Jane and Dorothy by Marian Veevers

Author:Marian Veevers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2017-06-02T04:00:00+00:00

Jane Austen, on the other hand, lived in a community which valued prose. In December 1798 the Austen ladies were invited by a Mrs Martin to subscribe to her new library, and ‘as an inducement’ they were told that the ‘Collection is not to consist only of Novels, but of every kind of Literature . . . ’ Mrs Martin might, Jane observed to Cassandra, ‘have spared this pretension to our family, who are great Novel-readers & not ashamed of being so.’23 This was one way in which Jane’s family would have been a great support: she never seems to have had any doubt about the value of the novel form.

Northanger Abbey, the first draft of which was written (according to Cassandra’s recollections) sometime during 1798 and 1799, contains Jane Austen’s spirited defence of her chosen genre. In an unusually long intrusion of the authorial voice, she counters the low opinion of novels held by such people as Mrs Martin with an unequivocal statement of her belief in the value of the work she was undertaking.

She calls novels works ‘in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.’ Novels she claims bravely ‘have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world.’24

She had support in this opinion: although she had no contact with the fashionable literary world of London, she did live in a literate society. The writing and publishing of novels was by no means unknown among her acquaintance. In 1798 Cassandra Cooke, wife of Jane’s godfather, published Battleridge, an historical tale founded on facts, and an erstwhile neighbour, Samuel Egerton Brydges, produced Arthur Fitz-Albini. 25

Mr Austen was disappointed in this last work, but Jane was not for, she said, ‘I expected nothing better.’ Her critical comments on the book demonstrate how she was thinking about the skills of her chosen profession. ‘Every sentiment,’ she noted with exasperation, ‘is completely Egerton’s. There is very little story and what there is told in a strange, unconnected way. There are many characters introduced, apparently merely to be delineated.’26

Three things Jane Austen seems to have valued in a novel were clear, memorable characterisation, a balance of viewpoints, and a strong narrative thread. They were certainly all qualities she was developing in her own work. Jane was a natural storyteller. Her nieces recalled her telling children ‘long circumstantial stories’ which were ‘woven as she proceeded out of nothing, but her own happy talent for invention.’27 It is no surprise to find that in Jane’s fairy-stories the ‘fairies had all characters of their own’,28 and it is delightful to imagine a fairyland peopled with, say, fairy versions of Miss Bates or Mrs Bennet or Harriet Smith – or perhaps Mrs Norris as a wicked godmother!

With that ‘happy talent for invention’ and a similarly ‘happy command of language’, novel writing was a natural choice for her.

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