Adding Book Reviews to Academia.edu
Anyone reading this blog, Two Teens in the Time of Austen, will know of my ABIDING OBSESSION with BOOKS. I’ve posted several book reviews, over the years, here – and there’s a plan for more. I do wish that JASNA would update their online book reviews; my latest reviews, quite favorably, Freya Johnston’s JANE AUSTEN: EARLY AND LATE. Of course, being written for the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), it appears first in the society’s newsletter JASNA News, one of the publications members receive.
But I’ve looked at the online book reviews – nothing later than the Summer 2020 issue. Therefore, also left out is my double-review of Amelia Rauser, The Age of Undress: Art, Fashion and the Classical Idea of the 1790s and Kimberly S. Alexander, Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era, which appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of JASNA News.
Amelia Rauser appeared at the JASNA AGM (Annual General Meeting) that took place in Chicago in the fall of 2021. Author Emma J. Clery, whose books include Jane Austen: The Banker’s Sister [which focuses on Austen’s brother HENRY AUSTEN], will be a plenary speaker at the 2022 AGM,
It dawns on me that, although I tag “reviews,” readers might more easily *find* all of them if they are listed in one place. So, look for TWO additions: a category on “Academia.edu” for (non-JASNA) Two Teens in the Time of Austen reviews (I’ll also include any on Amazon, too). As well, I’ll add a new page to Two Teens that lists just book reviews — although you will always be able to find links via “ABOUT THE AUTHOR” — scroll down!
Speaking of SCROLLING Down:
Academia.edu DOES allow for free, no-account-necessary, ONLINE reading of articles. BUT: it sure doesn’t LOOK that way when you first come to the landing page!
Most people would immediately CLICK on the “Download PDF” — and that WILL ask you to log in.
There’s now a significate section of other people’s “related” papers [links and titles] and — if you KEEP scrolling! — then, *finally* the online paper. I only wish the TOP of the page had “View PDF” (like the “related” papers section….). It doesn’t. Certainly, MY first thought last night was, people have to LOG IN? I wouldn’t wish to do so EITHER – until I’d seen, perhaps read or at least sampled, the paper in question.
In short, I’d dearly *love* to make book reviews as accessible as possible. Nine times out of ten, I have good things to say about a book. And reviewing books takes a great deal of time – and dedication – to stick with a book in order to “taste its flavor” and to form cogent thoughts on the writing, the format (I love notes and bibliographies; sometimes sadly missing or inadequate), the editing, the author’s general argument. And authors, I’m sure, would dearly love potential readers to find their work.
Dress in the Age of Jane Austen (review)
Hilary Davidson‘s exploration of Jane Austen’s silk pelisse fascinated (when first read in 2015) because of the thoroughness of its details. Her book, Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion, grew out of this initial research.
Upon receipt, even quickly flipping through the book, I could see this wasn’t the typical “soft soap” about Regency dress. It has text (plenty of it), political cartoons and portraits, and, most importantly, photographs of actual garments. I also liked the inherent progression indicated by the outline of chapters – Self, Home, Village, Country, City, etc. A VERY GOOD out-of-the-box reaction.
First Impressions – a (long) preamble…
I quickly emailed a friend, and included a link to the google preview. We both had similar thoughts: ANY illustration on the cover but “Mrs. Q”!
- “Mrs. Q” has been put forward as the work Austen referred to when commenting: “I was very well pleased (pray tell Fanny) with a small portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like her. I went in hopes of seeing one of her sister, but there was no Mrs. Darcy. … ”
Never judge a book by its cover, BUT the hackneyed illustration did put me off when Dress in the Age of Jane Austen turned up in a search for upcoming releases, months before receiving the book in the mail. There are so many books about “costume” and “Jane Austen.”
- for instance: read an old review of Penelope Byrde‘s book (reprint edition)
My friend, looking at the text online, was the first to point out “the font is so pale, more suitable to captions than main text. Or is that my eyes??”
I had to reply, that it wasn’t her eyes playing tricks, or a bad scan into google books. When I first got the book, the evening was dark and the lights were on in the house, but I needed different light to read. Instead, I looked at the pretty pictures. The paper (very nice paper) is slightly shiny, which combined with the font’s SIZE and WEIGHT does not make this volume easy to read. My friend’s later response was, “The author hasn’t been well served by the book designer.”
Another blogger’s review (Austenprose) brought up the same difficulty: “My one disappointment will be minor to some and troublesome to others. The small text is difficult to read, amplified by the choice of swirly font in gray color. I struggled to read smoothly, even with glasses.”
