Title page from the First Edition (Public domain. Courtesy: Wikipedia)

For the first half or so of 2012, JASACT plans to focus on Pride and prejudice and will commence by spending the first three meetings of the year discussing it volume by volume as we have done in previous years for Mansfield Park and Sense and sensibility. As not all modern editions present the book with in the three-volume arrangement, here is a guide to the original volume structure:

• Volume 1: Chapters 1-23
• Volume 2: Chapters 24-42
• Volume 3: Chapters 43-61

And here are two sites that provide the original publication structure – as well as e-texts of the novel and other interesting Jane Austen info:

• Austen.com
• Molland’s

The lunch was ‘progressive’ with the main course at 11 Elsey Street, Hawker, followed by dessert at 5 Dungowan Street, Hawker.

Member Anna plays Gwen Bevan's music

Members were entertained before lunch by a performance of a selection of piano pieces from ‘A Carriage Ride in Queen Square’ original compositions by Gwen Bevan, great-great-granddaughter of Jane Austen’s niece Fanny Knight. This was possibly the Australian premiere?

Jane Austen was toasted, as was Jessie Terry, and we lunched on oysters, fish, fowl, Martha Lloyd‘s chicken curry, herby suet pudding and potato and broccoli salads. A small journey down the road led to more toasts and desserts, cranberry jelly, trifle, lemon tarts and a splendid, beautifully decorated celebratory cake made by member Jenny.

It was a memorable event and not just because of the food. As Jane Austen said (through Anne Elliot),

My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

Jenny's Splendid Celebratory Cake

Engraving of Steventon rectory, Austen's home for much of her life (Public Domain: Courtesy Wikipedia)

Prepared by Jessie, with a little help from Sue.

At our meeting on Saturday, 19th November a nice turn-up of members enjoyed Margaret’s entertaining and informative talk* on English parsonages, rectories and vicarages, with particular reference to those of Jane Austen’s times and the fictional ones of her novels. Margaret pointed out that Jane, being the daughter (and granddaughter and great-granddaughter) as well as sister, niece[?] and cousin of Anglican clergymen, not surprisingly featured clergy and their residences in most of her novels. In fact, in only two – Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion - the heroine does not marry a clergyman, though Elizabeth did have to endure Mr Collins’ excruciatingly embarrassing, though hugely entertaining for the reader, proposal.

In the 18/19th centuries, 4/5ths of England’s population lived in country towns, villages and hamlets and in each the parsonage was one of the three most important buildings, the others being the church itself and the local manor. Often they were situated next to each other and were usually, though not always, imposing buildings. There is no typical architectural style for parsonages.

Of most interest to us though was how Jane, in her inimitable fashion, used descriptions of and references to parsonages to expand our knowledge of her characters, often to their detriment. For example, General Tilney, trying to impress his supposed heiress future consort for Henry describes the parsonage at Woodston with mock humility, calling it “a mere parsonage” while Austen the author tells us it is “a new–built substantial stone house”. This is, in fact, Margaret told us, the only time building materials are mentioned, drawing our attention to the fact that this discrepancy is a point to note!

Austen’s descriptions of parsonages in her books also reflect the general craze  in her time for making improvements to homes, but here too she uses this to reflect on her characters. Generous Colonel Brandon, for example

talked to her [Elinor] a great deal of the parsonage at Delaford, described its deficiencies, and told her what he meant to do himself towards removing them.

Meanwhile, sensible Edmund Bertram is not greatly interested in unnecessary improvements of Thornton Lacey:

I must be satisfied with rather less ornament and beauty. I think the house and premises may be made comfortable, and given the air of a gentleman’s residence, without any very heavy expense, and that must suffice me; and, I hope, may suffice all who care about me.

But Henry Crawford sees it differently:

I never saw a house of the kind which had in itself so much the air of a gentleman’s residence, so much the look of a something above a mere parsonage–house …

Mr Elton’s vicarage, on the other hand, is “an old and not very good house” that he had merely “smartened up”. The only person to admire it is Harriet.

