There may be no better guide to the plants that grew in eighteenth-century gardens than The British Herbal, a rare collection of botanicals by artist John Edwards, published in 1770. “It’s one of the most valuable books we have,” said Wesley Greene, garden historian in Colonial Williamsburg’s historic trades department. “It lets us document the sort of plants that were available in the colonial era.” Edwards referenced Linnaeus for every plant, allowing Greene and others to identify species precisely. 

Continue reading

Edwards, John. The British Herbal, containing one hundred plates of the most beautiful and scarce flowers and useful Medicinal Plants which blow in the open air of Great Britain, accurately coloured from nature with their Botanical Characters, and a short account of their cultivation. London: Printed for the Author; and sold by J. Edmonson…and J. Walter, 1770.

You can see this slideshow of a number of the prints here:  http://history.org/foundation/journal/Spring13/herbals_slideshow/#images/herbals4.jpg

[images from the Colonial Williamsburg article, photography by Barbara Lombardi]

The book is indeed quite rare: a quick look at auction records shows that one sold for $17,026 in 1993; for $25,300 in 1997 and for $36,000 in 2000.

One wonders if Jane Austen knew this work – there is no mention of it in her letters or novels, nor is it in Gilson’s bibliography as a work known to have been owned by her.

She may have been more familiar [as I was] with Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (London, 1739) – you can view this whole work online at the British Library at their “Turning Pages” site: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/blackwells/accessible/introduction.html#content

Blackwell’s illustrations are quite lovely as this one example of a male peony shows:

[image from Picturing Plants]

The story of Elizabeth Blackwell’s (1707-1758) creation and publication of this work is an interesting tale – she drew, engraved and colored all the illustrations to accompany the botanical descriptions of her doctor husband in order to pay his debts and effect his release from prison.  Many of the plant specimens were from the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. A copy sold at Christies in 2009 for $17,500, and various plates appear at auction periodically.

We do know that Jane Austen knew of Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne (1789), and whose house, now a museum, was near the Austen’s home in Chawton. The herb garden at White’s house is depicted in Kim Wilson’s In the Garden with Jane Austen [page 98] with a list of the herbs, and you can visit the house and garden site here.

So now into the garden and away from the computer … but will ask, What is your favorite herbal book?

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

You are Cordially Invited to JASNA-Vermont’s June Meeting 

 “Trickle-Down Economics in Pride and Prejudice;
Or, Why ‘Mr. Darcy Improves upon Acquaintance’!”

 with Sheryl Craig* 

Sheryl Craig

What Jane Austen’s first readers did not need to be told was that a man named Fitzwilliam Darcy had to be a moderate Whig, one who supported Tory Prime Minister William Pitt’s tax and Poor Law reform proposals, and that Darcy’s home county, Derbyshire, paid high wages, provided generous welfare benefits, and funded the best system of poor houses in England.  Thus, Darcy, and moderate Whigs like him, were worthy of both Elizabeth Bennet’s and the reader’s esteem and served as role models to be emulated throughout Georgian Britain and, as it turns out, throughout time.   

*****

Sunday, 2 June 2013, 2 – 4 p.m. 

 Champlain College, Hauke Conference Center,
375 Maple St Burlington VT  

~Free & open to the Public~
~Light refreshments served~ 

For more information:   JASNAVermont [at] gmail [dot] com
Please visit our blog at: http://JaneAustenInVermont.wordpress.com

************************************ 

* Sheryl Craig has published articles in Jane Austen’s Regency World, Persuasions, Persuasions On-Line, and The Explicator.  She has also written film reviews for the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.  Sheryl was JASNA’s International Visitor in 2008, is the editor of JASNA News, and was JASNA’s Traveling Lecturer for the Central region in 2012.   She has a Ph.D. in Nineteenth-century British literature from the University of Kansas, has taught at the University of Central Missouri for over twenty years, and is a life member of JASNA.

