BOOK REVIEW a Naval Officer's Wife

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

BOOK REVIEW a Naval Officer's Wife BOOK REVIEW A Naval Officer’s Wife draws on Jane Austen’s novels and letters was a fact of to create a portrait of a “gentle and ami- life on board Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: able” woman whose “association with a ship, and The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen. [her sister-in-law] may have contributed Charles was to Jane Austen’s creative process,” espe- able to warn By Sheila Johnson Kindred. cially Mansfield Park and Persuasion. his wife in ad- Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Fanny’s twelve extant letters, published vance, Kindred Press. 2017. for the first time in this book, and her questions how Hardcover. 291 pages. 35 black & white/color illustrations. $34.95. pocket diary, “her only surviving per- Fanny coped sonal possession,” provide a picture of a “with the cru- Review by Laurie Kaplan. Captain’s life on sea and shore. Fanny’s elty of flogging Frances (Fanny) FitzWilliams Palmer newsy letters contain compelling infor- when she heard the unmistakable sounds Austen’s short life (1789–1814) resounds mation about how she negotiated the of suffering and the ominous pulsating with Romantic overtones. A graceful codes and manners of naval society, of the drums.” while simultaneously worrying about beauty at sixteen, she caught the eye of On 31 August 1814, Charles and Fanny’s such domestic concerns as the price of Charles Austen, Jane Austen’s brother, a fourth daughter was born on board the fabrics, eggs, and butter, and about her naval officer serving in the West Indies. Namur. On 6 September, Fanny Palmer children’s welfare, especially when they The youngest daughter of the Attorney Austen died, aged 24 years. Devastated were staying with their Austen aunts in General of Bermuda, Fanny became by the death of his beloved wife, Charles Chawton or with their Palmer grand- engaged to Charles Austen in 1806 and sought solace in an active life at sea. parents and Aunt Harriet at 22 Keppel was married, at the age of seventeen, in Six years after Fanny’s death, in August Street in London. May 1807. Her first child, Cassy, was 1820, Charles married his sister-in-law, born in December 1808. When Fanny In a variety of ways Fanny’s letters Harriet Palmer, Fanny’s older sister. (pregnant again) left Bermuda for the reveal her bravery as she rode out Harriet had been caring for her nieces first time in September 1809, her life the storms at sea and coped with the since their mother’s death. Kindred pattern of sailing aboard her husband’s doldrums at anchor. Capable, organized, recounts the opinions of Jane Austen’s ships was established. Between 1809 and and resilient, she wrote about Charles’s family about Charles’s choice of wife, and 1812, the new mother made the journey professional anxieties and her own she addresses the Church of England’s between Bermuda and Halifax five domestic uncertainties, and she also prohibition against marriage to a dead times, and for much of her married life acknowledged the fears and tribulations wife’s sister. Charles and Harriet’s new she was in transit on Captain Austen’s experienced by all naval and military domestic arrangements make fascinating ships. From 1812–1814, Jane Austen’s families. For Fanny, weathering storms, reading. “transatlantic sister” and children lived suffering from seasickness, worrying Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister adds aboard Captain Austen’s HMS Namur about her husband’s career, and caring a compelling chapter to the biographical stationed off Sheerness, Kent. And in for ill children formed part of the material about the Austen family. As 1814, after seven years of marriage, continuing pattern of displacement. Fanny died aboard the ship. Kindred weaves the letters into the text In her chapter “Afloat and Ashore, 1812,” of the biography, the reader perceives In Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: Kindred points out how for Fanny “the the development of Fanny’s sense of The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer charm of living at sea” soon resulted in self from ingénue to bride to mother to Austen, Sheila Johnson Kindred has cre- claustrophobia, a feeling exacerbated officer’s wife. In this detailed account of ated an absorbing biography of an adapt- by the recurrent fogs. The perimeter of naval family life in the early nineteenth able and resourceful woman. Professor Fanny’s life aboard the Namur was cir- century, Kindred chronicles the life Kindred grounds the biography in the cumscribed geographically: “The only story of an impressive woman who faced social and naval history of the period, place she could go to outside the apart- immense challenges and (unlike her which she embellishes with docu- ment was a small part of the quarterdeck sister Harriet) rarely complained. ments, letters, and con- and the poop deck over the captain’s temporary sketches, Laurie Kaplan, a former Editor of quarters.” But what may have been more Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line, lives paintings, and engrav- disturbing about life afloat was the fact ings from museums in the UK and teaches for Florida State that “Fanny was virtually cut off from University, London. A recent publication and private collections. female company . She had no com- is “Jane Austen’s Allusive Geographies: In addition, Kindred panions of her class to discuss topics of London’s Streets, Squares, and Gardens” Sculpture at the Nelson- common interest and everyday concern.” in Jane Austen’s Geographies, edited by Atkins Museum of Art. Moreover, although public flogging Robert Clark. 16 JASNA News .
