| 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#238 Rise of a Genius: An incompetent piece of BBC agit-prop
Revolution is literally in the air My article about Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius is now live at the History Reclaimed website. It's an honour to have my contribution to the debate about the BBC shared at a site founded by so many eminent historians and academics. Below is additional material that I did not include in my article for reasons of length.
In an earlier post, I decried a BBC documentary on Shakespeare that astonished me for the amount of misinformation it conveyed. Now it's time to clutch my pearls over the same treatment meted out to Jane Austen. I didn’t see this documentary when it aired in the UK in May, but I recently found it on an online streaming service
If you are in need of another eye-opening lecture on slavery, colonialism, empire, class prejudice and economic injustice, set to a soundtrack of driving violins, this is the program you've been looking for. If, however, you assumed a program called "Rise of a Genius" would offer an explication of Austen’s wit and her unique talents, you will be disappointed. You can get a sample of the mood of this program by viewing this preview here.
The BBC has given us many shows on Jane Austen over the years, on both radio and television, and if you stack these older programs up against this one, you will see how respect for serious scholarship has been replaced with—whatever this is. If this is the best that the BBC could muster for Austen’s 250th birthday, then the BBC is a hollowed-out shell, a travesty of a mockery of a sham...
In an earlier post, I decried a BBC documentary on Shakespeare that astonished me for the amount of misinformation it conveyed. Now it's time to clutch my pearls over the same treatment meted out to Jane Austen. I didn’t see this documentary when it aired in the UK in May, but I recently found it on an online streaming service
If you are in need of another eye-opening lecture on slavery, colonialism, empire, class prejudice and economic injustice, set to a soundtrack of driving violins, this is the program you've been looking for. If, however, you assumed a program called "Rise of a Genius" would offer an explication of Austen’s wit and her unique talents, you will be disappointed. You can get a sample of the mood of this program by viewing this preview here.
The BBC has given us many shows on Jane Austen over the years, on both radio and television, and if you stack these older programs up against this one, you will see how respect for serious scholarship has been replaced with—whatever this is. If this is the best that the BBC could muster for Austen’s 250th birthday, then the BBC is a hollowed-out shell, a travesty of a mockery of a sham...
Just a chess piece
It's routine for modern academics to denigrate Austen's family--Cassandra who burned her letters, and the brother, nephew and nieces who presented a prettified version of Austen as a demure spinster. But this program piles on so much bitterness that I'm moved to defend the family and their choices. The modern attitudes of the filmmakers are miles away from the beliefs and attitudes around family, respect for elders, and religion, which prevailed in Austen's day. It's as though they can't even comprehend the moral universe Austen lived in.
For example, we learn that at the age of 18, Austen was sent to Southampton to lend a hand when a member of the extended family was having a baby. We are invited to feel indignant about this. She was merely “a chess piece to be moved around the board… as is convenient to the family”
I don't think the documentary ever mentions Austen's Christian faith, which would have called on her to serve her family. When brother Edward’s wife died in childbirth, leaving ten children behind, was it okay for Cassandra to go live with the stricken family for a time or should she have refused to be moved around like a chess piece?
The talking heads then suggest that young Jane must have been traumatized by witnessing a birth --this is a girl raised in the country, whose dad was a tenant farmer, remember--and being faced with the reality that maternal death was a possibility in these situations. However, we have no record of her feelings. The talking heads didn't mention that her Southport relatives invited Jane to stay until Christmas, and she attended some balls. So, I don't know, maybe she enjoyed her stay. The documentary always chooses the darker side.
It's routine for modern academics to denigrate Austen's family--Cassandra who burned her letters, and the brother, nephew and nieces who presented a prettified version of Austen as a demure spinster. But this program piles on so much bitterness that I'm moved to defend the family and their choices. The modern attitudes of the filmmakers are miles away from the beliefs and attitudes around family, respect for elders, and religion, which prevailed in Austen's day. It's as though they can't even comprehend the moral universe Austen lived in.
