In previous posts, I reviewed a novel called Nobility Run Mad which actually focused more on the marital mishaps of a wealthy merchant family from Bristol than on nobility behaving badly. It is one of several novels from the long 18th century which portray Bristol merchants as nouveaux riche who were given to flaunting their wealth and revealing their ignorance of true gentility. Later, I’ll give some historical perspective on real-life Bristol merchants but for now I am focussing on how these merchants were portrayed in novels and plays.
   As I mentioned, I got interested in finding examples of this comic stock character because of Mrs. Elton in Emma. It seems to me that she is an exemplar of a vulgar Bristolian, and Austen makes a point of specifying she is from Bristol, “the very heart of Bristol.”
    As I find these novels, I am looking carefully for references to the slave trade and the attitude of the authors as revealed through their characters. While many a novel relies upon the sudden acquisition of a West Indian fortune as a plot device, they usually mention the West Indies without remarking on slavery at all, let alone the evils of slavery. The stereotypical Bristol merchant and his family are held up to criticism and ridicule in these novels--not because they were involved in the slave trade, but because they were vulgar and presumptuous...

   Yes, Emma is being a snob, but Mrs. Elton lives down to her expectations: she is comically inappropriate in social situations, pushy and obnoxious.
    This is no less than what a reader of the time would expect, because Mrs. Elton's father was a Bristol merchant. I'll explain presently.
   First, what does Austen's little dash between “Bristol” and “merchant” signify? You can almost hear the the dismissive snicker. is Austen hinting that Mrs. Elton's father was a slave-trader?  (cont'd)​

  A slightly misleading post title, but I hope I will be forgiven. I was excited to come across a discussion about Jane Austen's novels in an 1829 novel and I shared it with Jane Austen's Regency World magazine. My article appears in the November/December 2022 issue. 
   I became very interested in researching the life of the author, Mary Jane Mackenzie, and made some surprising finds which I hope to share in the near future. It's always fun to discover a completely forgotten author. 
    Mary Jane Mackenzie wrote two novels and an unknown number of short stories, but I don't predict a resurgence of popularity for her work because her writing is highly didactic and overtly Christian. Modern academia will not be interested in this writer unless they decide that she was queer, on account of the fact that she lived the latter part of her life with her "intimate friend" Harriet Auber. 
    Mackenzie was obviously well read. I've never seen a writer, female or not, drop so many literary and classical allusions into her characters' dialogue as she does. Her 1820 novel Geraldine opens with a conversation between a husband and wife. Over a few pages, the wife refers to a ‘veiled prophet,’ Horne Tooke, Johnson, Lowth, Mrs. Shandy, Griselda, ‘two stars kept their motion in one sphere,’ ‘bestow her tediousness,’ Glumdalclitch, and ‘sonnet to his mistress’s eyebrows.’  (How many did you recognize? I only got 5 out of 10).  Mary Jane Mackenzie, whatever her merits as a writer, wasn’t shy about sharing her erudition. She presumes her readers will understand what a reference to the "Cave of Trophonius" is about.
     The characters in Geraldine also debate about the theatre, poetry, music, whether French cuisine and music is better than English, and religion. 
      Whether or not she ever gets an entry in a reference guide to British writers, Miss Mackenzie had the good taste and discernment to be an early Austen fan, and in her novel Private Life the heroine tries to set an addled clergyman's widow straight on which of Austen's novels had a character named Mr. Knightley. The passage is delightful (perhaps the best part of the novel) and you can read it here.

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​    Elinor Dashwood might forgive the man she loves for not telling her he's already engaged to Lucy Steele, but modern academics are not prepared to let Edward Ferrars off the hook. They think he’s weak at best, deceitful at worst, and Dr. Helena Kelly thinks there is a Freudian connotation to his destruction of the “sheath” and the scissors in Chapter 48. 
   Like it or not, Edward Ferrars occupies the post of the hero for Sense and Sensibility. Flatly declaring that he is not a hero confuses and muddles the entire novel. Plenty of people are “meh” about the Colonel Brandon/Marianne pairing, and if we conclude that the guy who marries Elinor at the end is a wimp, a liar and a pervert, where does that leave the message of the book and where does that leave the reader?
    I thought you might be interested in knowing about Coraly, an 1819 novel whose hero is a blend of Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon. The heroine in this novel unquestionably is stronger than the hero, especially in her Spartan adherence to a rigid moral code. Yet, she loves the hero, he’s her guy, and they get married. So maybe our expectations for heroes are not quite the same as long 18th century expectations. Something to ponder...