Jane Austen’s novels: by her contemporaries

I want to look at what three of Jane Austen’s contemporaries thought of her novels: Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), the inventor of the historical novel, nick-named the ‘the Wizard of the North’ for his spell-binding stories; Princess Charlotte (1796-1817), daughter of the Prince Regent, who died in childbirth; and Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), author of Jane Eyre. Miss Brontë was one year old when Jane Austen died. But she has some interesting things to say, so I’ve allowed her to remain.

 

Sir Walter Scott’s marble bust by Sir Francis Chantry, 1841, National Portrait Gallery

We are indebted to John Lockhart, Scott’s friend and biographer, for an insight into what that best-selling novelist had to say about Jane Austen. On March 14, 1826, Scott wrote: Also read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen’s very finely written novel of ‘Pride and Prejudice’. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!

 

What did he mean by ‘the Big Bow-wow strain’? The 10^th Earl of Pembroke wrote of Dr Samuel Johnson (he of the famous Dictionary), ‘Dr Johnson’s sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way.’ I also came across another 18^th century reference to the ‘bow-wow’ sound of trumpets and drums. So I think we can take it to mean ‘a touch bombastic’.

 

 

 

Scott wrote stirring tales of battles and deeds of derring-do, which was not Jane Austen’s style. But it’s good to know that Scott was a real fan and appreciated and admired her qualities.

As he wrote in his diary, on 18^th September, 1827: Smoked my cigar with Lockhart after dinner, and then whiled away the evening over one of Miss Austen’s novels. There is a truth of painting in her writings which always delights me. They do not, it is true, get above the middle classes of society, but there she is inimitable.

 

The stone marking the site of Princess Charlotte’s mausoleum: 'My Charlotte is Gone', Prince Leopold

Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent and his estranged wife, Caroline of Brunswick, was another Austen fan. She enjoyed what she called ‘studdy’ (her spelling was erratic) and read widely, perhaps borrowing books from her father’s library at Carlton House – and we know that he bought Jane Austen’s novels. Or, perhaps it was a birthday present for her sixteenth birthday on January 6^th. Whichever it was, on 22^nd January, 1812, Princess Charlotte wrote to her friend, Miss Mercer Elphinstone: ‘Sence and Sencibility (sic) I have just finished reading; it certainly is interesting, and you feel quite one of the company. I think Maryanne and me are very like in disposition, that certainly I am not so good, the same imprudence, etc., however remain very like. I must say it interested me very much.’  

It’s easy to sympathize with Charlotte’s identification with the passionate and impulsive seventeen-year-old Marianne, who is just the sort of character to appeal a lonely and romantic-minded girl, whose life, up to that point, had been pretty miserable. Perhaps Charlotte hoped that, like Marianne, she, too, would find love. Alas, her story ended tragically, for she died in childbirth aged only twenty-one.

 

Charlotte Brontë by George Richmond, chalk, 1850, National Portrait Gallery

Charlotte Brontë’s reaction to Jane Austen’s novels is very different. ‘Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point,’ she wrote to the Victorian man of letters, George H. Lewes, who had been pushing them at her. ‘And what did I find? An accurate, daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully-fenced, high-cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck.´

When I think of Elizabeth Bennet’s energetic walk to see her ill sister at Netherfield, ‘crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and spring over puddles, with impatient activity; and finding herself at last within view of the house with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise,’ I find myself wondering if we’re talking about the same author.

Charlotte has more complaints. ‘Anything like warmth or enthusiasm, anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works.’

Look at Marianne Dashwood’s reaction on getting Willoughby’s letter repudiating their relationship. ‘Misery such as mine has no pride, I care not who knows that I am wretched. The triumph of seeing me so may be open to all the world… I must feel - must be wretched…’ Surely, Charlotte Brontë cannot interpret such a passionate outpouring as cool and unfeeling.

 

Later, Elinor notes that,‘No attitude could give her ease; and in restless pain of mind and body Marianne) moved from one posture to another, till, growing more and more hysterical, her sister could with difficulty keep her on the bed at all…’

 

Jane Austen after Cassandra Austen, stipple engraving, published 1870, National Portrait Gallery

 

And what about Anne Elliot, in Persuasion; mentally comparing her cousin Mr Elliot with Captain Wentworth? She thinks: ‘Mr Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, - but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil of good of others. To Anne, this was a decided imperfection.’ Charlotte would surely have agreed. 

 

I fear that Charlotte was blinded by prejudice. Once she’d decided that Jane Austen’s novels were limited in their emotional range, she refused to look deeper. Austen’s novels  might have no mad wife in the attic, as Charlotte does in Jane Eyre, but don’t tell me that Lady Catherine de Bourgh, or the unpleasant Mrs Norris, or General Tilney, weren’t quite as destructive of Elizabeth, Fanny or Catherine’s comfort in their own way.    

I rest my case.

Photos of Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

Elizabeth Hawksley

 

Literature's Top Dog!