After showing us black and white photos of some of these old parsonages, many with their impressive sweeps so necessary to accommodate the gentleman clergyman’s (and his visitors’) carriages, Margaret brought us into the 21st century with a selection of real estate agents’ brochures. It seems that the elegant clergy residences of the past have become highly desirable (with appropriate price tags) laity residences of today. She quoted one recent real estate agent as saying “If it ain’t the manor, the rectory is the next best thing”. Their proximity to (or to the access motorways to) London and other large centres ensure they command prices of well over £1,000,000 – some quite a long way over a million, depending upon their state of repair as well as location.

We were all grateful to Margaret for the time and effort she had put in to bring us this information and hope those who were not able to be present will at least get a glimpse of our pleasure in it from this report.

Business

• Our focus for 2012 will be Pride and prejudice, which will celebrate its 200th anniversary since publication in January 2013. The  first three meetings of the year, commencing in January (see Sidebar for dates), will be devoted to discussing this book, volume by volume.
• Our annual Jane’s birthday/Xmas lunch will, this year, also be our 10th birthday celebration. It will be a progressive lunch at the homes of two members. Details will be emailed to members.
• We will discuss asking for a guest speaker, from the list send by JASA, at our January meeting.
• At afternoon tea, member Jenny produced a special cake, suitably inscribed to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sense and Sensibility, which Jenny believes was in November. We all felt well treated!
• Quotes were shared as usual but, with our quizmaster absent, our respective grey matters were given a little rest.

* Repeat of a talk, titled “No. 10 or the Rectory”, that Margaret gave at this year’s JASA Country Weekend. The weekend’s theme was Jane Austen and Architecture. 

If Jane Austen was so concerned about Northanger Abbey being dated after only 13 years, how would she have felt about a lapse of 200 years?

The public are entreated to bear in mind that thirteen years have passed since it [Northanger Abbey] was finished many more since it was begun, and that during that period, places, manners, books and opinions have undergone considerable changes (from Austen’s special preface, 1816).

So, after 200 years how much do we fail to appreciate when reading her early novel?

Various editions of Northanger Abbey: Surprise, surprise, Penguin wins again!

It is in many respects a teenager playing a game with her readers. Virginia Woolf apparently saw it as “a girl of 15 laughing at the world”. It is so clever, sophisticated, ambitious and playful that many of the allusions are lost on us today. For instance, Jane, as a staunch supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots, would have been only too aware that Sir Charles Tilney, hanged drawn and quartered for his part in the Babington Plot, in 1586 had planned to kill Elizabeth 1 (whom Jane detested). Further, his family coat of arms in the church at Shelly Hall in Suffolk revealed intermarriage between the Tilneys and the Thorpes. This in turn adds to the humour of General Tilney as a voluntary spy supposedly trawling through pamphlets in search of sedition in the dead of night, for the Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property.

Robert Hawkins, to whom we owe the above idea, believes that the novel is the most political of Jane Austen’s works (see his “General Tilney and Affairs of State: the Political Gothic of Northanger Abbey”  in Northanger Abbey: A Norton Critical Edition). He argues that Henry Tilney’s reference on Beechen Hill to the inclosure of forests “establishes a tension between poetry and history, between the probably and the actual, so that the reader is encouraged to make comparisons between the fictional context of the narrative and the historical context outside the narrative.” This political context is further widened by the reference to the food riots in London (far more Gothic than those in the Gothic romances.)

Another critic, Susannah Carson (A Truth Universally Acknowledged. 33 Reasons Why We Can’t Stop Reading Jane Austen), suggests that Henry and Catherine are the least suited hero and heroine in any of Austen’s novels. She attributes this to Catherine not being “a study of human nature but a study of a literary heroine.” One member of the group couldn’t believe that such an intelligent man would fall in love with a twit of a girl like Catherine. However, others thought Henry might not have been quite so sophisticated as he presents himself to be. Jane is at pains to point out that Henry fell in love ,“bound as much in honour as in affection.” Earlier she writes that “his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought.” And Jane, having a go at sentimental romance, underlines the point with her authorial comment “dreadfully derogatory of an heroine’s dignity”:

… for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine’s dignity …

Carson points out that Northanger Abbey is a “special sort of novel that is highly self conscious of itself as a special sort of novel”, particularly in the way it borrows from “contemporary gothic and sentimental romance”.

