November 2025 meeting: Female isolation in Jane Austen’s novels

November 18, 2025

This month’s topic was inspired by a blog post in which the blogger stated they didn’t like Emma. One of our members responded in defence of Emma, using some of the points we’ve discussed in past JASACT meetings concerning Emma’s isolation – that she’s never left the village, never seen the sea, never been to London. It dawned on our member that isolation in Austen’s women could be a good JASACT meeting topic. Hence this meeting …

The three most obvious isolated heroines are Fanny, Emma and Anne, but arguments can be made for all the heroines, not to mention other female characters, so our meeting was wide-ranging.

We looked at dictionary definitions of “isolation” but found them wanting. Broadly, when applied to people, it involves being separated from others or placed apart. However, we were interested in more nuanced interpretations, looking at, in various degrees and combinations, the physical, social, intellectual, psychological, emotional, financial, and/or moral isolation and marginalisation experienced by Austen’s women.

One member suggested that the answer to female isolation was marriage. It was accepted as the principal role for a female, with her highest aspiration being running a home and raising a family. Austen played by society’s rules and married her females off rather than risk her books not selling! 

On women’s experience of isolation

Financial isolation was referenced many times during the discussion. To be an old spinster and thus poor and scorned was a dreadful fate, one rarely encountered in Austen’s novels. It was a subject too sad to sell books, said our remote member. Sir Walter Elliot’s condemnation of Mrs. Smith was the attitude of the period. But, while marriage might result in financial security and respectability, it could also, as in the case of Charlotte Lucas, result in intellectual isolation.

One member was particularly interested in women’s financial isolation, in their lack of financial control over their lives. How did they cope in their society? Were they isolated, or just clever in operating within the constraints of their times. We have discussed before that most women needed to marry, needed to make a good marriage, and that in some cases this marriage was important for the whole family. Many men were absent at various wars during this time, which made partners thinner on the ground.

Emma was one of the few characters who had financial power. Charlotte Lucas on the other hand had little money, so few options:

Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained; and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it. (P&P, Ch. 22)

Big families were seen as positive. The Morlands’ family of ten was seen as “a fine family”.

Financial isolation can be closely aligned to social isolation. Jane Fairfax is socially isolated, albeit in a loving environment, but well-to-do-women, while not as free to go out and about as modern women do, had busy lives. They learnt to operate within the structure of their time, and it wasn’t necessarily all bad, said one member. Another member spoke of Emma listing her own “great many independent resources” that will occupy her “active busy mind” in her unmarried old age (Ch. 10), while Mrs Elton brags of being “blessed with so many resources” within herself that she was quite independent of the world (Ch. 32). Our member suggested that this concept of women having their own resources is the closest Austen approaches to acknowledging the female isolation. 

Whatever their situation, most of the women accepted the status quo, but Austen does allow many of her heroines to be discriminating in their choice of husbands. Anne Elliot, Fanny Price, Elinor Dashwood and Eleanor Tilney all glimpsed apparently unattainable partners who would have satisfied their hopes of intellectual and emotional happiness, but for much of their novels are yearning, discerning and isolated,  until rescued by marriage. 

One character, however, is not no resourceful or accepting of the status quo, Mary Musgrove, who whinges about being isolated:  

She had no resources for solitude; and inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress that of fancying herself neglected and ill-used. (Ch. 5)

She complains that all will be “happy at Bath” while she is stuck at Uppercorss, while Anne has developed coping resources. She knows, for example, that when she plays the piano she is “giving pleasure only to herself”. (Both Ch. 6)

Physical isolation was experienced by many characters, sometimes symbolising other forms of isolation too. Fanny is a case in point. Her physical isolation in the East Wing, means she is cold, but it also symbolises her social isolation. Many characters experienced physical isolation, sometimes briefly, some longer term, such as Mrs Smith (in Persuasion) whose physical isolation, like Fanny’s, also reflects her social isolation; Catherine Morland at Northanger Abbey; Charlotte who marries Mr Collins because she didn’t have the luxury of choice; Mrs Smith restricted to her chambers for health reasons.

In general, women – regardless of their situation – were isolated. They could not go out when they wanted. However, one member, inspired by a recent article by Nada Saadaoui in The Conversation, about place and landscape in the novels, offered a different perspective. Saadaoui’s discussion includes identifying the perils and negative aspects of being out and about, such as Lydia’s experience in Brighton, Catherine’s “unpreparedness for the subtler hazards of urban sociability: flattery, pretence and manipulation”, and Mrs Price’s recognition of the dangers of Portsmouth. Our member therefore suggested that, given the difficulties awaiting those who go out, isolation could be a protection. Marianne’s life is threatened after the shock she receives in London, and Maria Betram’s time in London ends in disaster for her. Isolation can offer physical and reputational protection.

But, as one member offered, MP offers one of the bleakest sentences in Austen, and it is about isolation:

It ended in Mrs. Norris’s resolving to quit Mansfield and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria, and in an establishment being formed for them in another country, remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment. (MP, Ch. 48)

Meanwhile, another member also suggested that physical isolation was not necessarily a bad thing. We see sisters supporting each other in isolated places, like the Dashwood girls. Jane Fairfax is protected by her poor aunt and grandmother. Emma’s wealth isolates her, but the country is safe compared to cities. These women needed, and drew on, solidarity and support wherever they were.

Intellectual and/or emotional isolation was another common theme in our discussion, particularly for Anne Elliot, Fanny, Jane Fairfax, Elinor Dashwood, and even Elizabeth Bennet. Fanny, when she arrives at Mansfield Park feels her isolation:

Fanny, whether near or from her cousins, whether in the schoolroom, the drawing–room, or the shrubbery, was equally forlorn, finding something to fear in every person and place. (MP, Ch. 2)

One member found critics talking about the rich inner lives of Austen’s isolated heroines: John Wiltshire and Marilyn Butler discuss Anne Elliot (“her word had no weight … she was only Anne”) and Fanny Price. Butler writes that Anne has “an inner life that is rich and feeling, an outer environment that is barren” (p. 283). This made her wonder whether isolation may not always be negative. Can it favour the development of a rich inner life, or produce resilience and moral integrity, as it seems to in these characters?

Other members pointed to the negative impact of isolation on characters like Elinor Dashwood and Anne Elliot who regulate their behaviours and suppress their own emotions and needs in the service of others. They sacrifice their own well-being in order to fulfill familial and social roles. Anne Elliot, notably however, does find some intellectual companionship with Captain Benwick.

A little case study

A different sort of isolation – encompassing multiple types – is experienced by Anne de Burgh. We know very little about her. The daughter of the wealthy Lady Catherine, she is privileged and surrounded by people, but seems an isolated character. Her mother is a cold and unpleasant woman, who shows her no affection, and, she seems to have no friends. Closest to her, perhaps, is her governess, Mrs Jenkinson, who does show some concern for her. 

She appears in the chapters where Elizabeth, Sir William and Maria Lucas visit Mr and Mr Collins. It seems she occasionally stops by the Collins house in her carriage and talks to Mr and Mrs Collins but never comes into the parsonage. She is present at Lady Catherine’s dinners, where her mother speaks somewhat disparagingly of her, suggesting “if her health had allowed her to play” the piano, she would probably “have performed delightfully”. She plays cards after dinner, but is never given any direct speech. There is no evidence of her doing anything else. Both Maria Lucas and Elizabeth notice her lack of good health when she drops by in her carriage, with Elizabeth being characteristically forthright:

‘I like her appearance … She looks sickly and cross. – Yes, she will do for him very well. She will make him a very proper wife.’ (Ch. 28)

Elizabeth, later sees Anne as “pale and sickly”, with features, that are “not plain [but] insignificant”, and notes that she speaks “very little, except in a low voice, to Mrs Jenkinson” (Ch. 29). At dinner, Anne, seated next to Elizabeth, “said not a word to her all dinner time. Mrs Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little Miss de Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing she were indisposed” (Ch. 29).

Anne’s future, we know, was supposedly settled, with Lady Catherine having announced earlier that she and her sister, Lady Anne Darcy, had long ago agreed that Anne and her cousin, Fitzwilliam Darcy, should marry. What the cousins themseles felt was evidently quite irrelevant. This would be a marriage of status and wealth. But, was it likely to occur? There is no evidence that Darcy speaks to Anne at all, or even that Colonel Fitzwilliam, the cousin of both Anne and Darcy, speaks to her (despite his having much better manners than Darcy). Both are more interested in Elizabeth. Does Anne notice this? Does she care? Does she resent her overbearing mother who has decided on her future? Anne remains silent and largely unknown. Will she ever rebel?

This member was also intrigued by Anne’s eating so little at dinner. Did she have some form of eating disorder? Was it her only way of exerting some form of control over her own life? Our member searched for Jane Austen and anorexia and, sure enough, found a recent Master’s thesis dated January 2025. Its abstract explains the central premise as suggesting

that the gender inequality faithfully depicted in Austen’s novels, by which women are submitted to domesticity, marriage and the pursuit of beauty, prompts female characters to engage in disordered conducts. Considering anorexia nervosa a double-edged conduct that emerges as a by-product of women’s conflict between duty and desire, findings show that the characters of Marianne Dashwood and Anne De Bourgh succumb to eating disorders as a means to escape patriarchal oppression, starvation thus becoming a metaphor for women’s hunger for freedom and appetite for self-determination.

This provided food (excuse the pun) for thought, including what we think of such analyses.

