Portrait of Maria Edgeworth by John Downman (1807). Is it just wishful thinking on my part or does Jane Austen somewhat resemble this pretty, genteel author?
I’m sure others have been struck by this paragraph from Pride and Prejudice (see quote below), and wondered if perhaps it gives us a clue about how Cassandra was able to locate the many letters from Jane that she would destroy, for the majority of those that survived are innocuous and mundane. They reveal very little about the author’s observations and feelings about her family and friends, politics, and religion.
Cassandra, who outlived Jane by 26 years, kept her sister’s letters to reread during her lifetime. This gave her enough time to decide what to do with them. She burned most of Jane’s letters shortly before her death, redistributing the remaining few among friends and family.
Of the approximately 160 letters that survive from Jane, 95 were written to Cassandra. None of the letters Jane wrote to her parents survive, and very few to her brothers (none to Henry, her favorite brother). To be fair to Cassandra, who has been vilified by many for burning so many of Jane’s letters, it was the custom in those days to destroy such casual correspondence (much like we delete emails today).
A portion of Jane’s letter has been cut out. Image@Morgan Library
When they read their missives out loud to the family, the Austen sisters had a habit of censoring each other’s letters and leaving out sections that were meant to remain private. Jane might have given us a clue in Pride and Prejudice on how Cassandra was able to go through thousands of letters and locate information that she was unwilling to pass down for posterity. In some instances Cassandra cut out the offending sentence, but generally she destroyed the entire letter. How did she know where to cut out only one sentence or passage?
This scene, in which Lydia has joined Colonel and Mrs. Foster in Brighton, gives us a clue:
When Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty, but her letters were always long expected and always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild; that she had a new gown or a new parasol, which she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a violent hurry, as Mrs Forster called her and they were going to the camp; and from her correspondence with her sister there was still less to be learned, for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much too full of lines under the words to be made public.
Reading out loud
Note how Kitty could not reveal the words and sentences that Lydia had underscored with lines, even to the family. Did Jane use such a system with Cassandra to keep her private thoughts only for her sister? I’m curious to know.
Jane Austen's World 
I very much enjoy your musings on Jane Austen’s world.
Interesting post, Vic.
My guess is the “genteel” Jane may have occasionally been less so in letters to Cassandra and I’m guessing she was shrewd and a bit biting in her observations of people they knew. Cassandra perhaps loved rereading those letters.
Oh, I hope that was the case!
Thank you for another very interesting post Vic. I’m sure you’re right about the “system”..Cassandra had a guide for her scissors.
Thank you for another interesting post, this is something I have thought myself
Am I confused? Wouldn’t the underscored words just be indications of Lydia’s silliness and overenthusiastic prattling?
Hi SShaver, Read the last 13 words of the passage for clarity. Kitty cannot share the underscored information with others. While Lydia’s reasons for underscoring might be different from Jane Austen’s, I think their underlining would serve the same purpose of keeping certain information private.
Sshaver, You missed the part in Chapter 42…. ‘and from her correspondence with her sister, there was still less to be learnt-for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much too full of lines under the words to be made public.’
So, Kitty kept anything underlined from her family…later she very much regretted keeping Lydia’s attachment to Mr. Wickman to herself.
That certainly does make one curious but it is still such a shame to lose all those wonderful letters. Enjoy your thoughts :)
Thanks for pointing out how Cassandra safeguarded so many of her sister’s letters. I tire of hearing Cassandra blamed for burning Austen’s letters. It is only because of Cassandra that so many of Austen’s letters survive. Of the thousands of letters Austen must have written to her sailor brothers only about a dozen survive and as you pointed out none of the ones written to Henry survive. We are lucky Cassandra kept what she did!
I do recall reading that paragraph, and wrote the underscoring off as sshaver did, as things that were lewd, raucous, inappropriate, etc. Now that you put that thought in mind, though, I’m sure you’re correct. Seems like a great way to censor things so the reader doesn’t have to be so careful with others (just skip this).
Thanks for another insightful post, Vic!
I had never really given that a thought. Now I understand the meaning of underlining in the letters. I just assumed it was Lydia “talking in all caps” like what annoys people on the receiving end of e-mails or facebook. I tend to be an over-user of the exclamation point which I’ve tried to cut back on. An enthusiastic person, especially a silly enthusiastic person, seems to take some form of punctuation usage and dwell on it. Anyway, thanks for the post! It was very informative.
