An immensely thick volume lay on my doorstep at the start of winter: Deirdre Le Faye’s 4th edition of Jane Austen’s Letters had arrived from Oxford University Press. It has taken me this long to peruse its 688 remarkable pages and savor them. According to the publicity materials, the reason Le Faye put out a 4th edition (the third edition came out in 1997) was in order to:
incorporate the findings of recent scholarship to further enrich our understanding of Austen and give us the fullest and most revealing view yet of her life and family. In addition, Le Faye has written a new preface, has amended and updated the biographical and topographical indexes, has introduced a new subject index, and had added the contents of the notes to the general index.
As in the third edition, Jane Austen’s letters are placed in the correct chronological sequence, with notations made about missing letters. Usually these missing letters were referred to in Jane’s correspondence.
Portion of letter #2. Note the information about the missing letter. Image @Jane Austen's Letters
What sets Le Faye’s edition of Jane Austen’s letters apart from the other books I have on the topic is her meticulous information about the letters. Each come with its provenance and mention of the physical details, such as markings, watermarks, and postmarks. Each letter is also annotated. I recommend that the reader use two bookmarks, one for the letter and one for the annotation. Reading this book is quite a physical exercise, for it is heavy (over 2 lbs.) and thick, and one is forever flipping back and forth between the letters and their annotations. For example, Letter #2 sits on page 5, while its annotation can be found on page 369.
Letter from the Morgan Library exhibit. Note the portion that was cut out.
Jane Austen’s Letters, 4th Edition, is a must have for every serious Jane Austen fan and scholar. Through her letters, we learn so much about Jane, her relationships, and the world she lived in. Jane reserves her most informal, intimate voice for members of her family. In these letters she has no need to remain reserved. She lets her hair down, as it were, and provides us a glimpse of the routines she followed, the people she met, and her likes and dislikes without the filter that she would have reserved for strangers or in business situations. (Unfortunately, Cassandra acted like her filter, cutting out words, phrases and entire portions of Jane’s letters, and, worse, burning thousands of them.) One thing that is missing in this comprehensive book are the images of the letters themselves. I was lucky to view a number of them at the Morgan Library exhibit a few years back. Seeing the actual letters (as opposed to reading about their markings) would add enormously to our knowledge about Jane Austen as a letter writer.
Jane draws a sample of the lace she's describing. Image from a letter at the Morgan Library Exhibit, 2009-10.
As I read Austen’s letters, I was struck by the mundane events she was recounting. These letters are really the 21st century equivalents of emails, phone calls, and text messages, designed to keep family members and friends apprised about events in one’s life. There are flashes of humor and wit, and many references to customs and events that are not generally known today. Jane writes casually about Caroline’s spinning wheel, which ladies in her day still used for spinning their own wool. Jane was proud of her sewing skills, and writes in September, 1796: “We are very busy making Edward’s shirts, and I am proud to say that I am the neatest worker of the party.” This single sentence is fraught with meaning. Ladies were always keeping their hands busy, and sewing made up a great part of their day. If they weren’t embroidering, they were mending. If they weren’t making something for themselves, they were working on the poor basket. And then there’s this little tidbit: Tailors made up men’s clothes, but it was the women in their families who made their shirts. Jane and Cassandra must have been always busy making shirts for their many brothers, especially after they were widowed. I am speaking of only two letters: there are over 160 more.
Deirdre Le Faye
Of all the books that have been sent to me for review, I must admit to having a particular liking for this one. It is as if Jane Austen is speaking directly to me. Deirdre Le Faye, with her vast scholarly knowledge on the topic, provides me with more than enough information to understand their background.
I give this important book 4 1/2 Regency tea cups (out of 5) I wanted to give it 5 tea cups, but the format of the book is a bit unwieldy. For the 5th edition, perhaps the publishers will consider placing the annotation of the letter in a margin next to the text of the letter itself, along with an image of the letter, if such an image is important to our understanding of the letter (as the one above).
Product Details
Hardcover: 688 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 4 edition (December 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0199576076
ISBN-13: 978-0199576074
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 2.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Jane Austen's World 
Vic, in my opinion, the 4th edition is a complete waste of money for anyone who already has the 3rd edition–plus the hardback version of the 4th edition is extremely difficult to handle manually, because it is so tightly bound, and the print is smaller, whereas the paperback 3rd edition is easy to flip through and easy to read.
I have not gotten into all of my substantive problems with Le Faye’s editing of these letters, which is mainly that she invariably fails to comment on the most interesting aspects of the letters, and therefore it is entirely up to the reader to figure out when Jane Austen has written something subversive.