So …

We ended up with some opposing ideas. Was isolation necessarily a bad thing? Did it provide for personal well-being and safety? And, did it offer opportunities for the development of characters’ inner selves, moral integrity, resilience? On the other hand, what pain did many of our heroines suffer through their emotional and intellectual isolation?

Finally, we all enjoyed our remote member’s comment that “the women we have most sympathy for are invariably superior creatures – I see them as swans on the duck pond of life”. 

Sources

Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the war of ideas, 1975
Grace Cazzaniga, “Elinor and Anne:  Emotional Isolation, Family, and Society in Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion“, Vassar College student thesis, 2023
Maria Port i Puig, Jane Austen and anorexia nervosa: An analysis of victuals as representative of patriarchal structures in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. 2025
Nada Saadaoui, “How Jane Austen’s landscapes mapped women’s lives“, in The Conversation, 21 October 2025
John Wiltshire, Jane Austen and the body, 1992

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October 2025 meeting: Jane Austen and France

November 1, 2025

There were basically two approaches to this topic, the members who investigated whether Jane Ausetn read or spoke French and the members who considered the impact of the Napoleonic wars on Austen and her writing. England was at war with France for the whole of her adult life. As one member commented, Austen was war-conditioned.

Did Austen read French literature?

One member read Jane Austen and her Predecessors, by Frank W Bradbrook. He refers to Dr Chapman who noted after the arrival of cousin Eliza in 1786, references to several novels, including Mme de Stael’s Corinne and Mme de Sevigne’s Lettres.

Bradbrook comments that it is strange that there are no references to Rousseau, because Austen must surely have read La Nouvelle Heloise, a death of a governess (‘rather a friend than a governess’) which reminds him of the relationship between Emma and Miss Taylor. Then in Persuasion, there is a point in the story where Anne possibly reflects the sentiments of Rousseau’s Julie. Persuasion also contains a reference to Candide: Sir Walter Elliot’s remarks on Admiral Baldwin’s lack of attention to his personal appearance – “it is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once” – appears in Candide as “In this country it is good from time to time to kill an admiral to encourage the others”.

Lady Susan may have been drawn from French fiction and possibly Mary Crawford too. Bradbrook discusses parallels between Mansfield Park and Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos, which was published in 1782, possibly bought by Eliza.

Several members referred to Jane Austen: The French Connection, by Joan Austen-Leigh, the great granddaughter of James Austen-Leigh and one of JASNA’s founders. She asks ‘How well did Jane Austen speak French?’, because in Austen’s lifetime most educated English people studied French as a matter of course.

There are various references to this in her novels.

  • Catherine Morland learned French from her mother
  • Maria and Julia Bertram are astounded that Fanny had never learnt French
  • Miss Bingley in her famous list about an accomplished woman cites her thorough knowledge of “the modern languages”
  • Lady Susan declares that to be “Mistress of French, Italian, German, Music … will gain a woman some applause, but will not add one lover to her list”.

Evidence suggests Jane read French from an early age.

  • She was given Fables Choisies in December 1783, perhaps as an 8th birthday present.
  • When she was 12 she was reading L’ami de l’adolescence.
  • In 1800 she writes that she had just finished Les Veillees du Chateau.

In the surviving 161 letters there are 20 French words or phrases. Austen asks “how often do any of us use French in our letters or email?” For Austen-Leigh, Austen’s French phrases seem spontaneous, natural expression.

Some trivia

  • Adieu is used 21 times in the novels, goodbye only twice.
  • Austen mentions France as a country in the novels only three times, all in Northanger Abbey.
  • Austen copied into her music book two songs about Marie Antoinette and the music of the Marseillaise, though she called it the Marseilles March.
  • Austen was obviously fond of her brother Henry’s French servants, Mrs Perigord and her mother Mrs Bigeon as Austen left the latter 50 pounds in her will.
  • The French were among the first to translate Austen’s novels into their language. Raison et Sensibilite was published in Paris in 1815, Le Parc du Mansfield and La Nouvelle Emma in 1816. By 1824 all six novels had been translated into French.

The Napoleonic wars and Austen

Another member referred to another JASNA article, ‘Austen and Empire: A thinking woman’s guide to British imperialism’ by Ruth Perry.

The Napoleonic war first impacted the Austen family with the death of Cassandra’s fiance Thomas Fowle of yellow fever off Santo Domingo in 1797. Perry claims that “The ghost of Thomas Fowle peers through Jane Austen’s novels, the original of all the disappearing suitors”, for example, Edward Ferrars and Bingley. Cassandra’s reaction of “uncommon resolution and propriety … models the qualities of our favourite Austen characters”.

By the time Thomas Fowle died, 80,000 British soldiers had perished in three and a half years of war with France.

Perry argues that England’s colonial war in the Caribbean was “momentous for Jane Austen’s life and as it turns out for posterity” because Fowle’s death and Cassandra’s spinsterhood helped determine Austen’s decision to remain single and to write.

Perry’s long article explores the issues of slavery and abolition, as well as how the war in the Caribbean influenced Austen’s writing in Persuasion, and the characters of Admiral Croft and Captain Wentworth and how their naval careers had led to success and wealth.

Although Sir Walter might complain that the navy was “the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours which their father and grandfathers never dreamt of …”, Austen links this class mobility in her last novel to greater possibilities for domestic happiness in the creation of new kinds of families. England’s wars of imperialism permits Wentworth to make a fortune sufficient to marry the daughter of an aristocrat.

Another member referred to the chapter, ‘The French Connection’ in Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen: A Life and that because Jane Austen never travelled to France, all her knowledge came from the family, her cousin Eliza and her naval brothers. Persuasion was in fact the first novel to explore the impact of the war on the navy and the naval officers.

Some more Trivia

  • The Royal Palace at Winchester was used for French prisoners of war.
  • Jane Fairfax’s father died in the war.
  • The original version of Sense and Sensibility had references to France which had to be deleted later because by the time of publication France and Britain were at war.

Sources

Joan Austen-Leigh, “Jane Austen: The French Connection” in Persuasions, No. 20
Frank W Bradbrook, Jane Austen and her Predecessors, Cambridge University Press, 1967, p 120 – 123.
Ruth Perry, “Austen and Empire: A thinking woman’s guide to British imperialism“, in Persuasions, No. 16 (1994)
Claire Tomalin, “The French Connection”, in Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen: A life

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September 2025 meeting: Matchmaking in Jane Austen

September 20, 2025

We started by focusing on matchmaking, mostly in terms of specific instances in the novels, but we came to realise that although matchmaking is a specific theme in Emma, it runs through all the novels. This makes sense, given Austen’s overall critiquing of the role of marriage in the Regency era, particularly for women, and her promotion of marriage unions based on real connection and affection, mutual respect, and compatibility of character and intellect, rather than on the manipulations of a matchmaker. Austen explored the impact of social class on marriage prospects, and recognised marriage as balancing social equality and affection.

One member looked specifically at the idea of the “matchmaker” and found that at this time matchmakers were paid in France, where matchmaking evolved through the 19th century from informal family arrangements to a commercialised “marriage market” driven by matrimonial agencies and newspaper advertisements. This more formal, commercial matchmaking tended to ignore feelings, but was, rather, a way of manipulating people into a “good” transaction. In England, paid matchmaking was banned. Instead, it was something undertaken usually by female family members or friends who looked to arrange suitable marriages for the upper and middle classes, and tried to balance affection with practicality and economic alliance. That was the theory, though as Austen showed in practice, this was not always achieved. As one member added, we still matchmake today, but through online services!

Whether formal or informal, however, matchmaking was serious business. Marriage concerned the whole family, its security and wellbeing, particularly that of unmarried sisters and of the mother should she be (or become) widowed. Making a good match could be imperative.

Jane Austen, Emma

Several members chose particular “matchmakers” or novels to talk about, and of course Emma (in Emma) featured more than once. One member noted that both Emma and Mrs Weston engaged in matchmaking. She also commented on Mr Knightley’s awareness of the importance of money and security, and the favourablity of a match between Robert Martin and Harriet. Another member talked of how Emma and Mr Knightley fall in love without matchmaking. Emma learns that it works best when “like” finds “like” whereas formal matchmaking (as Emma tried with Harriet, and as one member’s research found) “blindly joins incompatible objects”. 

Further considering Emma, we discussed Jane Fairfax’s predicament as a woman who was accomplished without the money, while Emma, as Mr Knightley points out to her, is not so accomplished but of course she has the money.

Another member talked of Mrs Bennet as the quintessential family matchmaker, but despite her (and those like her in other novels) best efforts, a lot of young people managed to find matches on their own. Lydia Bennet certainly does, but perhaps not as successfully as others.

Another member suggested that matchmakers came in various shapes. For example, the master of ceremonies who introduces Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney (Northanger Abbey, Chapter 3) in the Lower Rooms could be described as undertaking a type of matchmaking.

Mansfield Park

Mrs Norris, in Mansfield Park, on the other hand, is of the more traditional family member style. She was instrumental in introducing Maria Bertram to Mr Rushworth (and gets, said our member, the prize for most disastrous match).

