I finally settled in to read Jane Austen’s Letters this past weekend. I enjoyed the reading but my main pet peeve has to do with the edition that I own. It’s a white paperback published by Pavilion Press and features a black and white drawing of Austen on the cover. It was one of the few editions that I found that only included the letters–I have copies of all the books and Juvenilia, so I didn’t want lots of extra content–but I did not realize at the time that it only has the letters. But that’s what I wanted, right? Well, yes, but I would have liked some explanatory notes, perhaps a brief genealogy to keep all the family connections in order. I read Claire Tomlin’s Jane Austen: A Life last year and found myself having to refer back to it to remember who’s who, who lives where, and what happened when. Not a terribly frustrating experience, but it would have been nice to have it in the text.
I also did not care for how the letters were arranged. The first part of the text featured Jane’s letters to Cassandra, while the second part was arranged chronologically and included all letters written to other members of the family–mostly Jane’s brothers and nieces and nephews. I would have preferred to have all the letters arranged chronologically, for the sake of continuity.
Olivia Williams as Jane Austen in Miss Austen Regrets
But now that I have finished my complaint… I thoroughly enjoyed Jane’s letters to Fanny and Anna, her nieces. Her advice to Fanny on love is thoughtful and incredibly modern given the state of women at the time. Advising Fanny against too hastily accepting a match when she knows not her own feelings, she writes:
I am perfectly convinced that your present feelings, supposing you were to marry now, would be sufficient for his happiness; but when I think how very, very far it is from a “now” and take everything that may be into consideration, I dare not say, “Determine to accept him”; the risk is too great for you, unless your own sentiments prompt it.
Her letters to Anna have a more playful tone. Her letters to Fanny are as from a loving confidant, while her letters to Anna show a sense of affection and admiration for her niece’s literary efforts. The letters discuss Anna’s manuscript for a novel titled Which is the Heroine? and hint at Jane’s enjoyment of the story and her advice for bringing depth to the plot and characters. It makes me which Anna had actually finished and published the novel.
The letters to Cassandra revealed more of Jane’s concerns and daily life, her travels and visits, and the minutiae of home and dress. Though the relationship between the sisters is said to have been a close one, I found that the letters were less affectionate than the others written to friends and family. But we may never know what the missing letters would have revealed. Perhaps these were saved from the fire by virtue of their revealing so little?
