I’m going to do some heavy-duty pearl-clutching in this post, as I fall back on my fainting couch after having read Jane Austen’s Unbecoming Conjunctions: Subversive Laughter, Embodied History (2005) by Jill Heydt-Stevenson.
    The “subversive laughter” of the title refers to Heydt-Stevenson’s thesis that Austen’s novels, so genteel on the surface, are actually full of humorous sexual imagery which she included not only for its own sake but to subversively undermine the patriarchy. ​
   That is my restatement of her thesis. In her own words, as stated in an article in Nineteenth-Century Literature: "Specifically, Austen's bawdy irreverence becomes part of a radical critique of courtship as she closes the gap between fallen women and proper ladies, critiques sensibility's ideological sentimentalization of prostitution, and undermines patriarchal modes of seeing."
    Heydt-Stevenson finds many examples of sexual double entendre in Austen. I won't dispute her about Mary Crawford’s “rears and vices,” which sure looks like a sodomy joke, although it bewilders me that Austen would do that, but apparently even when Austen uses words like “make” and "known" and “tumble," she is hinting at sexual intercourse. (By the way, this post is not exactly g-rated)...​    

     Scholar Anne Hawkins estimates that almost five hundred women brought out novels between 1789 and 1824. One of those women was Jane Austen, whom you might have heard of. Another was Caroline Burney, author of Seraphina, or A Winter in Town (1809), who you probably haven't.
    One proviso: we can’t be certain that Caroline Burney was a woman. The name is probably a pseudonym, an attempt to cash in on the fame of Frances Burney and her half-sister Sarah Harriet Burney. When Sarah Harriet’s publisher brought out Traits of Nature, he advertised: “'The publisher of this Work thinks it proper to state that Miss Burney is not the Author of a Novel called "Seraphina," published in the year 1809, under the assumed name of Caroline Burney.” Well, Caroline Burney identified as a female, so that should be good enough for our purposes.
     In addition, the subtitle A Winter in Town is an echo of the best-selling A Winter in London by Thomas William Surr, which I reviewed here. According to scholar Chris Stevens, Surr’s novel created such a sensation that it briefly inspired its own “microgenre,” the “Season” novel, meaning of course the social season in London, Bath, Brighton, or wherever.  These “Season” novels featured wealthy and titled characters behaving badly. Sometimes these portraits were obviously based upon real people, which added to the appeal of the books. London as a sinkhole of vice was such a popular theme in novels that Jane Austen jokes about it in a letter to her sister Cassandra, quoted above.    
​    Some of the older novels I’ve been reading were reviewed in their day, but many came out to no fanfare, and Caroline Burney’s three-volume effort is one of those. So, out of fellow-feeling for these neglected authoresses, I’m instituting an occasional series of book reviews for novels that never got a book review. This post, (I think), is the very first review of Seraphina, or A Winter in Town...

   In earlier posts in my series on Mansfield Park and education, I discussed innate qualities like disposition and understanding. Now I'd like to circle back to the qualities of wit and cleverness. In Fanny Price we see a heroine with no aptitude for wit contrasted with the delightfully witty Mary Crawford. No wonder so many people prefer Mary to Fanny.
     Edmund Bertram, the man they both love, disclaims having any wit: "there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking it out.”
     But their creator Jane Austen was very witty. Sly and subtle jokes abound in her private letters and in her novels, even in the more serious Mansfield Park. Her earlier works are hilarious. Why did such a witty author create Fanny Price, a heroine without wit? Why did she create a heroine so unlike herself?​

     Jane Austen’s memorial plaque at Winchester Cathedral praises the “benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper and the extraordinary endowments of her mind.” 
   Endowment is related to the word dower, as in dowry. Edmund Bertram says regretfully of Mary, "For where shall we find a woman whom Nature had so richly endowed?"
   Endowments are gifts from God, and referred to variously as gifts from a Creator, or Providence, or Nature, as in "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." Today, we might also use the phrase "God-given talents."
     To the innate qualities we've discussed in the previous posts, such as understanding, disposition, and temper, we can add qualities or endowments such as artistic ability and wit. Being witty is allied to being quick in apprehension, or being “quick-sighted.” But not everyone appreciated a witty disposition in Austen's time.

     Author William Deresiewicz points out in A Jane Austen Education (2012) that when it came to education for children, Austen's "emphasis… was on character. Not beauty or creativity or even intelligence, but conduct and temperament and the capacity for empathy and feeling." 
     In the previous posts, we've been looking at the theme of education, especially as it relates to Mansfield Park. In the conversation between the Bertram girls and their Aunt Norris, we see that Maria and Julia have been absorbing facts: “all the metals, semi-metals, planets, and distinguished philosophers,” but Austen informs us that the girls were “entirely deficient in the less common acquirements of self-knowledge, generosity and humility.” 
    Lady Bertram, their mother, pays no attention to their education.
   In contrast, in Jane West's The Advantages of Education (1793), Mrs. Williams takes her daughter out of a fashionable boarding school and starts her on a course of guided reading. This section of the novel gives us an insight into how educated people of Austen's time and social class viewed themselves and their world: “History being most adapted to her purpose…  The Grecian and Roman empires furnished various narratives, in which the force of patriotism, the firmness of virtue, and the astonishing greatness to which independence and integrity elevate the human mind, are exemplified. From the story of eastern nations, and the luxurious effeminacy that marked the declining days of Rome, [Mrs. Williams] endeavoured to inspire the attentive girl with an abhorrence of extravagance, corruption and licentious pleasures.
      “In the annals of our own nation, she taught her to observe the gradual development of the mental powers, and to trace with nice discernment the varying manners of her countryman, from the rude Briton to the haughty Baron, and from thence to the elegant politeness of the present age…. Maria was led to admire the patience and courage of the untutored savage, the hospitality and spirit of the feudal tyrant, the mistaken piety and mortification of the Monk, and the steadfast firmness of our first reformers.”
    Mrs. Williams' tutelage of her daughter helps her develop moral principles, which in turn help her resist the blandishments of a would-be seducer. (For more on this novel, click here). For rest of this article, click "Read More."