Workhouse at St. James’s Parish – from The Microcosm of London, 1810, [wikipedia commons]

c2013, Jane Austen in Vermont

“We have been both to the Exhibition & Sir J. Reynolds’, – and I am disappointed, for there was nothing like Mrs. D. [Darcy] at either. – I can only imagine that Mr. D. prizes any Picture of her too much to like it should be exposed to the public eye. – I can imagine he w’d have that sort [of omitted] feeling – that mixture of Love, Pride & Delicacy.- Setting aside this disappointment, I had great amusement among the Pictures…”

[Jane Austen, Letter 85, Monday 24 May 1813]

Those who have read Jane Austen’s letters are familiar with her comments on visiting London. It has been an ongoing project of mine to figure out where she went and what she did and how she uses the pieces of her London treks in her novels.  One of the more interesting and frustrating is her reference to the art exhibit of Sir Joshua Reynolds – what did she see there, other than not finding a portrait of Mrs. Darcy? It has been revealed today that we will now have a chance to see exactly that, sort of following Jane herself around the galleries, as Professor Janine Barchas of the University of Texas at Austin launches What Jane Saw - a complete reconstruction of that exhibit. You will surely want to bookmark this new website and mark your calendars to view the happening on May 24, 2013!

From the website:

On 24 May 1813, Jane Austen visited an art exhibit at the British Institution in Pall Mall, London. The popular show was the first-ever retrospective of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), England’s celebrated portrait painter.  On 24 May 2013, two centuries to the day that Austen viewed the 141 paintings in that exhibit, this site will open its doors as a public e-gallery, offering the modern visitor a precise historical reconstruction of that long-lost Regency blockbuster.

******************

• You can visit the website here: http://www.whatjanesaw.org/
• Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/WhatJaneSaw#!/WhatJaneSaw
• Professor Barchas on youtube about “What Jane Saw“:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPy4f77idLo
• Professor Barchas wrote about this project here at the Aphra Behn Journal Online: http://www.aphrabehn.org/ABO/?p=1245#more-1245
• See a blog post here with Professor Barchas on her recently published Matters of Fact in Jane Austen [Johns Hopkins 2012]

I will be posting more on this as we near the launch date – this is very exciting, so stay tuned!!

[image from What Jane Saw]

Self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

Moving is a nightmare, no matter how organized one might be, and of all my various strengths and weaknesses, the will to organize has always been the driving force; so take the contents of one old house, pack it all up and put it all in storage, and six months later, move all into a new maintenance-free house, and spend the next 3+ weeks unpacking, overdosing on cardboard and paper, as 25,000 pounds (or so the mover tells me) of “stuff” (including my own book collection) finds a place in the new home … so bad back notwithstanding, the deed is done, my books are on the shelves (though alas! not yet fully alphabetized, she says shame-faced), all the drawers and closets are organized, the kitchen is in fine working order (surviving on take-out has become a very nice habit – whoever said I actually needed a kitchen in this new place?), and all the pictures are hung – so “normal” returns in a fashion, and time to get back to real life…

What have I done these past 3+ weeks for my sanity? – the quick break from unpacking, organizing and hammering? I have existed, not only on take-out, but also on the comfort-food of reading mysteries and romance novels – my mind might now be a tad mushy, as I fear the worst in trying to get my head around “game theory” in reading the grandly enlightening Jane Austen, Game Theorist (I promise an author interview shortly, but see in the meantime Michael Chwe’s website here: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/chwe/austen/ ) – but it has been great fun – so here is my list, all highly recommended as just great reads, and even Jane might approve, as they are each and every one, “only a novel”!

Georgette Heyer: I should add here that for the packing-up part last fall, I re-read all my favorite Georgette Heyers – hard to choose, but I read at least ten all in a row, and can now safely say that I can barely tell one from the other, but the joy of the moment of reading is nearly perfection!