Recommended publications
  • INTRODUCTION: DID JANE AUSTEN REALLY MEAN THAT? 1. the Novels Oj}Ane Austen, Edited by R
    NOTES INTRODUCTION: DID JANE AUSTEN REALLY MEAN THAT? 1. The Novels oj}ane Austen, edited by R. W. Chapman. Further references from Austen's novels are to this edition and are included in the text. 2. Claudia Johnson forged a new direction for Austen studies in Jane Austen: WrJmen, Politics, and the Novel. I am deeply indebted to her work as weil as to that of William H. Galperin, The Historical Austen, Deidre Shauna Lynch, The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture, and the Business ofInner Meaning, and Mary Ann O'Farrell, Telling Complexions: The Nineteenth-Century English Novel and the Blush. That said, different concerns do shape my project. O'Farreil and I share a central focus on the body in Austen, though we tend to move in dissimilar directions about the kind of somatic work this novelist performs; while O'Farrell commits herself to an understanding of the blush as an expression of pleasure, she also analyzes it in su btle Foucauldian terms as a regulatory device. Lynch's book places Austen at the capstone of her ambitious study of the relationship between the novel's development and economic change; in this context, she demon­ strates how the kind of "characters" associated with the novel (individ­ uals with depth) emerge as a way for people to accommodate themselves to a new and commercialized world. I share with her an interest in the play between surface and depth in characters, and my focus on material objects opens an avenue, I hope, for further explo­ ration of how Austen uses things to foster a sense of inwardness for the characters in her fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • Looking for Comfort: Heroines, Readers, And
    LOOKING FOR COMFORT: HEROINES, READERS, AND JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS A Dissertation by AMANDA E. HIMES Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2006 Major Subject: English © 2006 AMANDA E. HIMES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED LOOKING FOR COMFORT: HEROINES, READERS, AND JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS A Dissertation by AMANDA E. HIMES Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, Mary Ann O’Farrell Committee Members, Lynne Vallone Susan Egenolf Melanie Hawthorne Head of Department, Paul Parrish December 2006 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Looking for Comfort: Heroines, Readers, and Jane Austen’s Novels. (December 2006) Amanda E. Himes, B.A., East Texas Baptist University; M.A., Baylor University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Mary Ann O’Farrell Comfort—with its various connotations of physical ease, wealth, independence, and service—is an important concept to Jane Austen, who uses comfort in her novels to both affirm and challenge accepted women’s roles and status in her culture. In the late eighteenth century, new ideas of physical comfort emerged out of luxury along with a growing middle class, to become something both English people and foreigners identified with English culture. The perceived ability of the English to comfort well gave them a reason for national pride during a time of great anxieties about France’s cultural and military might, and Austen participates in her culture’s struggle to define itself against France.
    [Show full text]
  • Legal Issues in Austen's Life and Novels
    DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law Volume 27 Issue 2 Spring 2017 Article 2 Reading Jane Austen through the Lens of the Law: Legal Issues in Austen's Life and Novels Maureen B. Collins Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/jatip Part of the Computer Law Commons, Cultural Heritage Law Commons, Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, Intellectual Property Law Commons, Internet Law Commons, and the Science and Technology Law Commons Recommended Citation Maureen B. Collins, Reading Jane Austen through the Lens of the Law: Legal Issues in Austen's Life and Novels, 27 DePaul J. Art, Tech. & Intell. Prop. L. 115 (2019) Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/jatip/vol27/iss2/2 This Lead Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Law at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact digitalservices@depaul.edu. Collins: Reading Jane Austen through the Lens of the Law: Legal Issues in READING JANE AUSTEN THROUGH THE LENS OF THE LAW: LEGAL ISSUES IN AUSTEN'S LIFE AND NOVELS Maureen B. Collins I. INTRODUCTION Jane Austen is most closely associated with loves lost and found and vivid depictions of life in Regency England. Austen's heroines have served as role models for centuries to young women seeking to balance manners and moxie. Today, Austen's characters have achieved a popularity she could have never foreseen. There is an "Austen industry" of fan fiction, graphic novels, movies, BBC specials, and Austen ephemera.
