Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters Part 28

Adieu, sweet You. This is grievous news from Spain. It is well that Dr. Moore was spared the knowledge of such a son's death.

Monday [January 30].

I am not at all ashamed about the name of the novel, having been guilty of no insult towards your handwriting; the diphthong I always saw, but knowing how fond you were of adding a vowel wherever you could, I attributed it to that alone, and the knowledge of the truth does the book no service; the only merit it could have was in the name of Caleb, which has an honest, unpretending sound, but in Coelebs there is pedantry and affectation. Is it written only to cla.s.sical scholars?

I am sorry to find that Sir J. Moore has a mother living, but though a very heroic son he might not be a very necessary one to her happiness. Deacon Morrell may be more to Mrs. Morrell.

I wish Sir John had united something of the Christian with the hero in his death. Thank heaven! we have had no one to care for particularly among the troops--no one, in fact, nearer to us than Sir John himself.

The store closet, I hope, will never do so again, for much of the evil is proved to have proceeded from the gutter being choked up, and we have had it cleared. We had reason to rejoice in the child's absence at the time of the thaw, for the nursery was not habitable. We hear of similar disasters from almost everybody.

Yours very affectionately, J. AUSTEN.

Miss Austen, Edward Austen's, Esq.

G.o.dmersham Park, Faversham, Kent.

This letter brings the Southampton series to an end. The party were not to take up their residence at Chawton till the beginning of September; but they left Southampton in April, and we may presume that they carried out the programme mentioned in Jane's letter of January 10, and went by way of Alton to Bookham, and on to G.o.dmersham.

In the whole series of letters written from Southampton, there is not a single allusion to Jane's being engaged upon any novel; and it has been inferred--probably correctly--that her pen was idle during these years.

The fact that she had already written three novels, but had not succeeded in publishing a single one, can hardly have encouraged her to write more. But it seems almost certain that, a few days before she left Southampton, she made an effort to secure the publication of the novel which we know as _Northanger Abbey_, by the publisher to whom she had sold it as far back as 1803.

The circ.u.mstances are somewhat involved, but appear to be as follows: Among the letters preserved by Ca.s.sandra, is one said not to be in Jane's hand, addressed to Messrs. Crosbie [_sic_] & Co.,[202] of which these are the contents:--

GENTLEMEN,--In the spring of the year 1803 a MS.

novel in two vols., ent.i.tled _Susan_, was sold to you by a gentleman of the name of Seymour, and the purchase money 10 rec^{d.} at the same time. Six years have since pa.s.sed, and this work, of which I am myself the Auth.o.r.ess, has never to the best of my knowledge appeared in print, tho' an early publication was stipulated for at the time of sale. I can only account for such an extraordinary circ.u.mstance by supposing the MS. by some carelessness to have been lost, and if that was the case am willing to supply you with another copy, if you are disposed to avail yourselves of it, and will engage for no farther delay when it comes into your hands. It will not be in my power from particular circ.u.mstances to command this copy before the month of August, but then if you accept my proposal you may depend on receiving it. Be so good as to send me a line in answer as soon as possible as my stay in this place will not exceed a few days. Should no notice be taken of this address, I shall feel myself at liberty to secure the publication of my work by applying elsewhere.

I am, Gentlemen, etc., etc., M. A. D.

Direct to Mrs. Ashton Dennis, Post Office, Southampton April 5, 1809.

With this letter was preserved the following reply:--

MADAM,--We have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th inst. It is true that at the time mentioned we purchased of Mr. Seymour a MS.

novel ent.i.tled _Susan_, and paid him for it the sum of 10, for which we have his stamped receipt, as a full consideration, but there was not any time stipulated for its publication, neither are we bound to publish it. Should you or anyone else [publish it] we shall take proceedings to stop the sale. The MS. shall be yours for the same as we paid for it.

For CROSBY & CO.

I am yours, etc.

RICHARD CROSBY.

From the fact that this letter was carefully preserved among Jane's correspondence, from the almost exact coincidence of the dates at which the writer was to leave Southampton, &c., and from the fact that a Mr.

