| This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. The introductory post is here. My "six simple questions for academics" post is here. |
CMP#174 A Novel Jane Austen Read and Another Novel She Might Have Read
Jane was hopping mad at Crosby Well, lately we’ve had novel after novel which focusses on heroines guarding their chastity at all costs. There were some other implicit values for female behaviour, and they feature in the following two novels, one of which Austen read, and another she might have read. These strictures are: (1) never complain about your husband and (2) never, ever confess your love to a man before he's said he loves you.
Susan, a novel, author unknown, was published in 1809 by J. Booth. Scholars surmise that the appearance of this novel spurred Jane Austen to write the publisher Benjamin Crosby, who had purchased the manuscript of her novel Susan to ask him, when was he going to publish her novel? He, or rather his son Richard, replied that they owned the manuscript, they were under no obligation to publish it, and she could have the rights back by refunding the ten pounds she'd received for the manuscript. The matter rested for a few years more until Henry Austen, Jane's brother, paid the ten pounds and then informed Crosby that the manuscript he had spurned was by the author of the well-received novels Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.
So we might expect that Jane Austen at least looked at the novel Susan. She also changed the name of her heroine from Susan to Catherine. But her novel was not published until after her death, as Northanger Abbey.
But first, let's look at a novel which we're pretty sure Austen read, because she joked about it in another one of her letters: Margiana, or Widdrington Tower (1808), by Mrs. Sykes.
Susan, a novel, author unknown, was published in 1809 by J. Booth. Scholars surmise that the appearance of this novel spurred Jane Austen to write the publisher Benjamin Crosby, who had purchased the manuscript of her novel Susan to ask him, when was he going to publish her novel? He, or rather his son Richard, replied that they owned the manuscript, they were under no obligation to publish it, and she could have the rights back by refunding the ten pounds she'd received for the manuscript. The matter rested for a few years more until Henry Austen, Jane's brother, paid the ten pounds and then informed Crosby that the manuscript he had spurned was by the author of the well-received novels Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.
So we might expect that Jane Austen at least looked at the novel Susan. She also changed the name of her heroine from Susan to Catherine. But her novel was not published until after her death, as Northanger Abbey.
But first, let's look at a novel which we're pretty sure Austen read, because she joked about it in another one of her letters: Margiana, or Widdrington Tower (1808), by Mrs. Sykes.
Cross-dressing third heroine Keep a tight control on your heart
Margiana is a historical gothic romance, set in the 14th century at the outset of the Wars of the Roses. Margiana is beautiful and intelligent. Her younger sister Genevieve is also a beauty, but not as bright and resolute as Margiana. These medieval maidens live by the same rule of conduct which Juliet references when Romeo overhears her declaring her love for him: "Fain would I dwell on form. Fain, fain deny what I have spoke!" Austen also alludes to it in Northanger Abbey: "no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared."
Margiana's sister Genevieve falls for their cousin Ethelred, but seeks to save her pride by remembering her sister's maxim: "that a woman ought never to put her affections out of her own power, unless she is certain of their being returned, as well as properly placed."
Ethelred rebukes a designing young villainess for making a pass at him: “when a lady obtrudes her affection in a quarter from whence none has ever been offered to her, she excites a sentiment more unlike to love than even hatred itself—contempt.”
Margiana is a historical gothic romance, set in the 14th century at the outset of the Wars of the Roses. Margiana is beautiful and intelligent. Her younger sister Genevieve is also a beauty, but not as bright and resolute as Margiana. These medieval maidens live by the same rule of conduct which Juliet references when Romeo overhears her declaring her love for him: "Fain would I dwell on form. Fain, fain deny what I have spoke!" Austen also alludes to it in Northanger Abbey: "no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared."
Margiana's sister Genevieve falls for their cousin Ethelred, but seeks to save her pride by remembering her sister's maxim: "that a woman ought never to put her affections out of her own power, unless she is certain of their being returned, as well as properly placed."
Ethelred rebukes a designing young villainess for making a pass at him: “when a lady obtrudes her affection in a quarter from whence none has ever been offered to her, she excites a sentiment more unlike to love than even hatred itself—contempt.”