The winter came and passed … and Mrs. Norris, in promoting gaieties for her nieces, assisting their toilets, displaying their accomplishments, and looking about for their future husbands, had so much to do … (Ch. 4)

Mr Rushwporth was “from the first struck with the beauty of Miss Bertram”, and

Mrs. Norris was most zealous in promoting the match, by every suggestion and contrivance likely to enhance its desirableness to either party (Ch. 4)

It’s not long before the engagement announced, and Sir Thomas approves from the West Indies, asking only that the marriage not take place until his return. Only Edmund has his doubts:

Edmund was the only one of the family who could see a fault in the business; but no representation of his aunt’s could induce him to find Mr. Rushworth a desirable companion. He could allow his sister to be the best judge of her own happiness, but he was not pleased that her happiness should centre in a large income… (Ch 4)

(Interesting word , “business”, here, regarding marriage.)

Chapter 4 is a busy chapter, because it is also here that Mrs Grant does a bit of thinking about matchmaking herself, thinking that Tom Bertram would be a good match for Mary and Louisa for Henry. In other words, these female relations, Mrs Norris and Mrs Grant, are aware of their matchmaker role. Later in our discussion we talked about chaperones also often taking on this role, with Mrs Jennings (in Sense and sensibility) keeping an eye out, while Mrs Allen (in Northanger Abbey) is only interested in her clothes and her friends. She provides no advice or guidance, let alone matchmaking, for Catherine.

Back to MP … Upon Sir Thomas’s return in Volume 2, Mrs Norris finds her judgement being question regarding the theatricals, so she focuses on her big achievement, the engagement:

There she was impregnable. She took to herself all the credit of bringing Mr. Rushworth’s admiration of Maria to any effect. “If I had not been active,” said she, “and made a point of being introduced to his mother, and then prevailed on my sister to pay the first visit, I am as certain as I sit here that nothing would have come of it; for Mr. Rushworth is the sort of amiable modest young man who wants a great deal of encouragement, and there were girls enough on the catch for him if we had been idle. But I left no stone unturned….” (Ch. 20)

Northanger Abbey interested another member, and she started with John Thorpe who does all he can to close off other opportunities for Catherine, and put himself forward:

I am glad you are no enemy to matrimony, however. Did you ever hear the old song ‘Going to One Wedding Brings on Another?’  I say, you will come to Belle’s wedding, I hope.”
“Yes; I have promised your sister to be with her, if possible.”
“And then you know” — twisting himself about and forcing a foolish laugh — “I say, then you know, we may try the truth of this same old song.”
“May we? But I never sing. Well, I wish you a good journey. I dine with Miss Tilney today, and must now be going home.” (CH. 15)

In an attempt to big-note himself, he conveys the critical “information” to General Tilney regarding Catherine’s supposed inheritance, resulting in the General suddenly paying ‘“anxious attention … to general civility”, and his focusing attention – “such solicitous politeness” – on Catherine. Then, just as suddenly he boots her out the door. She has no idea why until Henry explains at the end that

The general had had nothing to accuse her of, nothing to lay to her charge, but her being the involuntary, unconscious object of a deception … (Ch. 30)

Northanger Abbey’s main storyline, suggested our member, is based on a misunderstanding of Catherine’s wealth, compounded by her naiveté.

Not all matchmakers, in fact, argued another member, are female. Austen’s flawed men, such as Sir Thomas Bertram and General Tilney, are driven by financial imperatives to engage in matchmaking, reflecting their role (at the time) of ensuring their family’s ongoing security. Austen critiques this too. Both men indirectly and directly interfere in courtship matters, and both (for different reasons) send young women away as part of their matchmaking endeavours.

Sir Thomas does want what’s best for his children. He had been concerned about the possibility of an attraction developing between little Fanny and his sons when she first arrives but Mrs Norris talks him out of this. He gives Maria a chance to pull out of her engagement, but is relieved when she goes ahead. He does his best to encourage if not force Fanny to marry Henry Crawford, believing it’s right for her and her family. He acts as matchmaker driven by financial and social considerations. Mansfield Park, argued this member, is partly about the education of Sir Thomas. He understands something about human nature, but he completely misreads Fanny, and her moral compass.

General Tilney also acts as a matchmaker driven by mercenary motives. He wants a marriage between Catherine Morland and his son Henry because he believes she is wealthy, and then treats her shockingly when he discovers the truth. He is tyrannical and manipulative, seeing marriage as a financial transaction rather than something based on genuine affection. Kelly Coyne explores the many uses of the word interest (and its derivatives) – which has a significant financial meaning – in the novel. She concludes that Northanger Abbey “relays Austen’s serious concerns about the financial appraisal that occurs during courtship and the sinister obscurity of that appraisal’s execution.”

We all came away with some new ways of looking at and understanding matchmaking in Austen’s times, of the direct and indirect ways in which it operated in those times, and of her use of these to explore her ideas about what makes a good marriage.

Sources:

Mostly we focused on the novels themselves, but a couple of other sources were referenced.

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August 2025 meeting: What is Jane Austen’s legacy?

August 23, 2025

Given this year celebrates the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth we decided it was time we discussed her legacy – and so that was our August meeting topic.

We all agreed that her literary legacy is the modern novel as well as the extraordinary characters she created. Harold Bloom, in his foreword to A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 reasons why we can’t stop reading Jane Austen, edited by Susannah Carson, explains,

“Some literary works are mortal; Jane Austen’s are immortal… What makes this so? Austen’s work possesses an uncanniness, a certain mode of originality. She created personality, character and cognition; she brought into being new modes of consciousness. Like Shakespeare, Austen invented us … Personality is Austen’s greatest originality and the cause of her perpetual pervasiveness … After Shakespeare, no writer in the language does so well as Austen as giving us figures, central and peripheral, utterly consistent in her (or his) own mode of speech and consciousness.”

Susannah Fullerton echoes this in an article published in The Canberra Times.

“For me, the major reason I go back to her books again and again is her phenomenal understanding of what makes people tick, of human nature. And that hasn’t changed in the more than 200 years since she published her books. I think everybody knows characters like the ones Jane Ausetn created. You know, hypochondriac or stingy characters, or people who talk too much like Miss Bates. (Emma).”

While Pamela Whalan in the same article adds

“Jane Austen had a wonderful power of observation . . she understood how people thought, behaved, needed, wanted. She was a realist and an optimist but not a romantic. Her characters are based on normal people – people you could recognise as you go about your daily routine”.

We also discussed how Austen’s work can cross cultures with two members reflecting on Jane Austen’s influence in modern day Pakistan. One member introduced the novel Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal and an anthology titled, Austenistan. Edited by Laleen Sukhera, it contains short stories set in Pakistan inspired by Austen’s novels, such as “The Fabulous Banker Boys” in which Darcy and Bingley are re-imagined as bankers working in Dubai.

Sukhera started the Jane Austen Appreciation Society in 2015 in Islamabad. It evolved into JASP, with branches now in Lahore and Karachi, and London. The early meetings were high teas, dress-ups and discussions. For example, on parallels between Elizabeth and Margaret as portrayed in The Crown, and Elinor and Marianne in Sense and sensibility. Our member said that JASP has many members and followers, and that there is a group called MENAP (Jane Austen in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan) on Instagram, but as there doesn’t appear to be a website, it’s difficult to get any idea of current activities.

Based on comments by Sukhera and others, it appears that many educated Pakistani women who work in professional jobs (teachers, journalists, lawyers, bankers etc) are privileged but still see Pakistan as a patriarchal society where women have fewer rights and opportunities than men, where there is still considerable pressure for women to marry, not necessarily for love, but for money, status etc, leading to unhappy marriages and divorce. Many noticed the parallels between contemporary Pakistan and Regency England.

Another member had found an article by Ali Naushahi, the director of the BBC series Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius, which has recently been shown on the ABC, entitled As a Muslim girl in Bradford, I saw my story in Jane Austen’s novels. She writes,

“Devouring Austen’s work as a teenager I appreciated not just the storytelling but the survival tactics – strategies women used to maintain their dignity in a world that offered them very little agency. Reading those novels, it wasn’t the ballrooms and the bonnets that spoke to me but the stakes. They captured the emotional cost of a world in which women had limited options and where marriage was more often an economic contract than a love story. This was something I had seen first-hand in many of the arranged marriages of the women around me. Austen taught me that the domestic sphere could be radical. Her characters weren’t obvious revolutionaries, but women who, through wit, tenacity and endurance reshaped their own lives. Austen’s power, quiet but enduring, transcends time and cultural identity. Marking her 250th birthday isn’t just about remembering a literary icon, but about recognising that across the centuries, some battles remain the same.”

Another member talked about how Austen highlights the importance of money and social status, calling her a born “microeconomist” and referencing Chapter 29 in Jane Austen in Context, edited by Janet Todd, Money by Edward Copeland. Money in Jane Austen’s novels has an uncanny way of seeming so much like our own that we run the serious mistake of thinking that it is. Everything in the Austen novels seems to add up at the cash register in the usual way . . . so familiar we think we are in the same world, but we are not. Rather, Copeland argues that the economy of the time was in a state of rapid and unsettling transition with inflation and periods of economic depression. In this unstable economy, marriage, Austen’s narrative mainstay, was a legitimate and common means of gaining access to all important capital.

Finally we compiled a list of Austen’s legacy in the modern world.

  • The books, academic studies, biographies etc.
  • The Jane Austen societies, like JASA: There are 81 groups in the US alone
  • Conferences and festivals
  • A fascination with the Regency era, the manners, the fashion, the balls, etc
  • TV and film adaptations: It could be argued that the 1995 Pride and Prejudice led to Austenmania.
  • The cult of Mr Dracy
  • The fan fiction creating sequels and prequels.
  • The merchandise and memorabilia.
  • Tours in Hampshire, London, Bath and their economic benefits.