Illustration captions are even smaller and greyer than the main text.
In early December I read some of the book. I wasn’t making much headway with the opening chapter (“Introduction”), but did get more out of the chapter (“Home”) on underwear.
***
A little ‘Sense’ please
Along with the font, my other complaint is the bare-bones information in the endnotes. Citations list author name and publication date, which means to really look up the source, the reader has to flip from the Notes to the Bibliography. Several times I had to flip from “Secondary” to “Primary” (or vice-versa), for the Bibliography is divided into two sections (no footer or header indicates the specific section).
For instance: pp. 102/103 had in the notes “Burney, 1905” [note 20; ‘Village’] and three notes later “Edgeworth, 1971”. The Burney is an early edition of Fanny Burney’s Diary and Letters; therefore, it is found in the Bibliography under ‘Primary’ Sources. The Edgeworth, also a ‘Primary’ source, is Christine Colvin’s edition of Maria Edgeworth, Letters from England, 1813-1844. I looked under secondary sources both times, because of the dates.
An intrusion on the reading experience.
Other than ease of accessibility (a 1905 book being online), I would have thought the authoritative Oxford University Press / McGill-Queens University Press series of Burney journals and letters preferable. I finally hunted down volume V of the 1905 edition (edited by Charlotte Barrett); the quote is on page 200 (not page 199, as cited), and, finally, the pertinent information: in a letter to Mrs Lock, dated 1793. BUT: in looking up this citation I now am bothered because the story is inaccurately retold…
This is Davidson (p. 102):
Davidson’s 1905 source; Burney’s letter to Mrs. Lock (sic: Locke):
Miss Kitty and Mrs. Hamilton clearly are two different people! They are ID’ed in Oxford’s Additional Journals and Letters (vol. 1), p. 60, as Mrs. Sarah Hamilton and her niece Miss Kitty Cooke, managers of Chessington Hall, Surrey, a boarding house. ‘Miss’ Kitty and ‘Mrs.’ Hamilton (both, unmarried ladies) were, in 1793, approximately 63- and 88-years-old. I had pictured the Captain following young Miss Kitty from room to room, when in actuality he followed the maid “too quick” and caught sight of the not-forewarned Mrs. Hamilton.
If such important, albeit slight, details got away from Davidson, I wonder about other statements, conclusions, and examples. Page 102 was picked at random, today, in an effort to finish this review today (21 March 2020). I wish I hadn’t unearthed this….
- The same 1793 letter (snippet only) in Joyce Hemlow’s 1972 Clarendon Press edition, which I piece together and note that it is given the date 30 May 1793.
***
In need of some ‘Persuasion’
Davidson gives a LOT of information, but I don’t always find material well-presented. Sometimes a position is taken, but isn’t followed by explanation, enlargement, or argument/counter-argument. She moves on to another quote, another topic. I can’t call it going off on “tangents.” More, “Why include this here?”
For instance, Davidson talks about needing the services of a maid to make one’s dress “tight,” and includes a quote about the “looseness of … morning dress” when, at breakfast.
Davidson, p. 78:
I can see someone being “loose” in the Scarlett O’Hara corset sense, but I’m still unsure about being “tight.” I wanted more than just quote(s). After the novel heroine speaks of PINS — “I was again forced to comply, and stick pins into my cloaths.” — I hoped for answers. WHAT did Regency women DO with all those pins? My diarist Emma Smith (later Emma Austen Leigh) purchased many pincushions… I have images of women being as prickly as porcupines, done up with so many straight pins.
- “Regency Redingote” composed a lengthy discourse on pins – and, although it doesn’t clarify Davidson‘s commentary about being “tight” in one’s clothing, it does say what all those pins were used for during the Regency!
A stockingless, unbuttoned William Wordsworth creates its own, clear picture of a man’s “undress”; Miss Weeton, on the other hand, I determined to look up. I own the two-volume set (Miss Weeton’s Journal of a Governess), as well as the newer single-volume, Miss Weeton: Governess and Traveller, by Alan Roby.
Miss Weeton had spent the NIGHT aboard ship. She had loosened garments because she slept in them. The quote continues, “I wrapped my coat round me, and threw my shawl over it; my hair uncombed, uncurled, my face wan, and eyes sunken. I presented no very beautiful picture.” Looking like something the cat dragged in, poor Miss Weeton needed to pass muster when asking for a room at an inn. Miss Weeton’s distress is missed; the poignancy of the original, lost. This reader became no more enlightened about Davidson’s point. The long communication was best presented by words in her first paragraph.
