Are you a Janeite I wonder? By this I mean do you love and reread the small cache of six novels by Jane Austen. Janeite is rather an ugly word I think, that doesn’t sit well with the beautiful writing of the author but it is a term that is all over the internet. There are Austen societies all over the world, there are conferences and conventions, teas, regency style dances, guided walks around Bath and Winchester as well, of course, as the much-visited cottage at Chawton in Hampshire. The books are always in print, some in gorgeously embossed leather (which Jane would not have afforded) and others as cheap paperbacks on which one can scrawl notes. Gracious!
Well, I am not a true Janeite and I don’t belong to any society that almost worships her but I do truly love ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ have read it many times and consider it the most exquisite example of English prose that I have ever read. Thus, a novel called ‘Miss Austen’ by Gill Hornby was clearly going to attract me. The Miss Austen in question is actually Cassandra, Jane’s sister, and the story is based on fact, looking at what happened to the family after Jane’s death in 1817. The author is very adept at writing in an Austen fashion and all Cassandra’s thoughts, problems and actions are firmly within her time: the late 18th century and early 19th. The story focuses on letters written by Jane, very many to her sister Cassandra. Eventually these letters are sadly burned and the author has invented those she needs, to move the narrative forward. Somewhere in the middle of the story, which held my interest and I enjoyed, I began to feel slightly uncomfortable and this was because I felt I was falling down a gap (mind the gap) between fact and fiction.
However, this did not stop me following through by reading Gill Hornby’s next offering, in the same vein: ‘Godmersham Park.’ Here we are again ‘based on truth,’ starting with a real happening in 1804 where Anne Sharp, finding herself in straightened circumstances (there’s a good Austenesque phrase) becomes a governess at Godmersham Park and is put in charge of Frances, known as Fanny. She is the eldest child of Edward Austen and his wife Elizabeth and the favourite niece of Jane. In the process of the storyline Anne becomes friends with Henry Austen, another brother, and with Jane herself.
I think I probably enjoyed this book the more and that was due to the amount of social history involved which was fascinating. The situation of girls at that time was so very precarious, even if you would have been deemed to be middle class, as was the case with Anne Sharp. If you had not accepted a proposal of marriage, maybe there hadn’t even been one, if your father had made poor financial decisions or a parent had died, a young woman could find herself homeless and poor unless there was a relative who was prepared to take her in. Being a governess was seen as the least worst resolution to an unfortunate situation. For many this was not a comfortable result. Anne had had an education, even a classical one which would have been unusual, but she needed to keep this fairly quiet. In most large houses that were employing governesses, the requirements would have been slight. Teach my daughter music and sewing, a little French would be delightful and some knowledge of writers and poetry. That would be quite sufficient. Daughters needed to be marriageable and certainly not more knowledgeable or in any way cleverer that the man they would marry, to whom of course they would defer in every instance. A balancing act for Anne.
And where does a governess sit within the society of the house? She would not have belonged below stairs with the other staff but it depended on the kindness of the mistress as to whether she would be invited to join the family at meal times. Frequently the answer would be a tray eaten solitarily in her room. It is then easy to understand Anne’s pleasure and relief at meeting an educated and interesting companion such as Jane Austen. It made complete sense.
What began to bother me was what exactly was fiction in these two books and what was history. I felt the answer would be to read a biography of Jane Austen and so dear reader, that is exactly what I did next. ‘Jane Austen. A brief life’ by Fiona Stafford is an excellent read. I found it accessible, clear and concise with just the right amount of well researched and evidenced information; perfect for an interested reader, not necessarily one who is about to embark on a PhD.
One part of this book I found particularly useful was the historical context that she offered. I am always one for some background information as I find it greatly adds to my enjoyment of the text. The times of Jane Austen in most people’s minds are those of a certain gentility but of course she lived through a violent, revolutionary period: the French Revolution in 1789 and the Napoleonic Wars from 1800 to 1815. Somehow all this sturm and drang seems to fit better with the windswept and passionate Brontë novels than the curbed and constrained writings of Jane, although of course there is passion here too but with without the flamboyance of the Haworth Vicarage family.
I have had fun reading around the life of Jane Austen and will now return, of course, to that small cache of six novels.