The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. Paula Byrne

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Dedication

      For my very own Elinor (Ellie)

Epigraph

      The room was most dear to her, and she would not have changed its furniture for the handsomest in the house, though what had been originally plain, had suffered all the ill-usage of children – and its greatest elegancies and ornaments were a faded footstool of Julia’s work, too ill done for the drawing-room, three transparencies, made in a rage for transparencies, for the three lower panes of one window, where Tintern Abbey held its station between a cave in Italy, and a moonlight lake in Cumberland; a collection of family profiles, thought unworthy of being anywhere else, over the mantelpiece, and by their side, and pinned against the wall, a small sketch of a ship sent four years ago from the Mediterranean by William, with H.M.S. Antwerp at the bottom, in letters as tall as the main-mast.

      Mansfield Park, vol 1, ch. 16

      [S]he seized the scrap of paper … locked it up with the chain, as the dearest part of the gift. It was the only thing approaching to a letter which she had ever received from him; she might never receive another; it was impossible that she ever should receive another so perfectly gratifying in the occasion and the style. Two lines more prized had never fallen from the pen of the most distinguished author – never more completely blessed the researches of the fondest biographer. The enthusiasm of a woman’s love is even beyond the biographer’s.

      Mansfield Park, vol 2, ch. 9

      Contents

       Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Author’s Note

Prologue: Captain Harville’s Carpentry

1. The Family Profile

2. The East Indian Shawl

3. The Vellum Notebooks

4. The Subscription List

       5. The Sisters

       6. The Barouche

       7. The Cocked Hat

       8. The Theatrical Scenes

       9. The Card of Lace

       10. The Marriage Banns

       11. The Ivory Miniature

       12. The Daughter of Mansfield

       13. The Crimson Velvet Cushions

       14. The Topaz Crosses

       15. The Box of Letters

       16. The Laptop

       17. The Royalty Cheque

       18. The Bathing Machine

       Epilogue

       Picture Credits

       Notes

       Index

       Acknowledgments

       Also by Paula Byrne

       Copyright

      About the Publisher

Author’s Note

      Each chapter begins with a description of the image that sets its theme. Jane Austen’s novels are quoted from the Oxford World’s Classics editions, but references in the endnotes take the form of volume and chapter number, so as to make it possible to locate the relevant passage in other editions. So, for example, 1.8 means chapter 8 of volume 1 (Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were each originally published in two volumes, the other four completed novels each in three volumes). The irregular spellings in Austen’s letters and youthful writings are retained (most famously, ‘Love and Freindship’, but also ‘beleive’, ‘neice’, ‘Lime’ for Lyme, ‘Keen’ for the actor Kean, and so on). The endnotes also acknowledge, at relevant points, the work of the many wonderful Jane Austen scholars on whom I have drawn.

      In order to give readers an idea of monetary values – whether for the cost of a card of lace or the worth of Jane Austen’s royalty cheque – I have given 2011 equivalents derived from the Bank of England’s online historical inflation calculator (and with a dollar equivalent on the rough basis of $1.50 to a pound). It must, however, be remembered that these are merely indicative sums: over the centuries inflation has been much greater for some things than others.

PROLOGUE

       Captain Harville’s Carpentry