- Re-reading these exacts, and comparing them, I’m confused: Did visitors wear “walking or visiting dresses” as mentioned on page 102, or were they in a state of “undress” when “paying morning visits,” as on page 78?
Another instance: In the chapter “Country,” which discusses outerwear and clothing adapted from the “field” or the “hunt,” there is, on the left-hand page, a full-page-wide (color) illustration of Alexander Carse’s “The Arrival of the Country Relations” (c1812). The text on the right-hand page (p. 145), referring to this, claims that the painting “contrasts two family groups, of urban and rural origins, through subtle clothing cues [endnote].” Davidson then quotes from a novel (Caroline Lismore).
I wanted to know more about the “subtle clothing cues”!
I looked up the citation – an author name and date; I looked up the Bibliography: a journal article…. I have no access to it.
Is the caption below the illustration meant to substitute for or enlarge upon the main text? “An elegant urban Edinburgh family welcomes relatives from the country. The differences in their styles of dress are subtle, but distinctly realized, the rural visitors favouring simpler, more covered clothing.”
The directive of “look at this painting; see these clues” felt unfulfilled and under-developed.
- Without seeing the SOURCE article, I can only theorize, from reading travel diaries, that “Covered” helped people stay warm, “Simpler” enabled them to shed road dust more easily; both may have benefited them at dubious coaching yards or in warding off highwaymen.
Davidson, sure and informative when discussing clothing styles, fabrics, construction, has a tendency to jump from quote to statement in a manner that did not always sweep this reader along. Often I found myself back-tracking, re-reading for something I might have missed.
Under the heading GETTING AND ALTERING CLOTHES (p. 116), the first paragraph brings up the following points:
- clothes had a high valuation
- clothes were “a considerable, infrequent investment” for the “middling and upper ranks”
- clothes were planned and discussed (i.e., mentioned in letters)
- garments were generally “bespoke”, but some were off-the-rack
- towns and villages had tailors
- for men who had “no woman to sew their linens,” ready-made or professionally-made articles “filled the gap”
- a tailor from Preston, bankrupted in 1821, had an inventory of “645 garments and accessories, 219 were men’s shirts”
- Women rarely undertook sewing “men’s outer clothing” because the skills required were not obtained by “sewing linens”
- Mary Wordsworth, working on her husband’s “‘woolen waistcoat'” may have been “knitting or working on a flannel-type garment”
- The Wordsworth women “spent a day” picking apart “his old coats for the tailor” (to serve as patterns for new garments).
There are so many topics within this single paragraph, many of which would have served the author well, if sorted out for more in-depth explanation – be it the cost of clothes (either through tailor/client records; or through criminal prosecution valuations); the use of tailors, seamstresses and others versus homemade; bespoke clothing versus the reuse of clothing (re-constructed by owner, as well as second-hand purchases) versus the good fit of a client’s well-worn piece (ie, used as patterns). Much outlined here does appear at greater length in various chapters. So why jumble, sentence upon sentence, everything in one paragraph? A red pencil, judicious rearrangement, and (self-)editing would have resolved many such annoyances.
A lack of argumentative development is especially true when a blanket historical statement is presented. If underlying, supportive facts are missing, such statements appear as generalizations, less ‘authoritative’ in tone, than the same statements supported and expanded upon.
Convoluted word order (clauses within clauses) would have benefited from being more carefully crafted: (p. 33) “Not only the bodies of Grant Tourists, but also print media – increasingly popular – disseminated ideas about classical form across Britain.” I know what the author wants to say, and means, but Davidson’s phrasing, in addition to the grey, swirly font, increased this reader’s frustration.
Long “lists,” like this on page 145, made my eyes skip lines:
“Farmers, ploughmen, carters, milkmaids, blacksmiths, beggars, ragmen, tinkers, pedlars, fishermen, thatchers, drovers, field hands, harvesters, millers, stone-cutters and -crushers, miners, coopers, masons, carpenters, chair-menders, joiners, fencers, cottagers, washerwomen and all the multitude of tradespeople…”
I usually give “less personal opinion” in a book review; there will be readers who find the authorial voice satisfactory, but I struggled, wishing for writing as engaging as the topic. Biographers sometimes pour between the covers every morsel of research unearthed, and I do wonder if the fractured flow I quibble over is a result of such “cramming.” Does it really matter what a street vendor cries out to attract customers?
