The Jane Austen Handbook (20 page)

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Working Title:
Elinor and Marianne

Written:
1795

Revised:
1797 and 1809–10

Published:
1811

Sense and Sensibility
presents the stark realities of romance in Jane Austen’s time. The complex story is softened with sometimes savage humor and a cast of memorable characters.

When their father dies, the Dashwood sisters—sensible Elinor and headstrong, romantic Marianne—are left without much in the way of fortune, uprooting them from the comfortable life they had known and complicating their romantic relationships.

Elinor’s lover, Edward Ferrars, is secretly engaged to the vulgar, grasping Lucy Steele, who triumphs over Elinor while not allowing her to reveal the secret. Marianne has fallen in love with the dashing Willoughby and behaves in a manner that leads everyone to think that they are engaged. Colonel Brandon, the friend of a neighbor and nearly twenty years older than Marianne, admires her but understands that he doesn’t stand a chance.

When Marianne learns that Willoughby is engaged to a rich young lady and will marry her within a few weeks, she is devastated and succumbs to her emotions. Her health suffers, and Elinor nurses her while nursing her own heartbreak over Edward; Marianne falls into a decline and nearly dies.

When the secret of Edward’s engagement is revealed, his mother disinherits him, ironically freeing him from family constraints that
prevent his marriage; fortunately for him, Lucy Steele fixes upon his now-rich younger brother, and Edward and Elinor are free to marry. Marianne recovers her health and learns that fiery passion can flame out, and that steady affection from a true heart, such as Colonel Brandon’s, can be equally acceptable even to a romantic.

Sense and Sensibility
was originally written as an epistolary novel, but after she finished
Pride and Prejudice
, Jane Austen rewrote
Sense and Sensibility
as a prose novel. The novel was published in 1811, receiving generally favorable reviews praising its good morals and sense, but some readers found it too “natural”—that is, too much like real life—to be a good read. Nonetheless, it sold well and went into a second printing.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Working Title:
First Impressions

Written:
1796–97

Revised:
1811–12

Published:
1813

Pride and Prejudice
is Jane Austen’s best-known work; it has been popular since it was first published and is now widely respected. One of the most famous opening lines in literature, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” gets the novel off to a rousing start. The heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, is one of five sisters; her father’s estate is entailed on a distant cousin, and her silly, shallow mother is anxious to get the girls married off, a difficult task in the face of their limited fortunes. Mrs. Bennet is delighted when a rich young man, Mr. Bingley, leases a nearby estate, hoping that one of her daughters will take his fancy. Mr. Bingley obliges her by taking an obvious interest in the beautiful eldest daughter, Jane. He has an even richer friend, Mr. Darcy, staying with him, but
Mr. Darcy’s arrogant pride disgusts the neighborhood in general and Elizabeth in particular. Nonetheless, Mr. Darcy shows a marked interest in Elizabeth, though he is often the victim of her lively wit.

A series of misunderstandings, marriage proposals, and elopements ensues, with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy learning to better understand themselves and each other. They become engaged at the end of the book, and the attentive reader knows that it is more than a match between a rich man and a pretty girl: It is a true meeting of minds, hearts, and two complex, complementary personalities.

Pride and Prejudice
received excellent reviews and sold well, and Jane herself was rather giddy with the happiness of publication, writing a letter to Cassandra jokingly enumerating how it could be improved: “The work is rather too light, and bright, and sparkling; it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long Chapter of something unconnected with the Story; an essay on Writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or anything that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and Epigrammatism of the general style.” More than one latter-day critic (and at least one film director) has unwisely taken those words seriously, but most readers are delighted with the book exactly as it is—as it seems Jane Austen was herself.

MANSFIELD PARK

Written:
1812–13

Published:
1814

In
Mansfield Park
, Jane Austen explores morality in an almost Darwinian framework, showing how morals and proper decision-making skills can be taught to every child and are not simply bestowed upon those brought up in wealthy houses.
The heroine, Fanny Price, is a humble relation brought up at Mansfield Park, the house of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram. Fanny’s cousin Edmund Bertram, destined for the church, is kind to her and directs her reading and education, while her aunts make her a sort of unpaid servant who fetches and carries and acts as a companion.

The social world of the Park is turned upside down with the arrival of Mary and Henry Crawford, the sister and brother of the rector’s wife. The Bertram sisters are interested in Henry, and he is in return interested in the eldest daughter, Maria, who is already engaged to a stupid but rich man. Edmund is attracted to Mary Crawford, and confides in Fanny. Fanny is in love with Edmund, and these revelations, and Edmund’s rationalization of Mary’s moral shortcomings, distress her. Fanny suffers even more when Henry Crawford, having toyed with her cousins’ hearts, turns his attention to her. Henry falls in love with Fanny and proposes; Fanny, having witnessed his cruel behavior to her cousins, cannot accept him. Sir Thomas, not understanding Fanny’s reticence in the face of such an excellent potential marriage, sends her back to her own family in Portsmouth. The Prices are relatively poor, but Fanny perseveres and her refusal of Henry Crawford is shown to be right when he has an affair with the now-married Maria. Fanny is welcomed back to Mansfield Park and eventually into Edmund’s heart as well.

Mansfield Park
is considered by many Janeites to be her “problem novel,” with its very moral and upright (and sometimes judgmental) hero and heroine; even Cassandra Austen thought that Fanny Price should have married Henry Crawford rather than Edmund. However, Jane followed her instincts and wrote the novel she set out to create, and Janeites have discussed it vigorously and sometimes combatively for nearly two centuries.