Seymour was Henry Austen's man of business, there can be no reasonable doubt that the letter refers to one of Jane Austen's works. It need cause no surprise that she should have written under an a.s.sumed name, or that she should have got some one else to write for her in view of the secrecy which she long maintained regarding the authorship of her novels. If we a.s.sume, then, that the letter concerns one of Jane Austen's novels--which novel is it? At first sight it might naturally seem to be the story called _Lady Susan_, which was published in the second edition of the _Memoir_; but there are two objections to this: one, that so far from making two volumes, _Lady Susan_ could hardly have made more than one very thin volume; secondly, that _Lady Susan_ is generally looked upon as an early and immature production; and Jane's judgment should have been too good to allow her to desire the publication of an inferior work at a time when she had already completed, in one form or another, three such novels as _Sense and Sensibility_, _Pride and Prejudice_, and _Northanger Abbey_. If, therefore, it was not _Lady Susan_--What was it? We cannot doubt that it was the novel we now know as _Northanger Abbey_. When that book was prepared for the press in 1816, it contained the following 'advertis.e.m.e.nt' or prefatory note:--

This little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended for immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller,[203] it was even advertised, and why the business proceeded no further, the author has never been able to learn.

So far, this accords closely enough with the history of the MS. _Susan_ as related in the letter to Messrs. Crosby. For other details we must go to the _Memoir_,[204] where we read:--

It [_Northanger Abbey_] was sold in 1803 to a publisher in Bath for ten pounds; but it found so little favour in his eyes that he chose to abide by his first loss rather than risk further expense by publishing such a work. . . . But when four novels of steadily increasing success had given the writer some confidence in herself, she wished to recover the copyright of this early work. One of her brothers undertook the negotiation. He found the purchaser very willing to receive back his money and to resign all claim to the copyright.[205]

This, too, accords closely enough with the history of the MS. _Susan_, with the exception of one expression--namely, 'publisher in Bath'; but probably the writer of the _Memoir_ here made a slip, acting on the very natural inference that a book in the main written about Bath, by a writer at that time living in Bath, would naturally have been offered to a publisher in that town.

We are, indeed, confronted by two alternatives: either that Jane Austen, in the year 1803, sold two MSS. for the sum of ten pounds each--one named _Susan_, to a London publisher, which has disappeared altogether, unless it is the same as the sketch _Lady Susan_ (which, as we have seen, is improbable), and the other (_Northanger Abbey_) to a Bath publisher; or that the publisher was really a London and not a Bath publisher, and that the original Christian name of Catherine Morland was Susan.[206]

FOOTNOTES:

[176] _Brabourne_, vol. ii. p. 1.

[177] Southey's _Letters from England, by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella_ (London, 1807); a lively account of this country, written in the guise of letters a.s.signed to a fict.i.tious Spanish traveller.

[178] Lord Lansdowne, who put off being cured too long: his death occurred about the time when he had proposed to go abroad.

[179] See Chapter XIX.

[180] Henry Austen and John Bridges.

[181] William Stanley G.o.ddard, D.D., Head Master of Winchester, 1796-1809.

[182] The Rector of G.o.dmersham.

[183] Anglicised form of French word for cup-and-ball--_bilboquet_.

[184] As to the move to Chawton.

[185] Richard Mant, D.D., Rector of All Saints, Southampton, and father of Bishop Mant.

[186] She probably wrote _n_oonshine, a somewhat incorrect way of spelling _nuncheon_ (luncheon). See _Sense and Sensibility_, c. xliv.

[187] See p. 225.

[188] His approaching marriage to Harriet Foote.

[189] Frank.

[190] The Rector of Chawton, who was a bachelor.

[191] Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Perrot.

[192] In 1806, the small living of Hampstead Marshall became vacant by the death of old Mr. Fowle; and Lord Craven, the patron, looking round for an 'honest man' who would hold the living for his nominee, offered it to James Austen. He, however, felt scruples, grounded on the wording of the bond of resignation, and declined the preferment.

[193] Her second marriage to General H. T. Montresor.

[194] A joking suggestion that Sir Brook Bridges was about to propose to Ca.s.sandra.

[195] Sir John Moore's heroic twelve days' retreat to Corunna was now in progress, and the battle was fought there on January 16. It is mentioned again in the next two letters. The news on this occasion seems to have come very quickly. The _St. Albans_ (under the command of Francis Austen) was at Spithead, and there took charge of the disembarkation of the remains of Sir John Moore's forces (_Sailor Brothers_, p. 203).

[196] _Margiana; or Widdrington Tower_, anon. 5 vols. 1808. For a description of this romance see a reply by M. H. Dodds in _Notes and Queries_, 11 S. vii. pp. 233-4.