For example, we learn that at the age of 18, Austen was sent to Southampton to lend a hand when a member of the extended family was having a baby. We are invited to feel indignant about this. She was merely “a chess piece to be moved around the board… as is convenient to the family”
I don't think the documentary ever mentions Austen's Christian faith, which would have called on her to serve her family. When brother Edward’s wife died in childbirth, leaving ten children behind, was it okay for Cassandra to go live with the stricken family for a time or should she have refused to be moved around like a chess piece?
The talking heads then suggest that young Jane must have been traumatized by witnessing a birth --this is a girl raised in the country, whose dad was a tenant farmer, remember--and being faced with the reality that maternal death was a possibility in these situations. However, we have no record of her feelings. The talking heads didn't mention that her Southport relatives invited Jane to stay until Christmas, and she attended some balls. So, I don't know, maybe she enjoyed her stay. The documentary always chooses the darker side.
Aunt Leigh-Perrot pictured at her trial Patronage
The Austens lived in a system based on patronage. Austen's father. an orphan from a poor branch of the family, owed his education and his livelihood to a generous rich relative. Her brothers Charles and Frank were dependent upon “interest”-for their advancement in the Navy, just like William Price in Mansfield Park. The Austens allowed their son Edward to be adopted by some rich childless relatives. Another brother, Henry, was blatant with his string-pulling and favor-asking. Why do you suppose Mrs. Austen twice volunteered Cassandra and Jane to go to Bath to support their wealthy aunt Mrs. Leigh-Perrot when she was charged with shoplifting? (The aunt turned the offer down.) In a world like this, perhaps it behooved the daughters of this family to do what they could to pay it forward.
It's true the talking heads sometimes acknowledge that Austen was beloved and supported by her father and brothers, but they prefer to frame her life story in terms of her financial dependence on them and how restrictive and patriarchal this was. Yes, the genteel professions were closed to Cassandra and Jane--they could not become ministers like James or Henry, or sailors like Charles and Frank. That is, they could not be sent to a naval academy at age 12 and then risk their lives on the ocean waves--it wasn't all swings and roundabouts for men in patriarchal societies, either.
However, Cassandra and Jane could not retain their status as members of the gentry if they took a job as a teacher or governess or opened a shop in Southport--which they certainly could have done if they'd been so inclined. We moderns simply do not have the same attitudes about work and money that the Austen women had.
The Austens lived in a system based on patronage. Austen's father. an orphan from a poor branch of the family, owed his education and his livelihood to a generous rich relative. Her brothers Charles and Frank were dependent upon “interest”-for their advancement in the Navy, just like William Price in Mansfield Park. The Austens allowed their son Edward to be adopted by some rich childless relatives. Another brother, Henry, was blatant with his string-pulling and favor-asking. Why do you suppose Mrs. Austen twice volunteered Cassandra and Jane to go to Bath to support their wealthy aunt Mrs. Leigh-Perrot when she was charged with shoplifting? (The aunt turned the offer down.) In a world like this, perhaps it behooved the daughters of this family to do what they could to pay it forward.
It's true the talking heads sometimes acknowledge that Austen was beloved and supported by her father and brothers, but they prefer to frame her life story in terms of her financial dependence on them and how restrictive and patriarchal this was. Yes, the genteel professions were closed to Cassandra and Jane--they could not become ministers like James or Henry, or sailors like Charles and Frank. That is, they could not be sent to a naval academy at age 12 and then risk their lives on the ocean waves--it wasn't all swings and roundabouts for men in patriarchal societies, either.
However, Cassandra and Jane could not retain their status as members of the gentry if they took a job as a teacher or governess or opened a shop in Southport--which they certainly could have done if they'd been so inclined. We moderns simply do not have the same attitudes about work and money that the Austen women had.