In General Tilney’s character, Jane is able to show how real life is more Gothic than the novels. Here is a voluntary spy, whose appalling fit of anger enables him to throw Catherine out of the Abbey to travel home unaccompanied, by post, with no money, on a Sunday. He is a man, who shows an appalling greed and extravagance by growing a hundred pineapples when the poor are starving. He even reminds Catherine of Montoni (from Ann Radcliffe’s The mysteries of Udolpho) by his demeanour.

And, of course, we all agreed that Jane captures superbly the spirit of teenage romance with its uncertainty and longing.

Although often considered the least popular of Jane Austen’s novels, the group decided that the more levels one reads it on, the more one appreciates and enjoys it.

Business and next meeting

The meeting concluded with our regular challenges: the quiz and the quote. And once again the quiz master stumped most of the group with his questions. We were particularly intrigued by:

Who or what was John Thorpe referring to when he told Catherine “we had a little touch together”? (If you want to know the answer, all you have to do is ask in the comments below!)

The next meeting on November 19 will be a talk about Georgian Architecture by member Margaret.

Walpole's Gothic mansion, Strawberry Hill (Public domain, Artist unknown, via Wikipedia)

Our September 17th meeting was devoted to Gothic novels, in preparation for our discussion of Northanger Abbey at our October meeting. Rather than set a particular novel to discuss, the plan was for members to choose their own and come prepared to talk about what they’d read and Gothic novels in general. The main novels read were:

• Maria Edgeworth‘s Castle Rackrent (1800, not really Gothic, but regarded as the first historical novel)
• Ann Radcliffe’s The mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
• Ann Radcliffe‘s The romance of the forest (1791)
• Horace Walpole‘s The castle of Otranto (1765, regarded as the first Gothic novel)

Before we discussed the Gothic novels proper, we briefly talked about Castle Rackrent, which, it has been suggested, contains the first use of an unreliable narrator. We discussed its satire and agreed that it was easy to see, particularly when we look at Jane Austen’s Juvenilia, why Austen liked Edgeworth.

We then discussed the Gothic novels in particular. We looked at the characteristics of these novels, including:

• mysterious castles, caves and tunnels
• virginal maidens and lecherous villains
• supernatural happenings
• mistaken identities
• horror mixed with romance
• triumph of good over evil, order over disorder

While Gothic novels, pretty much by definition, involve a level of horror/terror, they can also be funny, with some, in fact parodying themselves. They are often melodramatic. We briefly discussed the reference to Gothic novels in Northanger Abbey and the seven horrid novels Isabella Thorpe recommended to Catherine. We were fascinated by the suggestion in Wikipedia that readers and critics at the time thought Austen had made up the titles! Anyhow, we are sure to talk more about the Gothic next month when we discuss Austen’s novel.

One member talked a little about the role of the veil in Ann Radcliffe’s novels – and the multiple meanings behind it, particularly in relation to concealment and revelation.

Finally we discussed why readers did (do) enjoy this genre (à la the Twilight vampire series which draws on Gothic traditions). We talked about how Gothic fiction enables readers to escape into other worlds and allows the vicarious experience of thrills. One member proposed that they may have provided an escape from the anxieties posed by the Napoleonic threat, particularly in the 1790s. She argued that, like crime fiction, Gothic fiction involves a disordered world which is eventually put to right. Another member paraphrased a critic* she’d read who essentially said, along similar lines, that the Gothic allows readers to “displace” real fears onto something more fictive. (“This is a bad world” says the hero of The Castle of Otranto.) This critic argued that, in Walpole and Radcliffe, these fears are somewhat paradoxical: a desire for and rejection of aristocracy and old Catholicism, by the middle class. Another member argued that these novels could also provide “excitement” (sexual titillation), particularly for young women like, say, Catherine Moreland and Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey. Were these novels that generation’s young adult novels, we wondered?

* Hogle, Jerrold, W “Hyper-reality and the Gothic affect: The sublimation of fear from Burke and Walpole to The Ring“, in English Language Notes, 48 (1): 163-176, Spring/Summer 2010.

Business

There was not a lot of business to conduct at the meeting:

• three apologies were received, including from one hospitalised member to whom we sent our best wishes and a lovely Jane Austen card provided by Anna
• Anna to prepare a report for the end of the year Chronicle (with Sue to confirm the deadline, probably mid-October)
• Sue to write the blog post for this meeting
• the 10-year anniversary dinner to be postponed, probably to December to coincide with our end-of-year Jane Austen birthday dinner

Next meeting

15 October, 1.30pm, in the Friends Lounge of the NLA, with the topic to be Northanger Abbey

Bookcovers for Jane Austen's The Watsons

Thanks to member Cheng for preparing this report.

