Pies & Prejudice by Heather Vogel Frederick

Author:Heather Vogel Frederick [Frederick, Heather Vogel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781416974314
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2010-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

FUN FACTS ABOUT JANE

1) Although she fell in love on several occasions and was once briefly engaged, Jane Austen never married and never had children of her own. She was said to have been “a particularly agreeable aunt,” however. She had twenty-four nieces and nephews and enjoyed spending time with them.

2) Once, when she was young, she invented a list of husbands for herself, none of whom were real people, and wrote their names down in her father’s parish register—Henry Frederick, Howard Fitzwilliam, Edmund Arthur William Mortimer, and Jack Smith.

3) Historians disagree over who was the love of Jane’s life. Some say it was Tom Lefroy, a young Irishman she flirted with when she was twenty and wrote about to her sister, others that it was a student at Cambridge named Samuel Blackall, or a mysterious suitor she mentioned meeting at the seaside in the summer of 1801. Unfortunately, none of these crushes ended in engagement or marriage.

4) Her sister Cassandra was also disappointed in love. She was engaged to a former pupil of her father’s, a young clergyman who traveled to the West Indies before their marriage to try and make his fortune. Tragically, while there he caught yellow fever and died. Cassandra remained single for the rest of her life.

5) Jane was engaged briefly once, when she was twenty-six. Harris Bigg-Wither, whose sisters were close friends of Jane’s and Cassandra’s, proposed one evening while she was visiting at their home. She accepted, then changed her mind and broke off the engagement the following morning.

6) Harris was heir to a comfortable estate, and as Mrs. Bigg-Withers, Jane would have been mistress of a large, elegant home and could have helped take care of her family financially. While no one is entirely sure what happened, toward the end of her life she wrote to her niece Fanny, “Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection.” It’s not unreasonable to assume that she called off the engagement because she didn’t love Harris Bigg-Withers, and didn’t want to settle for anything less than love.

I reread Fact #2 and feel myself blush. Just this morning, I practiced writing Megan Berkeley in my sketchbook. Not that I’m in love with Simon or anything, or thinking of marrying him.

“Why would someone as smart as Jane Austen even think about marrying someone she didn’t love?” Cassidy asks. “Especially somebody named Harris Bigg-Withers.” She looks over at Jess. “Don’t withers have something to do with a horse?”

Jess snorts. “Yeah. It’s the part at the base of their neck.”

“Jane Big-Neck,” quips Cassidy, and we can’t help but giggle. “No wonder she didn’t want to marry him.”

“Does anybody remember which character in Pride and Prejudice married someone she didn’t love?” asks Mrs. Hawthorne. She grabs Emma’s hand, which had started to shoot up. “Anybody besides Emma?”

“Charlotte Lucas!” says Becca triumphantly, and her mother slaps her a high five. Becca’s been coming on strong in book club this year.

“I still don’t get why she’d do that,” says Cassidy.

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