Elizabeth Helme, teacher, translator, author of best-selling novels Hardship and rejection
We are told the trauma of losing her father and the rootless life which followed, in which the Austen women lived in rented lodgings at Southport at elsewhere, silenced Austen's voice and during those years she did no new writing. The fact is, we don't know exactly why Austen had a fallow period before she moved to Chawton in 1809. My personal speculation--and it is speculation--is that her mother discouraged her ambitions. I suspect Mrs. Austen was worried that Edward's wife Elizabeth, the daughter of a baronet, would not approve of a sister-in-law who was a published author. Edward was the richest of the brothers by far and Mrs. Austen always knew which side her bread was buttered on. It was only after Elizabeth's untimely death, noted above, that Edward made Chawton cottage available to his mother and sisters and only then did Jane, with her brother Henry's help, seriously turn to writing for money. Though still anonymously, of course.
Strangely, there are no other women writers mentioned in this three-part program. A little more information, and a little less in the way of despairing violins, would have put Austen's situation in context. Other female writers didn't have the choice between clinging to their gentry status or working for a living. They had to feed their children. If the BBC wants feminine hardship, then look at the lives of Charlotte Smith, or Eliza Kirkham Mathews, or Elizabeth Helme, or Agnes Hall or Ann Ryley. Austen was more financially secure than all of them and she had a large family to fall back on.
Speaking of Austen's writing career, writer after writer comes on to tell us that a rejection letter Austen received in 1799 and a publication deal that fell through were utterly devastating to her. Really? I mean, if you’re a writer, raise your hand if you’ve received more than one rejection letter. I've also had a writing project that I put years of effort into come to nothing. There are no guarantees with writing.
We are told the trauma of losing her father and the rootless life which followed, in which the Austen women lived in rented lodgings at Southport at elsewhere, silenced Austen's voice and during those years she did no new writing. The fact is, we don't know exactly why Austen had a fallow period before she moved to Chawton in 1809. My personal speculation--and it is speculation--is that her mother discouraged her ambitions. I suspect Mrs. Austen was worried that Edward's wife Elizabeth, the daughter of a baronet, would not approve of a sister-in-law who was a published author. Edward was the richest of the brothers by far and Mrs. Austen always knew which side her bread was buttered on. It was only after Elizabeth's untimely death, noted above, that Edward made Chawton cottage available to his mother and sisters and only then did Jane, with her brother Henry's help, seriously turn to writing for money. Though still anonymously, of course.
Strangely, there are no other women writers mentioned in this three-part program. A little more information, and a little less in the way of despairing violins, would have put Austen's situation in context. Other female writers didn't have the choice between clinging to their gentry status or working for a living. They had to feed their children. If the BBC wants feminine hardship, then look at the lives of Charlotte Smith, or Eliza Kirkham Mathews, or Elizabeth Helme, or Agnes Hall or Ann Ryley. Austen was more financially secure than all of them and she had a large family to fall back on.
Speaking of Austen's writing career, writer after writer comes on to tell us that a rejection letter Austen received in 1799 and a publication deal that fell through were utterly devastating to her. Really? I mean, if you’re a writer, raise your hand if you’ve received more than one rejection letter. I've also had a writing project that I put years of effort into come to nothing. There are no guarantees with writing.
Rejection letter Sloppy research and writing
The program also gets it wrong about the rejection letter. In 1799, Austen's father wrote to the prestigious publishing house of Thomas Cadell, offering a three volume novel. Scholars think it was probably the draft novel Austen then called First Impressions, later changed to Pride and Prejudice. The offer was rejected. We know this because George Austen's letter was preserved in the company archives of Thomas Cadell & Co. and was discovered in 1840.