Our Saturday 16th July meeting was held in the Friends Lounge of the National Library of Australia with eight members present and two apologies.

Business

We discussed a generous offer from JASA to support the provision of a speaker, once a year, at branch meetings. JASA will cover transport costs if the branch will organise accommodation (where accommodation is needed). It was agreed that we would discuss the list of available speakers at a future meeting with a view to organising a speaker for 2012.

The planning of forthcoming meetings/events was discussed:

• Saturday 20th August: outing to the cinema to see the latest production of Jane Eyre. Booking details will be emailed to all members.
• Sunday 28th August: two members generously offered to host a progressive dinner in their homes to celebrate JASACT’s 10th birthday. Partners are invited. Details regarding food contributions will be arranged at the 20th August meeting and/or via email.
• Saturday 17th September: discussion of Gothic novels, with each member to read a Gothic novel of his/her choice.
• Saturday 15th October: discussion of Northanger Abbey.

The recent Sotheby’s London sale on 14th July that produced a heart-stopping hammer price of ₤ 993,250 (or $1,495,178.24 AUD) on a portion of Jane Austen’s draft manuscript of The Watsons was exclaimed upon and relief expressed that the precious manuscript now belongs to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where it will be safely preserved and available for viewing.

Discussion

The meeting then moved on to a vigorous discussion of The Watsons:

• The discussion opened with a member quoting a critic who described The Watsons as the most ‘joyless’ of Jane Austen’s novels, but another member countered this with Margaret Drabble’s description of it as a ‘tantalizing, delightful & highly accomplished fragment’.
• While agreeing generally with Drabble, another member suggested that in its present state there are ‘clunky bits’ of heavy dialogue with too much information given via dialogue rather than authorial comment.
• Brian Southam, in Jane Austen: a student’s guide to the later manuscripts & works, was quoted as saying it provides fascinating glimpses of Jane Austen at work ‘polishing’, e.g., ‘he poured her wine’ is changed to ‘he helped her to wine’ which he suggested was more “refined”..
• In fact, a member suggested that ‘refinement’ is an important theme – both exterior & inner refinement. Early in the novel Elizabeth expresses concern that Emma might be too refined for them:

I suppose my aunt brought you up to be rather refined. [...] But I can see in a great many things that you are very refined.

• In an interesting reversal of the situation in Mansfield Park, Emma Watson is the poor ‘refined’ orphan.
• Intriguing hints at characters & names used in future novels can be found, such as the sisters in Pride & Prejudice and in Persuasion; Mrs Robert Watson has similarities to Mrs Elton in Emma; and is the absent Penelope a Miss Steele, chasing her doctor, from Sense & Sensibility?
• And what of Tom Musgrave? Is he a Rake or a Rattle? A Willoughby or a Thorpe? It was agreed that this depended on the development of the relationships between the sisters – he is certainly a manipulative game player.
• One member wondered whether Lord Osborne is really interested in women. His behaviour is quite odd and ungentlemanly – using Musgrave to snoop for information about Emma and accompany him on a social call to the rectory – even ‘perving’ on Emma as she danced with Mr. Howard. Apparently he is the only lord in Jane Austen’s novels.
• Will Lady Osborne really become an older woman preying on a younger man? An early ‘cougar’? Or was Cassandra Austen misquoted: did she mean Miss Osborne?
• Emma’s three sisters have such potential for future development: the gentle kind Elizabeth, gossipy as well and a little bitter; the superficial Margaret with the slow articulation; and Penelope, whom everyone regretted not having returned from Chichester.
• Why did Jane Austen not go back to finish The Watsons? The opinions were varied: The lack of her father’s support and her mother’s possibly unsympathetic temper; Emma was poorer than any other heroine – Jane Austen was being very much a serious social realist and it was a story perhaps too close to her own life. Though later she did glance at the situation in the story of Jane Fairfax when her ‘foster’ family goes to Ireland; Writing the scene of the father’s death would have been too painful and morbid.
• Jane Austen’s evidently strong preferences on what constituted a good preaching manner as expressed by Mr. Watson in his description of Mr. Howard’s excellent delivery; pronouncing him ‘a scholar and a gentleman’. Was she the first to use the cliché? Aphra Benn used the phrase: “too much a gentleman to be a scholar”. It was also used by Burns and Wordsworth.
• The subtle distinctions of class: fashions, such as half boots, powdered hair, etc., used to signify naiveté, ignorance or vulgarity, and define the class of either the observer or the wearer, and is closely linked to the theme of refinement; the hours when meals were taken and how they are named varies in every household, and is used amusingly in the instance of Tom Musgrave’s thwarted attempts to escape to his dinner.
• There was appreciation for the sensitively written episode of Emma’s dancing with young Charles Blake – one of the rare examples in Jane Austen’s works of a child given credibility on a social occasion and she uses him as a plot device very well. Margaret Drabble was quoted as saying that this is a singular example when “children are not tiresome, wit is not malicious and ballrooms are not places of disaster”.
• At the end Emma, naturally strong, remains ‘uninfluenced’ – hers is a character akin to those of Elizabeth Bennet and Fanny Price who quietly stand up for themselves against pressure to marry for money.