[Image courtesy of Jane Austen Today, with thanks]

**************

Charles Todd, the Bess Crawford mysteries:  I am a fan of the Jacqueline Winspear Maisie Dobbs series , largely because I love the time between the two World Wars, so was happy to discover that the Charles Todd mother-son duo (of Ian Rutledge fame) had started a similar series a few years ago – have read the first three and have just started the latest. The titles in order:

• A Duty to the Dead
• An Impartial Witness
• A Bitter Truth
• An Unmarked Grave 

- all featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse during WWI, who seems to forever be stumbling headlong into murder and mayhem, as well as the very-helpful-in-a-murder-mystery-plot-device of  having veritable strangers tell her the most amazing things – great fun – you must read them in order… and the fact that there is a very close family friend who seems to always be there when needed adds a little spice and anticipation – his name is Simon Brandon, so nice to know that Jane Austen, as always, is in the mix somehow… [I think Knightley would have been too obvious…]

See their website at http://charlestodd.com/ for more information.

***************

Julie Klassen’s The Tutor’s Daughter:  I have read a few of Klassen’s books and find them to be the perfect read, so was happy to take on her latest The Tutor’s Daughter. It does not disappoint: raging Cornwall weather; two brothers with opposite personalities and each with a history with the lively heroine, the nearly-on-the-shelf daughter of the live-in tutor to the two younger sons of the new wife of Sir Giles; add in an old-rambling castle-like home with a wing one is to stay out of and some ghostly goings-on, and you have a fine historical romance that combines Northanger Abbey and Jane Eyre into one delightful confection……

For more information on this and other books by Klassen, see her website here: http://www.julieklassen.com/index.html

****************

Candice Hern: Thanks to Laurel Ann and her mentions of Ms. Hern, I have read most of the books in the Reading Challenge at Austenprose (though I did not sign up, didn’t think I would have the time! – no matter, it is the reading that counts!): again, each tells a fine regency-era tale with the requisite heroines, rakes, fashions, and settings you will be sure to savor:

• A Proper Companion
• A Change of Heart
• An Affair of Honor
• A Garden Folly
• The Best Intentions
• “Desperate Measures”
• “Lady Ann’s Excellent Adventure”

For more information, visit Hern’s website here: http://candicehern.com/ - and be sure to click on the “Regency World” section of her website for a wealth of information about the times of which she writes.  And for those attending the Jane Austen JASNA AGM in Minneapolis this year, you will be fortunate to see Ms. Hern’s collection of Regency artifacts on display – she wrote an article on vinaigrettes for the Mar/Apr issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine.

****************

Ok, so all of this made the joys of moving more than bearable – I am almost disappointed to have to return to real life after all – but I am not quite done yet: I will be moving all my Bygone Books business back into the house in the next 2 weeks, so I can keep reading these delightful escapist tales after all – Hern’s Miss Lacey’s Last Fling and Todd’s Unmarked Grave await! and then I shall return to Austen and celebrating Pride and Prejudice, so stay-tuned…

What do you like to read when going through a stressful, energy-intensive time?

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

1.  Lot 319:

* JANE AUSTEN.  Mansfield Park. London: J. Murray, 1816.

3 vols. 12mo, modern quarter morocco, renewed endpapers. Second edition. Lacks half-titles; 2-inch tear to title page vol. 2 restored; spines deteriorating and hinges cracked; otherwise the interior is in near fine condition with very little brownspotting.

Estimate $ 1,000-2,000.

2.  Lot 320:

* JANE AUSTEN.  Fragment of a Novel, written January-March 1817. Now First Printed from the Manuscript [Sandition]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925.

8vo, publisher’s cloth-backed blue boards, printed spine label, facsimile frontispiece. Limited edition facsimile, one of 250 copies on handmade paper. Boards lightly soiled with some loss to spine label; otherwise very good.

Estimate $ 100-200.

3. Lot 434A:

JANE AUSTEN.  Works (COLLECTED WORKS). London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1882.

6 vols. 8vo, 3/4 maroon morocco over decorative boards, title in gilt to black leather spine labels, t.e.g. Light edgewear; otherwise fine.

Estimate $ 100-200.

__________

My note:  this last item does not offer a very comprehensive description, so I would suggest an inquiry to the auction house for more information.  This is likely the Steventon Edition that Bentley published in 1882, limited to 375 sets; size is 20.5 cm, or a small octavo (8vo), obviously rebound here; there are illustrations (those that appeared in Bentley’s original Standard Novels of 1833, and a few additional woodcuts and a facsimile of Austen’s letter to Anna Lefroy (29 Nov 1814)) – full information on the edition can be found in Gilson at D13; but again, please check with the auction house to verify that it is this edition (there was a reissue in 1886).  The interest in the Steventon Edition is that it was the last complete edition of Jane Austen’s works to be published by Bentley, her major publisher in England from 1833 to 1882, and holder of the copyrights until their various successive expiry dates.

