Austen scholars know that Jane Austen was familiar with the 1806 novel Lady Maclairn, the victim of villany (It’s spelled ‘villany’ on the title-page), because her niece Anna recalled how she and her aunt had a good laugh over its emotional excesses. There also exists a short satirical note that Austen wrote to Anna about it.
    I wonder if Austen managed to plow through all four volumes and 700 pages. I confess to skimming and skipping the last half, when the author was gearing up to introduce a whole new raft of characters and more subplots and backstories. Austen scholar Deirdre LeFaye counted ‘a total of nearly twenty flashbacks in all,’ and I don’t know if that includes the long narrative summary which commences the novel. However, even though I didn’t manage to read Lady Maclairn cover to cover, this forgotten novel deserves another look for a number of reasons: the attitude displayed in the book toward the slave trade, the Big Family Secret storyline, the naturalistic portrayal of insanity, and the harsh portrait of a clergyman.
    It appears that Lady Maclairn did not receive a review when first published. So here goes:
    Mrs. Dawson, a wealthy widow, never forgave her son-in-law for taking her daughter away to Jamaica, where she died far from home after giving birth to little Rachel Cowley, our heroine. Mrs. Dawson’s will leaves her fortune to Rachel, but Rachel will only inherit if the father returns her to England to be raised by Mrs. Dawson's respectable friends, the Hardcastles. It is just as well for Rachel, because she is growing spoiled in Jamaica where she can lord it over the enslaved people. Her character improves in England where she grows up with gentle little Lucy Hardcastle and her older brother Horace. Rachel looks up to him and she grows into ‘’the habit of yielding up her will to Horace.’’
   ‘’The tribute of Horace’s admiration was directed to the cultivating the taste and forming the judgment of'' our heroine....’’

    I've been delving into digital archives to contemplate what "the reputational baggage of the name 'Mansfield'” in "Regency zeitgeist and politics," might have been. What was the "cultural discourse" around the name "Mansfield"? Yes, Lord Mansfield's rulings in Somerset and the Zong case might be a big part of our zeitgeist in Jane Austen circles in this age of racial reckoning, but as I have learned: 

• Many novelists used the name "Mansfield" without any indication that it carried cultural baggage. It was just a solid English name.
• People referenced Lord Mansfield (1756–1788) in relation to many legal issues, including investments, insurance, libel, religious freedom, and so on, and made mention of his probity and patience. But it's not easy to find references to Somerset v. Stewart before 1840 in the popular literature. They probably exist, but I haven't found any. (I am not speaking of law books which are not read by a general public)

    So what would "Austen's contemporaries" have "understood that gesture" [of putting the name Mansfield in her title] to mean"? Based on my survey of digital archives. Lord Mansfield's rulings in the Zong case (1783) and the Somerset case (1772) were not a significant part of his posthumous reputation in the first half of the 19th century. Mansfield Park was first published in 1814.

   Mansfield Park is recommended to modern audiences because it grapples with the topic of slavery and how upper-class English families like the Bertrams benefitted from the revenue from sugar plantations. Sir Thomas, the patriarch of the story is sorting out his business affairs in Antigua during crucial events, but what he is doing there is only vaguely alluded to. The novel in fact does not make any pronouncements about slavery, nor are there any consequences for the Bertram family for living off the avails of slavery--though modern critics believe it contains veiled anti-slavery allusions.
    Well, if anti-slavery messages are why we pick up Mansfield Park, we don't we toss it aside and read Alethea Lewis instead? Because she doesn't go with subtle veiled allusions. She doesn't hold back on her opinions of slave traders and plantation owners. We meet enslaved people in The Microcosm and we travel to Jamaica. Further, Lewis's novel was published before the slave trade (but not slavery) was outlawed, while Mansfield Park was published seven years after. Thus, Fanny Price asking her uncle a question about the slave trade, years after the trade was made illegal, is not exactly a daring thing to do. Regular readers of my blog will know this is something I've banged on about quite a lot, but I had to mention it again after discovering The Microcosm.  The title presumably means, "this novel is a microcosm of society today."... 
    And, Lewis uses the name "Mansfield" in her novel! I personally don't think she is intending a reference to Lord Mansfield, but others may disagree.
​​     If you've been told it was risky for Austen to speak out against slavery, and that she could only hint at it by speaking of "Moor Park Apricots," if you've been told she was brave for speaking out against slavery, check out what Lewis wrote, below (see "Editorial") 

    Continuing my discussion from my last post we turn from novels to obituaries, books of anecdotes, and one particular historical event he's associated with. Of all the topics that come to mind when people referenced Lord Mansfield, was slavery at the top of the list, or even near the top? It appears this wasn't the case until about the 1840's, but if I find any exceptions, I will add them.

Remembrances When He Died in 1793
   The European Magazine, London Review, the Scots Magazine, and Walker's Hibernian Magazine all printed a brief biography with a collection of anecdotes. It appears to be the same article. No mention of the Somerset case.
     The Annual Register, Or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year 1793 also describes the contents of his will, which mentions the now-famous Dido, as does the Edinburgh Magazine and the Gentleman's Magazine. Dido was referred to as a "free black," not as a family member.
   Other newspaper articles did not delve into Mansfield's legal accomplishments, but gave brief biographies, praised his public and private character, discussed his will and the size of his estate, and explained who would inherit his titles. Follow up articles gave details of his final illness and his funeral.