    [Show full text]
  • The Influence of Naval Captain Charles Austen's North American
    y y The Influence of Naval Captain Charles Austen’s North : u : American Experiences on Persuasion and Mansfield Park SHEILA JOHNSON KINDRED Sheila Johnson Kindred teaches Philosophy at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. As a member of the Nova Scotia chapter of JASNA and the Kent Branch of JAS she has lectured and published on Jane Austen in both North America and England, including a contribution to Jane Austen and the North Atlantic. T of Jane Austen’s naval characters sparkle with animation and authenticity. In Persuasion we meet Captain Frederick Wentworth , who has become very wealthy by the capture of naval prize and is known for his “great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy” (26). In company is his sister , the good - humored Mrs. Croft, who makes a strong impression as the eminently practical naval wife of the likable Rear-Admiral Croft. In Mansfield Park Midshipman William Price delivers spirited narratives, which are “proof of . [his naval] knowledge, ener- gy, courage and cheerfulness” (236). These characterizations evince a surprising knowledge of sea -going life for someone who lived deep in the English countryside. So how did Jane Austen come by the information she needed to create these naval figures ? One of her most important sources was her brother Charles , who, as an officer in the British navy during the Napoleonic wars, was stationed in North America for over six years between 1805 and 1811. His naval expertise and ex - ploits cruising the Atlantic Ocean and capturing prize vessels, his love match to the beautiful young Fanny Palmer of Bermuda, and his social and professional life with “brother o fficers ” all find echoes in Persuasion and Mansfield Park .
    [Show full text]
  • Books Owned by Jane Austen's Niece, Caroline, Donated to Chawton House Library
    VOL.1 No .4, 2015 Inside this issUE Books owned by Jane Austen’s House of Lords Tea niece, Caroline, donated to Chawton House Library N APRIL THIS YEAR, a North American Friend of Chawton House Library, Sandra Visiting Fellow Alexis Pogorelskin enjoys IClark, came to visit us all the way from afternoon tea with Baroness Williams of Crosby. Texas, bearing gifts. And what special gifts they are! They include a first edition of Frances Burney’s Camilla (1796), and a great many Improved Visitor Experience books to enhance our secondary collection, and our holdings on the Gothic novel. They also included a small collection of books once belonging to Caroline Mary Craven Austen (1805-80). Here, Executive Director Gillian The reference to Jane Austen’s acting skills came Numbers Dow discusses the importance of just one of back to me when I examined the donation from triple as the volumes in this collection, and looks at Sandra Clark. Because one of the books is a book new display what it can tell us about women’s reading, of French plays, an 1813 edition of Stéphanie- cases arrive education for girls, and women’s lives in the Félicité de Genlis’s Théatre à l’usage des jeunes early nineteenth century. personnes. All of Caroline’s books now forming part of the Chawton House Library collection When Sandra Clark came with her generous are delightful material objects. And in the case donation, I was thrilled to see the volumes once of this one, it is of particular interest, since it belonging to Caroline Austen.
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen: a Family Record: Second Edition Deirdre Le Faye Frontmatter More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-53417-8 - Jane Austen: A Family Record: Second Edition Deirdre Le Faye Frontmatter More information JANE AUSTEN: AFAMILY RECORD This book is the outcome of years of research in Austen archives, and stems from the original family biography by W. and R. A. Austen- Leigh, Jane Austen: her Life and Letters. Jane Austen: A Family Record was first published in 1989, and this new edition incorporates information that has come to light since then, and provides new illustrations and updated family trees. Le Faye gives a detailed account of Jane’s life and literary career. She has collected together documented facts as well as the traditions concerning the novelist, and places her within the context of a widespread, affectionate and talented family group. Readers will learn how Jane transformed the stuff of her peaceful life in the Hampshire countryside into six novels that are amongst the most popular in the English language. This fascinating record of Austen and her family will be of great interest to general readers and scholars alike. Deirdre Le Faye has been actively researching the life and times of Jane Austen and her family for the last thirty years. In 1995 she pre- pared a completely new edition of Jane Austen’s Letters. She has also written several other books: a short illustrated biography, Jane Austen (1998), Jane Austen’s ‘Outlandish Cousin’, the Life and Letters of Eliza de Feuillide (2002) and Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels (2002)as well as numerous articles in literary journals. © in this
    [Show full text]
  • A Chronology of Jane Austen and Her Family
    BOOK REVIEWS Sue Parrill, Editor The Austens et al from 1600 to 2003 A Chronology of Jane Austen and Her Family By Deirdre Le Faye. Cambridge University Press, 2006. xv + 776 pages. 7 B/W illustrations. $150.00. Reviewed by Peter W. Graham. A preliminary confession: I didn’t read every page of Deirdre Le Faye’s A Chronology of Jane Austen and Her Family before sitting down to review it. Nor is it likely that most readers will do so though some especially thorough Janeites will probably pore over every item in this reference book containing some 15,000 entries from May 20, 1600, (“Horsmunden: Francis Austen I, fifth son of John Austen I and wife Joan Berry, baptized.”) to July 19, 2003, (“Chawton: The Great House re-opens as Chawton House Library, the Centre for the Study of Early English Woman Writers, created by the Leonard X. Bossack and Bette M. Kruger Foundation”). Fascinating and seductive to the empirical sensibility, this repertory of facts will be of great use to Austen scholars, who in times to come will turn to the Chronology to ascertain where Jane Austen or members of her family were and what they were doing on a particular date. But the book offers far more than just a chronicle of the nuclear Austen family. It gathers together centuries of details about the travels, circumstances, publications, correspondences, financial transactions, wills, and possessions of generations of Austens, their kin, and their associates. Deirdre Le Faye was tireless in visiting county records offices, libraries, and archives both public and private to gather materials for her biography Jane Austen: A Family Record and for the notes to her edition of Jane Austen’s Letters.
