DOCSLIB.ORG

A Gold and Gem-Set Ring, Jane Austen Expert Adviser's Statement

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Gold and Gem-Set Ring, Jane Austen Expert Adviser's Statement Case 4 2013/14: a gold and gem-set ring, Jane Austen Expert adviser’s statement Reviewing Committee Secretary’s note: Please note that any illustrations referred to have not been reproduced on the Arts Council England Website EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. Brief Description Gold ring set with a turquoise (figs. 1, 2, 3). Made probably in the eighteenth century, possibly about 1760-80. In a nineteenth-century case bearing the name of T. West, goldsmith of Ludgate Street, London. Accompanied by papers documenting the history of the ring within the family of Jane Austen. Ring: width 17.5 mm.; height 8 mm. The ring is in excellent condition. It is fitted with a patent 9-carat gold device, probably late nineteenth or early twentieth-century, to reduce the size of the band, which does not affect the integrity of the ring. It could readily be removed, but might also be seen as part of the history of the ring. 2. Context Provenance According to a note written by Eleanor Austen in November 1863 (sold with the ring; fig. 4), the ring belonged to Jane Austen (1775-1817). From Jane it passed to her sister, Cassandra, who gave it to her sister-in-law Eleanor Austen, second wife of the Revd. Henry Thomas Austen (brother of Jane and Cassandra), ‘as soon as she knew that I was engaged to your uncle’. Eleanor and Henry were married in 1820. From Eleanor (died 1864) the ring passed to her niece Caroline Mary Craven Austen (1805-1880), daughter of the Revd. James Austen, another of Jane’s brothers. According to a note written by Mary Dorothy Austen-Leigh in 1935 (sold with the ring), she received the ring from her aunt Mary A. Austen-Leigh (1838- 1922). The latter ‘probably received it from her aunt Caroline’, the recipient of the note from Eleanor Austen. The ring is sketched in Mary Dorothy Austen- Leigh’s note and is described as ‘a bright blue turquoise Ring – mounted in a band – not a gipsy ring’. According to a later note, written by Mary Dorothy Austen-Leigh in 1962 (sold with the ring), Mary A. Austen-Leigh received the ring from her mother Emma Austen-Leigh (1801-76), rather than direct from Caroline as her note of 1935 had suggested. The difference between these two notes does not appear to be significant to the history of the ring. Mary Dorothy Austen-Leigh gave the ring to her sister Winifred Jenkyns on 27 March 1962. Sotheby’s, London, 10 July 2012, lot 59 (£152,450, including premium). The ring is understood to have been sold by another family member. Key references Elizabeth Jenkins, ‘16th December. Sagittarius’, in Jane Austen Society Collected Reports, 1949-65 (1967, reprinted 1996), pp. 153-5 [Annual Report of 1959]: mention of turquoise ring in the possession of the Austen-Leigh family. A reference in the same article to a garnet ring also said to have been owned by Jane Austen was corrected by Elizabeth Jenkins to being a ring owned by a member of the family (Annual Report, 1960, p. 171). 3. Waverley Criteria It is proposed that the ring meets the third Waverley criterion because there are reasonable documentary grounds to believe that it was owned by Jane Austen. Thanks to her stature as a novelist, and the affection as well as respect in which she is held, this elegant and appropriately simple ring has caught the public imagination as a rare and intimate object associated with one of the greatest English writers. The ring has been almost entirely unknown for many years. It is likely that it will be illustrated in future biographies. DETAILED CASE 1. Further description The ends of the hoop of the ring curve round underneath the bezel (fig. 2), rather than forming shoulders which join directly to the edge of the bezel. Taken in conjunction with the thin hoop and the simple oval bezel, this may indicate a date of about 1760-80, judging by dated mourning rings of similar construction at the Victoria and Albert Museum and, drawing on examples kindly provided by Judy Rudoe, at the British Museum. The ring is contained in a rectangular leather case (29 x 19 x 25 mm). However, the ring sits too loosely to suggest that the case was fitted to receive it. The case appears to be nineteenth rather than eighteenth-century in type, and this is supported by the style and the content of the printing on the silk: ‘T. WEST, / Goldsmith. / Ludgate Street / near St Pauls’. References from directories, baptismal records, Old Bailey trials, newspapers and insurance records, including material generously supplied by John Culme, indicate that Thomas West was not in business in Ludgate Street in late 1813 but was there