If some of the verbiage had been cut, the font size could have been increased, and content and design would have united in a superior book. As it stands, it’s a bit of a Missed Opportunity. Wanting to be “all” to all comers and about all classes, from tinker to servant, from farm to manor, from city-dweller to court-regular, males and females, young and old, I do think Dress in the Age of Jane Austen an ambitious attempt. Who am I to criticize? It has so much going for it, that the pluses should outweigh the minuses.
If historical costume at all interests you, you might wish to put this book on your radar. Yale presents a 16-second “introduction”, but the best is the Google preview. Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion is a sumptuous book, on a fascinating topic, filled with valuable information. It covers a broad geography and moves from intimate undergarments to all-weather outerwear. The Annie Burr Lewis Fund probably helped fund publication fees associated with the multitudinous illustrations, as well as the full-color printing. A suggested retail of US$40, Amazon currently sells it for $27 and change, which is a hardcover bargain.
A good book to ‘dip into’, I tried reading it cover-to-cover, which only increased the stress of articulating my negative thoughts about it. Very useful appendices (Austen family tree and list of characters for each novel plus two fragments, for those without other resources or prior knowledge); a stylistic Timeline of women’s gowns; a glossary. The index is almost too detailed – many entries have only one page number; for instance, I don’t foresee a need to look up hairstyle, blond. Austen’s characters should have been indexed on the page that outlines them.
Blonde, by the way, leads the reader to “Mrs. Q,” which cycles us back to the beginning of this far too long review.
three-and-a-half slightly leaking inkwells
An Extraordinary Ordinary Woman (review)
James Boswell sums up in one sentence his idea of good biography:
“I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man’s life than not only relating all the most important events of it in their order, but interweaving what he privately wrote, and said, and thought.”
Susan M. Ouellette, who presents the entire extant diary of Phebe Orvis Eastman, first provides an adroit clarification of the diary, in a set of essays. The diarist, of course, never wrote with the intention of publication. Her thoughts are personal and private – and, at times, (well-labeled by the editor) cryptic. This layout, of essays then diary, guides the reader to pick up on the crumb-like indicators within the diary. Ouellette has uncovered a good deal of the life of Phebe Orvis Eastman — before, during, and after the diary, which makes for a rounded biographical profile. She also informs the reader about the era in which Phebe lived.
An Extraordinary Ordinary Woman: The Journal of Phebe Orvis, 1820-1830 tells of life on the American “frontier,” first in Vermont and then in the vicinity of Canton, New York. A young nation, the United States was still at war with England during Phebe’s childhood (she lived from 1801 to 1868). The geography of her diary is not the cosmopolitan perspective of Philadelphia, New York, or Washington; nor even from some great plantation. Thereby supplementing those perspectives, it enlarges our knowledge of young women in post-Revolutionary War America.
Phebe’s immediate family had staked claims and worked to clear the land and worked to create their community. (Vermont joined the Union as the Fourteenth State in 1791.) Phebe’s picture of rural Vermont, in the decades beyond that first settlement, offers readers first-hand experience of a growing, interconnected community. And through her move to a less congenial, even “wilder” frontier, Phebe’s own words involve us as witnesses to her personal pain and turmoil.
Phebe Orvis lived a somewhat carefree life as a young woman in Bristol, Vermont. Ouellette’s earliest chapter covers the tragedy of Phebe’s early life: Her mother died when Phebe was just a toddler. The baby’s age and gender (she was the fourth child, but the only daughter) resulted in her living not with her father and siblings, but with her aging maternal grandparents.
Readers of The Midwife’s Tale, featuring Maine’s Martha Ballard, will find a similarity here in the craft-skills taught to young women. Phebe Orvis is a weaver, spinner, and sewer; for instance, when Phebe writes of “Finished my web”, she is telling readers that she has yet again begun a weaving project. Such projects probably helped to fund the classes she took at the Middlebury Female Seminary.
Phebe Orvis is a serious student – and among the early cohort of women attending Willard’s establishment (though Willard herself had moved on by this time). Phebe’s “formal education” is unfortunately cut short, and readers feel her disappointment, and her reticence in doing what is requested of her: She moves to Parishville, New York, to help at her aunt and uncle’s Tavern. This transition led her to marry a man who was not her first choice for a life-partner. Ouellette uncovered in the diary the subtle “ceremony” of gifts exchanged (and ultimately returned), which points out a certain young man as Phebe’s prior attachment.