Bing AI generated image Never complain, always forebear
Margiana’s mother, Lady Widdrington, just like Lady Kenheath in our next novel Susan, loves her husband but nurses a lifelong wounded heart because he doesn’t love her back. Both husbands are disappointed that their wives haven’t presented them with a son. Both husbands had a first love and they married out of convenience, not love.
I’m not saying one novel is copied from another, I am saying that these are common tropes and situations which are recycled and used again and again in novels of this era.
Both this author and the anonymous author of Susan approve of women who put up with neglect and coldness without complaint. “Yet at no time, and to no person, was [Lady Widdrington] ever heard to complain.” She dies, still suffering. While Margiana is filled with filial piety for her father, she also sees he’s a bad husband; the lesson she draws is to be very careful about who you marry--in fact she is leery of getting married at all.
She will get married, but first we've got five volumes to get through, with battles and sieges and castles and prisoners and villains (something Austen joked about) and misunderstandings and hauntings, and surprises and secrets revealed in the final chapters around parentage. Jane Austen joked about travelling to Widdrington and getting locked up in a tower, something that happens to more than one character. I got annoyed with the hero Ethelred when he believed something derogatory to Genevieve’s virtue and would not back down. When she tells him to his face that she did not send him a certain letter, he contradicts her. The novel also features a sprightly, cross-dressing third heroine named Arlette who travels around in male garb.
One last point: This story is set back when everyone was a Catholic, so the authoress assures her readers that her heroine is not only beautiful, but discerning: “the serious principles Margiana had imbibed from her [mother] were those, not of bigotry, but of pure and true religion, unalloyed with the blind superstition of the times." Note, by the way, the word "serious" used as an allusion to religious principles. Austen also used the word this way, as explained by Brenda S. Cox in her book, Fashionable Goodness.
A fuller synopsis of Margiana is available in The Gothic Novel 1790-1830 by Ann B. Tracy.
Now, to the two-volume novel Susan...
Margiana’s mother, Lady Widdrington, just like Lady Kenheath in our next novel Susan, loves her husband but nurses a lifelong wounded heart because he doesn’t love her back. Both husbands are disappointed that their wives haven’t presented them with a son. Both husbands had a first love and they married out of convenience, not love.
I’m not saying one novel is copied from another, I am saying that these are common tropes and situations which are recycled and used again and again in novels of this era.
Both this author and the anonymous author of Susan approve of women who put up with neglect and coldness without complaint. “Yet at no time, and to no person, was [Lady Widdrington] ever heard to complain.” She dies, still suffering. While Margiana is filled with filial piety for her father, she also sees he’s a bad husband; the lesson she draws is to be very careful about who you marry--in fact she is leery of getting married at all.
She will get married, but first we've got five volumes to get through, with battles and sieges and castles and prisoners and villains (something Austen joked about) and misunderstandings and hauntings, and surprises and secrets revealed in the final chapters around parentage. Jane Austen joked about travelling to Widdrington and getting locked up in a tower, something that happens to more than one character. I got annoyed with the hero Ethelred when he believed something derogatory to Genevieve’s virtue and would not back down. When she tells him to his face that she did not send him a certain letter, he contradicts her. The novel also features a sprightly, cross-dressing third heroine named Arlette who travels around in male garb.
One last point: This story is set back when everyone was a Catholic, so the authoress assures her readers that her heroine is not only beautiful, but discerning: “the serious principles Margiana had imbibed from her [mother] were those, not of bigotry, but of pure and true religion, unalloyed with the blind superstition of the times." Note, by the way, the word "serious" used as an allusion to religious principles. Austen also used the word this way, as explained by Brenda S. Cox in her book, Fashionable Goodness.
A fuller synopsis of Margiana is available in The Gothic Novel 1790-1830 by Ann B. Tracy.
Now, to the two-volume novel Susan...