In the days before email, photocopying and carbon paper, businesses kept a written record of their outgoing mail. For important correspondence, they might make a complete copy of the outgoing letter. For this routine transaction, they just wrote a brief note, "declined by return of post" at the top of Rev. Austen's letter before filing it. You can see the letter here. Then they sent a rejection letter. All of that is to explain how the documentary gets it wrong. The narrator states "the publisher has sent George Austen's letter back with a line saying 'declined by return of post'.'" But Cadell & Co didn't send George Austen's letter back to him, they sent a (probably standard) rejection letter. That letter does not survive. We don't know how curt or polite it might have been, but it did not say "declined by return of post." That's a note the publisher or clerk is making to himself and it means that the letter was answered immediately, for the next collection of mail. The person who wrote the script for this documentary didn't understand that. I know I'm being pedantic but this is the BBC, for heaven's sake. Didn't they do any fact-checking? Another example: it is correct that novels were published in two or three or four volumes, but the program incorrectly says these volumes were published as "installments." The novels were usually published all at once but could be borrowed one volume at a time from a circulating library. How has it come to be that people who don't know what they don't know are in charge of Jane Austen documentaries?
The program also gets it wrong about the rejection letter. In 1799, Austen's father wrote to the prestigious publishing house of Thomas Cadell, offering a three volume novel. Scholars think it was probably the draft novel Austen then called First Impressions, later changed to Pride and Prejudice. The offer was rejected. We know this because George Austen's letter was preserved in the company archives of Thomas Cadell & Co. and was discovered in 1840.
In the days before email, photocopying and carbon paper, businesses kept a written record of their outgoing mail. For important correspondence, they might make a complete copy of the outgoing letter. For this routine transaction, they just wrote a brief note, "declined by return of post" at the top of Rev. Austen's letter before filing it. You can see the letter here. Then they sent a rejection letter. All of that is to explain how the documentary gets it wrong. The narrator states "the publisher has sent George Austen's letter back with a line saying 'declined by return of post'.'" But Cadell & Co didn't send George Austen's letter back to him, they sent a (probably standard) rejection letter. That letter does not survive. We don't know how curt or polite it might have been, but it did not say "declined by return of post." That's a note the publisher or clerk is making to himself and it means that the letter was answered immediately, for the next collection of mail. The person who wrote the script for this documentary didn't understand that. I know I'm being pedantic but this is the BBC, for heaven's sake. Didn't they do any fact-checking? Another example: it is correct that novels were published in two or three or four volumes, but the program incorrectly says these volumes were published as "installments." The novels were usually published all at once but could be borrowed one volume at a time from a circulating library. How has it come to be that people who don't know what they don't know are in charge of Jane Austen documentaries?
Oh, please, not this again And of course... Mansfield Park is bold and transgressive
The egregious errors are bad enough. Most disheartening of all is the blithe certainty with which uninformed speculation is presented as fact. We are confidently told that Mansfield Park is a reference to William Murray, Lord Mansfield, and is therefore an anti-slavery message. "Calling the house 'Mansfield Park' is deliberately ironic... Mansfield, to the people of that time, means 'Lord Mansfield'... Jane Austen's being very politically overt by invoking Mansfield, that's a huge klaxon, that's a ginormous flashing light, going 'slavery, slavery, slavery' to a contemporary audience". Well, that's a theory and in my opinion, one that is not supported by the historical record. Other novelists used the name "Mansfield" for their characters without any reference to slavery.
The producers tell the viewers that Austen was being daring, upending the status quo, challenging authority. But in comparison to other novelists of the time, she wasn't being at all daring. Much more about this starting here.
The egregious errors are bad enough. Most disheartening of all is the blithe certainty with which uninformed speculation is presented as fact. We are confidently told that Mansfield Park is a reference to William Murray, Lord Mansfield, and is therefore an anti-slavery message. "Calling the house 'Mansfield Park' is deliberately ironic... Mansfield, to the people of that time, means 'Lord Mansfield'... Jane Austen's being very politically overt by invoking Mansfield, that's a huge klaxon, that's a ginormous flashing light, going 'slavery, slavery, slavery' to a contemporary audience". Well, that's a theory and in my opinion, one that is not supported by the historical record. Other novelists used the name "Mansfield" for their characters without any reference to slavery.
The producers tell the viewers that Austen was being daring, upending the status quo, challenging authority. But in comparison to other novelists of the time, she wasn't being at all daring. Much more about this starting here.