[Images from the Leslie Hindman Auctioneers website.]

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

So in my version, Franny learns that the guy who makes you wait while he pants after someone else just isn’t worth waiting for.

Wow! That’s great, I was never crazy about him anyway. But did you put her with a reformed Henry? That’s what I would like, except for all my friends who insist that Henry is too naughty.

Will you take on Sense & Sensibility next? That story needs a modern update!

and in a second comment June wrote:

Sense and Sensibility is such a dark story — it starts with widowhood, greed, and eviction and goes to statutory rape, unwed teen pregnancy, the tale of a forced marriage by an unethical guardian and a type of kidnapping (sending Brandon to India and Eliza’s tale), two marriages for money, Marianne being near death…. none of this is bright or funny or witty. Whoever writes fanfic about Elinor and Edward? Few write fics about Marianne and Brandon. Jane Austen’s couples in this book are NOT favorites of many. If you could translate this into a modern story, it would be challenging and remarkable indeed.

Ahem, please note that I am not willing to undertake the challenge myself. TOO difficult!

Congratulations June! please email me with your mailing contact information as soon a possible – the publisher will send you the book directly.

And again, my thanks to Claire LaZebnik for writing her delightful book and for sharing it on this blog, and to HarperTeen for the giveaway, and to all of you for your comments!

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

Miniature ‘Emma’ from Park Plum Press

And now doubly delighted to hear from Tony that he is planning a similar miniature edition of Pride and Prejudice – perfect timing for this bicentenary year.  It will be another triple-decker, as was the original, in the same format and size as Emma with the same typeface. Each of the three volumes is to be published separately, in April, June, and August; the third volume will include a slipcase for the set.

Volume I and II will contain 240 pages, and 260 pages for Vol. III, all bound in a lovely soft faux leather, in a pretty butterscotch color. The endpapers will be decorated with colored illustrations from the 1907 Dent edition, four different pictures in each volume. The slipcase will be decorated with some of the same illustrations. It will be a limited edition of 15 copies. [no image is yet available]

C. E. Brock – ‘Pride and Prejudice’ – Dent 1907 – Mollands

The first volume will be available near the end of April; price is $35. / volume, the complete set with slipcase, $105.  You can order either by volume as they become available or wait for the complete set in August, but with only 15 sets available, you best get your order in soon!  [There was a second edition of Emma, and there are copies still available.]

Other titles that Tony has published in this miniature format: [see his website for more information on each]

• Priestley: Experiments and Observations of Different Kinds of Air
• Curtis: The Botanical Magazine
• Housman: A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems
• Davenport: English Embroidered Bookbindings
• Hubbard: William Morris
• Crane: A Floral Fantasy
• Huygens: Treatise on Light
• Morris: A Dream of John Ball
• Higgin: Handbook of Embroidery
• Browning: The Last Ride
• Blades: The Enemies of Books
• Geikie: Geology
• Einstein: Relativity
• Austen: Emma
• Wells: The Time Machine
• Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Lavoisier: Elements of Chemistry
• Fitzwilliam: Jacobean Embroidery

Further reading: and if you have any questions, please comment below…

• Tony Firman’s Plum Park Press
• The Miniature Book Society, whick defines a”miniature” book as:

In the United States, a miniature book is usually considered to be one which is no more than three inches in height, width, or thickness. Some aficionados collect slightly larger books while others specialize in even smaller sizes. Outside of the United States, books up to four inches are often considered miniature.

 c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

• More information here at the Bonham’s website: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20751/lot/6/
• And my original post here: http://janeausteninvermont.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/austen-on-the-block-a-first-edition-iemma-or-where-an-interesting-bookplate-might-take-you/

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

Gentle Readers: Today I welcome Claire LaZebnik as she shares with us her thoughts on her newest book, The Trouble with Flirting, a Jane Austen for young adults.  Loosely based on Mansfield Park, it tells the tale of Franny Pearson and her summer of friendship and romance with the likes of Edmund Bertram, his sisters, and Henry and Mary Crawford, all updated to the 21st-century. There is even a rather demanding, you-shall-never-please-me Aunt Norris in the mix!