Sources

Susannah Carson, A truth universally acknowledged: 33 reasons why we can’t stop reading Jane Austen, Penguin, 2009

Edward Copeland, “Money” in Jane Austen in context (ed. Janet Todd), Cambridge University Press, 2005

Christina Henderson Harner, “A Pakistani Jane Austen: Destabiliseing Patriarchal and Post-Colonial Hierarchies in Soniah Kamal’s Transcultural Price and Prejudice”, JASNA Persuasions online, 41 (2), Summer 2021

Soniah Kamal, Unmarriageable, Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan, Allison and Busby, 2019

Ali Naushahi, “As a Muslim girl in Bradford, I saw my story in Jane Austen’s novels“, The Guardian, 30 May 2025

Laleen Sukhera (ed), Austenistan, Bloomsbury, 2017 (Preview of Austenistan)

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July 2025 meeting: Jane Austen’s Letters (48-96)

July 21, 2025

Continuing our second run-through of Jane Austen’s letters that we started in October last year, we looked this month at Letters 48 to 96, written between 1806 to end of 1813.

This was an eventful period for Austen. At the start, she, her mother and sister were essentially homeless – that is, they had somewhere to live but had no place to call home. In late 1808, Austen’s sister-in-law Elizabeth died after her 11th childbirth, and by 1809, Jane, Cassandra and their mother had moved into Chawton, which was Austen’s home for the rest of her life. Before this move, but perhaps with things appearing settled, Austen wrote her “MAD” letter (68D) to a publisher expressing frustration at their non-publication of Susan (later Northanger Abbey), to no avail. Once at Chawton, she worked on her novels. Sense and sensibility and Pride and prejudice were published, and she completed Mansfield Park. Her letters do mention these, but we would love her to have written more about her writing – anything and everything!

Discussion

Our first time reader of the letters was not present for this meeting, which is a shame. For the rest of us, we were surprised about how bothered we were this time around by all the detail about people, many of whom we are not seriously interested in. However, we did glean things that interested us, despite having read the letters before.

In other words, there are many reasons for reading the letters. They provide insights into her life (making them a major source for the many biographies written about her) and into the Regency era. Chapman, who edited an early edition of her letters, writes in his Introduction that:

Read with attention, they yield a picture of the life of the upper middle class of that time which is surely without rival …

Besides these obvious insights, we also get a sense of her personality, her reading preferences, her sense of humour, her writing style and her awareness of writing and language. For example, she writes, tongue-in-cheek about being exposed to her young niece Fanny’s “discerning Criticism”:

I begin already to weigh my words & sentences more than I did, & am looking about for a sentiment, an illustration or a metaphor in every corner of the room. (Letter 66)

To quote Chapman, “read with attention”, we can glean from her letters what she thinks about people, character and human behaviour. However, with letters missing and the family’s understandable but nonetheless distorted memoirs, our gleanings or thoughts can only ever be tentative.

So, what did we glean this time around? One member read the sections in David Nokes’ biography that cover the period of these letters and found something interesting concerning the oft-discussed issue that there’s little evidence Austen wrote much fiction, during this period, compared with before her father’s death. Popular theories about this include grief and depression over her father’s death and her homelessness. Nokes, however, suggests there could be other reasons, such as, she had things to do, people to meet. It was an active time.

As a couple of members discussed, this active time included her stay in London with brother Henry (letters 70-72, April 1811). In these letters, she talks about going to plays, shopping, visiting museums and galleries. Again, with “real attention” we come to understand her a little more. For example, on visiting the Liverpool Museum and British Gallery, she writes:

I had some amusement at each, tho’ my preference for Men & Women always inclines me to attend more to the company than the sight. (Letter 70)

Surely the words of a born author! She talks about shopping, including spending Cassandra’s money and undertaking commissions for people. She talks about parties, including one with sister-in-law Eliza de Feuillide’s friends:

It will be amusing to see the ways of a French circle. (Letter 70)

In Letter 71, she describes another gathering with Eliza’s French friends and acquaintances:

Monsieur, the old Count, is a very fine-looking man, with quiet manners, good enough for an Englishman, and, I believe, is a man of great information and taste. He has some fine paintings, which delighted Henry as much as the son’s music gratified Eliza … If he would but speak English, I would take to him.

We found new words and expressions, with this one from London intriguing us: “by the look of things this morning I suspect the weather is rising into the balsamic Northeast” (Letter 72). “Balsamic” in this context sent us to our dictionaries. It comes from the Latin balsamum and means “balsam-like”, in the sense of “restorative” or “curative” or “soothing” (like “balm”.)

Still in London, we find Austen working on the proofs for Sense and sensibility. She replies to Cassandra’s enquiries that

“I am never too busy to think of S&S. I can no more forget it than a mother can forget her sucking child; & I am much obliged to you for your inquiries. I have had two sheets to correct … ” (Letter 71).

Will it be out in June? (It was published in October.)

An issue that threads through the letters concerns women – single women, older women, women having babies, and so on. For example, she mentions travel more than once, something a few members commented on this time round. Our remote member noted “how sadly reliant she, Cassandra and Martha were on her brothers for transport. Respectable women did not travel by public coach and if lacking the money for hiring chaises their lives had to be planned around the movements of male family members. The extent to which this restricted Jane Austen is sad but she doesn’t allow herself to openly complain”.

From London (Letter 70) she writes of her return trip, saying that if brother James’ “plan alters, I can take care of myself”. In her blog, Ellen Moody suggests that it “seems men use travel etiquette to control the women”. She quotes Austen saying at one point that “Edw & Henry have started a difficulty respecting our Journey …” (Letter 65) but Austen says they won’t be put off!

On a different travel issue – if we can call it that – Austen writes to her naval brother Francis (Letter 86) telling him she has “something [another book] in hand” and asking whether he would mind her mentioning “the Elephant … and two or three other of your old ships”.

One member compiled a list of the books Austen mentions reading in these letters. Indeed, our remote member commented that while in previous reads of the letters, she was most interested in the astounding number of people Austen knew but this time she noticed her reading list and “voracious appetite for books”. Austen and her those around her, wrote our correspondent, “consumed not only novels but biographies, poetry, letters, travel, plays and soldier’s campaign memoirs. The local lending libraries evidently carried a much wider range than I had realised and she could be said to have self educated”. 

Meanwhile, our list-making member noted that between Letters 78 and 88 Austen doesn’t mention other books because, presumably, she was working on her own. Interestingly, in Letter 78 (January 1813) she mentions reading Thomas Clarkson’s 1808 book History of the abolition of the slave trade. This was when she was writing Mansfield Park.

Another member focused on what struck her as different this read, and found some new things of interest, one being Austen’s response to the money she made. In Letter 86, Austen writes that every copy of Sense and sensibility had been sold and brought her £140, which made her “long for more.” She also writes that she was “read and admired in Ireland, too”. 

Members noted that these letters cover a wide range of topics, including descriptions of moving house, purchasing a dinner set for Chawton, the high level of social activity, and the severity of winter. Members were interested in her visits to museums and galleries in London, with our remote member noting Austen mentioning seeing works by Glover (John Glover, 1767 – 1849, who emigrated to Tasmania in 1831). We also noted how some of her language is still used today, like “quite the dregs of the family” and “we are all dog-tired”.

While most of the letters were written to sister Cassandra, there are letters to others. In 1813, she writes, for example, to brother Frank in Sweden, and says:

I have a great respect for former Sweden. So zealous as it was for Protestantism! [sic ] – And I have always fancied it more like England than many Countries; – and according to the Map, many names have a strong resemblance to the English. (Letter 86)

This, together with various references in the letters to other countries, got us thinking about Austen and nationalism. A future meeting topic, we think! Austen also mentions facial pain (Letters 87 and 89, September 1813) to Cassandra.

Of course, we looked for inspirations for her characters, and found many. In Letter 51, Austen mentions a will in which all is left to one child in a family. She comments that “such ill-gotten wealth can never prosper.” Inspiration for John and Fanny Dashwood perhaps?

Another must surely be behind Miss Bates and the Box Hill picnic scene:

Miss Milles was queer as usual and provided us with plenty to laugh at. She undertook in three words to give us the history of Mrs Scudamore’s reconciliation, & then talked on about it for half an hour, using such odd expressions & so foolishly minute that I could hardly keep my countenance. (Letter 53)

Ellen Moody mentions Austen’s references to Martha, and her running after a man. Moody fears that Nancy Steele is in part, at least, a satire on Martha. She says that Austen was “hurt and offended that Martha was not satisfied with her” and suggests these feelings fuelled Austen’s “characters who chase men no matter who or what”. Such women pepper the letters, as well as the novels.

On member, short on time, decided to look for some quotable quotes, and of course it wasn’t hard. For example, she found:

“the Rich are always respectable … ” (Letter 53)
“nobody ever feels or acts, suffers or enjoys, as one expects.” (Letter 55)
“I consider everybody is having a right to marry once in their lives for love, if they can …” (Letter 63)

We will continue our reading of the letters, but interspersed with other meetings …

Sources

RW Chapman, “Introduction to the First Edition (1932)” in Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s letters
Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s letters (New ed, 1995)
Ellen Moody, Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two blog (several posts)
David Nokes, Jane Austen: A life

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June 2025 Meeting: Emma, Vol. 3

June 30, 2025
Emma covers

In June we finished our slow read of Emma, which we started with Vol. 1 in April (see post), and continued with Vol. 2 in May (see post).