EMMA

Written:
1814–15

Published:
1815

Jane Austen feared she had created a heroine “whom nobody but myself will much like” in Emma Woodhouse, but many scholars and rank-and-file Janeites alike consider
Emma
to be Jane Austen’s finest novel.

Emma Woodhouse, “handsome, clever, and rich,” and only twenty-one years old, is the queen of Highbury. Everyone defers to her—everyone, that is, except her neighbor, Mr. Knightley, the only person who ever criticizes Emma’s behavior.

Convinced that her own endeavors brought about a marriage between her former governess and a neighbor, Emma sets out to make another match between the vicar, Mr. Elton, and a young lady of obscure background, Harriet Smith. She learns, to her dismay, that Mr. Elton actually is interested in Emma herself (or in her fortune of thirty thousand pounds). Mr. Elton marries a vulgar social climber from Bristol, who takes an interest in Jane Fairfax, the orphaned granddaughter of the late vicar. Jane has no fortune, but was educated to become a governess, and Mrs. Elton sets out to find her a proper situation.

Mrs. Weston’s stepson, Frank Churchill, comes to Highbury, and Emma is interested in him at first but then decides to make a match between Frank and Harriet. Unfortunately for Emma, Harriet has other ideas, revealing that she prefers Mr. Knightley. Emma realizes that Harriet cannot marry Mr. Knightley—indeed, no one can, except Emma herself. Things are sorted out amicably, and the happy couple has only the obstacle of Emma’s valetudinarian father to overcome.

James Stanier Clarke, the Prince Regent’s librarian, informed Jane that she might dedicate her next work to the Prince Regent
without asking any further permission, which Jane realized meant that the Regent expected her to do so. Thus, though she disliked the Regent, Jane directed Murray to add a grudgingly short dedication to
Emma
. Murray informed her that something longer would be proper, and
Emma
bore the fulsome dedication: “To His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, this work is, by His Royal Highness’s permission, most respectfully dedicated, by His Royal Highness’s dutiful and obedient humble servant, the Author.” The novel was published in December 1815 (though the title page bore the date 1816) and received generally good reviews, including an admiring article by Walter Scott for the important literary journal the
Quarterly Review
.

NORTHANGER ABBEY

Working Title:
Susan

Written:
1798–1803

Revised:
1816

Published:
1818

Composed when Jane Austen was in her early twenties,
Northanger Abbey
is a bridge between the rollicking humor of the stories Jane wrote as a young girl and her more mature work. It is an affectionately comic parody of the Gothic and sentimental novels popular in her time as well as a coming-of-age story of the naïve but lovable heroine, Catherine Morland. Catherine is not a typical heroine: She is not a prodigy, nor is she accomplished, well-read, or even beautiful, though she can manage “almost pretty” on a good day. Invited to Bath by rich, childless neighbors, she meets Henry Tilney, a young clergyman who amuses her with witty nonsense, and Isabella Thorpe, a fashionable young lady who introduces her to the delights of “horrid” Gothic novels such as Ann Radcliffe’s
The Mysteries of Udolpho
.

Isabella’s brother John attempts to court Catherine, but she thinks him crude and vulgar and remains interested in Henry Tilney. Catherine’s brother James becomes engaged to Isabella, but Isabella distresses Catherine by flirting with Henry’s elder brother, the heir of Northanger Abbey. Henry’s father, General Tilney, takes an interest in Catherine, and Henry’s sister, Eleanor, invites her to the Abbey. There, Catherine’s imagination, inspired by horrid novels, takes a morbid turn, and she begins to imagine strange things about the General; Henry disabuses her of these notions, but later, the General shows himself to be little better than the villain that she had imagined. Catherine learns to trust her instincts; namely, that people do not always mean what they say; that real life is not like books, especially of the horrid variety; that a hero can be quite an ordinary fellow; and that villains can be quite dastardly even without committing murder.

Jane Austen sold the copyright of this novel, which she originally called
Susan
, for £10 to Richard Crosby and Son in 1803. Crosby advertised
Susan
for publication but never brought it out. In 1816, once Jane had earned a little money from her books, Henry Austen bought back the manuscript on her behalf. When the transaction was completed, he informed Crosby that the anonymous manuscript was written by the author of the very popular
Pride and Prejudice
. A novel titled
Susan
had been published by someone else in the meantime, so Jane changed the heroine’s name to Catherine and wrote a short apologia for details that had become out of date during the thirteen years the novel had languished. She fell ill and did not pursue publication; the book, retitled
Northanger Abbey
, was published posthumously.

PERSUASION

Working Title:
The Elliots

Written:
1816

Published:
1818

Jane Austen’s final completed novel is a story of second chances. In the summer of 1806, Anne Elliot became engaged to Frederick Wentworth, a newly promoted naval officer waiting for a ship of his own. Under pressure from snobbish relatives who consider a half-pay officer not good enough for a baronet’s daughter, and herself convinced that a wife will hold Wentworth back in his career, Anne reluctantly breaks off the engagement.

Eight years later, circumstances have changed: Anne’s father, a “foolish, spendthrift baronet,” is so much in debt that he must let the family estate and move to Bath. The house is leased by an admiral, coincidentally married to Captain Wentworth’s sister, and Wentworth, who has made a fortune in the war and is still angry over the broken engagement, arrives for a visit. Anne, her own youthful bloom lost from eight years of unhappiness and regret, must watch while he flirts with two pretty young girls. A tragic event brings them together for a short time, but she leaves for Bath thinking he is lost to her forever, until circumstances change and love gets a second chance.