In one of my former lives I was a children’s librarian and with the added plus of having children of my own, I’ve have read a good amount of children’s and young adult literature – I can honestly say that some of the works for young people still rate as my favorite reads [Bridge to Terabithia by Vermont’s own Katherine Paterson remains my number one]. Now if I pop Jane Austen into the equation [which I do whenever possible], I have been delighted to discover a treasure-trove of titles that take her tales and adapt them to the world of the 21^st century teenager – Polly Shulman’s Enthusiasm and Rosie Rushton’s series spring immediately to mind – indeed there is even a blog out there!: From JA to YA: Adapting Jane Austen for Young Adults! [And most of my Jane Austen friends agree that Clueless might well be the best of all the Austen adaptations...]

I have just found out about Claire [thank you Diana Birchall!] and have not read her first book Epic Fail based on Pride and Prejudice, but am nearly finished with The Trouble with Flirting – a thoroughly enjoyable read that whether you are 14 or 40 or even 64 you will find something to savor in the young love so beautifully rendered by Jane Austen 200 years ago as now transported to a modern day summer theater camp, where even Shakespeare takes a bow.

***********************

UPDATING JANE

By Claire LaZebnik

How do you stay true to the spirit of an author who wrote two hundred years ago? 

When you sit down to write a modernization of a Jane Austen novel, you get hit by a jumble of emotions. There’s terror—how dare you tinker with perfection?—and dread—no matter how good a book you write, it will never compare to the original—and excitement—you get to spend the next few months of your life thinking about an author you love!—and, mostly, perplexity—how do you bring an early 19^th century text into the 21^st century? You can’t simply switch “ball” to “prom” and “tea” to “diet Coke” and call it a day. (Not that some haven’t tried.)

My first YA novel, Epic Fail, is loosely based on Pride and Prejudice.  For the most part, updating the story went smoothly. The emotions in P&P feel as true today as they ever did: we all know what it’s like to be embarrassed by members of our families and we’ve all at some point given our respect to someone who didn’t deserve it and withheld it from someone who did.

My challenge was figuring out how to give a modern day Darcy a reason to be so guarded that he comes across as a snob: our class distinctions aren’t as clearcut as they were back in Austen’s day and country. But then I figured it out: children of celebrities get fawned over and hounded pretty much everywhere they go in L.A., and, just like Darcy, they learn to be wary of strangers who may want too much from them. So Darcy (now Derek) became the son of two movie stars in my novel.

One thing I never worried about was how to make Elizabeth Bennet accessible to my readers: Lizzie’s about as modern as a nineteenth-century heroine can get. She’s funny, intelligent, wellread, outspoken, and prefers even potentially insolvent independence to life with someone she can’t respect. She transplants beautifully into our modern world.

That project finished, I turned my attention to Mansfield Park.

Vintage Classics

I love Mansfield Park. It’s like a combination of Cinderella and the Ugly Duckling. Plain and poor Fanny Price pines quietly for her kind, wealthy cousin Edmund, but has to watch from the sidelines as he falls in love with the dazzling and witty Mary Crawford. Mary’s equally charming brother Henry decides he’ll steal faithful little Fanny’s heart, just for the hell of it, then surprises himself by falling more in love with her than she with him. He’s an attractive guy, but morally flawed and conscientious Fanny doesn’t trust him. So she rejects his courtship and waits patiently for Edmund to come to his senses or for senility to descend on her–whichever comes first. (And, trust me, it’s a bit of a toss-up.)

Devout, patient, deeply moral, quiet . . . Fanny Price is about as modern as a whalebone corset.

