David, A Portrait of Jane Austen (London: Constable, 1978). Fergus, J a n , Jane Austen: A Literary Life (London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1 9 9 1 ) . Halperin, John, The Life of Jane Austen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984). Hill, Constance, Jane Austen: Her Homes and her Friends (London and New York: Lane, 1 9 0 2 ) . Hodge, Jane Aiken, The Double Life of Jane Austen (London: Hodder and 238

Further reading Stoughton, 1972); issued as Only a Novel: The Double Life of Jane Austen (New York: Coward, McCan, and Geohegan, 1 9 7 2 ) . Honan, Park, Jane Austen: Her Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987). Hubback, J . H., and Edith Hubback, Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers (London and New York: Lane, 1906). Jenkins, Elizabeth, Jane Austen: A Biography (London: Gollancz, 1 9 3 8 ) . Laski, Marghanita, Jane Austen and her World (London: Thames and Hudson; New York: Viking, 1969). Le Faye, Deirdre, Jane Austen: A Family Record (London: British Library, 1989). Nicolson, Nigel, The World of Jane Austen (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991). Tucker, George Holbert, A Goodly Heritage: A History of Jane Austen's Family (Manchester: Carcanet, 1983). Jane Austen the Woman: Some Biographical Insights (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994)Watkins, Susan, Jane Austen's Town and Country Style (London: Thames and Hudson; New York: Rizzoli, 1990).

Criticism to 1970 Austen, Jane, The Novels of Jane Austen, ed. R. W. Chapman, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 2 3 ; revised edition, 1 9 6 5 - 6 ) . Minor Works, ed. R. W. Chapman, vol. 6 of The Works of Jane Austen (London: Oxford University Press, 1954; revised edition, 1969). Babb, Howard S., Jane Austen's Novels: The Fabric of Dialogue (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1962). Booth, Wayne C , The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). Bradley, A. C , 'Jane Austen: A Lecture', Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, 2 ( 1 9 1 1 ) , 7 - 3 6 . Farrer, Reginald, 'Jane Austen, ob> July 1 8 1 8 1 7 ' , Quarterly Review, 228 (October 1917), 1-30. 'Female Novelists', New Monthly Magazine, 95 (May 1 8 5 2 ) , 1 7 - 2 3 ; cited from Southam, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, pp. 1 3 1 - 9 . Forster, E. M . , 'Jane Austen', in Abinger Harvest (London: Arnold, 1 9 3 6 ) , pp. 3 - 1 4 . Harding, D. W., 'Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen', Scrutiny, 8 (1939-40), 3 4 6 - 6 2 ; cited from Watt, Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays, pp. 1 6 6 - 7 9 . Iddesleigh, Walter Stafford, 2nd Earl of, 'A Chat about Jane Austen's Novels', Nineteenth Century, 47 (1900), 8 1 1 - 2 0 . Lascelles, Mary, Jane Austen and her Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 3 9 ) . Litz, A. Walton, Jane Austen: A Study of her Artistic Development (London: Chatto and Windus; New York: Oxford University Press, 1 9 6 5 ) . Moler, Kenneth L., Jane Austen's Art of Allusion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968). 239

BRUCE

STOVEL

Mudrick, Marvin, Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery (Princeton: Princeton University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1 9 5 2 ) . [Scott, Sir Walter,] review of Emma, Quarterly Review, 1 4 (October 1 8 1 5 ) , 1 8 8 - 2 0 1 ; cited from Southam, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, pp. 58-69. [Simpson, Richard,] review of J . E. Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen, North British Review, 52 (April 1 8 7 0 ) , 1 2 9 - 5 2 ; cited from Southam, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, pp. 2 4 1 - 6 5 . Southam, B. C , Jane Austen's Literary Manuscripts: A Study of the Novelist's Development through the Surviving Papers (London: Oxford University Press, 1964). Southam, B. C , ed., Critical Essays on Jane Austen (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; N e w York: Barnes and Noble, 1968). Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968). Tanner, Tony, 'Introduction', Mansfield Park (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966). 'Introduction', Sense and Sensibility (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969). Trilling, Lionel, 'Mansfield Park', Encounter, 3, N o . 3 (September 1954), 9 - 1 9 , and Partisan Review, 2 1 (1954), 4 9 2 - 5 1 1 ; reprinted in his The Opposing Self: Nine Essays in Criticism (London: Seeker and Warburg; New York: Viking, 1 9 5 5 ) , pp. 2 0 6 - 3 0 . 'Emma', Encounter, 8, N o . 6 (June 1 9 5 7 ) , 4 9 - 5 9 ; reprinted in his Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning (New York: Viking, 1 9 6 5 ; London: Seeker and Warburg, 1966), pp. 3 1 - 5 5 . Van Ghent, Dorothy, The English Novel: Form and Function (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1 9 5 3 ) . Watt, Ian, ed., Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N J : Prentice-Hall, 1 9 6 3 ) . [Whateley, Richard,] review of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, Quarterly Review, 24 (January 1 8 2 1 ) , 3 5 2 - 7 6 ; cited from Southam, Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, pp. 8 7 - 1 0 5 . Wiesenfarth, Joseph, The Errand of Form: An Assay of Jane Austen's Art (New York: Fordham University Press, 1 9 6 7 ) . Woolf, Virginia, 'Jane Austen at Sixty', Nation and Athenaeum, 34 (1923), 4 3 3 - 4 . 'Jane Austen', in The Common Reader (London: Hogarth, 1 9 2 5 ) , pp. 1 6 8 - 8 3 ; cited from Watt, Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays, pp. 1 5 - 2 4 .