I have a ton of posts at my blog that illustrate all the editing that Le Faye should have done.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
Arnie, if you want to be told everything, that is rather stunting don’t you think? The people who read Jane Austen’s letters are the sort who want to make their own discoveries and are quite capable of having their own opinions. I’m quite happy to read Jane’s letters in any edition, I don’t care really which one and enjoy the conversation she is having with me. I don’t want to be told what she has just said to me.
I think there is a lot of stuffy nit picking going on amongst all these comments.
Tony, I was being discreet, I actually have found a large number of examples where Le Faye does her very best to discourage readers from noticing connections in the letters, and it is always the case that these connections are disturbing to Le Faye, because she is actively attempting to prevent readers from noticing how subversive and mocking of male authority Jane Austen really was. Le Faye goes out of her way time and again to submerge and obfuscate what is most interesting in Jane Austen’s letters (and, in Le Faye’s commentaries on the novels, there as well).
I myself have found all those connections, and will be writing about them in my book–but up till now, most readers have reasonably assumed that if they have been given all these detailed indices, that they have been alerted to look for the most interesting stuff. But what Le Faye has done is a little like what clever litigators do when they produce documents during discovery–they bury the other side in trivial detail, hoping that the other side won’t find the pearls hidden in the dungheap.
It is clear to me that this was intentional on Le Faye’s part, she would say that those who claim there is anything subversive in Jane Austen are the ones who are trying to ruin Jane Austen’s reputation–this is the last person who should have been in this position of trust and power!
Arnie I thought everybody knew Jane Austen challenged the world she lived in. That is what her novels are about.
Arnie, you have been talking for years about this book you are bringing out. When is it coming out??
Thanks, Arnie. I do not have the third edition, but it sounds as if it is better formatted.
The fourth edition can take some battering, in that I have managed to open the book enough times to “soften” the spine. Yeah, I wish that it wasn’t so thick (2.4″) and that the text was slightly bigger.
A digitized version would be a huge help. I would love to have a copy for my Kindle or Nook.
I should add the other big reason why the 4th edition is not worth buying for anyone who already has the 3rd edition. Le Faye has made practically NO changes in her footnotes or indices (I really did check on this very carefully), with the sole exception of the Subject Index that was added. But the thing is, there has been, on the internet, for many years, a really good subject index done for free by an avid Janeite named Del Cain, which can be found here:
http://www.mollands.net/etexts/ltrindex/ltrindexg.html
So truly, if anyone has Le Faye’s 3rd edition, and has access to the internet, there is NOTHING added by the 4th edition.
ARNIE
Thanks for sharing your review of this book. Hope to find a copy, particularly as our Jane Austen Festival Australia is focusing on Jane’s letters this April.
In The Financial Times there is a review of Ricard Horan’s Seeds (Hundred author wood by
By Robin Lane Fox That mentions Jane Austen and other authors being inspired by trees and which ones.
I was lucky enough to listen to a talk given my Deirdre Le Faye and to have my own copy of this book signed by the author! She is a fascinating scholar.
I was lucky enough to listen to a talk given by Deirdre Le Faye and to have my own copy of this book signed by the author! She is a fascinating scholar.
I won a copy via “My Jane Austen Book Club” in Dec. I agree with your comments! I was amazed how many letters are here in the Boston area. Thx!
Deidre Le Faye is definitely an interesting scholar so I am going to find this book and read it. Excellent text and comments.
Vic,
Regarding a Nook/Kindle version – be careful what you wish for. I purchased the biography of The Queen Mother, by William Shawcross. It is also quite a hefty tome (not surprising, given that the subject lived for over a century!). It is easy enough to click on the link in the text to the footnote, but the “back” operation does not remain long enough, and then f-i-n-d-i-n-g one’s way back to the original page is more like a shard of a teacup. Still, a tablet is much lighter than an 800 page hardcover or paperback book.
Sophy
This is on my wish list! Thank you for your review. I do have the 3rd edition, and still plan to get the 4th as I find the idea of having the subject index in the book irresistible. (I don’t like reading in front of the computer.) Thanks, Vic!
Here’s a thought: print off the subject index from your computer and have it tucked into your book and you’ll have it with you at all times. You’ll find that it will allow you to use the 3rd edition, which is lighter than the 4th edition, plus you’ll have the soft cover and ease of the 3rd as opposed to the stiffness of the hardcover. Also, consider the expense of a hardback 4th edition only because it has the subject index. Just a thought.
Exactly, Karen!