from at least 1818, when the baptism was recorded of Thomas West, junior, born in 1815. Thomas West was listed at 3 Ludgate Street in 1820 and 1825, but by late 1830 he had presumably died, since Esther West, his wife, was listed as goldsmith and jeweller at the same address. By 1838 Thomas West junior was at the helm, and by late 1841 the business was at 18 Ludgate Street, an address for which there are several subsequent references. In 1867 an Old Bailey trial records Thomas West at 3 Ludgate Hill (formerly Ludgate Street). In short, the case is significantly later than the ring and does not appear to shed any light on the ring’s association with Jane Austen. It is possible that Eleanor Austen kept the ring in the case or put it into the case when she bequeathed the ring to Caroline Austen. 2. Significance 2.1 Rarity Jane Austen’s House Museum at Chawton exhibits only two pieces of jewellery as having been owned by Jane Austen. A turquoise bead bracelet previously belonged to Mary A. Austen-Leigh. A topaz cross is identified as the one which Charles Austen sent to Jane in 1801.1 It has been taken to be the model for the amber cross given by William to Fanny Price in Mansfield Park.2 Jane Austen’s modest means and her early death mean that objects associated with her of any kind are rare. Even her letters were in part destroyed by her family. 2.2 Relevance to Jane Austen and her novels The simple elegance of the ring has been eloquently described by the auction cataloguer and by commentators on the web as according well with Jane Austen’s taste.3 The locket she bought for her sister Cassandra was ‘neat and plain, set in gold’.4 In Mansfield Park Edmund, who has commissioned his brother to find a chain for the amber cross mentioned above, tells Fanny Price ‘I have endeavoured to consult the simplicity of your taste’.5 Both in her life and in her novels Jane Austen showed an appreciation of the significance of jewellery in personal relationships. She described a pair of bracelets sent by Cassandra as ‘everything I could wish them to be’.6 She welcomed a brooch as a ‘very kind & welcome mark of freindship (sic)’.7 She left notes requesting that after her death one of her gold chains should be 1 Letter to Cassandra Austen, 26-27 May 1801, Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye (4th edn., Oxford, 2011), p. 95. 2 Mansfield Park, vol. 2, ch. viii. 3 On the web, see in particular Diana Birchall, ‘Jane Austen’s Ring’, published June 21, 2012 http://austenauthors.net/jane-austens-ring. She raises the question of whether Jane Austen, born on Saturday 16 December, might have been aware that turquoise was her birthstone. There is no evidence that she was, and the allocation of turquoise to December has not been the general rule over the centuries. While the list given by the Parisian jeweller J.H.P. Pouget in 1762 gives turquoise or malachite as birthstones for December (Traité des pierres précieuses et de la manière de les employer en parure, Paris, 1762, p. 5), he appears to link them to Capricorn (22 December-20 January). 4 Letter to Cassandra Austen, 24 May 1813, Letters, ed. D. Le Faye (2011), p. 221. 5 Mansfield Park, vol. 2, ch. ix. 6 Letter to Cassandra Austen, 9 December 1808, Letters, ed. D. Le Faye (2011), pp. 162-3. 7 Letter to Cassandra Austen, 7-9 October 1808, Letters, ed. D. Le Faye (2011), p. 151. given to a God-daughter and a lock of hair to Fanny Knight, who was asked by Cassandra whether it should be set in a brooch or a ring.8 In the novels, rings reflect the characters of their wearers. In Pride and Prejudice, Lydia in the folly of her precipitous marriage tells her mother how she had lowered the window of her carriage, as she overtook the curricle of William Goulding, removed her glove ‘and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that he might see the ring; and then I bowed and smiled like anything’.9 The empty-headed Mrs Hurst is ‘principally occupied in playing with her bracelets and rings’.10 Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey foresees the day when as a married woman she would be the envy of new acquaintances and old friends ‘with a carriage at her command, a new name on her tickets, and a brilliant exhibition of hoop rings on her fingers’.11 However, jewels are much more than symbols of vanity and excess. In Mansfield Park the giving of a jewel is minutely explored. For Fanny Price, an amber cross is at first a treasure of the love of her brother William who had small resources and remembered her when serving abroad.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Annuario JASIT 2016
    Annuarioanno 2019 JASIT Jane Austen Society of Italy ANNUARIO 2019 © Jane Austen Society of Italy (JASIT) gennaio 2020 jasit.it Sommario Le guerre napoleoniche e Jane Austen .......................................................... 4 Speciale Tesseramento JASIT 2019. Estrazione a sorte di due copie del libro Jane Austen. I luoghi e gli amici .................................................. 41 Assemblea ordinaria dei Soci 2019 ............................................................ 44 Una giornata con Jane Austen 2019. Il raduno annuale dei Soci JASIT apre al pubblico ............................................................................... 45 Adattamenti austeniani per lo schermo: lavori in corso per Emma e Sanditon ...................................................................................................... 48 La nostra casa di Chawton .......................................................................... 51 Annalisa De Simone, Le amiche di Jane .................................................... 67 Manoscritti perduti e ritrovati ..................................................................... 69 Orgoglio e pregiudizio – prima versione teatrale italiana ........................... 74 Trattative, tirature, vendite: Jane Austen e gli editori ................................. 77 Orgoglio e pregiudizio – La riduzione teatrale ........................................... 99 Viaggio in Austenland, lungo le tracce dei manoscritti ............................ 102 Quasi un’altra sorella. I diari di Fanny Knight
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen's Reading
    Jane Austen’s Reading: The Chawton Years Gillian Dow and Katie Halsey Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors. Spectator 93 (16 June, 1711) Introduction to Jane Austen’s Reading The earliest description of Jane Austen‘s reading is Henry Austen‘s account in the ‗Biographical Notice of the Author‘ in the first edition of Northanger Abbey, published posthumously in December 1817. James Edward Austen-Leigh‘s Memoir of his aunt (1870) also describes her reading, drawing on the information in the ‗Biographical Notice‘. Henry and Edward focus firmly on authors considered in the nineteenth century to be ‗useful and entertaining‘. They both agree that she loved the works of Samuel Johnson, William Cowper, George Crabbe and Samuel Richardson, in particular Richardson‘s Sir Charles Grandison (1753-4). Henry Austen tells of her early infatuation with ‗Gilpin on the Picturesque‘, writing also that ‗her reading was very extensive in history and belles letters‘, and that she was ‗intimately acquainted with the merits and defects of the best essays and novels in the English language‘ (‗Biographical Notice‘, 330). James Edward suggests that what Henry had called ‗extensive‘ reading in history was actually ‗the old guides – Goldsmith, Hume and Robertson‘. He briefly alludes to her admiration of Sir Walter Scott‘s poetry and Waverley (1814), and quotes her joking determination to read no novels but Maria Edgeworth‘s, her relatives‘ and her own. James Edward then turns from Austen‘s reading: ‗It was not, however, what she knew, but what she was, that distinguished her from others‘ (Austen-Leigh, 78-80).
    [Show full text]
  • By Kathryn Sutherland
    JANE AUSTEN’S DEALINGS WITH JOHN MURRAY AND HIS FIRM by kathryn sutherland Jane Austen had dealings with several publishers, eventually issuing her novels through two: Thomas Egerton and John Murray. For both, Austen may have been their first female novelist. This essay examines Austen-related materials in the John Murray Archive in the National Library of Scotland. It works in two directions: it considers references to Austen in the papers of John Murray II, finding some previously overlooked details; and it uses the example of Austen to draw out some implications of searching amongst the diverse papers of a publishing house for evidence of a relatively unknown (at the time) author. Together, the two approaches argue for the value of archival work in providing a fuller context of analysis. After an overview of Austen’s relations with Egerton and Murray, the essay takes the form of two case studies. The first traces a chance connection in the Murray papers between Austen’s fortunes and those of her Swiss contemporary, Germaine de Stae¨l. The second re-examines Austen’s move from Egerton to Murray, and the part played in this by William Gifford, editor of Murray’s Quarterly Review and his regular reader for the press. Although Murray made his offer for Emma in autumn 1815, letters in the archive show Gifford advising him on one, possibly two, of Austen’s novels a year earlier, in 1814. Together, these studies track early testimony to authorial esteem. The essay also attempts to draw out some methodological implications of archival work, among which are the broad informational parameters we need to set for the recovery of evidence.
    [Show full text]
  • Republic of the Sudan Ministry of Education and Scientific Research Nile Valley University College of Graduate Studies
    Republic of the Sudan Ministry of Education and Scientific Research Nile Valley University College of Graduate Studies INHERITANCE IN JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS A Thesis Submitted to the Nile Valley University in the Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master’s Degree in English Literature by: Fadwa Mustafa Ali Hamid Supervisor: Dr. Ibrahim Mohamed Al- Faki March 2009 Examination Board: 1. Dr. Ibrahim Mohamed Al – Faki 2. Dr. Abdelnasir Yousif A/Alkareem 3. Dr. Iyman Abbas Al Nour II Dedication To my family and friends for their sincere support. III Acknowledgements The researcher would like to thank her supervisor, Dr. Ibrahim Al – Faki, for putting up with being asked to read and correct chapter on chapter of this thesis and showing useful advice. Special thanks are due to Griselda El Tayib who has put the idea of writing about the topic of this thesis after having interesting talks about literature and for her tremendous support, great thanks to my husband and children who have been patiently bearing many of my absences from home. Also great thanks are due to the Jane Austen Museum volunteers staff at Chawton U.K. who have given the researcher valuable information with great enthusiasm. The researcher sincerely thanks her young friends the S.V.P Volunteers who came from the U.K to teach English Language in Sudan, Christopher William and Tim Davies. Many thanks are due to the University of London Senate House Library, and to so many others, lawyers and literary friends for their useful pointers and information. IV Abstract The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries established the novel at its recognizable form with its colourful genres.
    [Show full text]
  • The Watchers of Sanditon
    The Watchers of Sanditon JULIET McMASTER Department of English, University of Alberta, Edmonron, AB T6G 2E5 I want to begin with that "close, misty morng" when Charlotte Heywood sallies forth from Trafalgar House with docile Mrs. Parker and little Susan to walk to Sanditon House, on their visit to Lady Denham. When they reached the brow of the Hill, they could not for some time make out what sort of Carriage it was, which they saw coming up. It appeared at different moments to be every-thing from the Gig to the Pheaton,-from one horse to 4; &just as they were concluding in favour of a Tandem, little Mary's young eyes distinguished the Coach- man & she eagerly called out, "T'is Uncle Sidney Mama, it is indeed." And so it proved. (Sanditon 425)' It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SIDNEy pARKER!-who is probably destined to be the hero of Sanditon.But seeing the hero is not easy: not for the heroine, and not for us readers either, who must rely on the heroine's young eyes to distinguish his identity and his place in the large pattern of events and characters that make up the novel. Jane Austen plays with that trope of identifying the hero elsewhere in her novels .In Sense and Sensibility, when Elinor and Marianne are out walking, they discem a man on horseback riding towards them. In a few minutes they could distinguish him to be a gentleman; and in a moment afterwards Marianne rapturously exclaimed, "It is he; it is indeed;-I know it is!" (SS 86), But she is "mistaken": it is Edward Ferrars, not Willoughby.
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen's Work As Popular Culture Phenomenon
    Jane Austen's Work as Popular Culture Phenomenon Bartolović, Ana Master's thesis / Diplomski rad 2012 Degree Grantor / Ustanova koja je dodijelila akademski / stručni stupanj: Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences / Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku, Filozofski fakultet Permanent link / Trajna poveznica: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:699412 Rights / Prava: In copyright Download date / Datum preuzimanja: 2021-10-02 Repository / Repozitorij: FFOS-repository - Repository of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Osijek Sveučilište J. J. Strossmayera u Osijeku Filozofski fakultet Diplomski studij povijesti i engleskog jezika i književnosti Ana Bartolović Jane Austen's Work as Popular Culture Phenomenon Diplomski rad Mentor: doc. dr. sc. Biljana Oklopčić Osijek, 2012. Summary Jane Austen is considered to be one of the most brilliant British writers. Although she wrote only six novels, they are all highly praised and very popular. They are so popular that today one can find numerous film adaptations and fan fiction novels based on them. The first chapter deals with Austen, her life, family, relationships, and work. The second chapter is about her six novels, arranged here in the order in which they were published: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. The third chapter reviews every film adaptation based on each of the novels. The fourth chapter deals with numerous novels written in the 20th and 21st centuries that are sequels, prequels, variations, or adaptations of Austen’s novels. There is also an extensive list of all those novels divided into categories according to the title of the book on which they are based on.
    [Show full text]
  • A Chronology of Jane Austen and Her Family Deirdre Le Faye Frontmatter More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-03927-8 - A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family Deirdre Le Faye Frontmatter More information A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family For nearly forty years Deirdre Le Faye, one of the world’s leading authorities on Jane Austen, has been gathering and organising every single piece of information available about the Austen family before, during and after Jane’s lifetime. She has now collected all this material together to produce a unique chronology, containing some 15,000 entries. For the first time, those interested in Jane Austen can discover where she was and what she was doing at many precise moments of her life. The entries, many taken from hitherto unexplored and unpublished documents, are presented in a clear and readable form, and each item of information is linked to its source. The volume includes family trees for the extended Austen and Knight families from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. This is a key work of reference that every scholar and reader of Austen will find fascinating and indispensable. deirdrelefayeis a biographer and editor of Jane Austen, and is the author of Jane Austen: A Family Record (revised edition, Cambridge, 2004). © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-03927-8 - A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family Deirdre Le Faye Frontmatter More information Woolwich Greenwich Sheerness Dartford Margate Ramsgate Sittingbourne Ightham Faversham Canterbury Seal Goodnestone Westerham Maidstone Sevenoaks Deal Godmersham Tonbridge KENTWye Tunbridge Wells Ashford Dover STAFFORD- SHIRE Hamstall Ridware INSETS SCALE 0204010 30 50 km E IR 020s10 30 mile Stoneleigh H S Kenilworth N O T WARWICKSHIRE P M A Streatham H T R O N SURREY Adlestrop Great Bookham Cheltenham E Guildford IR OXF SH O Farnham R RD E S HERTFORDSHIRE T Oxford H S I E R C E U X O E B ES L E L R.
    [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]
  • HOLMI C/O Réz Pál, 1137 Budapest, Jászai Mari Tér 4/A Terjeszti a Nemzeti Hírlapkereskedelmi Rt
    Szerkeszti: Réz Pál (fôszerkesztô), Radnóti Sándor (bírálat), Várady Szabolcs (vers), Závada Pál (széppróza), Fodor Géza, Szalai Júlia, Voszka Éva Szerkesztôbizottság: Bodor Ádám, Dávidházi Péter, Domokos Mátyás , Göncz Árpád, Kocsis Zoltán, Lator László, Ludassy Mária, Nádasdy Ádám, Rakovszky Zsuzsa. Tördelôszerkesztô: Környei Anikó. A szöveget gondozta: Zsarnay Erzsébet TARTALOM Domokos Mátyás : Képregény (Non-fiction) • 851 Kurtág György: Jeney Zoltánnak • 868 Spekuláció nélkül nincs intuíció – „Jób könyvé”-tõl a fraktálokig ( Jeney Zoltánnal beszélget a „Halotti szertartás”-ról Farkas Zoltán) • 869 Dalos Anna: Hagyomány és eszkatológia Jeney Zoltán „Halotti szertartás”-ában • 903 Rába György: A körülmények hatalma • 913 Tiltakozik • 913 Horváth Elemér: magyar árok • 914 körkép a 2. millennium után • 914 fegyverletétel • 915 Dunajcsik Mátyás: Szekvenciák szonettzongorára • 915 Imitatio Petri • 916 Macskatangó • 917 Csengery Kristóf: A hangok túloldala • 918 Atyjának szellemét szólítja • 919 Vallasek Júlia: Báránysült és rebarbara (Jane Austen levelezése elé) • 921 Jane Austen leveleibõl (Vallasek Júlia fordítása) • 924 Gerevich András: A francia mozis • 944 G. István László: Feloldozás • 945 Navigare • 946 Út az õszbe • 946 850 • Tartalom Lanczkor Gábor: Hiszen mi ez • 947 Válasz Alighierinek • 948 Gál Ferenc: Közismert elbeszélõ • 948 Napforduló • 949 FIGYELÔ Forgács Éva: Csernus Tibor • 950 Perneczky Géza: Héj és lepel (Pauer Gyula retrospektív kiállítása) • 955 Keresztesi József: Mûbírálat és diagnózis (Angyalosi Gergely: Romtalanítás) • 973 Farkas János László: Az idõ berendezése (Veres András: Távolodó hagyományok) • 976 Doboss Gyula: Hungarian Psycho (Garaczi László: Gyarmati nõ) • 983 Nemes Z. Márió: Bret Easton Ellis: Holdpark • 987 Megjelenik havonta. Felelôs kiadó: Réz Pál. Vörösmarty Társaság Levélcím: HOLMI c/o Réz Pál, 1137 Budapest, Jászai Mari tér 4/A Terjeszti a Nemzeti Hírlapkereskedelmi Rt.
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Austen Article Version 1
    56 Days: The Final Chapter of Jane Austen’s Life Jane Maxwell is a Cathedral Guide at Winchester with specialist knowledge of Jane Austen, and she is also a guide at Chawton House Library. In this article she has assembled some extracts of letters and writings, both from Jane and members of her family, which together tell the story of Jane’s last days in Winchester. On 24th May 1817 Jane Austen, accompanied by her sister Cassandra, departed from Chawton Cottage, and travelled to Winchester in the carriage of eldest brother James. They took up lodgings in the home of Mrs David, at No 8 College Street, the arrangements having been made by close friend Mrs Elizabeth Heathcote and her sister Miss Alethea Bigg. This was to be Jane’s home for the last 56 days of her life. As her life drew to a close, her letters related the intimate details of her final struggle. Fig 1 Jane Austen, rear view, by Cassandra Austen reproduced by kind permission of Belinda Austen 27th May 1817, Jane to nephew James Edward Austen: “I know no better way my dearest Edward, of thanking you for your most affectionate concern for me during my illness, than by telling myself as soon as possible that I continue to get better. I will not boast of my handwriting; neither that, nor my face have yet recovered their proper beauty, but in other respects I am gaining strength very fast. I am now out of bed from 9 in the morning to 10 at night – upon the sopha t’is true, but I eat my meals with Aunt Cassandra in a rational way and can employ myself, and walk from one room to another.
    [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]
  • Henry James, Women Writers, and the Friendly Narrator
    Misreading Jane Austen: t Henry James, Women :L Writers, and the i Friendly Narrator WILLIAM C. DUCKWORTH, JR. William C. Duckworth, a retired chemical engineer, has published articles on chemi- cal technology and English literature, as well as poetry. He now confines himself to literary endeavors. A legion of Jane Austen’s readers would agree when Mal- colm Bradbury observes that Jane Austen, “a great artist working in a small compass,” has constructed a reader who can recover from her novels an experience of life “as serious and intense as even Henry James could wish for” (186). However, Henry James would not have agreed. Though he assigned to her a high rank among novelists, saying that she is “shelved and safe for all time,” “close to reality,” and that “the tissue of her narrative is close and firm,” he spoke patronizingly of her unconscious wool-gathering, criticized the absence in her works of striking examples of com- position, distribution, and arrangement, and called her heroines “she-Philistines.” One is surprised by these severe criticisms of the novelist he called “dear old Jane Austen,” who devised and prac- ticed literary techniques that he later developed. Why did Austen fail to win a perceptive reader like James who was so indebted to her? An examination of James’s view of women writers and Austen’s narrative technique, and of the relation of these two fac- tors to Henry James’s criticisms of Jane Austen, will enable us to better understand James’s comments on his great predecessor. In a letter of 8 April 1883, James wrote to the publisher of 96 PERSUASIONS No.
    [Show full text]