Discussion

Jane Austen said of Emma,

“I am very strongly haunted with the idea that to those readers who have preferred P and P, it will appear inferior in wit, and to those who have preferred MP very inferior in good sense”.

Our discussion of Volume 3 at the National Library, for once, disagreed with Austen as many commented on the humour, especially surrounding Mrs Elton and her appalling posturing at the ball and at Donwell. Her comments about pearls at the ball and her disclaiming about leading the dancing, her fantasies about riding donkeys to Donwell with Jane Fairfax with their baskets and her description of herself as “Madame Patroness”. However, her interaction with Mr Elton over the snubbing of Harriet at the ball was roundly condemned.

We met on the Winter Solstice but volume 3 is set in midsummer, which one member reminded us is meant to be a time of romance but in Emma everything goes wrong to disrupt plans and distress the characters. Box Hill was meant to be a small party till Mr Weston decided “One cannot have too large a party”; a lame carriage horse delays the expedition; Mrs Elton tries to take over the arrangements for the alternative party at Donwell, but Mr Knighley resists; Jane Fairfax leaves the party early in some distress; Emma sees Mr Knightley talking to Harriet and draws the wrong conclusion; Frank arrives in a bad temper. The next day at Box Hill, Frank’s flirting leads Emma to make her unfortunate remark about Miss Bates and the day ends with everyone being annoyed by everyone else.

One member commented on how uncomfortable it was reading the Box Hill episode this time.

Another member summed all of this up by saying the whole of Emma is about blunders and in fact the word blunder appears 14 times in the novel.

Only one member could remember the first time they read Emma and being astonished at the great reveal, the mystery at the heart of the novel but rereading means paying attention to all the clues scattered throughout. Austen cleverly disguises Frank’s attention to Jane at the ball, for instance, as Emma’s self obsession distracts the reader. However, the clues to his affection are there within Miss Bates’ barrage of words.

Another member commented on Austen’s use of the word “flutter’ not only in Emma but in other novels too. For instance after the proposal Emma was “now in an exquisite flutter of happiness” and when she hears that Harriet has accepted Robert Martin “ Her mind was in a state of flutter and wonder”.Emma is also a novel about marriage.

Another member pondered on the 5 marriages and how successful they would turn out to be. Would Emma settle down with Mr Knightley or would she still be Emma? The age difference was discussed and our modern sensibilities meant some disgust that Mr Knightley had been watching Emma since she was 13. But it wasn’t until the Ball that Emma starts to notice Mr Knightley as a man rather than a friend.

The only wedding described in Austen’s six novels is in Emma, with Mrs Elton’s acerbic comment that it was very inferior to her own. “Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business! Selina would stare when she heard of it.” Austen, however, points out that “The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade”.

There was a brief discussion of the final words of the novel, “the perfect happiness of the union”. Does it mean what it says or is it ironic? We could not agree.

Our remote member looked beyond the main characters, sending the following. “My attention continued to be drawn to Highbury as a whole functioning village. Jane Austen cleverly uses these more socially unimportant people to create a convincing background for her tale – William Larkins, John Abdy, Mr. Perry, etc. – become a sort of countryman’s Greek chorus to supplement the action.

The best example of all is Miss Bates. Her excited burblings when Emma calls the morning after the disastrous picnic are a masterpiece. Austen weaves so much information into her inconsequential ramblings that we learn at least four salient points without inquiry. Not only do we find that Jane Fairfax has accepted a position as governess and when, where and why, but also realise the extent of Mr.Elton’s negligence to his poor parishioners and Frank Churchill’s cavalier treatment of his horse. The villagers are far more important to Emma than she realises.”

And, an absent member did not manage to submit in-depth thoughts but observed, along similar lines to the remote member, that Emma seems to be Austen’s most holistic novel in terms of the picture she paints of a community. We have everyone here you could imagine in a country village – even the gypsies. The rich, the poor (including the so-called genteel poor), the servants, the school, the farmers, the clergy, the business people (including shopkeepers), the apothecary, and more. There are young people, middle-aged people and elderly people. It is a perfect example of the “Country Village” that Austen recommends to her niece as “the very thing to work on” (Letter to her niece, Anna, 9 September 1814).

Emma has been described as Austen’s masterpiece and it’s been a joy to take a slow read and discover aspects missed before.

The meeting ended with a quiz and quotes.

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May 2025 Meeting: Emma, Vol. 2

May 18, 2025
Emma covers

In May we continued our slow read of Emma, which we started with Vol. 1 in April (see post).

Discussion

We had a larger group for our Volume 2 discussion, plus input from our remote member and another who was unable to attend. We also had a delightful apology from a young American who had joined us for a meeting last year, and hoped to join us at this meeting. She wrote, in part:

… I had dearly hoped to join the conversation on Emma. But, like a certain elusive character in the novel, I was called away by higher powers—this time in the form of work, not an imperious aunt.
[…]
As a small ode to my favorite modern-day adaptation, Clueless, I plan to spend the afternoon in Beverly Hills with Emma in hand—reading on, and pretending I have half as much confidence in my own judgment as Miss Woodhouse does in hers.

One member shared an article by Ruth Wilson which explores the idea that re-reading has a long history in “the Austen conversation”, that, in fact, “Austen’s readers are renowned for being perpetual re-readers of her novels”. Wilson shares what some Austen scholars have said about this. Janet Todd, for example, writes in her preface to Emma that “Jane Austen wrote to be read and reread”, while David Lodge believes that her novels can sustain “an infinite number of readings” and John Wiltshire says that “to best enjoy Jane Austen, one should re-read the novels”. (Citations for these are in Wilson’s article.) In other words, JASACTers are like all Austen readers. We love re-reading her novels because we always find something new to talk about.

The writing

Several members observed that the novel is told from Emma’s perspective. Indeed, the academic Emily Auerbach describes Emma as the author of the novel. Austen achieves this through free indirect speech, a technique she pioneered in the English novel. It involves writing in third person in a way that retains authorial omniscience while conveying a character’s thoughts directly to the reader.

In Emma, it’s mostly Emma’s own thoughts that we hear, so, for example, we know what she thinks of Jane Fairfax, but not vice versa. It also means that we see that Emma’s thoughts are coloured by her perceptions, prejudices.

We also discussed the plotting. Several members commented on Austen’s handling of the story. In fact, for one member, this re-read had changed his mind about the book. It had not been a favourite, but this time he had become fascinated, particularly by all the interweaving Austen does to unfold the story and ideas. Another member commented on noticing, during this read, the intermeshing of low level intrigues before they become major. And another shared that clues to the romance between Frank and Jane come think and fast in this volume, clues we don’t notice on a first read.

We were reminded that English crime writer P.D. James had called Emma the first detective novel.

Then there’s the “cara sposo” controversy. One member had explored Mrs Elton’s pretentious, but ignorant, use of the Italian endearment “cara sposo” for Mr Elton, instead of the correct “caro sposo”. Is this Austen’s mistake, or a printer’s error, or did Austen purposefully have Mrs Elton make the error. Some editors/publishers, including RW Chapman, correct/ed it back to “caro”, while others argue that Austen intended the error. John Sutherland, shared our member, suggested readers should decide for themselves. And our member did. She believes Austen made the mistake purposefully. It was a popular usage at the time, so Austen’s readers would have understood the intent. Just another Austen mystery we will never solve!

The content, the ideas and characters

One member characterised volume 2 as “friendship, fools and follies“. She noted that by the time Frank Churchill appears in Volume 2, we already know a lot about him from all the conversations/gossip shared with us. All make allowances for him – as a young man – except Mr Knightley who finds him to be the ”just the trifling silly fellow I took him for.”

The whole book, it was suggested, is about friendship.

The big issue for most of us was the high level of snobbery and class awareness displayed by Emma in this volume, with a couple of members focusing on the scene in which Emma considers an invitation to a party at the Coles’s. She looks forward to receiving the invitation so she can refuse it – “they ought to be taught that it was not for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit them” – but when the other “superior families” receive an invitation before she does, she’s miffed.

But why, asked a member, is Emma such a snob, when other members of the “superior families”, like her father, Mr Knightley, and Mr and Mrs Weston, do not seem so preoccupied with status and the company they keep. Does Emma suffer, albeit unconsciously, from a little status anxiety. Although she is wealthy, and enjoys the highest status of any of the women in the village, she is single. Perhaps one of the reasons that Emma is so opposed to Mrs Weston’s idea that Mr Knightley might marry Jane, is that this would upset the status that she enjoys as Mr K’s friend, while remaining a single woman. A woman married to the highest status man in the village would surely outrank her. Meanwhile, Mrs Elton although married to a lowly vicar, pushes her married status and tries very hard to outrank Emma.

An absent member wrote that there’s so much to dislike about Emma. Her “judgemental-ness”, her snobbishness, and her tendency to tramp through the world on a higher level than most around her are unforgivable. However, for all Emma’s faults, most of us were acutely aware of her situation. One quoted Richard Jenkyns’ description of her as a “prisoner of Highbury”, while another added that not only is she stuck, but is stuck with “that father”, so we should be lenient.