Susan volunteers to teach the local children. Bing AI-generated image. Susan is Sweet Sixteen
The parentage of our titular heroine is ambiguous. Someone pays for her to be reared in innocence and solitude on an island in a remote part of Scotland. Susan is fortunate in her kind and judicious guardian/governess, Mrs. Howard, an army officer’s widow. The house is rented from a Scottish laird, Lord Kenheath. Susan meets him one day when he arrives on the little ferryboat that brings mail and supplies from the mainland. She jumps up like a frightened roe, as a good maiden should, and makes to run away. She slips and nearly falls into the water; he catches her hand and saves her. He admires her extremely, and right away we feel the uneasy vibes.
Kenheath insists on taking her to Edinburgh to stay with him and his wife. This makes Mrs. Howard uneasy, given that Lord Kenheath is a good deal older and Susan is inexperienced in the ways of the world. But she receives a letter affirming that it’s all right with Susan’s mysterious father, whoever he is.
On the way there, the travelers are involved in a carriage accident, one of several which the author resorts to in the story. Her other means of keeping her characters in one place, or keeping them out of the way, is to strike them with illness. Austen gets the Grants out of her way in Mansfield Park by giving Mr. Grant gout, but think about how subtly she does it, compared to (ahem) some other authors. At any rate, in the course of this first accident, Susan is thrown together with Lord Kenheath’s orphaned nephew, Archibald Hamilton, and the two promptly fall in love.
Another relative, Mr. Stuart, also likes the new houseguest. Getting her alone, he asks her if she’d like to become his mistress. This kind of insult always brings out the feisty in our heroines: “The purity of her own bosom had, for some time, prevented her understanding the nature of his proposals; but she was no sooner convinced of their unvarnished meaning, than all the indignant pride of virtue took possession of her soul. In a very few words she expressed her abhorrence and contempt of both himself and his infamous offers, and immediately rushed from his presence.”
Just as in Charlotte Summers, Lord Kenheath advises Susan to not make a scene, that it is better for her reputation if the whole thing is hushed up. So what’s up with this Lord Kenheath? His wife is rather uneasy about his designs on the girl.
The parentage of our titular heroine is ambiguous. Someone pays for her to be reared in innocence and solitude on an island in a remote part of Scotland. Susan is fortunate in her kind and judicious guardian/governess, Mrs. Howard, an army officer’s widow. The house is rented from a Scottish laird, Lord Kenheath. Susan meets him one day when he arrives on the little ferryboat that brings mail and supplies from the mainland. She jumps up like a frightened roe, as a good maiden should, and makes to run away. She slips and nearly falls into the water; he catches her hand and saves her. He admires her extremely, and right away we feel the uneasy vibes.
Kenheath insists on taking her to Edinburgh to stay with him and his wife. This makes Mrs. Howard uneasy, given that Lord Kenheath is a good deal older and Susan is inexperienced in the ways of the world. But she receives a letter affirming that it’s all right with Susan’s mysterious father, whoever he is.
On the way there, the travelers are involved in a carriage accident, one of several which the author resorts to in the story. Her other means of keeping her characters in one place, or keeping them out of the way, is to strike them with illness. Austen gets the Grants out of her way in Mansfield Park by giving Mr. Grant gout, but think about how subtly she does it, compared to (ahem) some other authors. At any rate, in the course of this first accident, Susan is thrown together with Lord Kenheath’s orphaned nephew, Archibald Hamilton, and the two promptly fall in love.
Another relative, Mr. Stuart, also likes the new houseguest. Getting her alone, he asks her if she’d like to become his mistress. This kind of insult always brings out the feisty in our heroines: “The purity of her own bosom had, for some time, prevented her understanding the nature of his proposals; but she was no sooner convinced of their unvarnished meaning, than all the indignant pride of virtue took possession of her soul. In a very few words she expressed her abhorrence and contempt of both himself and his infamous offers, and immediately rushed from his presence.”
Just as in Charlotte Summers, Lord Kenheath advises Susan to not make a scene, that it is better for her reputation if the whole thing is hushed up. So what’s up with this Lord Kenheath? His wife is rather uneasy about his designs on the girl.