Criticism since 1970 Armstrong, Nancy, Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1 9 8 7 ) . Auerbach, Nina, Communities of Women: An Idea in Fiction (Cambridge, M A , and London: Harvard University Press, 1978). Brown, Julia Prewitt, Jane Austen's Novels: Social Change and Literary Form (Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press, 1 9 7 9 ) . Brown, Lloyd W., Bits of Ivory: Narrative Techniques in Jane Austen's Fiction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1 9 7 3 ) . Brownstein, Rachel, Becoming a Heroine: Reading about Women in Novels (New York and London: Viking, 1982). 240

Further reading Burrows, J . F., Computation into Criticism: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels and an Experiment in Method (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 8 7 ) . Bush, Douglas, Jane Austen (London and New York: Macmillan, 1 9 7 5 ) . Butler, Marilyn, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 7 5 ) . Collins, Irene, Jane Austen and the Clergy (London: Hambledon, 1994). Copeland, Edward, Women Writing about Money: Women's Fiction in England, 1 7 9 0 - 1 8 2 0 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 9 5 ) . De Rose, Peter L., and S. W. McGuire, A Concordance to the Works of Jane Austen, 3 vols. (New York: Garland, 1 9 8 3 ) . Devlin, D. D.,Jane Austen and Education (London: Macmillan, 1 9 7 5 ) . Doody, Margaret Anne, 'Introduction', Sense and Sensibility (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). Duckworth, Alistair M . , The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1 9 7 1 ) . Dussinger, John, In the Pride of the Moment: Encounters in Jane Austen's World (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990). Evans, Mary, Jane Austen and the State (London and N e w York: Tavistock, 1987). Fergus, Jan, Jane Austen and the Didactic Novel: 'Northanger Abbey', 'Sense and Sensibility', and 'Pride and Prejudice' (London: Macmillan; Totowa, N J : Barnes and Noble, 1 9 8 3 ) . Gard, Roger, Jane Austen's Novels: The Art of Clarity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.). Gilbert, Sandra M . , and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979). Gillie, Christopher, A Preface to Jane Austen (London: Longman, 1 9 7 4 ) . Gilson, David, A Bibliography of Jane Austen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 8 2 ) . Grey, J . David, The Jane Austen Companion (New York: Macmillan, 1986); issued as the Jane Austen Handbook (London: Macmillan, 1986). Jane Austen's Beginnings: The Juvenilia and Lady Susan (Ann Arbor, M I : U M I Research Press, 1989). Halperin, John, ed., Jane Austen: Bicentenary Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 7 5 ) . Handler, Richard, and Daniel Segal, Jane Austen and the Fiction of Culture: An Essay on the Narration of Social Realities (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990). Hardy, Barbara, A Reading of Jane Austen (London: Owen; New York: N e w York University Press, 1976). Hardy, John, Jane Austen's Heroines: Intimacy in Human Relationships (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984). Harris, Jocelyn, Jane Austen's Art of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Horwitz, Barbara, Jane Austen and the Question of Women's Education (New York: Lang, 1 9 9 1 ) . Johnson, Claudia L., Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender, and Sentimentality in the 1J90S: Wollstone-

241

BRUCE

STOVEL

craft, Radcliffe, Burney, Austen (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1995)Kaplan, Deborah, Jane Austen among Women (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). Kirkham, Margaret, Jane Austen: Feminism and Fiction (Brighton: Harvester; Totowa, N J : Barnes and Noble, 1983). Koppel, Gene, The Religious Dimension in Jane Austen's Novels (Ann Arbor, MI: U M I Research Press, 1988). Kroeber, Karl, Styles in Fictional Structures: The Art of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 9 7 1 ) . Lane, Maggie, Jane Austen and Food (London: Hambledon, 1995). Lauber, John, Jane Austen (New York: Twayne, 1 9 9 3 ) . MacDonagh, Oliver, Jane Austen: Real and Imagined Worlds (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 9 9 1 ) . Mansell, Darrel, The Novels of Jane Austen: An Interpretation (London: Macmillan, 1973)McMaster, Juliet, ed., Jane Austen's Achievement: Papers Delivered at the Jane Austen Bicentennial Conference at the University of Alberta (London: Macmillan, 1 9 7 6 ) . Jane Austen on Love (Victoria, BC: University of Victoria Press, 1 9 7 8 ) . Jane

Austen

the

Novelist:

Essays

Past and

Present

(London:

Macmillan,

1995)McMaster, Juliet, and Bruce Stovel, eds., Jane Austen's Business: Her World and her Profession (London: Macmillan, 1996). Moers, Ellen, Literary Women (New York: Doubleday, 1976). Monaghan, David, Jane Austen: Structure and Social Vision (London: Macmillan, 1980). Monaghan, David, ed., Jane Austen in a Social Context (London: Macmillan; Totowa, N J : Barnes and Noble, 1 9 8 1 ) . Mooneyham, Laura G., Romance, Language, and Education in Jane Austen's Novels (London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988). Morgan, Susan, In the Meantime: Character and Perception in Jane Austen's Fiction (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Nardin, Jane, Those Elegant Decorums: The Concept of Propriety in Jane Austen's Novels (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1 9 7 3 ) . Odmark, John, An Understanding of Jane Austen's Novels: Character, Value, and Ironic Perspective (Oxford: Blackwell, 1 9 8 1 ) . Page, Norman, The Language of Jane Austen (Oxford: Blackwell, 1 9 7 2 ) . Phillipps, K . C.,Jane Austen's English (London: André Deutsch, 1 9 7 0 ) . Piggott, Patrick, The Innocent Diversion: Music in the Life and Writings of Jane Austen (London: Cleverdon, 1979). Pinion, F. B . , A Jane Austen Companion: A Critical Survey and Reference Book (London: Macmillan, 1 9 7 3 ) . Poovey, Mary, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). Roberts, Warren, Jane Austen and the French Revolution (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1 9 7 9 ) .

242

Further reading Roth, Barry, An Annotated Bibliography of Jane Austen Studies, 1973-1983 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1985). Roth, Barry, and Joel Weinsheimer, An Annotated Bibliography of Jane Austen Studies, 1952-1972 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1 9 7 3 ) . Sales, Roger, Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England (London and New York: Routledge, 1994). Showalter, Elaine, A Literature of their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 9 7 7 ) . Smith, Leroy W., Jane Austen and the Drama of Woman (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983). Southam, B. C , ed., Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, Volume 11: 1870-1940 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Totowa, N J : Barnes and Noble, 1 9 8 7 ) . Spacks, Patricia Meyer, The Female Imagination: A Literary and Psychological Investigation of Women's Writing (New York: Knopf, 1 9 7 5 ) . Spencer, Jane, The Rise of the Woman Novelist: From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). Stewart, Maija, Domestic Realities and Imperial Fictions: Jane Austen's Novels in Eighteenth-Century Contexts (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1 9 9 3 ) . Sulloway, Alison G., Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989). Tanner, Tony, 'Introduction', Mansfield Park (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966). 'Introduction', Sense and Sensibility, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969). 'Introduction', Pride and Prejudice (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1 9 7 2 ) . Jane Austen (Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press, 1986). Tave, Stuart M . , Some Words of Jane Austen (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1 9 7 3 ) . Thompson, James, Between Self and World: The Novels of Jane Austen (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988). Todd, Janet, ed., Jane Austen: New Perspectives (New York: Homes and Meier, 1983). Wallace, Robert K . , Jane Austen and Mozart: Classical Equilibrium in Fiction and Music (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1983). Wallace, Tara Ghoshal, Jane Austen and Narrative Authority (New Y o r k : St. Martin's Press, 1 9 9 5 ) . Weinsheimer, Joel, ed., Jane Austen Today (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1 9 7 5 ) . Williams, Michael, Jane Austen: Six Novels and their Methods (London: Macmillan, 1986). Williams, Raymond, The Country and the City (London and New Y o r k : Oxford University Press, 1 9 7 3 ) . Wiltshire, John, Jane Austen and the Body: 'The Picture of Health' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

