When you are a country clergyman of modest means with a large family, prudence requires that you stay on good terms with your wife's wealthy relations. So it was with the Rev. George Austen, his wife Cassandra, and his wife's relatives, the Leigh Perrots. The Austens lived in expectation and hope of receiving an inheritance from the childless Leigh Perrots (see Brenda Cox's blog post for an explanation of the family tree and the monies involved). When Mrs. Leigh Perrot was arrested in 1799 for shoplifting Mrs. Austen offered to send Cassandra and Jane to keep her company while she was held awaiting trial but the offer was declined. (She was acquitted). When the Rev. Austen retired, he and his family moved to Bath--where the Leigh Perrots lived. And, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Mrs. Austen dissuaded Jane from looking for a publisher for her novels for fear that the Leigh Perrots wouldn't like it, but that is speculation.
   The Austens were to be disappointed. When James Leigh Perrot died in 1817, he left everything to his wife. This happened near the end of Jane Austen's life and in fact, she believed the bad news set her health back. Mrs. Leigh Perrot lived on until 1836.
    The Austens were not the only family to be disappointed by the last will and testament of a wealthy relative. The same blow fell--even more severely--upon authoress Eliza Kirkham Mathews, then Eliza Kirkham Strong. I will continue referring to her as "EKM" even though for this part of her story, she is "EKS." Faithful readers of this blog know I have written about EKM's life and her poetry and novels before. This is not because she has earned a significant place in the history of the novel. The only slight scholarly notice she has received is owing to her heroine in What Has Been, who tries to earn money by writing a novel. (EKM returns to this theme in a sub plot in Griffith Abbey). My affectionate interest in EKM first arose because I thought her poetry was maudlin, then I realized I had been too harsh on her because her life story truly was tragic. Now I'm hooked on delving up as much information as I can about her via the internet. I love a research rabbit hole. At any rate, here comes another sad chapter from EKM's life. It's easy to see how Eliza’s tragic experiences informed her writing... 

   ​I am interrupting my examination of the works of Eliza Kirkham Mathews, for which I interrupted my examination of the authorship of The Woman of Colour, to clutch my pearls so hard that my knuckles whiten over a recent headline in the British newspaper The Telegraph. ‘Don’t change books to be more PC--that’s like cutting Jane Austen’s buggery joke.”
   In this article, Paula Byrne, an eminent and telegenic Austen scholar, once again asserts that Mary Crawford’s dinner-party quip about “rears and vices” in Mansfield Park is a pun about sodomy. She, and millions of other Austen fans, evidently take enormous pleasure in repeating this. In fact, I have the impression that it is now received wisdom. So by protesting, I mark myself as a pedantic killjoy, and I’m throwing myself open to accusations of being a homophobic prude. Even if I’m right, a lot of people want to believe it anyway. It’s a prime exhibit in the gallery that proves Jane Austen was a rule-breaker, a gal after our own hearts and our own enlightened principles.
   Despite knowing how invested so many of my fellow Janeites are in this ribald notion, I am going to reiterate why I think it just can’t be true...

CMP #214: Mrs. Foster has thoughts: review of Light and Shade, 1803 
​  Of the several thousand novels published during the long eighteenth century, The Woman of Colour has a special place in the hearts of the academy because the protagonist is a woman of colour. I reviewed the novel here. Some academics speculate that the author of The Woman of Colour might actually be a woman of colour. I will weigh up the case for that, but Mrs. E.M. Foster and Mrs. E.G. Bayfield are the top candidates for the answer to the question: “who wrote The Woman of Colour”? The answer isn't clear because Foster and Bayfield have been attributed as authors of the same titles. For example, Bayfield and not Foster is listed as the author of Light and Shade in some references.
   Therefore, I am following the tangled trail of title page attributions and—here’s a novel thought—actually reading the books authored by Foster and Bayfield to look for similarities with The Woman of Colour in language, plot, tropes, and themes...

   In the first three volumes of Sons of the Viscount and the Daughters of the Earl, we have read about the protracted angst of two couples who can't marry each other because of a feud between two noble families, and another pair of lovers, Elvira and Sidney, who are parted forever because she married someone else. Sidney is now married to Julia, a sweet and deserving girl. 
   The unhappy Cecil (a girl) and Robert, Lord Desmond, along with Henry Fortescue and Angeline de Courci, are unable to marry because more than twenty years ago Emma, (Robert's mother and Angeline's aunt), could not marry Viscount Fortescue (Cecil and Henry's father), because of the family feud described in earlier posts. What is needed--obviously--is for Emma, now widowed, to go to her old sweetheart Viscount Fortescue and beg him to put aside the family feud so the young people can marry. This solution does not occur to her. What can I do to help? she asks her unhappy son, all bewildered. What could I possibly do?...
       “Oh, my adored mother! I would die sooner than you should be put to the trial… [Robert answers]. I cannot tell you—I would not for the world you should suppose me capable of wishing to expose you to such a painful task.”
    “And will you refuse to give me the information I demand? Then, Angeline, I must appeal to you.”
   “Oh, not to me, dear aunt, not to me, I would not wound you by the mention of such an idea.” ​