The meeting was rounded off happily with the reading of two poems by Jane Austen; ‘I have a pain in my head’ and ‘On a headache’, the traditional round of quotes and a tricky quiz by our Master Quizmaster.

Brandon visits Marianne, engraving by CE Brock from Ch. 46 (Public Domain, via Wikipedia)

With thanks to members Jenny, Bill and Sarah for this cobbled together report.

Due to overseas travels, winter chills and special anniversaries, it was a smaller group than usual which met in June to discuss secondary sources on this year’s focus book, Sense and sensibility. Nonetheless, those who attended did manage to cover some interesting ground.

Bill looked at a small part of Richard Jenkyns’ book A Fine Brush on Ivory concerning the question which must, he said, be the ongoing topic for millions of school and undergraduate essays:

Did JA believe sense is right and sensibility wrong?

Jenkyns, he said, suggests she was not quite in control of her technique. Jenkyns also proposes that it is an artefact that we tend to think sense is favoured because Elinor is the ‘focaliser’. This structural feature of the novel, he says, distorts our understanding of what Jane Austen was about, because if you read the novel carefully you see that she mocks too much ‘sense’ and also makes it clear that Elinor did not lack sensibility. Jenkyns also discusses the different meanings of “sensibility” in 1811.

Another member had researched several sources on that issue of endless debate:

Why did Marianne marry Brandon or more to the point what was JA thinking.

Here is what she prepared for the meeting:

WHY DID JANE AUSTEN MAKE THE MARRIAGE BETWEEN MARIANNE AND COLONEL BRANDON SO DISAPPOINTING?

[This of course begs the question that it is disappointing!]

A problem with Jane Austen’s writing is that it is often so dense with meaning and subtle humour that critics and readers alike come up with wildly differing theories about her intentions.

Sense & Sensibility seems to many unsatisfactory, especially in its conclusion. Richard Jenkyns believed that: “the author does not seem to have the working out of the story perfectly under control.” (p.37) However the American professor, Gene W. Ruoff, alerts us to “Austen’s practice in Sense & Sensibility, as it is throughout her novels, to exploit parodically the imbalance between what actually happens and the melodramatic narrative expectations her readers have brought to her fiction. (p. 102)

With this in mind, the idea that Austen wrote Sense & Sensibility as a parody of Richardson’s “Clarissa” throws interesting light on some of the difficulties readers find with the story.

The similarities can be seen in Willoughby’s courtship of Marianne breaking just about all the rules of Regency courtship mentioned by Marilynn Doore: formal means of address, discreet conversation, correspondence and gift giving. Whether there was intimate touching is left to the reader’s imagination. Willoughby instead of pursuing her relentlessly, flees from her and rebuffs her publicly. This is followed by a near fatal illness, Willoughby’s attempt at expiation and the “arranged” marriage with Brandon.