The Eastmans married in 1823; it is the marriage, the arrival of children, and the constant scratching for a living in New York, which concerns the remainder of the diary, which ends in October 1830. The blank pages that follow serve as silent testament that life went on, even if the woman writing could see no reason to spare the time to record more of that life. Phebe Orvis Eastman retained her diary, and even placed a few later inserts inside it. The diary meant enough to her, at the very least as evidence of early concerns and feelings, to have preserved it.
And others preserved it after Phebe’s death.
Special mention should be made of the late Mary Smallman, who encountered the diary after it surfaced again in Plattsburgh, NY. She transcribed the diary and dug about for information about the mystery diarist. Safe in her hands at a time when few put value on such manuscripts, Smallman ultimately deposited the diary and support materials with the Saint Lawrence County Historical Association (NY).
As with any primary source, records helped to fill out details, but aspects remain that can never truly be known. This book, with the diary in its entirety, ably supported by informative essays, is a window into early 19th century America. That its roots begin in Vermont makes it special to me, a native Vermonter, like Phebe. The physical world she knew nearly two hundred years ago can still be discerned.
Maps provide visuals for those needing to conceptualize the placement of Bristol, Middlebury, and Vergennes, Vermont; also, Saint Lawrence County, New York. An index is included. The size of the book – being both taller and wider than the average hardcover – somehow makes it a bit unwieldy; being produced in hardcover rather than paperback might have minimized that sensation. A tighter layout of the diary entries might have allowed for slightly larger type without increasing page count. Generous spacing between lines tries to compensate for the font and font size. Notes and a bibliography bring the book to 380 pages (Excelsior Editions, SUNY Press; $29.95).
Diaries, in general, are filled with the insignificant, and Ouellette has done the hard work of teasing out the significance behind the diarist’s little clues of life-events. This single volume diary indeed covers (as Boswell prescribed) “all the most important events” in the life of this Vermont girl, from her days as a single woman seeking education at the Middlebury establishment founded by Emma Willard; to her employment in New York, which brought her into the company of Samuel Eastman, whom she eventually married. The diary tells her story; the essays and finely-tuned editing makes Phebe’s history accessible to all readers.
*
Susan Ouellette, a history professor from Saint Michael’s College (VT), has written on Phebe Orvis Eastman over the decade that researches into the diary have taken. One of the more accessible (it’s ONLINE) is her article “Religion and Piety in the Journal of Phebe Orvis“, in the Vermont History magazine. The book An Extraordinary Ordinary Woman: The Journal of Phebe Orvis, 1820-1830 is the richer for this lengthy gestation.
See also:
- The Diary Review’s May 2017 book review, by Paul Lyons (which includes some diary extracts)
- Antebellum Women’s History through the Journal of Phebe Orvis Eastman; Susan Ouellette in a video presentation on RETN (60 minutes w/questions)
- also: the original ‘ad’ for the 2010 talk
reviews for JANE AUSTEN and the ARTS
Natasha Duquette, as one of the editors (along with Elisabeth Lenckos) of Jane Austen and the Arts: Elegance, Propriety and Harmony, has recent uploaded some reviews of the book. One, by Audrey Bilger in the journal Women’s Studies, mentions my contribution, the chapter entitled, “‘A Reputation for Accomplishment’: Marianne Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse as Artistic Performers”.
“Kelly M. McDonald examines Marianne Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse in terms of their skill as artistic performers and sees the primary lessons that each heroine needs to learn as being linked to their initial stance as artists: Marianne, who is ‘consumed with interior passions,’ must cultivate restraint; Emma ‘[c]onsumed with exterior experiences’ must develop deeper insight.”
This is a chapter that I have not revisited in the recent past, yet, given my 2016 topic for the JASNA Annual General Meeting that celebrated the 200th anniversary of the novel EMMA, the ‘art’ of Emma is definitely an ongoing preoccupation of mine. (My paper was entitled, “Sketching Box Hill with Emma”, also given to the Vermont JASNA chapter in December 2016.) I found, in revisiting the paper AFTER transcribing more Smith & Gosling family letters in October and November, that I had a few new points to make on the subject.
But to get back to Audrey Bilger’s review of Jane Austen and the Arts…
Being an academic press (Lehigh University Press), Jane Austen and the Arts is currently selling for $30 (used; paperback) and up on Amazon. Bilger’s comments on the book as a whole, include:
- “The editors perceive the arts in the broadest possible way, … encompassing painting, music, dance, and theater, … also judgment, taste, morality and ultimately reading and writing as aesthetically charged activities.”