So there lay my challenge with Mansfield Park: finding a way to make Fanny accessible to modern readers. I still wanted her to feel like an outsider, so in my version she arrives at the Mansfield College Theater Program for a job sewing costumes, while all the others teenagers are enrolled in the summer acting program. But she’s not meek, submissive or embarrassed by her position: she takes some pride in the fact she’s earning her way, and when she’s given a chance to participate as an actor, proves she can hold her own against the more privileged set.

Nor does my Franny (I added an “r”) sit around waiting for Edmund/Alex to notice her once he’s clearly crushing on someone else. She still carries a torch for him, but it’s summertime and she knows she might as well have fun.

So there I was, writing my update of MP, feeling pretty good about how I’d made Fanny more modern and brought the plot into this fun summer acting program setting, and everything was falling into place–and then I got to the ending.  In Austen’s version, morality triumphs. The two people who’ve acted in a conscientious and thoughtful way end up together, while the morally lax ones ride off into the sunset.  Actually, let me correct that. First the morally lax ones ride off.  Then Edmund spends some time moping around because he really really liked Mary and is so bummed she didn’t come up to his high moral standards. And then he remembers about faithful little Fanny who’s still watching him hopefully from the sidelines.

Times were different when Austen wrote Mansfield Park. Young women of no means didn’t have a lot of power. Sitting around waiting—and turning down the occasional wrong suitor—was pretty much the only option for someone as poor and dependent as Franny.

But I couldn’t make that ending work. Not today. Not with a more modern heroine. I found it hard to respect a 21^st century girl who sits around passively waiting for the guy she loves to appreciate her, especially when that same man has made it clear he preferred someone else pretty much all along.

I tried to make it work.  I wanted to be true to Austen and true to the novel I’d read so many times and loved so very much. But it wasn’t working. No matter how wonderfully romantic I tried to make the moment when Franny and Alex came together in my book, I felt resentful toward him. He didn’t deserve her.

So I sent an email to my editor. “May I please just try changing the ending?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

So in my version, Franny learns that the guy who makes you wait while he pants after someone else just isn’t worth waiting for.

I love Austen—madly, passionately, deeply.  That’s why I’ve wanted to pay homage to her with these modernizations: if you’re going to steal, steal from the best. But I wouldn’t be faithful to her legacy of capturing universal human truths and emotions and setting them in a very specific time and place, if I didn’t recognize that times change and women are much freer now than they were back then—and give my readers a Fanny Price for our time.

About the author:

Claire LaZebnik

Claire LaZebnik’s most recent novels, Epic Fail and The Trouble with Flirting (HarperTeen), are loosely based on two of Jane Austen’s classic works. She’s currently finishing up The Last Best Kiss, which is due out in summer 2014 (also from HarperTeen) and is inspired by Austen’s Persuasion. Her first novel, Same as It Never Was (St. Martin’s, 2003) was made into an ABC Family movie titled Hello Sister, Goodbye Life. Her four other novels for adults, Knitting under the Influence, The Smart One and the Pretty One, If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now, and Families and other Nonreturnable Gifts, were all published by Hachette’s Grand Central Publishing imprint. LaZebnik co-authored two non-fiction books with Dr. Lynn Kern Koegel (Overcoming Autism and Growing Up on the Spectrum) and contributed a monologue about having a teenage son with autism to the anthology play Motherhood Out Loud.

Further reading:

Claire’s website

Claire’s facebook page

An interview with Claire at L. S. Murphy’s blog

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The Trouble with Flirting
by Claire LaZebnik
HarperTeen 2013
$9.99
ISBN-10: 0061921270
ISBN-13: 978-0061921278
Find it at your local bookstore, or at Amazon

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Book Giveaway! Please enter into the random drawing for a copy of The Trouble with Flirting by commenting below: either by asking Claire LaZebnik a question or telling us why you would like to read this YA novel based on Mansfield Park and how you might fashion the ending.  Deadline is Monday March 25, 2013 11:59 pm; winner will be announced on Tuesday March 26^th. Domestic eligibility only [sorry all, our postage rates make international mailings impossibly expensive]. Good luck all, and thank you to the publisher HarperTeen for donating the book for the giveaway, and to Claire for her posting here today [and her delightful book!]