Another member entertained us with her own response to snobbery in the novel, by comparing Mrs Elton with Hyacinth Bucket from the BBC television series Keeping Up Appearances. Austen might be satirical while the BBC is farcical, but, said our member, there are many parallels that can be drawn between the two, and she went on to enumerate several. Both women are pretentious social climbers who see themselves as superior; both reference successful relations as proof of their own worth; both see it as their duty to take the lead in social events; and so on. All this is proof that archetypal characters perpetuate.

Although Emma sees her as a “pert upstart”, Mrs Elton does challenge Emma’s world.

Austen’s critiquing of class and snobbery in this novel is delicious.

A few members noted the completeness of society that Austen presents in Emma. Our remote member wrote that this rereading had jolted her into noticing the surprising number of minor Highbury people, so easily overlooked, who form the backdrop for the “three or four families in a country village” that Austen considered sufficient for a novel. 

How many readers instantly recall Farmer Mitchell’s good deed? Mrs Wallis, Mrs Stokes and Mr Graham? Who remembers what the letter boy rode? What the butcher carried? What John Saunders would have done had he been asked to do it? They are only some of many who contribute fleetingly to the tale.

She pointed to Vol. 2, Ch. 9 for its memorable sketch of village life as it appears to Emma, musing in Ford’s doorway. She described this sketch as “a shimmering watercolour tour de force – Austen at her most brilliant. I regret that it has taken me so many years to appreciate it”. 

One member who looked at the idea of guidance of young people in volume 1, found some interesting ideas here on the related issue of nature versus nurture (aka guidance).

Jane Fairfax is described at 3 years old, as

being taught only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no advantages of connection or improvement to be engrafted on what nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and warm-hearted, well-meaning relations. 

So, her nature was good. Luckily, she fell into good hands when the Campbells took her in, and gave her

an excellent education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people, her heart and understanding had received every advantage …

The result, writes Austen, is that “her disposition and abilities were equally worthy of all that friendship could do”.

As for Frank, it appears that nature has the upper hand: 

He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of Enscombe.

As for Mrs Elton, her “manners … had been formed in a bad school … all her notions were drawn from one set of people, and one style of living” so that “if not foolish, she was ignorant” while Harriet, whether from nature or nurture, is characterised by her “vacancies of mind”.

Interestingly, it’s Mr John Knightley who shows particular sense, when he provides these instructions to Emma on caring for his sons: ” … Do not spoil them, and do not physic them.” 

While the above ideas occupied most of our discussion, other ideas did come up, particularly regarding various characters:

  • Mr John Knightley is a treasure. A member mentioned his role at the Emma’s dinner party for the Eltons. He is horrified by Mr Weston’s arriving late, after attending another social engagement. He and his brother are both grumblers, both judgemental, but our member thought it interesting that Jane Austen goes into his mind, something unusual for her with men.
  • Jane Fairfax may not say much about her feelings, but we agreed that her body gives her feelings away. One member commented that the best Mr Campbell could do was prepare her for a “respectable subsistence”, and that through her Austen presents a woman who is so talented but has no prospects.
  • Mrs Elton immediately injects herself into society when she arrives. Emma’s negative reaction to her – rejecting her fortune as nothing – betrays her own prejudice, particularly her criticising Mrs Elton’s lack of lineage while clinging to the idea that Harriet has some! Mrs Elton’s maiden name, Hawkins, could be telling. A John Hawkins was the first (or one of the first) English slave traders.

Another excellent discussion in which we covered a lot of ground. We look forward to seeing how our thoughts come together in Volume 3.

Sources

Emily Auerbach, Searching for Jane Austen, University of Wisconsin Press, 2004

Richard Jenkyns, A fine brush on ivory, Oxford University Press, 2004

John Sutherland, “How vulgar is Mrs Elton“, in Can Jane Eyre be happy: More puzzles in classic fiction, Oxford University Press, 1997

Ruth Wilson, “What did I miss? Re-reading Jane Austen”, Sensibilities, 51, December 2015

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April 2025 Meeting: Emma, Vol. 1

April 12, 2025
Emma covers

We last did a slow read of Emma ten years ago in 2015, which was the 200th anniversary of the novel’s publication. Then as now, this Emma slow read follows on the heels of our slow reads of Austen’s three previous novels, Mansfield Park (in 2024), Pride and prejudice (in 2023), and Sense and sensibility (in 2022). 

Discussion

It was a small group which met to discuss volume 1, but we also had input from our remote member, and expect to have more members at our volume 2 and 3 discussions. As always, we were surprised by new insights and/or responses to the novel on this our umpteenth (for most of us) reading. For example, one member said that for the first time she didn’t like Emma (particularly for her behaviour towards Harriet) and she found Mr Woodhouse flipping irritating. Of course, as another reminded us during our discussion, Austen had written that “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like”.

Overall, on this read, we saw more clues to the ending, more links between events. We also thought that the book had a most unromantic beginning for what is ostensibly a romantic novel!

Subtle crime writing?

One member commented on the skilful way Austen introduces her characters and thus controls our knowledge of them. Some arrive fully drawn, like Mr. Woodhouse who starts and will finish with impending dementia (though not everyone agreed with the “dementia” assessment!) Mr. Weston, on the other hand, is simply allowed to be pleasant and good-hearted (but, this member said, jumping into the forbidden territory of Volume 3, we all know that he will gradually develop into being indiscriminately friendly, to the extent that we might start to wonder if he can really be trusted.) It’s “like very subtle crime writing”, with which, another member reminded us, PD James would agree.

Continuing this idea, we are prepared, early on, for the fact that Emma is not perfect. And, by the end of the volume, two significant events have occurred, including Mr Elton’s proposal. And, interestingly, although by the end of the volume we have met many character types, we have not formally met many of the significant characters – Frank Churchill, Jane Fairfax, Mrs and Miss Bates, and Mrs Elton – though most of them have been introduced through various conversations.

On the meaning of words

Staying with the issue of Austen’s writing, one member considered the opening sentence:

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

It’s an extraordinary sentence, she suggested, containing a good dose of dramatic irony. Is she “clever”? She doesn’t behave so. And she is soon to be distressed or vexed. But what about the word “handsome”? Is Austen playing with us, or did the word have different meanings in Austen’s time? This question sent our member to Samuel Johnson’s dictionary which is available online. One of its meanings is “Beautiful with dignity; graceful” and Johnson quotes Addison as using it for a woman. The word, in fact, is used several times in Volume 1, referencing different meanings. For example, John Knightley is described as making “a handsome reply”, which our member suggested refers to Johnson’s fifth meaning, “generous, noble”.

On class

Another member explored the issue of class, and looked at from the perspective of Whom may Harriet marry? The contrasting opinions of Emma and Mr Knightley. In Chapter 8, Mr Knightley visits Emma. He informs her that he expects Harriet will receive a proposal from Mr Martin, and that he had approved of the choice. He praises Robert Martin:

I never hear better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the purpose; open, straightforward, and very well judging … He is an excellent young man, both as a son and as a brother. .. He proved to me he could afford it; and that being the case, I was convinced he could do no better. I praised the fair lady too …’

Of course, the reader already knows that, under Emma’s strong influence, Harriet had turned Mr Martin down. Mr Knightley is displeased, and then realises it was Emma’s doing, at which point their different views begin to emerge. Emma can’t “admit” Robert Martin “to be Harriet’s equal”. She is surprised “that he should have ventured to address her”. Mr Knightley agrees that he’s not her equal, but because he is “superior” in “sense” and “situation”. He explains exactly why, and concludes on that Harriet

“is pretty, and she is good tempered, and that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on this account, as being beneath his desserts, and a bad connection for him”.

Emma, however, sees Mr Martin as only a farmer. He may be richer than Harriet, but is “undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society … It would be a degradation.”

The argument continues, becoming quite heated. Eventually, Mr Knightley guesses that Emma has Mr Elton in mind as a marriage partner for Harriet and warns her that Mr Elton “does not mean to throw himself away”, that he has upwardly mobile aspirations.

Our member was interested in the contrasting views about who is a suitable marriage partner for whom, and why. Emma, who is quite snobbish in other respects, has ‘adopted’ Harriet in a sort of Pygmalion relationship – she noted that Mr Knightley refers to Harriet as “the fair lady” – and aspires for her an upwardly mobile marriage, despite her social disadvantages and personal limitations. Emma looks down on Mr Martin as he is only a farmer. Mr Knightley, who is not influenced by any personal relationship with Harriet, is more clear-eyed about Harriet’s prospects. He has his own prejudices – Harriet’s illegitimacy, lack of respectable relations, education etc – and he doesn’t rule out the possibility that she could make an upwardly mobile marriage, but he is more realistic about her prospects in the society in which she lives. Our member suggested that there’s an indication here that merit, rather than class, was valued (for men at least) even in a highly class-based society. Emma, though, can’t see beyond Mr Martin’s status to his many positive qualities, let alone to how such qualities may, in time, enable him to rise in the class structure. 

Young people and guidance

Another member noted that Vol 1 contains three young people who lack steady guidance:

  • Emma (Ch. 1) is described as “doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgment, but directed chiefly by her own. The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much of her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself”. Neither her father nor Mrs Weston (as Miss Taylor) question her, but luckily Mr Knightley does.
  • Frank (Ch. 2) is described as follows: “the child was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek, and his own situation to improve as he could.” He is unguided with no-one it appears to offset the lack of proper parenting
  • Harriet (Ch. 4) is introduced as “certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful disposition; was totally free from conceit; and only desiring to be guided by any one she looked up to.” She has no parent, only school teachers – and then the flawed Emma – to guide her.