I wish she had re-conceived the format for the information. We now have four indexes, to say nothing of two sets of notes. It’s endless flipping back and forth, and the splitting and lumping does not always make sense. And within the indexes, the categories overlap and don’t make sense. Why should we have one subject heading for her remarks on writing and another for her remarks on her novels? It’s a muddle. Yes chock-a-block with information but without clarity. Ellen
I have the 3rd edition because it was the most recent one available. Then I heard that a 4th was coming out I immediately thought that it had to be greatly improved and that I would just have to have it. I hadn’t realized that it was a hardback until I read this tonight. I like the flexibility of the paperback. And then to find out that there’s a subject index online for free, well, I’m going to stick with my 3rd edition. This post was really informative and helpful to me. Thanks for writing it!
As I recollect, I was hard pressed to find more than a handful of footnotes in the entire 4th edition which were new or even different from those in the 3rd edition–and the Biographical Indices in the 4th edition are pretty much verbatim what they were in the 3rd edition.
“Ladies were always keeping their hands busy, and sewing made up a great part of their day. If they weren’t embroidering, they were mending.”
It was also common to hire “at home” seamstresses, by the day. These women were paid very little and worked beside the ladies of the house, usually undertaking the more complex work and teaching the younger members of the household. No doubt the ladies sometimes passed the seamstresses’ work off as their own, whilst telling their husbands/fathers how much they had saved through their diligence – though there is nothing to suggest that Jane Austen ever did so.
Austen’s letters give a real glimpse of her natural sense of humour and also reveal that the social whirl depicted in her novels was often quite tedious in reality. This from Bath:- “Another stupid party last night; perhaps if larger they might be less intolerable, but here there were only just enough to make one card-table, with six people to look on and talk nonsense to each other.”
Tony: “Arnie I thought everybody knew Jane Austen challenged the world she lived in. That is what her novels are about. ”
If you browse in my blog, you will see that I take what you said a LOT further than pretty much all other Austen scholars, and in particular I have taken the reading of her letters much deeper into the shadows than anyone prior to myself.
“you have been talking for years about this book you are bringing out. When is it coming out??”
Thank you for your interest—I am in the final stages of pulling together the entire matrix of my findings, and figuring out the optimal way of presenting my ideas in book form. It has taken a lot longer than I ever anticipated, but fortunately, I have had the time and the resources to do this right.
But it won’t be much longer!!
ARNIE
To Karen and Arnie-I did the printing out thing-quite voluminous and very awkward (never mind paper and ink issues). I like the idea of having it all in one volume, even if some find it awkward (I’m kind of used to flipping back and forth!). I also have a great deal of respect for Ms Le Faye’s scholarship.
Arnie, you are obfuscating. My version of what goes on in a Jane Austen novel is not what you mean at all.It’s easy to play with words isn’t it Arnie? You should know.
Tony, from my perspective, which involves paying the closest attention to Jane Austen’s wordplay, you’ve missed the most important half of her meaning, where she covertly reveals that she is a strong feminist.
Here are two examples from what YOU wrote a while back:
[Tony] “She was careful enough to dedicate Emma to The Prince Regent when it was suggested she might like to.”
You would be surprised to learn that Jane Austen actually skewered the Prince Regent in Emma:
http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol27no1/sheehan.htm
So Jane Austen actually achieved a unique thrill for a satirist-to induce the victim of one’s satire to request that the satire be overtly dedicated to him!
So you’ve rather missed the entire point of it all, I’d say.
And you also wrote the following about the ending of Emma:
[Tony]: “So we have a happy ending for everybody. In a way, because Jane rounds everything off too nicely, as modern readers used to the full force of rough reality in the modern classic novel, perhaps we itch for Jane Austen to have gone the full hog. But, written as it was in the Georgian period, it was brave enough to allude to these issues. Jane couldn’t resist her true beliefs, really.”
Actually, Tony, Jane Fairfax IS a self-portrait of the young adult Jane Austen (just as Miss Bates is a self portrait of the elder Jane Austen), and Jane NEVER marries Frank, but goes back to London, with Churchill family jewels firmly in hand, to live an independent life as a creative artist WITHOUT a husband—and she keeps in close touch with the Westons, who are taking care of Jane’s baby Anna.
Laugh all you like now, but I expect to have the last laugh.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
I am probably overlooking this as I found it yesterday but today I cannot find in the subject index an index to Austen’s mentions of her own novels. Indexes on family anniversaries are there, on other people’s novels and literary texts, but her own I cannot find. (There is no subject index in the 3rd edition).
I need the page number of Jane Austen’s mentions of her novels in this muddled confusing book.
Ellen