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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What Jane Might Well Have Known, and What She Couldn’t Possibly Have Known, About Her Ancestors

I’m against making any assumption based on slim evidence, but I’m about to make two; first of all, concerning a great coincidence about which Jane can’t have known anything. In 1329 a marriage took place between John Darcy, 1^st Lord Darcy of Knaith, and Joan de Burgh. (The spelling doesn’t matter – even up to the 18^th century spellings hadn’t been fully standardised.) Joan’s father Richard de Burgh, 2^nd Earl of Ulster, was a direct ancestor of Mrs Austen through her brother John.

Last summer when my Akin to Jane [ www.janeaustensfamily.co.uk ] website was launched one or two people, with admirable perseverance, trawled through my separate family tree [ http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~janeausten ] and on discovering this marriage, insisted that Jane must have known. I was never in any doubt that she couldn’t possibly have known. This was also the opinion of the only other person who has studied the Austen pedigree extensively, Anielka Briggs.

Dugdale Baronage – Skinnerinc.com

While Baronetages were readily available in the late 1700s, the dignity having been created only in 1611, there were very few studies of the Peerage and all of those were very primitive. William Dugdale’s Baronage of England of 1675 covered only England. (Remember that Joan’s father John de Burgh was the Earl of Ulster; the marriage in question is said to have taken place in County Kildare.)

The Rev. Barlow’s Complete English Peerage was printed in 1772, so might just have been in George Austen’s library, but again deals just with English peerages. Another possibility, Arthur Collins’s Peerage series*, was first published in 1709, with reprints every few years and frequent new editions. Even he appears not to have included Irish peerages, and in the eight editions that I was able to search, not a single de Burgh featured in the indexes.

Barlow Peerage – Open Library

A further obstacle in the way of Jane’s knowing (or for that matter anyone at the time) is that there was no direct male descent from the de Burghs to the Austens – the surname soon disappeared from Jane’s pedigree, through a series of female links. Traditional pedigrees concentrate on the direct male line.

However, John Darcy did himself play a role in the Austen pedigree – he was a many-greats-grandfather of Charles Austen’s wives, the sisters Frances and Harriet Palmer. John and his first wife, Emmeline Heron, were the ancestors of four generations of male Darcys; Elizabeth Darcy, in the fifth generation, married James Strangeways; and that surname continued down to the Palmer girls’ paternal grandmother, Dorothy Strangeways. In Charles’s children, the Darcy and the de Burgh lines were finally united.

My second assumption concerns what Jane might well have known. Janine Barchas, in her Matters of Fact in Jane Austen, speculates that she, in choosing the names of Darcy, Wentworth, Woodhouse, FitzWilliam, Tilney, etc., was alluding “to actual high-profile politicians and contemporary celebrities as well as to famous historical figures and landed estates.” In the words of Juliet McMaster in the blurb, she was “a confirmed name dropper who subtly manipulates the celebrity culture of her day.” On page 118 Janine Barchas wrote, “Cassandra Willoughby (…) the supposed ancestor of Mrs Austen.”  Yes – she’s almost got it.  Cassandra was Mrs Austen’s 1st cousin, twice removed.

I think that Jane may well have known about the family relationship and its relevance. Cassandra’s mother Emma (Willoughby and then Child, née Barnard) was Cassandra Leigh’s great-great-aunt; it was Emma’s sister Elizabeth (Brydges, née Barnard) who was her great-grandmother.  Elizabeth was also the mother of James Bridges, the Duke of Chandos, who married Cassandra Willoughby – the two were cousins. Emma’s first husband was the noted naturalist, Francis Willoughby; after his death she remarried, to Sir Josiah Child – supreme governor of the East India Company, an early monetarist, and a rapaciously wealthy financier to 17^th century royalty.  Emma and Sir Josiah’s son Richard Child became the Earl Tylney of Castlemaine, and one of his great-granddaughters was Catherine Tylney-Long.

Barchas speculates that Jane, in naming her Catherine Tilney, had this other Catherine in mind. This lady had inherited a vast estate and fortune in 1794 at the age of 5, and at 18 was reputedly the richest commoner in England. Catherine Tylney was Jane Austen’s 4^th cousin.  Very few of us have any idea about our fourth cousins, but based on the following circumstantial evidence, I suspect that Jane did know that they were distantly related.