Jenkyns’ sees Brandon as “the most Byronic figure in Jane Austen’s entire cannon – the man in the flannel waistcoat.” (p.188). However, all his heroics happen off stage. The non eventful duel with Willoughby contrasts with that of Lovelace and Col Morden in Italy, during which the former receives mortal wounds. Willoughby is not quite a Lovelace but his confession is that of a sociopath pleading sympathy and entirely centred on self. (Ray p. 11) Both stories involve families whose only interests are in furthering their wealth and status by whatever means.

If we view Sense and Sensibility in this way and are mindful of Hilary Mantel’s belief that Austen’s genius lies “in the capacity to make a text that can give and give, a text that goes on multiplying meanings” (p.76) the seeming awkwardness that some find in the text is easier to understand.

Along the way, Austen makes fun of romance – love at first sight (Marianne and Willoughby compared to Brandon’s devotion), elopements (Brandon and Eliza defying his father), not to mention Marianne rhapsodising about the countryside due to her love of Cowper and Thompson versus Edward’s dour comment about mud.

Elinor’s ability to bear outrageous fortune with “the fortitude of an angel” is played for the humour with the exchanges between Elinor and Lucy similar to the duel of words between Elizabeth and Darcy. She is a much better support to Marianne than Clarissa’s friend.

Marianne constantly misunderstands Brandon as compared to Clarissa being duped by Lovelace. Marianne thinks his sincere appreciation of her musical ability is estimable even though “his pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that ecstatic delight which alone could sympathise with her own.” (p.68) She condemns him for talking about flannel waistcoats “invariably connected with aches, cramps and rheumatism and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble.” (It has been suggested that the colonel may have resorted to such garments because he felt the cold in England after living so long in India.) We need to remember, of course, that Marianne is only 17. She hates his frequent visits unaware they are due to his concern for her welfare.

On hearing the story of the two Elizas and the duel, her attitude changes so that she no longer avoids him and speaks to him with “a kind compassionate respect.” She even manages a pitying eye and gentleness of voice. And the final triumph along the “romantic” path is reached when Colonel Brandon is assured “that his exertion had produced an increase in goodwill towards himself. Finally when Marianne bursts into tears over Mrs Ferrars unkind treatment of Elinor, Colonel Brandon quite loses control and “rose up and went to them without knowing what he did.” And so it goes on with Austen tantalising us with luke warm statements and denying us any direct speech between the pair.

The parody continues with the confederacy of Edward, Elinor and Mrs Dashwood feeling Col. Brandon‘s “sorrow and their own obligations, and Marianne by general consent, was to be the reward of all.” Not as with Clarissa’s family endeavouring to get control of her fortune but still a sacrificial heroine of sorts.

Marianne’s devotion to Brandon grows out of strong esteem and lively friendship, while Brandon patiently waits for her to recover from her first love. Marianne’s experience with Willoughby, the influence of her sister and the serious reflection she indulged in after her illness, perhaps led to her using sense in making her decision to marry Brandon. She was duly rewarded, instead of “falling sacrifice to irresistible passion as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting.” (p.367)

Sources:

• Austen, Jane, Sense & Sensibility, Penguin Books 1969-1975
• Doore, Marilyn, Love and Courtship in the Time of Jane Austen, Suite 101.com
• Jenkyns, Richard, A Fine Brush on Ivory, Oxford, 2004
• Mantel, Hilary in Literary Genius ed. by Joseph Epstein, Haus Books, London 2007
• Ray, Joan Klingal, “The Amiable Prejudices of a Young (Writer’s) Mind, The Problems of Sense and Sensibility”, Persuasions on-line V.26 No 1 (Winter 2005), Jane Austen Society of North America
• Ruoff, Gene W. Jane Austen’s “Sense & Sensibility”, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992

Anna first spoke of her last two visits (three years apart) to Chawton cottage, noting a marked difference in its appearance and appurtenances, She was delighted to report that the actual writing table Jane used has replaced the replica she saw on earlier visits, although it is now ‘fenced off’ by perspex barriers. She did feel that some of the recent additions did not seem quite authentic, but she appreciated the very warm welcome visitors (particularly JASA members) receive and the general atmosphere of authentic scholarship in the Cottage.

Jane, her mother, Cassandra and Martha Lloyd attended the nearby church which was partially destroyed by fire in 1878, only the tower surviving, but it has been restored. Cassandra and her mother’s graves are in the churchyard.