Wicked literary ladies--Lady Bellaston in Tom Jones No literary context
There is plenty of Unpleasant History 101 in in this documentary. We're told how Austen must have steeped herself in the multi-racial atmosphere, alive with the commerce of empire, when she visited the cities of Southport and London, but we get no meaningful literary context. The first episode shows young Jane reading books in her father’s library and some titles float across the screen, but oddly, only novels written by men—Fielding, Dafoe, Swift--and not the novels of sentiment which she would first parody and later reform. The words “Political Justice” and “Revolution” also float across as examples of the Big Ideas Jane is encountering in her reading. Political Justice is the title of a then-influential book by William Godwin, the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft. The talking heads take it as a matter of course that Jane Austen was a progressive. No mention of the decades of back-and-forth on this question.
They discuss Austen's juvenilia and how funny and anarchic her youthful writings are, but don’t explain that they are in fact parodies of the sentimental novels she’s reading. They are only interested in telling us that Austen's wild and hilarious heroines are indicative of a feminist bent.
They tell us that Northanger Abbey is about a girl who reads too many novels, but they don't place it in the context of other parodies or quixotic literature such as The Female Quixote. Instead they imply that it was Austen who came up with the idea of parodying a gothic heroine. "Austen is subverting the idea of what a heroine is, or should be." Likewise, they tell us that Austen created “the world’s worst mother” in Lady Susan, then explain that Austen is “just standing up for women as human beings and refusing to bow to the oppressive stereotypes.” The viewer will get no inkling about how the character of Lady Susan compares to similar characters in Georgian literature. Instead, they are given the erroneous impression that Austen “ripped up the rule book” when it came to depictions of women in the literature of her day.
I couldn’t decide if the producers were truly ignorant of the basics of literary history, or if they knowingly presented assumptions and speculation dressed up as fact. But I suppose they could be both ignorant and agenda-driven.
There is plenty of Unpleasant History 101 in in this documentary. We're told how Austen must have steeped herself in the multi-racial atmosphere, alive with the commerce of empire, when she visited the cities of Southport and London, but we get no meaningful literary context. The first episode shows young Jane reading books in her father’s library and some titles float across the screen, but oddly, only novels written by men—Fielding, Dafoe, Swift--and not the novels of sentiment which she would first parody and later reform. The words “Political Justice” and “Revolution” also float across as examples of the Big Ideas Jane is encountering in her reading. Political Justice is the title of a then-influential book by William Godwin, the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft. The talking heads take it as a matter of course that Jane Austen was a progressive. No mention of the decades of back-and-forth on this question.
They discuss Austen's juvenilia and how funny and anarchic her youthful writings are, but don’t explain that they are in fact parodies of the sentimental novels she’s reading. They are only interested in telling us that Austen's wild and hilarious heroines are indicative of a feminist bent.
They tell us that Northanger Abbey is about a girl who reads too many novels, but they don't place it in the context of other parodies or quixotic literature such as The Female Quixote. Instead they imply that it was Austen who came up with the idea of parodying a gothic heroine. "Austen is subverting the idea of what a heroine is, or should be." Likewise, they tell us that Austen created “the world’s worst mother” in Lady Susan, then explain that Austen is “just standing up for women as human beings and refusing to bow to the oppressive stereotypes.” The viewer will get no inkling about how the character of Lady Susan compares to similar characters in Georgian literature. Instead, they are given the erroneous impression that Austen “ripped up the rule book” when it came to depictions of women in the literature of her day.
I couldn’t decide if the producers were truly ignorant of the basics of literary history, or if they knowingly presented assumptions and speculation dressed up as fact. But I suppose they could be both ignorant and agenda-driven.
New statue in Winchester Family ties
The narrator tells us Austen’s brother Henry championed her writing career and paid for the printing of her first novel, Sense & Sensibility. Then an actor comes on to tell us that the “condescending” and “patronizing” Henry was the model for the weak and stingy John Dashwood in that same novel. (Dashwood promised to support his sisters after their father’s death but fails to do so.) We are told in episode one that Austen's free-spirited cousin, Eliza de Feuillide, opened young Jane's eyes about living one's life free of sexual puritanism. Then Eliza is recast as the model for Fanny Dashwood, encouraging her husband's parsimony. No-one sorts out this contradiction, nor do they explain how Austen could have used the death of her father (in 1805) as the inciting event in a novel she drafted eight years earlier.