243

INDEX

N o t e : only those proper names a n d place names cited in the essays are listed below. See the ' C h r o n o l o g y ' for others. library at Steventon 1 8 9

A d a m s , Samuel a n d S a r a h The

Complete

Servant

147

Austen, H e n r y - T h o m a s ( J A ' s brother) 1 , 4 , 5 ,

Addison, Joseph 1 9 3 , 1 9 7

9 , 1 4 , 1 5 , 1 7 , 20, 2 3 , 2 5 , 1 1 2 - 1 3

Anson, Harold (Canon) 1 5 5

banker 6, 7 , 8, 1 0 , 2 6 , 2 7 , 1 4 5

Ariosto 1 9 0 Orlando

'Biographical N o t i c e ' 1 2 , 1 6 7 - 8 , 2 2 7

furioso

207

clergyman 1 1 , 2 6 , 3 1

Armstrong, N a n c y 9 5 , 9 9 , 1 4 7 , 2 3 6

' M e m o i r s of M i s s Austen' 1 2 - 1 3 , 9 > 3 4

Arnold, Matthew 9 3

See also Loiterer,

2

A u b i n , Penelope 1 9 3

The

Austen, J a m e s ( J A ' s brother) 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 1 5 ,

A u e r b a c h , Erich 2 0 8

135

Auerbach, Nina 1 6 8 , 2 3 6

See also Loiterer,

Austen, A n n a 3 , 1 5 , 1 1 1 - 1 2

The

Austen, J a n e

engagement and marriage 9 , 1 0 , i n

courtship See Samuel Blackall, T o m Lefroy,

pregnancy 1 1 4

Harris Bigg-Wither

A u s t e n , C a r o l i n e 3 , 1 0 0 - 2 passim,

230

decline of health 2 6 , 3 1

letter to J a m e s E d w a r d Austen-Leigh

income 1 3 2 , 1 3 5 , 1 3 6

IOO-I

investments 2 7 , 2 8 , 3 1

A u s t e n , C a s s a n d r a - E l i z a b e t h ( J A ' s sister) 1 , 21, 34, 35, 85, 1 0 0 - 1 3

professional writer 1 2 - 1 3 , 1 9 - 2 . 8

passim

subscription to Burney's Camilla

engagement to T o m F o w l e 3 , 1 0 9

16

See also Austen family members;

income 3 1

' C h r o n o l o g y ' 1 - 1 1 ; individual w o r k s ;

J A ' s letters, destruction of 1 0 0 , 1 1 3

letters; literary traditions; money;

model for fictional character 9 2

politics; publishing; religion; style

publication of Northanger Persuasion

Abbey

and

Austen, M a r y (née L l o y d , wife of J a m e s

28

Austen) 4, 1 0 9

A u s t e n , C a s s a n d r a Leigh ( J A ' s mother) 1 , 8 5 ,

lying-in 1 0 9 , n o

1 0 1 , 1 0 2 , 108, 109

Austen-Leigh, J a m e s E d w a r d 3 , 3 1

A u s t e n , C h a r l e s - J o h n ( J A ' s brother) 2 , 3 , 4 ,

Memoirs

8, 9 , 1 0 , 2 2 8

of Jane Austen

100, 109, 2 1 1 ,

228

A u s t e n , E d w a r d ( J A ' s brother, later Knight)

Austen-Leigh, M a r y A u g u s t a 2 2 9 Austen-Leigh, R i c h a r d A r t h u r 2 2 9 - 3 0

1 . a, 3 » 9

Austen-Leigh, W i l l i a m and R i c h a r d A r t h u r

C h a w t o n Cottage 1 5 3

Jane Austen:

A u s t e n , F r a n c i s - W i l l i a m ( J A ' s brother) 1 , 4 ,

Her Life and Letters

57,119

7 , 1 1 , 1 2 ,22, 23, 8 3 , 1 5 3 , 228, 230 J A ' s verses for 2 0 8 A u s t e n , G e o r g e ( J A ' s father) 1 , 6, 7 , 1 7 5

Babb, H o w a r d 2 3 4

244

30, 3 1 ,

INDEX

Camilla

Bage, R o b e r t 1 5 2 Hermsprong

Cecilia

210

16, 2 9 , 3 7 , 1 1 2 , 1 9 7 , 1 9 8 , 2 0 4 , 2 0 5 37, 206

Evelina

Bakhtin, M i k h a i l 1 7 2 , 1 7 5 , 1 8 0 , 1 8 6 ,

1 1 2 , 1 7 3 , 1 7 4 , 1 8 7 , 1 9 8 , 205

The Wanderer

187

88, 96

Burney, S a r a h Harriet

Barker, M a r y A Welsh Story

Clarentine

17,18

The Heroine

201

Burns, R o b e r t 1 7 5 , 1 9 0 , 2 0 7

Barrett, Eaton Stannard

Burrows, J . F. 2 3 6

39, 201

Bath i , 2 , 5 , 6, 7 , 3 6 - 7 , 8 1 - 2 , 2 2 8

Bush, D o u g l a s 2 3 5

'The Beautifull C a s s a n d r a ' 9 2

Butler, M a r i l y n 5 7 , 1 6 8 , 2 2 2

Beckford, Charlotte M a r i a 5 7

B y r o n , L o r d (George G o r d o n ) 2 4 , 1 7 9 , 1 8 2 , 185

Benedict, B a r b a r a M . 1 6 9

The Bride

Benson, M a r i a She Thinks

for Herself

The Wife. A Novel

Childe

zz

of Abydos

Harold

Don Juan

2 0 - 1 , 22

93

The Giaour

Behn, A p h r a 9 0 , 1 9 3

174

93 174

Bentley, R i c h a r d 1 2 , 3 1 , 2 1 1 Cadell, R o b e r t (publisher) 4

Bible, the 1 9 5 - 6

Campbell, George 1 7 6 , 1 7 7 , 1 8 7

Bigg-Wither, Harris proposal of marriage to J A 6, 2 2 8 , 2 3 0

Carlton House 2 5 , 88

Blackall, Samuel (Rev.)