Bing AI-generated image Spoilers ahoy
After recovering from a serious fever, brought on by shock, Susan just wants to get back to her island, convinced that she won’t be able to marry Archibald since Lady Kenheath wants him to marry her daughter instead. A convenient carriage accident en route to her home brings her to the door of the MacLaurins, an ancient and numerous Scottish family who are gobsmacked by Susan’s resemblance to their long-lost beloved sister/daughter Mary, who eloped with some unknown man years ago.
Susan makes it back to her island, whither she is followed by young Donald MacLaurin, who has also fallen in love with her. A few days later, Archibald appears, to tell Susan that her beloved guardian Mrs. Howard is very ill with a fever, which is why she can't be there on the island during what follows. Archibald encounters Donald, high words ensue, and the two young men fight a duel on the front lawn. Archibald is the more severely wounded, and the only place for him to be treated and nursed is in Susan’s house.
The doctor says Archibald isn’t dying from his dueling wound, he’s dying from a broken heart, but even so, Susan won’t confess her love for him, because that would be immodest. A garrulous house guest, Mrs. Jane MacLaurin, bustles in to assure him that Susan doesn’t love Donald. Susan’s first thought is “Good heavens, Madam! He will certainly think I desired you to say all this. What an opinion must he entertain of me!” But as she thinks it over, she realizes it must be for the best that he learns that she loves him. It might save his life, after all.
The author still spares Susan from making a direct confession of her love. Once she has recovered enough from her own latest bout of fever and fainting fits (brought on by witnessing the duel), she sneaks into Archibald’s bedroom, thinking he is asleep, and sighs that she would willingly die for him. That’s good enough for Archibald, and he recovers.
After recovering from a serious fever, brought on by shock, Susan just wants to get back to her island, convinced that she won’t be able to marry Archibald since Lady Kenheath wants him to marry her daughter instead. A convenient carriage accident en route to her home brings her to the door of the MacLaurins, an ancient and numerous Scottish family who are gobsmacked by Susan’s resemblance to their long-lost beloved sister/daughter Mary, who eloped with some unknown man years ago.
Susan makes it back to her island, whither she is followed by young Donald MacLaurin, who has also fallen in love with her. A few days later, Archibald appears, to tell Susan that her beloved guardian Mrs. Howard is very ill with a fever, which is why she can't be there on the island during what follows. Archibald encounters Donald, high words ensue, and the two young men fight a duel on the front lawn. Archibald is the more severely wounded, and the only place for him to be treated and nursed is in Susan’s house.
The doctor says Archibald isn’t dying from his dueling wound, he’s dying from a broken heart, but even so, Susan won’t confess her love for him, because that would be immodest. A garrulous house guest, Mrs. Jane MacLaurin, bustles in to assure him that Susan doesn’t love Donald. Susan’s first thought is “Good heavens, Madam! He will certainly think I desired you to say all this. What an opinion must he entertain of me!” But as she thinks it over, she realizes it must be for the best that he learns that she loves him. It might save his life, after all.
The author still spares Susan from making a direct confession of her love. Once she has recovered enough from her own latest bout of fever and fainting fits (brought on by witnessing the duel), she sneaks into Archibald’s bedroom, thinking he is asleep, and sighs that she would willingly die for him. That’s good enough for Archibald, and he recovers.
Secrets Revealed
Lord Kenheath comes to the island and confesses that yes, Susan is his daughter, born of a secret earlier marriage. His deserted bride died of childbirth and shock after reading in the newspaper that he was engaged to marry an heiress. She died on the very day of his wedding—which is important, because that spares him from being a bigamist and his second daughter from being illegitimate. Lord Kenheath’s behaviour as a youth was absolutely deplorable and he’s still a world-class jerk to his current wife, whose behaviour has been irreproachable. Lord Kenheath is the reason Susan grew up on an island without knowing any family. He's the reason the MacLaurins mourned their beloved, vanished, Mary for years. He's the reason we, the reader, had to experience the good ol' incest tease with both him and Uncle Stuart. So of course our heroine falls to her knees and asks him for his blessing because he’s her father! And she asks the MacLaurins to forgive him for eloping with and then abandoning their beloved Mary. Because that’s how heroines do.
