The squirrel that I am, I read too many titles at the same time, consequently, I am still, this many months removed, engaged in my Jane Austen July TBR. Or was. I’d read Emma, The Murder of Mr. Wickham, and finally Jane Austen at Home: A Biography, by celebrated TV personality and historian Lucy Worsley.
I expect some few visitors here might be crying aloud, “Enough
with Jane Austen, already!” You are in luck, then; my Jane Austen July reading
has exhausted itself for the year. (I have to say, however, that if you did
think that, then you are probably in the wrong place. I consume what I will,
and much of it these days is, and will be, historically aligned, given the lists
of unread books that I own and plan to tackle in the next while.)
I ought to have read this book before ever embarking on
reading any Austen title. It is that illuminating. Moreover, it ought to be required
reading for anyone considering reading Jane Austen. It is, obviously, a
biography (and says as much in its title); but it is more than just a mere study
of Jane’s life: It details her family’s circumstance prior to her birth; her early
upbringing; her relationship with her parents; her extended family; her sister.
And, perhaps more importantly, her relationship with her Georgian Period world.
It is thus a feminist work. Of course it is. Jane may be one of English
Literature’s first feminist authors. Granted, she was constrained in her
feminism, given the world she found herself in, her status in the gentry, her family’s
ecclesiastic and Tory leanings.
Steventon Rectory, Hampshire |
Chawton Cottage, by Anna Austen |
Lucy Worsley did her research. Not only did she plumb
Jane’s correspondence, she drew widely on other sources germane to the Regency era,
both contemporary and “contemporary” to her years of life. How else could she
have understood Jane? There was a lot going on. And the world was rather
different than it is now. Jane lived during the Enlightenment and the social
changes it was igniting. It was also a wilder, more freewheeling time than what
was to follow, the more inhibited Victorian Age. War was raging. There were men
in uniform everywhere. In that regard, Jane’s family had naval ties. One
imagines, given Jane living close to the coast for a great deal of her life,
that the threat of invasion from France was thought imminent. It evokes
thoughts of the Second World War. And indeed, the Napoleonic Wars might be considered
the “first” world war! One imagines whirlwind wartime romances, austerity, the
worries concerning brothers fighting overseas; and most importantly – at least
here – what might become of all the women when their fathers, brothers, and
lovers should they pay the ultimate price (there was no social net then, beyond
the charity of family).
And yet, for all that, Jane’s books are not Romances. She
doesn’t concern herself with such stories, as she herself admitted that she had
no experience with high adventure, and if she were to embark on such a story it
would be so ridiculous that she might burst into fits of laughter at the
attempt. So, she wrote about what she knew: house and home, family, courting, flirtations,
marriages, and the worries women had concerning forging a future.
Like I said, I wish I’d read Lucy Worsley’s biography of Jane
first. I would certainly have divined the greater depth hidden within her books
I have hitherto read.