- “An excellent preface by Vivasvan Soni, ‘Jane Austen’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,’ explains the meaning of the book’s subtitle.”
- “most of the contributions are theoretically nuanced, especially with regard to the history of aesthetics.”
- “the book’s focus on the arts illuminates aspects of Austen’s work in fresh ways…. Readers familiar with the Austen canon will appreciate the book’s numerous close readings and textual analysis.”
Another review Natasha posted is by Marina Cano, for The Modern Language Review. Cano recognizes the volume as “a highly interdisciplinary and polyphonic study”. Cano is especially enthusiastic about Jeffrey Nigro’s “The Sister Artist: Cassandra Austen’s Portraits of Jane Austen in Art-Historical Context”: “he argues, here Cassandra was experimenting with the artistic conventions of her time”.
Cano concludes, “Jane Austen and the Arts is a valuable collection in its exploration of Austen’s involvement in the aesthetic concerns of her time and in its examination of little-studied materials.”
Looking today at books.google I see Jane Austen and the Arts listed as being in 204 libraries worldwide; maybe one of these is nearby, allowing you, too, to dip your toe. Would love to hear from readers on any and all aspects of the book (ie, you don’t even have to comment on my chapter!).
Bias of Family Histories?
Readers of Jane Austen all recognize the (lack of) funds heroines likes Elizabeth Bennet or Elinor Dashwood have as their marriage portion. And, what happens to the family estate when their fathers die: Norland goes to the only Dashwood son; Mr. Collins, a male relative, will inherit Longbourn.
But, in a highly interesting and exceptionally valuable book, A.P.W. Malcomson tells us that the HEIRESS, such as Wickham’s Miss Grey, may have been as cash poor as anyone else. Marriage portions didn’t always get paid, or paid in a timely manner. Sometimes, the lady’s fortune was quite tied up by trustees, and sometimes “a fortune” ended up meaning that you inherited nothing else other than your marriage portion – even when your parent had a healthy bank account.
This last seems to have been the lot of Mary (Lady Smith; née Gosling) and her sister Elizabeth (Mrs. Langham Christie). A letter written by Augusta Wilder, Emma’s eldest sister, passes on news following the decease of father William Gosling, partner in the Fleet Street firm Goslings and Sharpe, in January 1834. He left the bulk of his HUGE estate to Robert Gosling, the eldest surviving son. (Elder brother William Ellis Gosling predeceased their father by only three weeks.) The main item going to Bennett and Thomas Gosling (the remaining sons) was the country estate of Roehampton Grove, although each were said to be receiving a healthy £135,000. Mary and Elizabeth, who had married, respectively, in 1826 and 1829, surely thought some further monies would come to them – one a widow and the other living “in limited circumstances & with an increasing family” – especially given the size (possibly up to a million pounds, in 1834 currency) of Mr. Gosling’s estate.
Augusta Wilder’s letter passes on information gained from young Charlotte Gosling. Augusta wrote:
“It seems to me perfectly unfair to heap riches so upon the sons & portion off the daughters with comparatively such small sums.”
Augusta’s mention of “to cut off I may say the daughters with 20.000 is inexplicable” reflects the marriage portion Mary was said to have brought with her in 1826 (which was a decided surprise to Mrs. Chute! She wrote of it in a letter).
Charlotte Gosling, one of two children born to her mother, formerly the Hon. Charlotte de Grey (the Walsingham barons of Norfolk were her siblings), still had a living mother – which circumstance was seen as a blessing to Augusta: “Charlotte who if her mother were dead would be very poorly off after what she has been used to…”
Augusta said of the news of William Gosling giving so little to his daughters, in comparison to his sons: “It really passes our comprehension & is quite distressing – for it is irreparable; no wonder Mary did not wish to talk about the will.–”
Writing on the same day (but from a different place), Spencer Smith, Emma’s brother, passed on knowledge (gleaned from a Gosling cousin, Henry Gregg) “that Mr Gosling out of his vast wealth has left her [Mary] & Elizabeth nothing, or what is next door to it”. Bennett Gosling could tell Spencer about his own inheritance (Roehampton and a sum of money): “The bulk of the property … is entailed in the most strict & inconvenient manner possible, & the Will … is most exceedingly complicated.”
Such documents – diaries, letters, wills, settlements, court documents – are the bread and butter of Malcomson’s edifying research into THE PURSUIT OF THE HEIRESS: Aristocratic Marriage in Ireland, 1740-1840.