This lack of good, sensible guidance, suggested our member, is identified as a cause for the way these characters behave. We also observed that none of these young people had a mother in their formative years.

Other observations

During the discussion, various other observations were made. Mr Knightley is established from the beginning as the fount of knowledge and honour. He is the standard, the character who provides stability and sanity. We also observed how much Austen focuses on describing each character’s qualities when introducing them directly or through the perspectives of other characters.

We were interested in the way Harriet becomes Emma’s friend. Had the Woodhouses’ friends been thinking about Emma’s loneliness after Miss Taylor’s wedding, and thought of Harriet as a potential friend?

What Jane Austen’s contemporaries would have asked

Ten years ago, we talked about the things that readers in Jane Austen’s time would have known, so we didn’t explore this in detail again. However, we wondered, for example, where Mr Woodhouse’s wealth came from. Was this a question readers in Austen’s time would have asked, or did Austen assume that by her description of his estate, Hartfield, her contemporaries would have known the likely basis of his wealth/income. Similarly, we question the age difference between various characters but we wondered whether Austen’s contemporaries would? We realised that we don’t know what questions Austen’s readers would and wouldn’t have asked.

During this discussion we wondered about the class structure in Highbury, but this will become more relevant in Vol. 2 when other characters are introduced!

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March 2025 meeting: on whether ”Jane Austen’s men are central to her immortality and enduring appeal in the 21st Century”

March 25, 2025

We eased into the new year – as we do – with a relaxed meeting in February sitting under the trees at the Oaks Brasserie. Besides catching up with our news (including any recent Austen finds and thoughts), we tested our ageing brains with a Memory-based card called Matchmaking: Jane Austen memory Game. This is a game for those who know their Jane Austen novels, which of course we do. So, it was easy for us to know the couples we had to match. Not so easy to remember where they were on the table! But, we had a laugh.

In terms of Jane Austen news, the most interesting was the book (a first edition?) brought along by a member who had been given it by a friend who was downsizing. It was G.E. Mitton’s Jane Austen and her times, 1775-1817, first published in 1905. None of us had heard of this book or its author, so we checked our trusty phones, and discovered the author was Geraldine Edith Mitton (1868-1955). According to Wikipedia, which cites Who’s who (1907), Mitton was “an English novelist, biographer, editor, and guide-book writer”. Several of us have added this to our books to check out. Meanwhile, on to March…

Are Jane Austen’s men central to her immortality and enduring appeal in the 21st Century?

Our March meeting’s proposition came from a paper written by past member of the group and academic/scholar, Sarah Ailwood. No-one agreed with the proposition, most feeling it was reductive to ascribe her ongoing popularity to one aspect of her writing. However, one member, who had read Sarah’s paper, argued that she had a point and could see that Austen’s men make a significant contribution to her ongoing popularity. The paper is an academic one, and puts its case within the context of various literary theories, but the underlying argument is that Austen, with some of her contemporary Romantic-Era novelists, including Jane West, Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, Sydney Owenson and Jane Porter, were “rewriting masculinity through fictional genres emerging in the Romantic Era”. Sarah’s thesis is that:

Through the courtship romance genre, Austen rewrote masculinity as an internalised, authentic and essentially modern gender identity, in which a man’s self-worth is measured by personal integrity rather than social performance, the affirmation of male peers, or the exercise of power over dependants, especially women. In advocating for a quintessentially Romantic vision of feminine agency, Austen also championed a model of masculinity that could complement and, arguably, enable it within the context of heterosexual romance.

This vision of masculinity, Sarah argues, has remained relevant through to today, and is a major reason why she is still popular. Another member who had read the article was uncomfortable with the approach, feeling that it presents a postmodern interpretation of Austen’s writing, one that suggests Austen was “creating” a new man from a modern viewpoint. The two members, agreed to disagree.

The member who liked Sarah’s arguments appreciated her exploration of the men in Sense and sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Emma. Sarah says, for example, that Mr Knightley’s decision to live at Hartfield suggests his recognition of her serious sense of responsibility to her father. Mrs Elton doesn’t see this at all. Mrs Weston, on the other hand, who is “so often the voice of wisdom in Emma, quietly acknowledges both the singularity of the arrangement and the fact that its possibility is wholly attributable to Mr Knightley and the unconventional masculinity he represents”. She recognises ‘How very few of those men in a rank of life to address Emma would have renounced their own home for Hartfield! … It was all right, all open, all equal’ (Emma, Vol. 3, Ch. 17).”

Not all members read Sarah’s article, but all did a lot of thinking and researching. One found a blog post by a writer called Katie Oliver on “the enduring appeal” of Austen’s men. Oliver argues, albeit more simply, along Sarah’s lines. The men are “inherently good … They do the right thing. They are honorable. They are dependable. They are loyal. They are steadfast and moral”, but they are also “flawed, with very human failings like snobbishness, pride, and stubbornness”. This makes them “all the more endearing and believable”. Their “perfect imperfection is one of the things that make Austen’s men so unforgettable”. It’s a bit gushy, and simplistic, but not without some truths.

One member read William Deresiewicz’s article in The American Scholar. A heterosexual man, Deresiewicz has, more than once, been called on to defend his enjoyment of Austen, something he argues would not happen if, say, he liked George Eliot or Virginia Woolf. Austen’s novels, he says, are not simply about romance. Love does come, but as “a slow outgrowth of friendship”. He argues that the movies, in focusing on the romance, scrub out “not only everything else they’re [the books] about, but Austen’s own violations of gender performance”. 

On the men, Deresiewicz says that

most of Austen’s heroes are feminized or emasculated: Edward Ferrars, in Sense and Sensibility, who is weak; Colonel Brandon, in the same novel, who is aging and ailing; Edmund Bertram, in Mansfield Park, who is a dependent younger son; Henry Tilney, in Northanger Abbey, whom one panelist referred to as a metrosexual.

But, there is one exception, Mr Darcy. Excepting Darcy, the heroes aren’t usually the richest, or the most handsome, men in the novels. The appeal of Darcy, argues Deresiewicz, is that he’s “an asshole whom the heroine reforms” – and, he continues, Darcy dominates the whole of Austen’s world. The novels are porous, and become one big family!

He then talks about the adaptations – and Colin-Firth-as-Mr-Darcy in particular. And so did we. A member suggested that “something shifted” with the 1995 Andrew Davies adaptation of Pride and prejudice. It gave us the male viewpoint. She also noted that Sutherland’s latest book includes “the wet shirt” amongst Jane Austen’s 41 objects. Harman, talking about surges in interest in Austen, said these had related to publication – the memoir (1869), Love and Freindship (1922, actually Juvenilia Vol. 2), and the letters (1932) – until 1995 when that television adaptation generated a surge. And the adaptations just keep on coming. Harman quotes the scriptwriter on the 1996 Emma adaptation, who says, simply, that “she writes superb dialogue, creates memorable characters, has an extremely clever skill for plotting”. No fancy analysis, just dialogue, character and plot!

We discussed the adaptations and their significant role in her ongoing popularity at some length. It was suggested that we have changed Jane Austen to suit us.

Other members offered other reasons for Austen’s ongoing popularity. They argued that the men are not central to their enjoyment of Austen, and that they read her for the variety of her characters, for Miss Bates, for example. For most, the main reason for Austen’s popularity is, as one put it, her exploration of relationships, family tensions, women and our roles, money and social standing, the impact of men on relationships. She argued that the world is changing but human nature doesn’t, and talked at some length about Austen’s characters, the role of men, the different society. We discussed these ideas, expanding them to include dysfunctional families; good and bad friends; why, and even if, women should marry; greed and selfishness vs kindness.

Returning to men, this member said there is a wide range of men in her novels – dull ones, evil ones, as well as the heroes – and there are different attitudes to these man. She quoted Emma thinking about Mr Weston at the ball (where she also starts to notice Mr Knightley more positively), “General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be. She could fancy such a man”. And she reminded us of another member’s argument that these are Cinderella stories in which men are the prize! This is a good point to share Rory Muir’s book which a member had shared via email, saying it is worth reading for anyone interested in late 18th to early 19th English social history to do with marriage, from meeting and attraction right through to widows and widowers.

For another member, Jocelyn Harris had something to offer. Harris argues the Austen “defeats us … with her cleverest vanishing trick of all when she speaks through a narrative persona who is god-like, omniscient, infallible…. Readers may think they hear the “real” Jane Austen in her authorial voice, but that voice is only a dramatic device, another character created by the author”. Harris suggests that whenever Austen “speaks in that (literally) disembodied voice, she is invulnerable”. Perhaps she “embraced anonymity so that even though a woman born, she could allude freely to celebrities, and satirize the politics of her day”.

Phillips also talks about the power of her writing, sharing John Mullan’s view that her greatness comes from her ability to combine ‘the “internal and external” lives of characters and bring in her own authorial voice’, which enables her to act as our mediator. Phillips concludes that:

It is her crafting of prose, her wit, her combination of internal and external voices, and the way in which she makes it feel effortless that makes her so popular.

Many of the ideas we discussed are generally covered in Rebekah Powell’s article for The New Daily.

Meanwhile, we all liked a quote a member shared from Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare, which could equally apply to Austen:

His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity …

This, fundamentally, is why we love to read Austen. But that leaves the question hanging: Is the reason we serious readers love to read her the reason for her enduring appeal?

Sources

  • Sarah Ailwood, “Austen’s men, immortality and intertextuality“, Romanticism 29.2 (2023): 152–164. 
  • William Deresiewicz, “A Jane Austen kind of guy“, The American Scholar , 5 September 2017
  • Claire Harman, Jane’s fame: How Jane Austen conquered the world, Melbourne, Text Publishing , 2009
  • Jocelyn Harris, Satire, celebrity, and politics in Jane Austen, Bucknell University Press, 2018
  • Samuel Johnson, “Preface to Shakespeare“, Project Gutenberg (orig. ed. 1765)
  • Rory Muir, Love and marriage in the age of Jane Austen, Yale University Press, 2024
  • Katie Oliver, “The enduring appeal of Jane Austen’s men“, katieoliver.com
  • Edward Phillips, “Jane Austen and the secret of her enduring appeal“, Strictly Jane Austen Tours, 8 June 2022
  • Rebekah Powell, “Why people are still obsessed with Jane Austen“, The New Daily, 18 July 2018
  • Kathryn Sutherland, Jane Austen in 41 objects, Oxford, Bodleian, 2025

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November 2024 meeting: Letters in the novels

November 21, 2024

Having discussed some of Jane Austen’s own letters at our last meeting, we decided that each member should choose one letter from a Jane Austen novel to discuss at our November meeting, and what an interesting and enjoyable exercise it turned out to be.

Not surprisingly we found that, in general, the letters performed two significant roles. They contributed to the revelation of character, and the advancement of the plot.

We also discussed letter writing then and now. One point made was that while letters today tend to be private, in Austen’s day they were often publicly shared. In her novels, she makes use of both the public sharing (as Harriet does with Robert Martin’s letter) and, more than private, the secret (such as those between Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax). We talked a little about gender differences in letter writing, an issue which is discussed in both Mansfield Park and Emma.

We thought overall about the role of letters in novels, particularly epistolary novels, and wondered whether such novels could be written today using modern communications like emails and texts. A member pointed to the crime writer Janice Hallett, who has written novels, including The mysterious case of the Alperton Angels, entirely though such communications as email correspondence, social media messages, letters, transcripts of interviews and phone conversations, etc. Not everyone finds them easy to read.

Jane Austen's desk with quill
Austen’s desk, Chawton.

We had nine contributions to the meeting, with eight different letters chosen from five of the novels. Only Sense and sensibility was not represented.

Pride and prejudice

  • Mr Collins to Mr Bennet, introducing himself (Ch. 13)
  • Mr Bennet to Mr Collins, advising him of Elizabeth’s engagement to Mr Darcy (Ch. 60)

Of the many letters in Pride and prejudice, it’s interesting that the two chosen were between the same correspondents.

Mr Collins’ letter in Chapter 13 is our (and Mr Bennet’s) introduction to him, and we immediately get a sense of his self-importance and self-flattery, his obsequiousness, and his disregard for his impact on others. We, like Mr Bennet, can’t wait to meet him. His letter and subsequent visit sets off the plot. Elizabeth refuses him, so he marries Charlotte, which results in Elizabeth’s visit to Rosings – and all that follows!

Mr Bennet’s letter, the only letter of his that we see, is, said our member, a masterpiece of brevity, wit and controlled contempt.

Dear Sir, 

I must trouble you once more for congratulations. Elizabeth will soon be the wife of Mr.Darcy. Console Lady Catherine as well as you can. But, if I were you, I would stand. by the nephew. He has more to give. 

Your’s sincerely,  etc.

Despite Mr Bennet’s profession throughout the novel of apparently cool nonchalance – ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn? and ‘Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collin’s correspondence for any consideration’ – this letter betrays a chink in Mr Bennet’s armour of worldly indifference. It’s his moment of glee, it conveys a feeling of triumph, and it always makes our JASACT member laugh.  

Mansfield Park

  • Edmund to Fanny at Portsmouth, about his love for Mary Crawford (Ch. 44)
  • Edmund to Fanny in Portsmouth, about the martrimonial fracas (Ch. 46)

Again, of all the letters in Mansfield Park it’s interesting that the two chosen were both written by Edmund. The member who chose the letter in which Edmund confides in Fanny about his love for Mary, telling her that he will “never cease to try for her”, said that one of the reasons she chose it was for its discussion of the pros and cons of using a letter to declare himself to Mary. A letter would enable him to clearly express his feelings and it would give her time for reflection, but it also “exposes … the evil of consultation”. Of course, the letter also plays a role in plot and character development. It so distresses poor Fanny that she says she will never wish for a letter again!

The member choosing Edmund’s other letter – the very last letter in the novel – spoke of how it prompted him to think about how Austen managed the “construction” of a novel. In this letter, Edmund follows up some information Fanny and the reader have already learnt via a newspaper report about Maria’s leaving her husband for Henry Crawford. Edmund tells Fanny that he and his father have been in London for two days but had not traced Maria and Henry, and tells her that Julia had eloped “to Scotland with Yates.” He says he’ll be coming to Portsmouth in two days, hoping to bring her (and Susan is also invited) back to Mansfield. He concludes by lamenting that there is “no end of the evil let loose upon us.” The chapter ends three pages later with Fanny arriving back at Mansfield Park to Lady Bertram’s welcoming her, “with no indolent step”, saying “Dear Fanny! Now I shall be comfortable”.

Our member argued that this letter, combined with the few pages before and after, set the novel up for its denouement with a complex, intertwined set of tensions, issues and themes all coming to some sort of finality, to “happy ever after” for Fanny and a few others, but not for most characters.

Did Jane Austen map out this complex story in advance, right down to such details as this letter from London to Portsmouth that will set things up for the novel’s conclusion? Or, which is more likely, believes our member, did she start with only a broad outline of events, with her main interest being to explore her characters’ real impulses and motives and to develop them.

Our member did wonder whether Jane Austen woke up one morning after a restless night worried the novel was getting a bit long with many loose ends and unresolved tensions. Maybe she was tired of sanctimonious Fanny and boring Edmund and just wanted to finish it, so she decided Edmund would rush to Portsmouth to “rescue” Fanny and bring her from the periphery into the heart of the Bertram family and Mansfield Park. Whatever, the result was that Fanny would now prevail over those city sophisticates the Crawfords, spiteful Mrs Norris, and her earlier uncertain status within Mansfield Park.

Emma

  • Robert Martin to Harriet (and Harriet’s reply), proposing marriage (Ch. 7)

Both members who chose this letter commented on how cleverly structured the chapter containing it is. Robert Martin’s letter of proposal is framed by references to Mr Elton. It could, said one, be a short story. We don’t see this letter, but have only Harriet’s and Emma’s response to it. However, it provides significant insights into the three characters involved.

It shows Emma at her worst. She starts by recognising what a good letter it is, and then tries to undermine it, creating doubt in Harriet’s mind. Emma is snobbish, self-deluded, and self-centred putting her passing friendship with Harriet ahead of Harriet’s long term security and happiness. One member suggested that in this episode, Emma comes across like a young Lady Catherine, and that Harriet is a little like the naive Catherine Morland. Further, the process Emma uses to undermine the letter and to encourage Harriet to reject the proposal is reminiscent of Fanny Dashwood’s talking John Dashwood out of helping his sisters.

This letter – through Emma’s reaction and Harriet’s spirited defence of him – conveys Robert Martin’s sincerity, uprightness, “manliness”, good sense and education. It exposes Harriet’s youth, naïveté, and tractability. And Emma’s thoughtless willingness to meddle in people’s lives is on display, but, as one member said, we also recognise, in Emma’s desperation to keep her friend, that she is lonely.

Regarding plot, Harriet’s rejection of Robert sets her up of course, to become a romantic foil or competitor for Emma, in terms of both Mr Elton and Mr Knightley.

Northanger Abbey

  • Isabella Thorpe to Catherine at Northanger Abbey, asking Catherine intercede on her behalf with brother James (Ch. 27)

Our member started by reminding us where the plot had got to at this point, what Catherine does and doesn’t know. Isabella complains in the letter about Captain Tilney, and expresses uneasiness about James, who is the only man she “ever did or could love”. By the end of the letter, Catherine is not only ashamed of Isabella but also of herself for ever having loved her. Catherine reads the letter to Eleanor and Henry. It provides, said our member, a wake up call for Catherine.

Persuasion

  • Mary Musgrove to Anne Elliot in Bath, complaining about life at Uppercross while all are in Bath (Ch. 18)
  • Captain Wentworth to Anne Elliot, declaring his love (Ch. 22)

Our member who chose Mary Musgrave’s letter loves it because it beautifully conveys how clever Austen is. It does two things:

  • The first part establishes Mary as a self-centred whinger – it’s full of complains about the weather, Mrs Harville, the Hayters, no one visiting her, and so on
  • The second part reveals that Louisa and Captain Benwick are in love, which enables Anne to hope again. From this point the plot accelerates. Austen achieves a lot in 2.5 pages!

Captain Wentworth’s letter, with its “You pierce my soul” line, is loved my many Austen fans, and used as proof that Austen understood romance. This letter, said our member, is vital for plot mechanics, for Anne’s character development. She recognises her own strength of emotions and that she can break through her own quietness. And Wentworth learns that he can overcome his past anger and resentment.

We all agreed that this was a most enjoyable meeting.

“I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper what one would say to the same person by word of mouth,” To Cassandra on 3 January 1801

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