At least both sides of the family now agree that Susan and Archibald should get married, and since they are the legatees of Mr. Stuart, who conveniently died of a fever after a horse-riding accident, they have the means to do so. Cue the bagpipes and the happy peasants dancing on the greensward.
The only resemblance to Northanger Abbey that I can see is surely a coincidental one: After meeting Archibald Hamilton, Susan retires to her bedchamber to dream of him. Northanger Abbey has no fainting fits, no high fevers, no duels, and Catherine Morland knows who her parents are.
Of Susan, the reviewer for the Monthly Review remarked: “The language is always modest, though sometimes ungrammatical; and the tale contains a prodigious number of fevers, together with several faintings, two duels, [I only caught one] and one or two deaths.”
Lord Kenheath comes to the island and confesses that yes, Susan is his daughter, born of a secret earlier marriage. His deserted bride died of childbirth and shock after reading in the newspaper that he was engaged to marry an heiress. She died on the very day of his wedding—which is important, because that spares him from being a bigamist and his second daughter from being illegitimate. Lord Kenheath’s behaviour as a youth was absolutely deplorable and he’s still a world-class jerk to his current wife, whose behaviour has been irreproachable. Lord Kenheath is the reason Susan grew up on an island without knowing any family. He's the reason the MacLaurins mourned their beloved, vanished, Mary for years. He's the reason we, the reader, had to experience the good ol' incest tease with both him and Uncle Stuart. So of course our heroine falls to her knees and asks him for his blessing because he’s her father! And she asks the MacLaurins to forgive him for eloping with and then abandoning their beloved Mary. Because that’s how heroines do.
At least both sides of the family now agree that Susan and Archibald should get married, and since they are the legatees of Mr. Stuart, who conveniently died of a fever after a horse-riding accident, they have the means to do so. Cue the bagpipes and the happy peasants dancing on the greensward.
The only resemblance to Northanger Abbey that I can see is surely a coincidental one: After meeting Archibald Hamilton, Susan retires to her bedchamber to dream of him. Northanger Abbey has no fainting fits, no high fevers, no duels, and Catherine Morland knows who her parents are.
Of Susan, the reviewer for the Monthly Review remarked: “The language is always modest, though sometimes ungrammatical; and the tale contains a prodigious number of fevers, together with several faintings, two duels, [I only caught one] and one or two deaths.”
Margiana, or Widdrington Tower, did not receive any reviews when it was published. In fact, it seems none of the three novels Henrietta Masterman Sykes (1766-1823) wrote received reviews, but she has received some critical attention more recently. Her contemporary novel Sir William Dorien (1812) has been called Dickensian. I would say that her prose style is relatively free from trite cliches, she keeps her poetry-writing urges to a minimum, and she is not afraid of taking on complex plots connected to historical events. In this historical novel she refrains from having her characters speak forsoothly.
Jane Austen was a partisan of the Yorks in the Wars of the Roses, or at least she was as a teenager, as revealed in her juvenile composition, The History of England.
I haven't read much of historical fiction from this pre-Walter Scott era, but two of the best-selling authors in this genre were the Porter sisters. Jane Austen scholar Devoney Looser has deeply researched and written a joint biography of Jane and Anna Maria Porter, who wrote innovative titles in this genre. Looser's book, Sister Novelists is a detailed portrayal of a fascinating family and a vibrant age.
I wrote earlier about the forbearing wife here.
Previous post: The first First Impressions Next post: Ella Rosenberg!
Jane Austen was a partisan of the Yorks in the Wars of the Roses, or at least she was as a teenager, as revealed in her juvenile composition, The History of England.
I haven't read much of historical fiction from this pre-Walter Scott era, but two of the best-selling authors in this genre were the Porter sisters. Jane Austen scholar Devoney Looser has deeply researched and written a joint biography of Jane and Anna Maria Porter, who wrote innovative titles in this genre. Looser's book, Sister Novelists is a detailed portrayal of a fascinating family and a vibrant age.
I wrote earlier about the forbearing wife here.
Previous post: The first First Impressions Next post: Ella Rosenberg!
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