Marilyn told us that she also visited Chawton, staying in nearby Alton, well known to the Austens and where at one stage the women considered living after Rev. Austen’s death. She and Anna both commented on the smallness of the Cottage which they feel is treated almost reverentially. One room, called ‘The Admiral’s Room’ contains memorabilia of Charles and Frank’s lives and articles associated with the family. The famous quilt is displayed on a bed in a room behind a glass wall.

Steventon, where Jane was born and lived her early life, is today a village hidden among trees, and difficult  even to find. The fact that the church and churchyard is deserted is no doubt attributable to the fact that the village boasts only about ten cottages.

Marilyn told us that in Bath historically dressed  ‘characters’ are stationed in front of some of the buildings familiar to us through Jane’s and other novelists’ works.  The Austen family’s diminishing income during the Rev. Austen’s retirement meant a decline in the standard of their living quarters, the final one being in a very low area of town. Each of the three homes they occupied is identified. The ‘Austen Centre’ and other buildings are filled with placards, posters, photocopies and replicas. Marilyn showed us photos of sites such as Milsom Street and the Gravel Walk, which were of greater interest.

The city of Winchester, the city where Jane died and in whose Cathedral she was buried was also where her nephews, Edward’s sons, went to school. Marilyn and Anna both spoke of visiting there and particularly of the house (not open to the public) in which she died and the Cathedral. We were all horrified to learn how expensive it was to enter the cathedral.

Granny's Teeth steps, on the Cobb at Lyme Regis (Courtesy: Elsey 11)

Both also told us about Lyme Regis showing us photos of The Cobb including the notorious steps from which Louisa jumped. These particular steps are known as Granny’s Teeth but this writer could think of other names more indicative of their treacherous appearance –Dragon’s Teeth, perhaps. Anyone so foolish as Louisa certainly did not deserve to win Frederick Wentworth.

Jane stayed in Lyme in 1803 and 1804, which we know, she hated, despite local claims that she ‘loved Lyme Regis’, and the house she stayed in is still to be seen.

Anna and Marilyn both commented that, after seeing lovely peaceful Chawton it is easy to understand why Jane was so unhappy in Bath. Her ‘three or four country families’ are at home in her villages.

Business:

Jenny suggested that this year being the 10^th anniversary of the formation of the Canberra Group we should celebrate in some way and it was decided that a dinner be held in lieu of our August meeting. Marilyn and Anna offered to host a progressive dinner at their homes on a date to be fixed. Thanks Jenny, Marilyn and Anna.

Next meeting will be on 18^th June when we will discuss secondary sources on ‘Sense and Sensibility’.

Jane Austen’s letters “have received little whole hearted praise even from idolators of the novels” according to Chapman who edited the second edition of her letters in 1932. (The first was by Lord Brabourne in 1884, and the most recent one by Deidre Le Faye in 1995)

The seven members who discussed the letters written during the time Jane was apparently revising Sense & Sensibility (although no letters exist for 1810) were impressed by:

•   their tartness
•   the frequent mention of nature and weather
•   Jane’s attitude towards “my mother” – certainly lacking in warmth
•   interesting references to money
•   somewhat abusive comments about Lady Sonde, Miss Curling and Miss Murden.

Three passages impressed us forcibly:

• The compassionate imaginative description Jane made of Edward Knight and his family after the death of his wife, Elizabeth – “I see your mournful party in my mind’s eye under every varying circumstance of the day… Letter 59. One member thought it was so powerful it could have been a scene from a novel.
• The fire in the Southampton bakery was remarkably colourful as well as tragically amusing with the victims losing more “perhaps from ignorance or plunder than the fire”. Valuable china was “thrown down anywhere” and the nearby shopkeeper ”so scared from his sense that he was giving away all his goods … to anybody who would take them.”
• We were concerned for brother Charles who apparently took a small French prize (privateer) laden with sugar only to lose contact with it in a storm. Did he ever find it again?

However we were all very pleased to read that Jane, at a dance 15 years on from a previous one in the same place, found herself on reflection “quite as happy” as she had been before.

Since the purpose of the letters was to exchange news – most of which was exceedingly trivial (especially when you don’t know the people concerned) – Jane’s powers were rarely given an opportunity to shine. However to condemn the letters as a certain H.W. Garrod did as “a desert of trivialities punctuated by the occasional oasis of clever malice” seems to be going to far. Chapman concluded that “Ten years of intimacy has raised rather than lessened my regard” (for the letters). Only time will tell with us.

