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This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.

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Jane Austen’s Cross Stitch Sampler

March 13, 2012 by Vic

The Bodleian Library in Oxford recently exhibited a sampler (along with other items) for one day to celebrate World Book Day on March 1. This linen cross stitch sampler, purportedly made by a 12-year-old Jane Austen in 1787, was displayed for the very first time. The stitching has become frayed and undone, so that the sampler appears to have been made in 1797. A stylized border with flowering trees surround the words to the psalm, “Praise the Lord O my soul.”

The sampler was purchased in 1996 for over £2000. According to the sale catalogue, the “present owner, who lives in Gloucestershire, received the sampler as a present, folded inside a tobacco tin.” A note on the back of the frame states that an early owner was “related to Jane Austen the novelist” and that she had “received it as a memento” of Austen’s life. (Such a practice was very common after a person died. Letters and personal items were given to close friends and family members as a remembrance.)

I must add that this sampler’s provenance is doubtful. The provenance cannot be directly traced to Jane Austen, and “an early owner related to Jane Austen” simply does not provide enough reliable information.

Sampler detail. Image @Jane Austen Centre Gift Shop*

Jane Austen prided herself on her precise sewing skills. This sampler shows a more inexperienced hand than a seamstress in her later years. (I must add that a sampler I made at a similar age does not look nearly half as good.)

Jane mentions a young needlewoman in Northanger Abbey. Henry Tilney remarks upon the age difference between Catherine Morland and himself:

“I had entered on my studies at Oxford, while you were a good little girl working your sampler at home!”

To which she responds:  “Not very good I am afraid.”

More on the topic

  • *Jane Austen Centre Gift Shop: Sampler
  • Bodleian to display Jane Austen’s needlework, New York Times

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Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's life, Jane Austen's World, Northanger Abbey, Regency Life, Regency World | Tagged Cross stitch sampler, Needleworman, Regency needlework | 6 Comments

6 Responses

  1. on March 13, 2012 at 10:26 Kay Gaston

    We visited the Jane Austen house at Chawton last week and saw displayed there a sampler signed by Jane Austen, although there was some uncertainty about whether it was done by her or someone else with the same name. I don’t remember if it was dated. The house museum contains known examples of her needlework, including a lace scarf and a handsome quilt with chintz squares that her mother and Cassandra also worked on. Volunteers at the museum have beautifully recreated the bed hangings that are appropriate for the reproduction bed in the room she shared with Cassandra.


    • on March 13, 2012 at 10:38 Vic

      Thank you so much for this added information, Kay!


  2. on March 13, 2012 at 11:26 Jane Austen's Cross Stitch Sampler « Jane Austen's World | Top Click Source

    […] Jane Austen's Cross Stitch Sampler « Jane Austen's World /* */ Posted in Cross Stitch, Sewing | Tagged abbey, austen, bodleian, life, northanger, praise, regency, world […]


  3. on March 13, 2012 at 14:03 sshaver

    I’m just giving a high recommendation on my two favorite Austen blogs today to the new Harvard completely annotated (history, illustrations) edition of Persuasion. Moreover, for some reason, at this reading I’m completely re-seeing the book. In the past I always thought that Anne was to be blamed for not accepting Wentworth originally. But now I see that Wentworth at the time of his proposal had no money; that he had gained money in the past but spent it; and that he was really a little overconfident about his future prospects. The mistake was not Anne’s; it was his, in being too proud to propose to her again after he had become successful.


  4. on March 13, 2012 at 20:36 Giselle Rakobowchuk

    Thank you for sharing! I remember having tried cross-stitching as a child but unfortunately I never had the patience to finish the sampler and have never taken up needlework since but it is nice to see Jane Austen’s valuable piece of work!


  5. on April 28, 2012 at 15:21 kosh

    So how many young Jane Austens were there in the world in 1787? And what are the chances of their work surviving 200+ years?

    Also if you look at “Mifdeeds” it uses the Long S – it looks like an f – and that fell out of use during the early nineteenth C.



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