We’re told “only four people attended her funeral.” Those four people were three brothers and one nephew--why not say so? If she had died at home in Chawton, perhaps more of the locals would have come out to pay their respects, but she died out of town. (I speculate here on whether Austen chose to go out of town to die, away from her mother). And anyway, she wasn’t the Duke of Wellington. She was a minor anonymous novelist. I’ve written before on how it is not unusual that her gravestone makes no mention of her being an author, but of course this is yet another grievance for the documentarians.
The narrator tells us Austen’s brother Henry championed her writing career and paid for the printing of her first novel, Sense & Sensibility. Then an actor comes on to tell us that the “condescending” and “patronizing” Henry was the model for the weak and stingy John Dashwood in that same novel. (Dashwood promised to support his sisters after their father’s death but fails to do so.) We are told in episode one that Austen's free-spirited cousin, Eliza de Feuillide, opened young Jane's eyes about living one's life free of sexual puritanism. Then Eliza is recast as the model for Fanny Dashwood, encouraging her husband's parsimony. No-one sorts out this contradiction, nor do they explain how Austen could have used the death of her father (in 1805) as the inciting event in a novel she drafted eight years earlier.
We’re told “only four people attended her funeral.” Those four people were three brothers and one nephew--why not say so? If she had died at home in Chawton, perhaps more of the locals would have come out to pay their respects, but she died out of town. (I speculate here on whether Austen chose to go out of town to die, away from her mother). And anyway, she wasn’t the Duke of Wellington. She was a minor anonymous novelist. I’ve written before on how it is not unusual that her gravestone makes no mention of her being an author, but of course this is yet another grievance for the documentarians.
Sadly, this is just a sampling of the questionable statements and distorted emphasis in Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius. There is more in my article at History Reclaimed. If you compare this disgrace of a documentary to previous documentaries about Austen, you can see just how much the BBC has fallen in terms of even-handed presentation and institutional knowledge. How did this happen, and can it be fixed?
Let me end this rant with this final quote from a 1995 BBC documentary (which by the way features Austen expert Deirdre Le Faye). In response to the speculation that Jane Austen was an “incestuous lesbian," Austen biographer Elizabeth Jenkins responds: “You do sometimes feel that people can’t get any stupider… you never get to the bottom of people’s stupidity, you think you’ve done it and then they come up with something that you wouldn’t have expected even from them. It’s not only groundless but it’s so totally ignorant.”
Let me end this rant with this final quote from a 1995 BBC documentary (which by the way features Austen expert Deirdre Le Faye). In response to the speculation that Jane Austen was an “incestuous lesbian," Austen biographer Elizabeth Jenkins responds: “You do sometimes feel that people can’t get any stupider… you never get to the bottom of people’s stupidity, you think you’ve done it and then they come up with something that you wouldn’t have expected even from them. It’s not only groundless but it’s so totally ignorant.”
| | A presenter at the beginning of the 1995 documentary, linked at left, sneers at Jane Austen fan fiction, which is certainly his privilege. I don't object if anybody rejects JAFF on principle, but I have written JAFF, and you can find it here. Update: The BBC redeems itself somewhat with this radio program broadcast on Dec 16th, Austen's 250th birthday. Intelligent discussion with John Mullan, focussed on Austen's wit and artistry, not on how she must have been feeling about various events in her life. Update: Author Clare McHugh criticizes Rise of a Genius and its downright false presentation of the plot of Mansfield Park in this Spectator article. Previous post: The Revealer of Secrets, part 1 Next post: The Revealer of Secrets, part 2 |
| Walton, James. “Why is the BBC Making Stuff Up About Jane Austen?”. The Spectator, May 31, 2025. |
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