The meeting concluded with a brilliant quiz of quotes from our quizmaster who confounded us consistently.

 Other business:

1. Possibility of a speaker from ANU who has been involved in editing and proofreading certain editions of Jane Austen‘s novels.
2. Offer from JASA of any help JASACT might like. Members are invited to put forward ideas, for discussion at a later meeting.
3. Recommendation from a member of Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England, a book by Amanda Vickery and a TV series shortly coming out on DVD.
4. Recommendation of another book by the same author, titled The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England.
5. There were four apologies from members. Some members may have been involved with the Jane Austen Festival which was held the same weekend as our meeting.

Next meeting

We will next meet on May 21, at our usual venue. The topic will be  ”Travels with Austen, with particular reference to Chawton Cottage“.

Funny that, Penguin wins again!

As there was no business to discuss we launched into our discussion of Volume III . For the benefit of those who were not able to be at the last meeting those who were briefly recapped the discussion which centred on the complex nature of Volume II and the fact that there are several threads of the plot being teased out.

One member suggested a musical analogy: Volume I is like a prelude and Volume II has a ‘fugal’ feel about it. What we wondered, could Volume III be compared to? In the second volume, characters are being expanded and the dichotomy between Marianne and Elinor’s characters is brought into more prominence. Marianne’s hysterical reaction to Willoughby’s rejection was explored and one member offered the opinion she had read that Marianne’s prolonged illness was the result of a pregnancy culminating in miscarriage. This idea was very thoroughly considered and argued through.

Willoughby’s unscrupulous behaviour,including his abandonment of Colonel Brandon’s ward, Eliza, Elinor’s almost unnatural, especially for her age, self-control, Mrs Jennings’s kindness but lack of real understanding, and the humour introduced by the interplay between the Palmers were all discussed. We also considered these themes very thoroughly in our Vol. III discussion. (For a detailed discussion of Vol. II you may like to go to Whispering Gums’s blog)

The main point we made in this March meeting was the development of Marianne’s character: she learns, by the end of the novel, to be more restrained whilst Elinor’s emotional side is allowed to surface. The latter, sensible and self-controlled beyond her years finally shows her feelings when she learns Edward is at last free of the grasping, duplicitous Lucy.

Most of us felt that Elinor is a fully developed character from the beginning whereas Marianne grows into a more balanced and sensible young woman. We re-read the passage in the final chapter in which we are told Marianne ‘was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims.’

One member suggested that Marianne is the forerunner of the modern young woman. She didn’t ‘play the games’ society of the time demanded – why shouldn’t a girl in love make advances to the young man she believes returns her love?

We also noted that Colonel Brandon was a constant thread in the novel. His love for Marianne never wavers, his kindness to Edward contributes to the depiction of Elinor’s character  (especially when he asks her to convey his offer of the living to Edward), and the story of Eliza serves the double purpose of helping ‘cure’ Marianne of her infatuation with Willoughby and showing her Brandon’s worth, thus laying the foundation for his eventual winning of her hand in marriage. There was some disquiet among us about the age discrepancy with the thought being raised that he is a father figure for Marianne.

What discussion of an Austen novel would be complete without considering humour? We decided that Mrs Jennings and Charlotte, whilst providing some of the humour, are also kind women and very natural people who are completely unconcerned about the opinion of other people. But the appalling John Dashwood, with his blind devotion to wife Fanny, his sycophantic attitude to his mother-in-law, his blatant love of money and his total misreading of the character and behaviour of others (e.g. his complete unawareness of where Brandon’s true romantic interest lay) make him one of Jane Austen’s greatest comic characters.

Our Quiz Master teased  us with his quiz based on Vol. III, with most of us being glad scores weren’t being kept – many thanks, all the same, QM. We fared little better with our challenge of the quotes but it was all good fun.

Next meeting

At our next meeting on 16th April we will discuss the letters Jane wrote during the period she was preparing the novel, originally written in epistolary form, for publication as the ‘Sense and Sensibility’ we know today. See March 20 post ‘Jane Austen’s letters and Sense and Sensibility’.