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility
    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82436-1 - Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen Frontmatter More information the cambridge edition of the works of JANE AUSTEN sense and sensibility © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82436-1 - Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen Frontmatter More information Cambridge University Press and the General Editor Janet Todd wish to express their gratitude to the University of Glasgow and the University of Aberdeen for providing funding towards the creation of this edition. Their generosity made possible the employment of Antje Blank as research assistant throughout the project. © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82436-1 - Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen Frontmatter More information the cambridge edition of the works of JANE AUSTEN general editor: Janet Todd, University of Aberdeen editorial board Marilyn Butler, University of Oxford Alistair Duckworth, University of Florida Isobel Grundy, University of Alberta Claudia Johnson, Princeton University Jerome McGann, University of Virginia Deirdre Le Faye, independent scholar Linda Bree, Cambridge University Press volumes in this series Juvenilia edited by Peter Sabor Northanger Abbey edited by Barbara M. Benedict and Deirdre Le Faye Sense and Sensibility edited by Edward Copeland Pride and Prejudice edited by Pat Rogers Mansfield Park edited by John Wiltshire Emma edited by Richard Cronin and Dorothy McMillan Persuasion edited by Janet Todd and Antje Blank Later Manuscripts edited by Brian Southam Jane Austen in Context edited by Janet Todd © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82436-1 - Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen Frontmatter More information Forest scene from Remarks on Forest Scenery, and Other Woodland Views (Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty): Illustrated by the Scenes of New-Forest in Hampshire, by William Gilpin (London, 1791), volume I, p.
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen.Pdf
    Jane Austen was born on the 16th December, 1775 in Steventon, in England. She was an english writter. Jane and her family lived in Chawton in a very big house. Her father, William George Austen, educated his daughter alone. Jane's mother was Cassandra Leigh. Jane had got six brothers and one sister who is named Cassandra Elizabeth Jane Austen Austen. When Jane became an adult, she stood with her parents. She didn't have any children and she wasn't married. Later, she became a famous english writter. Jane's house The town of Chawton where Jane Austen lived with her family George Austen Cassandra Leigh Austen 1731 - 1805 1739 – 1827 James Austen Georges Austen Edward Austen Henry Austen Cassandra Austen Francis Austen Jane Austen Charles Austen 1765 - 1819 1766 – 1838 1767 - 1852 1771 - 1850 1773 - 1845 1774 -1865 1775 - 1817 1779 - 1852 Jane Austen spoke about her books with a lot of english writter like : - Fanny Burney - Samuel Richardson - Samuel Johnson - Henry Fielding - Charlotte Lennox Fanny Burney Samuel Richardson Samuel Johnson Henry Fielding Charlotte Lennox Jane wrote many novels : - Sense and Sensibility in 1811 - Pride and Prejudice in 1813 - Mansfield Park in 1814 - Emma in 1815 - Northanger Abbey in 1818 ( posthumous ) - Persuasion in 1818 ( posthumous ) Her books were about men and women who looked for happiness in love and marriage. She wrote very short stories in three volumes. The most famous of them are « The beautiful Cassandra » , « The three sisters » , « Love and Friendship » ; « The history ship » and The three volume « Catherine or the Bower » of Jane Austen On the years 1816, Jane Austen was starting to be sick.