Carlyle, T h o m a s 1 1 5 , 1 1 6

courtship of J A 5 , 6

Castle, Terry 1 1 3

Blain, Virginia et al. 2 0 9 Blair, H u g h Lectures

'Catharine' (or 'Kitty, or the B o w e r ' ) 8 4 - 6

175,176,187 on Rhetoric

Campbell, Thomas 2 0 7

Cecil, D a v i d (Lord) 2 1 3 , 2 1 9 , 2 2 9

204

Boccaccio 9 4

Centlivre, Susanna 2 0 8

Boileau 9 5

Cervantes 4 0 , 9 1

Booth, W a y n e 2 2 1 - 2 , 2 3 7

Chapman, Edward M . 1 6 8

Borges, J o r g e Luis 9 2

Chapman, R. W . 2 3 , 24, 7 4 , 1 0 0 , 2 1 4 , 217-19, 237

Boswell, J a m e s Journal

of a Tour

Life of Johnson

to the Hebrides

200

C h a p o n e , Hester 8 4 C h a u c e r , Geoffrey 2 3 4

1 9 9 , 200

C h a w t o n 6, 8, 2 2 8

Brabourne, E d w a r d (Lord) 2 2 8 Bradley, A . C . 2 1 3 , 2 3 3

church 2 1 1

Brontë, Charlotte 2 3 2

libraries in 1 8 9 , 1 9 4

B r o w n , 'Capability' 7 3

m o v e to 8, 9, 1 9 , 5 8 , 8 2 , 8 6 , 8 7

B r o w n , J u l i a Prewitt 2 3 4

See also ' O u r C h a w t o n home'

Brown, Lloyd 23 5

Chesterton, G . K . 9 2 , 9 9

B r o w n , Patricia 2 2 2

C l a r k e , J a m e s Stanier 2 5 - 6 , 8 8 - 9 , 1 9 1 - 2

Brownstein, Rachel 2 3 6

Clarkson, Thomas 1 9 1 History

Brunton, M a r y Self-Control

Memoirs

Brydges, Samuel Egerton Arthur

Fitz-Albini

Burke, E d m u n d Reflections

African

of William

Penn 2 1 0

aristocracy 1 1 6 - 1 8 country gentlemen 1 1 8 - 2 0

Bulwer, E d w a r d L y t t o n 1 1 5 and the English

of the

210

Class 1 1 5 - 3 0

200

Buchanan, J a m e s 1 7 6 , 1 8 7 England

of the Abolition

Slave Trade

201

general distinctions 1 1 5 - 1 6 , 1 2 8 - 3 0

125

genteel poverty 1 2 6

182,185

on the Revolution

in

France

poverty 1 2 8

161-2

professionals 1 2 0 - 3

Burney, Charles 9 0

trade 1 2 3 - 5 Clutterbuck, M r s .

Burney, Frances 1 3 , 1 4 , 1 5 , 1 6 0 , 1 7 6 , 1 9 7 ,

'Beauties of St. Pierre' 1 6

203, 207

245

INDEX

C l y m e r , W i l l i a m B r a n d f o r d Shubrick 1 9 2 - 3

Helen

96

Colby, Vineta 9 5 , 99

Taken

for Granted

96

Collins, Irene 2 0 8 , 2 3 5

Edinburgh

Compton-Burnett, Ivy

Egerton, T h o m a s (publisher) 9, 1 3 , 2 0 - 4

The Awkward

The 2 1 8

passim

Age 1 7 8

Eliot, G e o r g e 1 1 2 , 1 7 4 , 1 9 4

Congreve, William 1 7 0

Daniel

Cooke, Cassandra Battleridge:

Review,

An Historical

Tale 1 5 , 2 0 1

Emma

Cope, Zachary 3 7

Deronda

112

Emerson, R a l p h W a l d o 2 3 2 66-7$

literary references in 2 0 6

Copeland, E d w a r d 1 8 , 2 9 , 2 3 5 Cowley, Hannah 200

money in 1 3 5 , 1 4 1 - 3

Cowper, William 4 3 , 1 9 7 , 1 9 8 , 1 9 9 , 2 0 3 ,

progress to publication 9 , 1 0 , 1 8 , 2 4 - 6 , 8 9 ,

206, 207, 2 3 2 in Sanditon

95

195,219

religion in 1 5 4

Crabbe, George 1 9 1 , 1 9 7 , 2 0 6

reviews of 1 8 - 1 9

C r o s b y and C o m p a n y (publishers) 1 9 , 2 6 , 8 6 ,

social ranks in 1 1 7 - 1 8 , 1 2 2 - 4 ,

93

I 2

-5

- 6

>

127-8,129, style compared with Letters

Davys, Mary 1 9 3 de Beauvoir, Simone The Second

'Evelyn' 8 5

Sex 3 6, 5 4 Farrer, Reginald 2 3 3

Defoe, Daniel 1 9 3 Robinson

104,106-9

Evans, M a r y 2 3 6

Crusoe

Favret, M a r y 1 1 4

208

de Feuillide, Eliza (née H a n c o c k , later

F e n w i c k , Eliza Secresy 8 5

Austen) 1 , 2 , 9 , 2 3 0 courted by J a m e s Austen 4

Fergus, J a n 2 9 , 3 1 , 1 3 3 , 2 2 4 , 2 3 4

married b y H e n r y Austen 5

Fielding, H e n r y 9 0 , 9 7 , 1 7 1 , 1 9 2 - 3 , 2 0 8 , 230-1

theatre 2 0 8 de Feuillide, Hastings 2 , 6

Amelia

de Feuillide, J e a n - C a p o t 2 , 4

Joseph

de Genlis, M m e

Tom Jones 4 0 , 1 9 8 , 2 0 8

Alphonsine, Olimpe

190

Fielding, S a r a h 1 4 , 1 7 4

200

et Théophile

190 Andrews

Finch, A n n e (Countess of Winchelsea) 8 8 ,

202

2 0 1 , 209

D e R o s e , Peter and S. W . M c G u i r e 2 3 8 de Scudéry, Madeleine 9 5

First Impressions

de Staël, G e r m a i n e 1 2 - 1 3

Fitzgerald, Jennifer 1 6 8

Corinne

Sermons

to Young

Women

202

Forster, A n t o n i a 2 9

Diderot, Denis 9 0 , 9 2 Ceci n'est pas un conte

Forster, E . M . 2 1 4 , 2 2 2 , 2 3 2

90

Fowle, T o m

Disraeli, Benjamin

death at San D o m i n g o 5 , 1 0 9

128

engaged to C E A 3

Dodsley, R o b e r t Collection

Prejudice

Fordyce, James

201

Devlin, D . D . 2 3 4

Sybil

See Pride and

of Poems

198

Doody, Margaret Anne 2 3 6

Gard, Roger 2 3 5

Drummond, Andrew L . 1 6 8

Garrod, W . H . 2 2 0 , 2 2 5 - 6

D u c k w o r t h , Alistair M . 1 6 8 , 2 3 4

Gaskell, Elizabeth 6 7

Dussinger, J o h n A . 1 6 8 , 2 3 5

Gay, John 1 9 7 , 2 0 4 , 2 0 7

Eden, Emily

Gibbon, Edward 1 7 8 , 1 8 7

'The H a r e and M a n y Friends' 2 0 4 , 2 0 6 178-9,182,185,187

Edgeworth, M a r i a 1 3 , 88, 9 6 , 1 5 2 ,

Gifford, W i l l i a m

173,175,

praise of Emma

177,182,185 Belinda

Gilbert, R . D . 1 6 7

37

246

2 4 , 4 9 , 54

INDEX

These Old Shades

Gilbert, Sandra and Susan G u b a r 9 5 , 9 9 , 2 3 6 Gillie, Christopher 2 3 5

Hill, C o n s t a n c e 2 2 8

Gilpin, J o h n 1 9 3 , 2 0 5

Hirsch, E . D . 1 8 2

Gilson, D a v i d 3 0 , 2 0 7 , 2 3 7

Hoare's Bank 2 7 , 2 8 Hodge, Jane Aiken 2 2 9

Gisbourne, T h o m a s Enquiry

87

into the Duties

of the Female

Sex

Hogarth, William 'Harlot's Progress' 1 9 8

209

' M a r r i a g e à la mode' 1 2 5

G o d m e r s h a m 5 , 6, 7 , 8, 9 G o d w i n , William 1 5 2

H o n a n , Park 2 3 0

Goethe, J o h a n n W o l f g a n g v o n

H o o k h a m and Carpenter (publishers)

The Sorrows

of Young

Werther

Horace 1 9 0 , 1 9 4 , 2 1 8

Goldsmith, Oliver 1 9 2 , 1 9 7 The History

of England

Horwitz, Barbara 2 3 4

194

She Stoops to Conquer

Hough, Graham 1 7 2 , 1 7 9 - 8 0 , 1 8 7

175

The Vicar of Wakefield

H u b b a c k , Edith 2 2 8

206

Hume, David 204

G o r e , Catherine 9 6

H u n t e r , Rachel 2 0 7

Grant, Anne Memoirs

16,17,

18, 29

94

of an American

Lady

Lady

200

Columella

Maclairn

Letters

Graves, Richard 2 0 7

203, 209

from

Mrs. Palmer stone 2 0 2 - 3 , 2 0 9

204

Gray, Thomas 1 9 7 , 204

Inchbald, Elizabeth 1 3

G r e y , J . David 2 3 7

Ives, Sidney 3 0

Grey, Rowland 1 6 8 ' J a c k and A l i c e ' 1 7 2

G r u b Street 1 4

James, Henry critical tradition of 1 7 2 , 1 8 6 - 7 ,

Halifax, L o r d Advice

to a Daughter

2 2

J a n e Austen societies 2 1 9 , 2 2 3 , 2 2 7

Handler, Richard and Daniel Segal 2 3 6

J a n e Austen Society ( U K ) Annual

Harding, D . W . 1 8 8 , 2 1 3 , 2 1 9 , 2 2 2 , 2 2 5 ,

Reports

237

J a n e Austen Society of N o r t h A m e r i c a

233,234

Persuasions

H a r d y , Barbara 2 3 5

237

Janeites

Hardy, John 2 3 5

nineteenth-century Janeites

Harris, James

today's Janeites 2 2 2 - 4

Harris, Jocelyn 2 0 8 , 2 3 4

See also H a n a w a y , J a m e s , Kipling, S o u t h a m

Harrison, Frederick 2 1 7

Jenkins, Elizabeth 2 2 9

H a w k e , Cassandra (Lady) Julia de Gramont

Jenkins, H e n r y 2 2 4

15

H a w k i n s , Laetitia-Matilda 1 8 , 2 9

Johnson, Claudia 9 3 , 9 9 , 1 6 8 , 2 2 8 , 2 3 6 , 2 3 7 J o h n s o n , R . Brimley 2 1 1

201

J o h n s o n , Samuel 2 0 3 - 7

Hays, Mary 1 5 2

passim

canonical m o n u m e n t 2 1 8 - 2 0

H a y w o o d , Eliza 9 0 , 1 9 3

influence on J A 1 9 3 , 1 9 7 , 1 9 8 - 9

90

Miss Betsy Thoughtless

Journey

90

to the Western

Isles of

Scotland

197

Heliodorus 9 4

Preface

Helme, Elizabeth 2 0 4

to A Dictionary

Language

'Henry and Eliza' 9 1

of the

English

187

Hesse, C a r l a 2 9

Rambler

200

Heyer, Georgette

Rasselas

200

Moth

211-12

early twentieth-century Janeites 2 1 3 - 1 7

187

The Black

x

185

H a n a w a y , Lorraine 2 2 4

Fantomina

3

w o r d frequency comparison to J A 1 8 2 ,

Hamilton, Elizabeth 1 5 2 , 2 0 1

Rosanne

2

Janeitism 2 1 1 - 1 2 , 2 1 3 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 7 , 2 2 0

84

Halperin, J o h n i n , 2 2 9 , 2 3 7

Hermes

4>

stylistic model for J A 5 0 , 1 0 6 , 1 7 5 , 1 8 0 , 1 9 2

87

247

INDEX

punctuation of 1 0 2

J o r d a n , W i l l i a m Chester 1 4 7

religion in 1 5 9 Kamschatka 89, 98

self-censorship in 1 0 8 - 9

Kaplan, Deborah 1 0 1 , 1 1 3 , 1 4 7 , 2 3 1

social observation in 1 1 0 - 1 3

Kelly, G a r y 1 4 7 , 1 6 8

style of letters compared to M i s s Bates 104-5

K e n t , Christopher 2 1 7 , 2 2 5 Kernan, Alvin 1 4 , 2 9

L e w i s , C . S. 2 2 0 , 2 3 4

Kettle, A r n o l d 2 2 2

Lewis, Matthew The

K e y n e s , Geoffrey 2 2 4

Monk

40,198

Literary traditions (in J A ' s w o r k s ) 1 8 9 - 2 1 0

K i n g , W i l l i a m (Archbishop of Dublin) 1 8 2 ,

the Bible 1 9 5

185

classics 1 9 4

Kipling, R u d y a r d 2 1 2

contemporary c a n o n 1 9 2 - 5 , 1 9 7

'The Janeites' 2 1 4 - 1 7 , 2 1 9 , 2 2 0 , 2 2 3

education 1 8 9 - 9 0

Kirkham, Margaret 2 3 6 Knight, F a n n y 3 , 1 0 2 , 1 0 8 , 1 1 1 - 1 5

textual battlegrounds

passim

See also Burney; C o w p e r ; E d g e w o r t h ;

K n o x , Vicesimus Elegant

205-7

w o m e n ' s writing 2 0 1 - 3

Knox, Edmund 1 5 5 Extracts

Fielding; G a y ; Goldsmith; G r a y ; Hunter;

206

Koppel, Gene 1 6 8 , 2 3 5

individual w o r k s of J A ; Johnson;

Kotzebue, A u g u s t Friedrich Ferdinand v o n

L e n n o x ; Radcliffe; Richardson;

Lovers'

Vows

Shakespeare; T h o m s o n ; Sykes

1 5 8 , 206

Litz, A . W a l t o n 2 3 4

Kroeber, Karl 2 3 5

Lockhead, Marion 1 6 2 Lady

Susan 4 , 2 0 3 , 2 1 1

Lady's

Magazine,

Sappho

Lowth, Robert

The 1 4 2 - 3

- An Historical

Romance

A Short 86

Introduction

to English

Grammar

187 Loiterer,

Lane, Maggie 2 3 7 L a R o c h e f o u c a u l d , François de 3 4

The

edited by J a m e s and Henry Austen 3 , 1 5 ,

Lascelles, M a r y 1 8 7 , 2 2 0 , 2 2 6 , 2 3 1 , 2 3 3

20

Laski, Marghanita 2 2 9

L o n g m a n , T h o m a s (publisher) 2 1 , 3 0

L a t h o m , Francis

Luckcock, James

The

Midnight

Hints

Bell 2 0 0 , 2 0 2

for Practical

Economy

143

Lauber, J o h n 2 3 5 Macartney, George 2 0 6

Lawrence, D . H . 2 3 2

Macaulay, Thomas 2 1 1

Leavis, F. R. 2 1 9 The

Great

Tradition

M a c D o n a g h , Oliver 2 3 4 - 5

219, 220

M a c k , Robert 90, 99

Leavis, Q . D . 1 5 4 Lee, S o p h i a 2 0 8

Mackenzie, Henry 1 9 2 - 3

Le F a y e , Deirdre 3 0 , 5 7 , 8 5 , 2 3 0 , 2 3 1

M c M a s t e r , Juliet 2 3 5 , 2 3 7

Lefroy, T o m

M c M a s t e r , Juliet and Bruce Stovel 2 3 7 M a n s e l l , Darrel 2 3 5

flirtation w i t h J A 4 , 2 2 8

Mansfield, Katherine 1 8 2 , 1 8 5

Leigh, J a m e s H e n r y The

New Rosciad

Mansfield

15

The

Female

Quixote

Park

59-66

c o m p a r i s o n with Letters

L e n n o x , Charlotte

106

literary references in 2 0 5 - 6

3 9 , 1 9 7 , 203, 204,

m o n e y in 1 3 5 , 1 3 6 - 7 ,

207

139-41

Lewes, George 2 1 1

progress to publication 2 , 9, 2 1 , 2 3 - 4

Lerner, Laurence 1 5 4 , 1 6 8

religion in 1 5 6

'Lesley C a s t l e ' 9 4

reviews of

Letters

slavery 1 5 8 - 9

100-13

18-19

social ranks in 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 , 1 2 0 , 1 2 7 , 1 2 8

destruction of 1 0 0

Manydown

incoherence in 1 0 1 - 2

library at 1 8 9

o r t h o g r a p h y of 1 0 6

248

INDEX

O p i e , Amelia 1 3 , 2 8 , 1 5 2

M a r m o n t e l , J e a n François Contes moraux

Osborne, Dorothy 1 8 2 , 1 8 5

90

'Our C h a w t o n home' 5 8

M a t h e w s , Eliza Kirk

Owenson, Sydney (Lady M o r g a n ) 1 5 2

What Has Been 2 0 5 M i l b a n k e , A n n e Isabella 2 2 , 1 7 9

Ida of Athens

Miller, D . A . 2 2 5

Wild

Irish

201

Girl 2 0 1 - 2

Milton, J o h n 1 9 0 , 2 0 6 , 2 3 4 Mirror,

Page, N o r m a n 2 3 5

The 2 0 9

Mitford, M a r y Russell 1 9 - 2 0 , 2 9

Parsons, Eliza 2 0 3

Modert, J o 1 0 1 , 1 1 3

Pasley, Charles 1 9 1

M o e r s , Ellen 2 3 6

Peacock, T h o m a s L o v e

M o l e r , Kenneth 2 3 4

Crotchet

Monaghan, David 2 3 5

Gryll

Castle

Grange

Nightmare

Money 1 3 1 - 4 8 consumerism

96

96

Abbey

96

Percival, E d w a r d (Dr.) 2 0 7

131-2,142-3

Persuasion

credit 1 4 3 - 5

76-82

incomes, calculating them 1 3 3 - 4

c o m p a r e d to Emma,

Mansfield

income scales 1 3 5 - 7

compared to Letters

103,107

social markers 1 4 1 - 3

literary references in 2 0 6

Park

82

money in 1 4 3 - 4

See also individual w o r k s by J A M o n t a g u , M a r y W o r t l e y (Lady) 1 8 2 , 1 8 5

politics in 1 5 9

Montgomery, James 2 0 7 , 2 1 0

progress to publication 1 0 , n ,

Mooneyham, Laura 2 3 4

social ranks in 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 , 1 1 9 , 1 2 1 - 2 , 1 2 6 , 127

M o o r e , J o h n (Dr.) 1 5 2 Zeluco

26-8

Phillipps, K . C . 2 3 5

158

More, Hannah 1 5 2 , 1 5 8 , 1 6 9 , 1 7 4 , 200, 208 Cozlehs in Search of a Wife

163,194

Piggott, Patrick 2 3 7 Pinion, F . B . 2 3 7 Piozzi, Hester (Thrale) 1 7 7 , 1 9 8 , 2 0 2 , 2 0 9

M o r g a n , Susan 2 3 4 M o r r i s , Ivor 1 6 7

'Plan of a N o v e l ' 8 9

M o r r i s o n , Paul 2 2 6

Politics 1 5 5 - 6 2 in plots 1 5 9 - 6 3

M o s s , T h o m a s (Rev.)

J a c o b i n a n d Antijacobin 1 5 0 , 1 5 5 , 1 5 8 ,

'The Beggar's Petition' 2 0 2 , 2 0 4 , 2 0 9

162

Mudrick, Marvin 2 2 1 , 2 2 2 , 2 3 3

See also E d m u n d Burke; individual w o r k s

M u r r a y , J o h n (publisher) 1 8 - 1 9 , 2 3 , 2 4 , 2 5 ,

byJA

27, 2 9 , 3 1 , 4 9 , 52

Pope, A l e x a n d e r 1 9 0 , 1 9 2 , 1 9 7 , 2 0 3 , 2 0 5 , 206

Nardin, Jane 2 3 5 N e a l e , R . S. 1 4 6

Poovey, M a r y 2 2 3 , 2 3 6

Neill, E d w a r d 1 6 8

Porter, J a n e 1 5 2

New Statesman

Portner, R u t h 2 9

218

Pride and Prejudice

Nicolson, Nigel 2 2 9 Nineteenth-Century

Fiction

Northanger

36-42

Abbey

as First Impressions

237

32-4, 49-57 4 , 5 , 9, 1 5 , 1 9 , 2 1 , 8 6

comparison to Letters

106

comparison of Pemberley a n d D o n w e l l

as Susan 5 , 6, 8 , 1 0 , 1 9 , 8 6 , 9 3

Abbey 7 3 - 4

literary references in 2 0 4 - 5 money in 1 3 5 , 1 3 8

literary references in 2 0 5

politics in 1 5 7 - 8

m o n e y in 1 3 1 , 1 3 3 , 1 3 4 - 6 passim,

progress to publication 1 2 , 1 3 , 1 9 , 2 6 - 8

progress to publication 9 , 1 9 , 2 1 - 3

social ranks in 1 2 0 , 1 2 1 , 1 2 9

reviews of 1 8 , 2 2

138

social ranks in n 6 - 1 8 , 1 1 9 - 2 0 , 1 2 2 , 124-5,

Odmark, John 2 3 6 Oliphant, M a r g a r e t 2 1 3

I 2

-6

Prince Regent, the 1 0 , 2 5 , 2 6 , 8 6 , 8 7 , 8 8 - 9 , 93,228

O ' M a l l e y , Beatrice 1 4 7

249

INDEX

Said, E d w a r d 6 6 , 1 6 9

Prior, M a t t h e w

Sales, R o g e r 1 6 8 , 2 3 5

'Henry and E m m a ' 2 1 0

Sanditon

Publishing general conditions 1 2 - 1 5

literary references in 2 0 6 - 7

process of 1 5 - 1 7

money in 1 3 8 , 1 4 4 - 5 ,

market 1 7 - 1 9

progress of 1 1 , 2 7 , 8 2 - 3 social ranks in 1 1 7

See also C r o s b y ; Egerton; M u r r a y ;

Schorer, M a r k 2 2 2

individual w o r k s of J A

Scott, W a l t e r (Sir) 1 8 , 5 0 , 9 6 , 1 5 2 , 1 7 3 , 1 7 5 , Quarterly

Review,

178,183,187,192,

The 1 9 , 1 5 5 , 1 8 7

200-1,206,207,231

reviews by 9 5 , 1 8 7 Rabelais, François 9 2

Marmion

200

Radcliffe, A n n

Waverley

1 8 , 24, 2 0 1

Sedgwick, Eve 2 2 2

contemporary of J A 1 3 , 1 4 politics of 1 5 2

Selwyn, E . G . 1 6 8

tradition of 3 9 , 1 7 3 , 1 7 9 , 1 9 2 , 2 0 6

Sense and Sensibility

The Italian

42-9

literary references in 2 0 4 - 5

187, 202

The Mysteries

of Udolpho

The Romance

of the Forest

m o n e y in 1 3 3 , 1 3 5 , 1 3 6 , 1 3 7 - 8

40, 205

progress to publication 8, 9, 1 2 , 1 7 , 1 9 - 2 1 ,

14, 16

85

Radcliffe, W i l l i a m 1 4

reviews of 1 8

Raleigh, W a l t e r 2 1 4

social ranks in 1 1 6 , 1 1 9 , 1 2 0 , 1 2 6 , 1 2 9

Reeve, Clara 1 9 2

Shakespeare, W i l l i a m 7 7 , 1 9 0 , 1 9 2 , 1 9 6 - 7 ,

R e g e n c y , the

206, 209, 2 3 2 , 2 3 4

dress fashions 8 5 - 6

Romeo

politics 8 5 - 6 , 8 7

and Juliet

197

Sheridan, R i c h a r d Brinsley 2 0 8

style 8 6 - 9 , 9 3 , 9 6 , 9 8

The School

R e g e n c y romances 8 7

for Scandal

Showalter, Elaine 2 3 6

Religion 1 4 9 - 6 9 A n g l i c a n romance, the 1 6 3 - 7

Simpson, Richard 2 3 2

C h u r c h of E n g l a n d 1 4 9 - 5 0 , 1 5 4

Sleath, Elinor

Dissenters 1 5 0 , 1 5 4

The Nocturnal

politics and 1 5 2 - 4 , 1 5 9

The Orphan

Minstral

190

of the Rhine

190

Smith, Charlotte 1 3 , 1 4 , 1 5 2 , 1 7 3

See also individual w o r k s by J A Repton, Humphry 7 3 R i c h a r d s o n , Samuel 5 0 , 9 0 , 1 9 2 . - 3 , *97>

>3,

Desmond

14

Emmeline

187

The Young

206, 207, 2 3 4

Philosopher

187

Smith, L e r o y W . 2 3 6

Clarissa

35, 85,112

Pamela

35,111-12,128

Sir Charles

175

Sherlock, T h o m a s 1 6 5 , 2 0 6

See also H e y e r , Georgette

Grandison

Smollett, T o b i a s 1 9 2 - 3

112,174, 198,

S o u t h a m , Brian 1 3 , 2 9 , 1 6 8 , 2 2 4 , 2 3 1 , 2 3 4 Southampton 2 , 4, 8, 2 2 8

205-6

Southey, R o b e r t

Roberts, Warren 1 6 8 , 2 3 4

Letters

Robertson, W i l l i a m 2 0 4

from

v

England

200

Robinson, M a r y Darby 2 8 , 1 5 2

S p a c k s , Patricia M e y e r 2 3 6

Roche, Regina M a r i a 2 0 6

Spectator,

R o t h , B a r r y and Joel Weinsheimer 2 3 8

Spencer, J a n e 2 3 6

Rousseau, Jean Jacques 94

Spring, D a v i d 1 3 2 , 1 4 6

Emile Julie,

Spurgeon, Caroline 2 1 3

95 ou la nouvelle

Héloïse

Stafford, W a l t e r 2 2 7

94

Stanton, Judith Phillips 1 3 , 2 9

R o w o r t h , Charles printer of Sense and Sensibility

20

R o y a l Society of Literature 2 1 4 , 2 1 9 See also Janeites

The 2 0 5

Staves, Susan 1 4 7 Stern, G . B . and Sheila K a y e - S m i t h 2 2 1 Sterne, Laurence 1 0 2 , 1 0 6 , 1 0 8 , 1 9 2

250

INDEX

Sentimental Tristram

Journey

Shandy

206

Trollope, A n t h o n y

121,155

Trusler, J o h n

208

The Economist

Steventon i , 4 , 6, 2 2 8

147

T u c k e r , G e o r g e Holbert 2 3 1

library 1 8 9 , 1 9 4 Stewart, M a a j a A . 1 6 8 , 2 3 5

Turner, Cheryl 1 6 7

Stovel, Bruce 2 0 8

Twain, Mark 2 1 9 , 2 3 2

Strachey, Lytton 2 1 9 Studies in the Novel

V a n Ghent, D o r o t h y 2 3 7

237

V i r g i n , Peter 1 6 7

Style 1 7 0 - 8 8 authorial voice 1 8 1 - 2

Voltaire, François M a r i e A r o u e t de 9 0

high and l o w 1 7 3 - 9

Volume

the Third

84, 85, 90

narrative 1 7 9 - 8 0 statistical analysis 1 8 2 - 7

Walpole, Horace

Summers, M o n t a g u 1 3 Susan

See Northanger

Wallace, R. K. 2 3 7 Wallace, Tara Ghoshal 1 6 9 , 2 3 7

Sulloway, Alison 2 3 6

Collected

Abbey

Hieroglyphic

Swift, Jonathan 1 0 3 , 1 0 6 , 1 8 3 , 1 8 5 Gulliver's

Travels

197

Sykes, Henrietta 2 0 7 Margiana

200, 2 0 2

Sykes, N o r m a n 1 6 7

90-1,192-3

Works

90

Tales

90

Walsh, John 1 6 7 Waterloo 88 W a t k i n s , Susan 2 2 9 The Watsons

7, 1 1 6

social ranks in 1 1 6 , 1 1 8 , 1 2 0 , 1 2 2 , 1 2 3 , 126, 203

Tanner, T o n y 2 2 2 , 2 3 5 - 6 T a v e , Stuart 2 3 5

W a t t , Ian 2 2 0 , 2 2 2 , 2 3 4

Tennyson, Alfred (Lord) 2 2 8

Weinsheimer, J o e l 2 3 7

Thackeray, William M a k e p e a c e 1 1 5

West, Jane 1 5 2 , 200, 2 0 1 , 204

A Book Vanity

of Snobs 1 3 0 Fair

126,129

West, Rebecca 1 5 5 - 6 , 1 6 8 Whately, Richard 1 5 5 , 2 3 2

Thaddeus, Janice Farrar 2 9 , 3 1

Whealler, Susan 1 0 1 , 1 1 3 - 4

Theatre

Wiesenfarth, J o s e p h 8 3 , 1 4 6 , 1 4 8 , 2 3 4

amateur theatricals at Steventon 2 , 3

Williams, M i c h a e l 2 3 6

T h o m p s o n , James 2 3 5

Willliams, R a y m o n d 2 3 7

Thomson, H u g h

Willis, Lesley 1 6 8

illustrations of J A ' s novels 2 1 1 T h o m s o n , James 1 9 7 , 2 0 4 'The Three Sisters' 9 1

Wilson, Edmund 2 2 1 , 2 3 4 Wiltshire, J o h n 2 3 5 Winchester 1 1

T o d d , Janet 2 3 7

Wollstonecraft, M a r y 5 4 , 1 5 2 , 2 3 6

Tompkins, J . M . S. 5 7

W o o l f , Virginia n o , 1 8 3 , 1 8 5 , 2 3 1 , 2 3 2 - 3 , 234

' A T o u r Through W a l e s ' 9 1 Trilling, Lionel 1 2 8 , 1 2 9 , 2 2 2 , 2 3 4

Wordsworth, William 1 7 3 , 2 0 7

251