Books.google has a “healthy” preview of the book – it is what convinced me to buy a copy. You cannot beat BooksIreland, which has the hard cover for £9.99 (on sale from £24.99) or the eBook at £7.99. Although the airmail postage to the U.S. from Northern Ireland was as much as the book, even U.S. readers will want to plump for the hard cover; it is so fully illustrated and a handsome book.
Malcomson discusses a range of topics. His first chapter introduces the idea of “the by-passed heiress” => the woman who seems on the brink of inheriting, but who in fact may not only be “by-passed” in favor of a male – she may also have her “fortune” so tied up in the estate of her deceased parent that funds aren’t even forthcoming to her! Mention is made, for instance, of two sisters – daughters of Edmond Sexten Pery (Viscount Pery). The father’s estate passed to a nephew (son of the Viscount’s brother), “the 1st Earl of Limerick. In toto, the ladies seem to have received c.£20,000 each. £5,000 of which represented their original (and still unpaid) marriage portions. (These figures are belied by the usual family anecdotage, according to which one daughter got £60,000 in cash and the other the equivalent in land.)”
On the heels of the Pery girls comes the tale of the co-heiresses of Sir Arthur Brooke, bart. Selina and Letitia Charlotte received marriage portions – which, along with another debt, were evidently “charged” to the estate (ie, monies taken out after the owner’s death; in short, while his bank account remained healthy, “less” was there to be inherited). The Brooke “estates were not huge, and Francis Brooke, the nephew who succeeded to them, and Francis Brooke’s descendants considered themselves aggrieved and impoverished by the open-handedness of Sir Arthur. This is typical of the male whingeing of the period and of the bias of family history written by men. It would be more to the point to suggest that the two by-passed heiresses… were not well done by.”
Makes me glad to come from a family with no money or landed estate…
Other chapters touch on “the younger son”; “The ‘marriage of affection'”; and “Elopements, mésalliances and mis-matches”. All are fascinating topics, and relevant to Smith and Gosling research, as well as Austen studies.
As mentioned, the volume is generously illustrated (full color more often than not), and the writing is engaging and always informative. The research is deep and well presented; the focus (geographically and chronologically) is tight and always on point. Generous notes; a useful bibliography; a handy index.
HIGHLY recommended. Five full inkwells.
* * *
- a note: Malcomson’s earlier treatise on the same subject, from which this book grew – given new information and sources, has the same title. This edition was published in 1982 and has the years “1750 to 1820” in its title (70 pages). Malcomson rightly claims in his preface that the volume under discussion above (published in 2006 by the Ulster Historical Foundation [same as in 1982]) is “new, greatly enlarged and more widely focused”.
the 1982 edition
(not to be confused with the 2006)
Matters of Fact in Jane Austen (review)
Entitled “The Sister Arts and Jane Austen,” Janine Barchas entranced her 2009 JASNA AGM audience in Philadelphia with a show-and-tell about the “Sister Art of Painting,” hypothesizing how the insertion of artists’ names suggested extra-textural nuggets Jane Austen’s original audience would have spotted and mined. The most cited instance concerns Pemberley’s housekeeper: Presumably bowing to the famous portraitist, Austen’s “Mrs Reynolds” sketches a verbal portrait of Mr Darcy that serves to enlighten Elizabeth Bennet to his true worth.
Barchas proved a riveting, persuasive speaker. I left the room overwhelmed with the idea of how painting indeed played this unassuming role in Austen’s novels. Her conference paper appears in print in Persuasions (the journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America) [issue No. 31, pp. 145-162], but does not reappear in the book Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity. The three chapters that are reworked prior publications (chs 2, 3 and 5) are among the most convincing, so it is a minor pity that painters and paintings were not similarly “revised and extended.” Mere referencing of this appealing topic (in the Introduction) is no compensation when one is faced with the longueurs of a chapter on John Evelyn and his influence on Burney’s Evelina and Austen’s juvenile effort Evelyn.
Perhaps indicative of an academic press (The John Hopkins University Press, in this instance), there seems an assumption that readers of Matters of Fact would be fully conversant with Donald Greene’s 1953 article “Jane Austen and The Peerage”. The Introduction is heavily predicated upon a discussion of Greene as preparation for the ensuing six chapters. I felt compelled to hunt up a copy before I could continue; an appendix, reprinting Greene, would have been helpful. (Thank goodness for JSToR.)
A name that “‘has the right ring’” (Greene quotes Charles Morgan, author of The Fountain) is a notion most writers will agree holds a certain degree of importance. For topicality and a recent frenzy, examine discussions of names, titles, and estates behind the popular TV series Downton Abbey. While only the writer knows where inspiration sprang from — it can be fun to dissect and deduce!