    [Show full text]
  • Crocodilechronicle: Atlantic Provinces, 1838
    Crocodile Chronicle: Atlantic Provinces, 1838 - 39 James M. Whalen Le journal de Charles Cockayne Austen est une découverte récente. Le Lieutentant Austen servit abord du HMS Crocodile posté à la Station Amérique du Nord-Antilles en 1838-39. Son journal donne un aperçu intéressant sur plusieurs aspects de la vie quotidienne de l'époque. Ces notes de recherche peuvent servir d'introduction au document pour ceux qui seraient intéressés à l'examiner de façon plus approfondie. Accounts in the form of journals, diaries or logbooks that mariners kept of their travels date back to the earliest written records of sailing. A logbook kept by Lieutenant Charles Cockayne Austen1 during the period 1836 - 41, while serving in the British Royal Navy, recently turned up in England. Part of his account should interest Canadians in particular, because he recorded weather conditions, ports of call, salutes, social events and diversions while sailing around the coasts of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland aboard HMS Crocodile, a frigate of the West Indies and North America squadron on detached duty. The first official naval record found on Charles Austen shows that he joined HMS Alfred in 1831 as a mate. However, he probably entered the Royal Navy before then. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1835. After serving in a number of different vessels, in September 1837 he joined Crocodile in England, and was with that ship for just over two years.2 The Crocodile, a wooden sailing vessel, was built in Chatham in 1825. Armed with twenty-eight guns, she was approximately 114 feet long, 32 feet in the beam, and had a displacement of about 500 tons.3 When Lieutenant Austen first came to the north Atlantic from Bermuda in April 1838, Crocodile was employed as a troop transport.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Austen: Prize Chaser T and Prize Taker on the :L North American Station I 1805-1808
    Charles Austen: Prize Chaser t and Prize Taker on the :L North American Station i 1805-1808 SHEILA JOHNSON KINDRED Sheila Johnson Kindred teaches Philosophy at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She is a member of the Nova Scotia chapter of JASNA. Two hundred years ago this year, Jane Austen’s younger brother Charles arrived on the North American Station of the British Navy. For Charles, 1805 was an auspicious year. He was a keen young naval officer full of energy and promise. He would assume his own first command, meet his future wife Fanny soon after, and seize the opportunity of earning prize money. As an adventurous young man, there was at least the possibility that he might become richer from prize taking than he ever would on naval pay. It is usually reported that Charles took only one prize and that it disap- peared without a trace.1 In fact, 13 prizes can be attributed to Charles, either as sole or joint captor between August 1805 and November 1808. In the course of his role of prize chaser and prize taker, Charles experienced thrills and risks, successes and failures. He knew the excitement of the chase as well as the fear of being chased. Although all but one of Charles’s letters home from this period are lost, there is indirect evidence in Jane’s letters that he reported regularly to the family about his experiences on the North Ameri- can Station.2 Presumably all information about prizes taken, monies earned, and other profits anticipated would have been of keen interest to his family at home.
    [Show full text]
  • Brotherly and Sisterly Dedications in Jane Austen's Juvenilia
    y y Brotherly and Sisterly Dedications in Jane Austen’s : u : Juvenilia PETER SABOR Peter Sabor is Canada Research Chair in Eighteenth- Century Studies and Director of the Burney Centre at McGill University. His publications on Jane Austen include the Cambridge University Press edition of the Juvenilia (2006), and Juvenilia Press editions of Evelyn (1999) and Frederic and Elfrida (2002). J A the writings of her childhood and youth in three manuscript notebooks, to which she gave the mock-solemn titles of “Volume the First,” “Volume the Second ,” and “Volume the Third,” as though collectively they formed a three-volume novel. All four of the novels that she published during her lifetime, from Sense and Sensibility in 1811 to Emma in 1815, ap - peared in just such a format. Despite this ostensible resemblance to her pub - lished works, however, Austen’s juvenilia, written between about 1787 and 1793, di ffer from her full-length fiction in some obvious ways. First, the total length of the twenty-seven items in the three notebooks, some 74,000 words, is less than half that of either of her two longest novels, Mansfield Park and Emma , and considerably less than either Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice , although close to that of the two posthumously published novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion . Second, unlike the numbered chapters that comprise the volumes of each of the novels, the various items in the notebooks are unnumbered and di ffer markedly in length: there are sixteen short pieces in “Volume the First,” nine in “Volume the Second,” including such substantial ones as “Love and Freindship” and “Lesley Castle,” and only two in “Volume the Third ,” “Evelyn” and “Catharine, or the Bower.” Another feature that distinguishes the juvenilia from five of the pub - lished novels is the presence of dedications to family members and close friends, strewn throughout the three manuscript volumes.
    [Show full text]