So where are you in your journey from Austen fan to Austen superfan? Have you worked out the Austen family tree? Do you smile politely when someone quotes Austen's "little bit of ivory" at you, because you've already heard or read it a hundred times? Have you read any or all of the novels mentioned in Northanger Abbey? Did you know that "Lover's Vows," the play performed by the young people in Mansfield Park, was a real play?
      In my opinion, Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney is geared toward people who are not far along in their Austen journey, but are ready and eager to learn more. On the other hand, well-informed Janeites might find that it covers familiar territory, while others might be bemused by the proposition that Maria Edgeworth and Frances Burney are forgotten writers whose connection to Austen was waiting to be rediscovered.
    I don't mean that as a criticism of a well-written and deeply researched book, which this is. For someone wanting to learn more about Austen and her literary world, Jane Austen's Bookshelf is packed with revelations for the reader (I'll get back to that later) and a valuable guidebook to the literature of her time.   

  CMP#199  Lydia Bennet: rebel or victim?
     Is Lydia Bennet a feminist rebel or a victim of grooming? How should we feel about her marriage to Wickham?
   Jane Austen portrays Lydia as laughing and joyful when she elopes in Pride and Prejudice. She refuses to be parted from Wickham, even though they are not married. Her sister Elizabeth deplores Wickham and his “wretched” character, but she speaks to Jane not of his unforgettable conduct, but of “their conduct.” She also says to herself: “how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.” [Emphasis added]
      Elizabeth thinks her sister, even at 15, should have known better. She comforts herself that at least Lydia thought she was eloping to get married: “she was serious on the subject of their journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a scheme of infamy." Austen also tells us that Mrs. Bennet was not “humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct.” Because of course both Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, as Lydia’s parents, must be thought of as being in large measure responsible for her faulty character.
   Still, Austen does not absolve Lydia on account of her age and inexperience, and neither does Elizabeth. No doubt we'd react to a 15-year-old running off with a grown man differently today and assign blame differently...

CMP#192  Black Rock House: a psychological thriller from 1808
by Mrs. E.G. Bayfield: Synopsis with Spoilers
   
Pop quiz: which events in Black Rock House cause our heroine, Gertrude Wallace, to faint dead away?

1. When the man she loves pressures her to elope with him.
2. When her husband leaves the ballroom with a beautiful woman, leaving her behind, seven months' pregnant.
3. When she realizes that her husband is having an affair.
4. When her husband threatens to blacken her name so he can divorce her.
5. When she hears her husband has killed a man in a duel.
6. When she’s reunited with her father who had cast her off.

    If you answered: “all of the above,” you’re right! Poor Gertrude suffers a great many travails in these three volumes—the book is punctuated with the thud of Gertrude hitting the carpet. Yet, she is a plucky girl--she does stay upright and conscious when she’s abandoned by her soldier husband and left behind, first in Bath and then in Ireland, when she’s in two storms at sea, when she’s caught in a flood, and when she's kneeling beside her husband’s “mangled corpse” after he kills himself. Many tears are shed of course... 

​          My latest article in Jane Austen's Regency World magazine (Jan/Feb 2024 issue) concerns the novel First Impressions by Margaret Holford. As devoted Janeites know, First Impressions was Austen's original title for Pride and Prejudice, and it's generally thought she changed the title because Holford's novel came out first, in 1801. ​Perhaps, having heard of the novel, Austen got her hands on a copy, to see how it compared with her own unpublished work. I think there are indications in Pride and Prejudice that Austen indeed read and drew some inspiration from First Impressions. For that matter, astute Janeites will spot a slight similarity between the opening of the novel, which I quoted above, and the opening of another Austen novel. But I won't take that up in this post. Instead, here's a plot synopsis. You'll see that this novel continues our theme of girls who must fight to preserve their virtue. The titillation of the tale arises from the perils to which Maria is exposed, and the moral lessons arise from the lengths to which our heroine will go to preserve her virgin honour.
​      Holford's First Impressions is a four volume novel, and although the action drags a bit in the middle as we suffer along with the heroine through her various vicissitudes, I have to say it starts out with a bang--Holford wastes no time in setting up her heroine to be both penniless and friendless. Her plight is not a very good reflection on the foresight of her late guardian, Madame de Vaublanc, when it comes to estate planning. We have to assume that good old lady didn’t realize her cousin and executor was dishonest and corrupt, although the fact that his name is “Gripe” should have tipped off any cautious woman...