Clever dissection is why Barchas’ book will have value to readers attracted to slices of history. Thought-provoking connections will create a desire to tease out further avenues of “historical references and topographical clues.” As in her AGM presentation, when Barchas illustrates how a particular historical incident or person elucidates some aspect of an Austen novel, her story engages the imagination. Readers can delve into Austen’s fiction with renewed attention, or simply enjoy the tale imparted.
One favorite chapter, “Touring Farleigh Hungerford Castle” (chapter 3) invokes the life-history of Miss Tilney-Long. Barchas’ recognition that Miss Tilney-Long may have been on the minds of those first readers of Austen’s Northanger Abbey was enlightening. She also presented an interesting story of a long-forgotten heiress. In recovering the “long-forgotten,” Barchas exposes the type of everyday-knowledge Austen surely possessed — knowledge of scandals, travel, books, paintings, politics, general news, which would have been culled from conversation, gossip, letters, newspapers. Anyone reading even a small correspondence – Jane Austen’s own, for instance – will see the rapid succession of news (family or the greater world) and topics that made up an average letter. If, in bringing forth some of the more accessible “histories,” Barchas sheds light on Austen’s integration of the world into her novels, that discussion ultimately aids fans of Austen’s fiction, as well as those who wish to study the “times” in which Austen lived. For instance, reading this condensation of Miss Tilney-Long’s life and struggles made me long to learn more about her.
“Jane Austen as keen observer” should come as no surprise to fans. Barchas highlights more of Austen’s personality – from her individual wit, to her use of word-play; as well, she provides explanation of the mindset of Austen contemporaries. In an online interview, Barchas comments,
Historicizing is back. New editions are encouraging the reading of Austen’s novels in their original historical context, with new notes and increasingly fuller explanations of how a contemporary reader might have understood a detail of dress, money or manners. This is a different impulse from the prior view of celebrating Austen as “timeless” (that view is only partially true). My own book is part of a trend in scholarship that would historicize Austen to her time and place. [read the entire article]
After reading about Sense and Sensibility’s nominative association with some rather-infamous Dashwoods (chapter 5: “Hell-Fire Jane”), it’s rather amusing, in contemplating writers who use Austen’s name, characters, and words (“Zombies” comes to mind) as a marketing tool, to concoct a similar advantage for a newly-published author in 1811. “Quite Unconnected” and “Persuasion’s Battle of the Books” (chapters 1 and 6) invoke the passage wherein Sir Walter Elliot attaches – then detaches – Frederick Wentworth from an influential family tree. Association and detachment, games of hide and seek for “hidden-in-plain-sight truths” (to borrow Devoney Looser’s phrase), all heighten the comical, satirical, timely, and masterful aspects of Austen’s fiction.
An academic remoteness, especially in sections that go a little off-topic, repeat information, or serve to merely inform about prior points or upcoming subject matter, sometimes creeps into Barchas’ discourse, which will distance some readers. Despite a style that occasionally gets in the way of storytelling — and only Austen (in the end) knows what Austen intended, Barchas’ revelations of the histories and “coincidental” references will engage those looking for some timely reading material. New this summer (2013) in a less-expensive paperback edition, Matters of Fact in Jane Austen should gain Barchas larger audiences whenever she offers a public presentation. Hearing her in person is an even better treat.
three and a half filled ink wells
Further Reading:
- Barchas on “Researching Austen in Austin“
- Barchas guest blogging on JANE AUSTEN IN VERMONT
- Times Literary Supplement Review
- Jane Austen’s World Review
- Review by Devoney Looser on LA Review of Books
- Barchas guest blogging @ JHU: “Will the Real Model for Pemberley Please Step Forward”
Downton Abbey links:
- One Downton Abbey contender: Highclere Castle
- The True Downton Abbey? Newton Hall and its official website
- Real Life History @ WETK (seasons 1-3)
Mansfield Park – Marspeachgirl reviews
Having finished Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park this past weekend (VERY enjoyable!), I wanted to sample an adaptation or two – so of course went to YouTube. Found there the 1983 BBC series, which I’ve never seen (only watched episode 1, so far). Looking a bit more, Marspeachgirl’s video review turned up. Recommended, for offering perspective on the novel, and three DVD-available offerings.
New York Times reviews Jane Austen
Click the picture to go to the New York Times review of The Real Jane Austen.
(for my own review: click here)
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 