Catherine Tylney-Long – Wanstead House

Wanstead House

[Image: Wanstead House ]

Mrs. Austen

There is a strong tradition in the Warwickshire village of Middleton, the seat of Francis Willoughby, which Jane visited there on the trip to the north in 1806 with her mother and sister. Middleton certainly lies in a direct line, as the crow flies, from their stop at Stoneleigh to Hamstall Ridware, where her cousin was the Rector. If they did visit, it may have been because Mrs Austen knew of the family relationship – she was certainly considered to have been proud of her aristocratic ancestors. The Austens preserved a letter written by Elizabeth Brydges in the 1680s from Constantinople, giving advice to her daughter who had been left behind; I think it likely that she’d have known about Elizabeth’s sister Emma’s illustrious marriages, and have told her daughters.

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Thank you Ron! for all this information [my head is spinning!] – I do wonder what Lady C might say to all this – would she be concerned about the “Shades of Pemberly [being] thus polluted” by any of these illustrious ancestors?

If you have questions for Ron, please comment below.

Ed. Note: * Collins Peerage:

Collins Peerage – 1812 ed.

Just again to prove once again that all roads lead back to Jane Austen, it is interesting here to note that Egerton Brydges edited this 1812 edition of the Collins Peerage – this is Jane Austen’s very own Mr. Brydges, brother to her friend Madame Lefroy. Austen makes much of his novel Arthur Fitz-Albini (1798) in her letter of 25 November 1798:

We have got Fitz-Albini; my father has brought it against my private wishes, for it does not quite satisfy my feelings that we should purchase the only one of Egerton’s works of which his family are ashamed. That these scruples, however do not at all interfere with my reading it, you will easily believe. We have neither of us yet finished the first volume. My father is disappointed – I am not, for I expected nothing better. Never did any book carry more internal evidence of its author. Every sentiment is completely Egerton’s. There is very little story, and what there is [is] told in a strange unconnected way. There are many characters introduced, apparently merely to be delineated. We have not been able to recognize any of them hitherto except Dr and Mrs Hey and Mr. Oxenden, who is not very tenderly treated…. [Letters, No. 12]

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Further reading:

1.  Ron Dunning’s Jane Austen websites:

• www.janeaustensfamily.co.uk
• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~janeausten
• an interview with Ron about his Jane Austen genealogy website: http://janeausteninvermont.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/an-interview-with-ron-dunning-on-his-jane-austen-genealogy-the-new-and-improved-jane-austen-family-tree/
• Ron on Elizabeth Spencer and Canonbury Tower: http://janeausteninvermont.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/jane-austen-elizabeth-spencer-and-canonbury-tower-guest-post-by-ron-dunning/

2.  Janine Barchas links:

• Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2012): http://www.amazon.com/Matters-Fact-Jane-Austen-Celebrity/dp/1421406403
• “Jane Austen on Location” at the JHU Press Blog: http://jhupressblog.com/2012/09/12/jane-austen-on-location/
• “A Janecation in Yorkshire” at JAIV: http://janeausteninvermont.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/guest-post-janine-barchas-a-janecation-in-yorkshire-jane-austens-real-wentworths/

3. History of Catherine Tylney-Long at Wanstead Park website: http://www.wansteadpark.org.uk/hist/the-owners-of-wanstead-park-part-10-1784-1825/

4.  Wanstead Wildlife.org [information and above image]: http://www.wansteadwildlife.org.uk/index.php/home/list-of-people?id=101

5. William Dugdale Baronage [above image]: https://www.skinnerinc.com/auctions/2526B/lots/212

6. Frederic Barlow. Complete English Peerage (London, 1775): [complete text and above image]: http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24241621M/The_complete_English_peerage

7. Collins’s Peerage of England: [complete text and above image]: http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7054900M/Collins’s_peerage_of_England_genealogical_biographical_and_historical.

8. A nice introduction to Charles Austen at Austenprose.

  c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont