Jane Austen For Dummies (15 page)
Read Jane Austen For Dummies Online
Authors: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray
Jane Austen's life between 1806 and 1809 was one of extended visits to brothers and their families. In 1808, she stayed at least a month at Godmersham, Edward's estate in Kent, where she wrote that “It seems odd to have such a great place all to myself” (Letter, June 15â18, 1808). Edward's wife, Elizabeth, was pregnant with child number 11.
Elizabeth would die on October 10, 1808, of childbirth problems 12 days after the birth of her 11th child, a son. Living in Southampton, Mrs. Austen and Jane immediately took charge of caring for and entertaining Edward and Elizabeth's two grieving older boys, Edward (14) and George (12), who were students in nearby Winchester, while Cassandra went to Godmersham to be with Edward and the rest of the children. At this terrible time, to help the boys raise their spirits, their Aunt Jane taught them a card game they loved, one that she would later use in
Mansfield Park:
Speculation.
Shortly after Elizabeth's death, Edward invited his mother and sisters, along with their friend Martha Lloyd, to live in a brick cottage of six bedrooms belonging to his Chawton Estate in Hampshire. Here they would be close to their first home, Steventon Rectory, where James Austen and his family now lived. The ladies happily accepted Edward's offer.
The years between the appearances of her first two published novels had their share of pain (for example, Edward's generous benefactor and adopted mother, Mrs. Knight, who had always been kind to Jane, died in 1812, and Henry's wife, Eliza, who had been ill for some time, died in April, 1813), as well as the joy she took in being published. This section takes you through the ups and downs Austen experienced as a writer.
In 1809, just a few months before moving to Chawton, Austen had written to Crosby & Company to inquire about their failure to publish
Susan,
which they had now owned for six years. To preserve her anonymity and to show her feelings about the publishers' failure to act, she closed her letter, writing, “I am Gentleman &c &c MAD.â” The name on the return address was Mrs. Ashton Dennis, in care of the Post Office in Southampton (Letter, April 5, 1809). Three days later, Crosby replied that she could have the manuscript back if she paid them the ten pounds that they had paid her for it (Letter from Richard Crosby, April 8, 1809). Not having that sum to spare, Austen just bided her time. Finally, in early 1816, Jane had four published novels out, so her brother Henry went to Crosby and paid the ten pounds to buy back the manuscript and receive Crosby's resignation of all copyright claims. Only then did Henry have the fun of telling Crosby that the author of
Susan
was also the author of
Pride and Prejudice,
and so on. Some things
are
worth the wait!
In her first three years at Chawton, Jane Austen had taken three of her early works,
Susan,
Elinor and Marianne,
and
First Impressions,
reworked the last two, and had the huge satisfaction of seeing herself a published writer of popular novels. The following briefly details that journey:
Susan:
In 1803, her brother Henry saw to it through his agent that
Susan
(forerunner of
Northanger Abbey
) was sold to London publisher, Crosby & Company, for ten pounds, which was a great price for an unpublished writer in those days. The publisher advertised that the book would appear in 1803 or thereabouts. Jane Austen was thrilled! But it never appeared.
Crosby & Company was the publisher of Ann Radcliffe's widely popular Gothic mystery novels, of which
Susan
made fun. Crosby publishers couldn't undermine its most popular seller, so Jane had no hope of earning anything from that novel, other than the ten pounds Crosby & Company had originally paid for the manuscript.
Sense and Sensibility:
Seeing that the epistolary novel had gone out of style and applying the maturity that came with the passing of 12 years, Jane Austen first set out to revise
Elinor and Marianne,
which she had last touched in 1797, changing its title to
Sense and Sensibility.
Working as her literary agent, her brother Henry took the manuscript to the London publisher Thomas Egerton. Because the book was by a previously unpublished and untried author, Egerton published the novel on commission, meaning the author paid for the book's publishing and gave the publisher a commission for selling the book. Henry undoubtedly helped her pay for all this.
Advertised in the newspaper as an “Extraordinary Novel,” it finally appeared with a byline reading “By a Lady” on October 31, 1811; by 1813, it was out in a second edition. Austen made £140. What a happy â though silent â published author she was, for she requested her family members to keep the identity of the “Lady” mentioned in the byline hush-hush. In those times, if a lady put her name to the byline, society frequently assumed she was writing because of poverty. And Jane Austen was still a
lady
of the gentry.
Pride and Prejudice:
Besides starting
Mansfield Park
in 1812 while at Chawton, Austen was working on
Pride and Prejudice.
In 1797, her father had offered the original manuscript,
First Impressions,
to the London publisher Cadell and Company only to have it immediately declined. But having already brought out one novel of Austen's that sold well, publisher Thomas Egerton gave her £110 for the copyright to her second. He made money on this, for a second edition of
Pride and Prejudice
was needed in October of the same year (1813), and a third edition in 1817. The byline read, “By The Author of
Sense and Sensibility.
”
Austen scholars consider
Mansfield Park,
Emma,
and
Persuasion
Austen's mature novels. While her first three novels (including
Northanger Abbey,
though it was only published after her death) are certainly thought provoking, sensitive, and intelligent, the final three are more complex in terms of characterization and plotting.
Mansfield Park,
finished in June of 1813, wasn't a reworking of an earlier manuscript. Setting the novel almost entirely at a grand country house and its accompanying estate, Austen used her earlier experiences of staying at the Bigg Withers family's Manydown Park and Edward's Godmersham to flesh out this world. Her now widowed brother Henry escorted her to London and brought her new novel to her publisher â Egerton. Despite the popular success of
Pride and Prejudice
and Egerton's praising the new novel for its “Morality” and having “No weak parts,” he published it on commission, instead of buying the copyright as he had for
Pride and Prejudice
(Works 6:433). Published in May of 1814, again with a the cryptic byline, “By The Author of
Sense and Sensibility
and
Pride and Prejudice,
” the edition sold out by November. Even with the commission, Austen made £350.
Meanwhile, with Napoleon's resignation in April, 1814, Frank Austen was home, living on Edward's Chawton estate in the Chawton Great House, just a short walk from Austen's Chawton cottage. This proximity allowed her to consult Frank about the naval maneuvers she describes in the Portsmouth section of
Mansfield Park
in preparation for its second edition.
Henry Austen fell seriously ill in October of 1815, during the Murray negotiations, and couldn't complete them as he wished. His illness kept his sister, Jane, in London, where she had come to participate in the Murray business. She stayed at Henry's longer than she had planned in order to nurse him. Being with the ailing Henry brought Jane Austen to the attention of the prince regent (later King George IV).
In his illness, Henry Austen was attended by Dr. Matthew Baillie, one of the prince regent's physicians. While Austen kept her identity as a novelist a secret from everyone other than her mother, sister, and brothers (and their wives), Henry was so proud of Jane that he once in a while let her authorship slip. So the identity of the “Lady” in the cryptic bylines was getting around. While seeing Henry for his illness, Dr. Baillie told Austen that the prince regent read and admired her three novels and had a set of them at each of his residences. Furthermore, Dr. Baillie admitted telling the prince regent that their author was currently in London. The prince then invited Austen, through his chaplain and librarian (the Rev. Mr. James Stanier Clarke), to tour his library at Carlton House, his London palace. (For more about the prince regent and Regency England, see Chapter 2.)
On November 13, 1815, Clarke escorted the author through the luxurious royal residence. And during the tour, he told her that she was invited to dedicate her next book to the prince regent. Rejecting this invitation wasn't an option. And so
Emma
opens with the official dedication. But while the dedication was an honor for Austen, it wasn't a pleasure. For like many of her contemporaries, Austen scorned the prince regent for his blatant immorality, sexual escapades, and financial extravagance.
Awaiting the publication of
Mansfield Park,
Austen began the year 1814 writing
Emma,
a novel with a heroine of that name and of whom she said, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like” (
Memoir,
157). Yet Emma, along with Elizabeth Bennet, is one of Austen's most endearing characters for many readers precisely because she's intelligent and funny, but she thinks too well of herself, making many errors in judgment that compel her to undergo a tough learning experience.
Working again through her brother Henry, Austen switched publishers to John Murray, the publisher of Byron. Murray offered Austen £450 for the novel's copyright, but as it turned out this was another commission publishing.
Emma
was published at Austen's expense with profits going to her after Murray's 10 percent commission was met.
Having completed
Emma
in March 1815, Austen began writing
Persuasion
in August; this would be her last completed novel. Austen finished
Persuasion
in July 1816, after revising the final chapters. She thought this novel would be called
The Elliots,
after the family of heroine Anne Elliot. (See the section, “Reacting to her death,” which explains why this is known as
Persuasion.
)
Having her naval brothers home and showing English pride in the final victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 (albeit an army victory), she made the heroes of her last novel naval heroes.
Persuasion
deals with two books:
The
Baronetcy,
listing those who have inherited their titles and wealth
The
Naval List,
naming those who have earned their ranks and riches
The novel is the most romantic of her novels, being the story of Anne Elliot, who at age 27, has “lost her bloom” because she lost her one true love â a naval officer whose proposal she had rejected eight years earlier, in 1806, on the grounds that his having a wife would not be good for him. But then he returns on the scene, in 1814, still handsome and now wealthy. What's a girl who has lost her bloom to do?
While writing
Persuasion,
Austen was also beginning to feel ill.
As the summer of 1816 progressed, the physical decline that Austen experienced became worse. In January 1817, Austen began a new novel, which she knew as
The Brothers
but which came to be known as
Sanditon.
At the time she began the book, she was feeling somewhat better. But as time went on, the symptoms returned. Though ill herself, she writes about a new spa town, Sanditon (think Sandy-town) and the hypochondriacs who visit it and live there. It was her most slapstick writing since “Juvenilia,” filled with physical humor. But she couldn't write to bring herself back to health. Leaving off writing with the quill pen, she surrendered to writing with a pencil (no more having to dip the quill into ink), and her regular strong handwriting grew weaker. And in March, at Chapter 12, she stopped writing, period.
Some people attribute Austen's physical decline to her busy last visit to London in the winter of 1815, including her nursing Henry there. Did she catch an infection? No one knows. But she certainly felt increasingly weaker and intermittently suffered gastrointestinal problems (
“Bile,”
as she called it) and backaches (Letters, September 8â9, 1816, January 24, 1817).