In a year that features some important anniversaries, a very special one was marked last weekend. It was the 200^th anniversary of the publication of Guy Mannering, the 1815 novel by Walter Scott, which tells the story of Harry Bertram, the son of a laird, who is kidnapped by smugglers. The book, a rip-roaring historical novel set in the late 18^th century was a huge success and sold out on the day of publication. Amongst a host of characters is a farmer called Dandie Dinmont who owns a number of terriers either called Mustard or Pepper depending on their colour.

In the two hundred years since the book was published the Dandie Dinmont terrier has become an established and now an endangered breed of dog. It’s antecedents if not its name go back to before the publication of Guy Mannering; Sir Walter Scott was a good friend of the 4^th Duke of Buccleuch and there are paintings of both the 3^rd Duke and Duchess with dogs that resemble a Dandie Dinmont. In one, by Gainsborough dated 1771, the 3^rd Duke is holding a terrier and in another by Reynolds the Duchess is painted with the same dog.

The Gainsborough portrait created some discussion over the breed of the dog. Several people

claimed it was the earliest depiction of an otterhound or an Old English sheepdog but experts dismissed this. One wrote: “It is a large, rough Scotch terrier with all the look of a Dandie. The dog is no taller than an Irish terrier, for we put one alongside a tall man in just the pose in the picture, and the top of his clean head was as high as the head of the Duke's dog, shaggy coat and all.”

Sir Walter is recorded as having given presents of dandies to various friends and one of these was Old Pepper, whom he gave to the 4^th Duke of Buccleuch. This dog was the founder of the Dandie Dinmont dynasty of today, siring Old Ginger, the ancestor of all modern Dandie Dinmont terriers.

These days the Dandie Dinmont is an endangered breed with only 300 puppies born worldwide last year. Walter Scott commended the breed for its vermin-killing abilities, its loyalty and its intelligence. As a working dog it was popular in the 19^th century but when vermin-killing dogs were no longer in demand its popularity waned. From personal experience I can confirm that these lovely dogs make great pets. They have strong personalities, they are loyal, clever and very cuddly! It would be a pity if the breed was to die out and we would lose not only a very special dog but also a part of our literary heritage. 

The Novelty of Novels in Regency England

Ever wonder why writers like Byron, Coleridge and Scott wrote their long narratives such as Prisoner of Chillon, Rime of the Ancient Mariner (illustration right), The Lady of the Lake in verse? The answer may seem obvious: they were poets.

True. But there was more to it than meets the eye.

The fact was that poetry was respectable, but novels weren’t.

Jane Austen complains about the fate of novelists in Northanger Abbey:
Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens -- there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. "I am no novel-reader -- I seldom look into novels -- Do not imagine that I often read novels -- It is really very well for a novel." Such is the common cant. "And what are you reading, Miss -- ?" "Oh! It is only a novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. (NA, Chapter 5)

To confirm this, the worldly John Thorpe dismisses Catherine Moreland’s novel reading in much the same way. When she asks him if he’d read Udolpho, he replies:

"Udolpho! Oh, Lord! Not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do."

Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologize for her question, but he prevented her by saying, "Novels are all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation."

While lending libraries and booksellers such as Lackington Allen's Temple of the Muses (shown below) in London were thriving on the sensationalist success of these new novels, it was the poets that received the attention. No novelist of the time received the fame and notoriety of Lord Byron, though of course this was partly due to his Bad Boy image. The majority of novelists were women, which partly accounts for the condescention with which the novels were treated. Note that Thorpe cites only male novelists as worthy of interest. But beyond that, the novel was still in its infancy. It was struggling to break into the mainstream, which was still very much dominated by poetry. It’s hard for us now to imagine a situation where, if you had a story to tell and wanted it to get the respect it deserved, you were expected to write it in verse. The novel only really came into its own in Victorian England.

An important departure from the norm was Sir Walter Scott. Even though he is now rembered much better for novels such as Rob Roy and Ivanhoe than for his poems, he almost didn’t produce any novels. Later on in his life he wrote about his long struggle and uncertainty before finally taking the plunge and moving from poetic narratives to novels. Fortunately, his first novel Waverley, published in 1814, became an instant success, though, very significantly, he published it anonymously. He continued to use various pen names for his novels for several years, even though people knew that he was the writer.

In her usual caustic way, Jane Austen had this to say about his decision:

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones -- It is not fair. He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths -- I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it -- but fear I must' (letter, September 1814).

Scott was upfront about acknowledging the influence of women novelists on his writing, particularly Maria Edgeworth. He also openly admired Jane Austen’s talent and skill. Where Jane Austen can be credited with inventing the romance, he is generally credited with inventing the historical novel as we know it.

Waverley plays a role in my forthcoming novel, The Darcy Cousins. In a scene in the novel, Georgiana Darcy and her cousin Clarissa go on a much anticipated outing to Waverley Abbey, which was believed to be the inspiration for Waverley.

The outing provides a bit of a reality check to Georgiana, whose expectations were just a bit too high. Georgiana makes a sketch of the Abbey. I would think it was quite similar to the one above, since we know from Caroline Bingley that Darcy's sister was very accomplished.
The Darcy Cousins will be released Feb 28, 2009.

Monica Fairview