Lydia and Kitty Bennett were fictional characters. Jane Austen, and her beloved sister Cassandra, were not.
For those of us who are edging toward old age, and who are lifelong Janeites, this increasing obsession and speculation regarding the novelist is becoming tedious. Not as tedious as the dozens, possibly hundreds, of sequels and prequels, zombie crap and vampire crap that are being churned out endlessly.
My late mother, who wrote her BA honours thesis on “Emma” in 1940, bought “Pemberley Shades” in the 1950, a few years after it was published, and read it whilst pregnant with me. I own her copy and with only a very few exceptions, it remains the only book using Jane’s creations that is reasonably good. Charlotte Bronte was served far better by Jean Rhys in “The Wide Sargasso Sea” and Daphne DuMaurier was especially well served by Sally Beauman in “Rebecca’s Tale.” And yes, I thought PD James did a decent job in “Death at Pemberley” which I uite enjoyed. But it’s time for all those who spin tales about Georgiana Darcy or Charlotte Collins to move on, and create characters of their own. As a poet, I admit, in my youth, to having written a sonnet about P and P. But 14 lines is not a very long bit of writing. This parasitical cottage industry that poor Jane has engendered should stop.
I don’t write Austenesque fiction, Mitchell. And this is merely harmless speculation. Yes, my blog might be considered a bit obsessive, but I think I bring my own perspective to a fascinating era, one that many others seem to enjoy. The word tedious has seldom been applied by my readers.
You leap from my wondering about underlining being an efficient method of communication between two sisters (Jane, after all, wrote from observing customs and habits that were prevalent in her own age, and she was a realist) to remarks of tediousness to condemning a parasitical cottage industry is a bit of a stretch.
Perhaps only PhDs and scholars who have handled original texts are allowed to speculate about a detail that seems logical? I didn’t turn Jane and Cassandra into vampires, I merely wondered if Jane wrote the sentence about Lydia and Kitty because she might have given them the system that she and Cassandra used. Having seen a letter with a single finely snipped-out sentence up close, I wondered how Cassandra could have honed in on that one sentence in one of many long letters – and so I had my “ah ha” moment when I reread the passage about Lydia.
You said:
Is it your thought that Jane Austen used nothing from her personal life or her family members in writing her books? We are all entitled to our opinions, Mitchell. I frankly think that my conjecture, after 6 years of almost daily studying and writing about Jane Austen and her era, gives me licence to speculate on a topic I have come to know quite well. My question at the end of the post was to engage readers in a discussion. Merely that.
Bravo Vic, very well said. I daresay if one doesn’t like the intellectual discussion one simply needn’t engage in it. As evidence that many do enjoy and engage in the discussions… this fine blog has been read and enjoyed for several years. I look forward to every new page.
As for the so-called cottage industry–I’m for anything that leads to reading, enjoying and loving Jane Austen ..whether that be a movie or a book sequel of any kind.
I allow Mitchell is entitled to his opinion but I would like to think he hadn’t thought of every angle when he published his comment. Perhaps after some consideration of the points that Vic just made I hope he might soften his opinion a tad….or not, whatever… his opinion didn’t change mine.
Long Live Jane Austen.
Yes Mitchell, Lydia and Kitty were fictional characters but surely you know very well that writers reflect their times and the really good ones, like Austen, give us an insight into the human condition that bridges all ages.
I think Vic’s speculation that this passage can give us an insight into Cassandra’s approach to editing her sisters letters is a very valid comment.
As for spin off novels, I agree, I don’t like the genre at all.But many, find it a way of engaging with Jane’s characters. It’s not my way or your way but some people need it. Let them be.
The Wide Sargasso Sea is a piece of very good literature in it’s own right. As such it is not a spin off novel in the usual way. It is commenting on life and the world of the 18th century colonies in a specific way and is not at all an extension to Jayne Ayre. The focus is the Rochester’s relationship. Jane Ayre focusses on Jayne Ayre.
I must admit I have never read Pemberley Shades but they do say that music and sounds played to a baby in the womb has an effect on them for life.
Are we allowed to guess at the effect it had on you?
All the very best,
Tony
PS I presume you live in England.
Mitchell, while we can appreciate that what this blog does may not meet your needs, it is a pleasant refuge for many of us in a crazy world and you are not forced to read it. I sense Vic took offense for the same reason I took offense for her and for all of other Janeites, many proudly members of JASNA or JAS. Who do you think you are posting vitirol on a blog that is loved by many? If you found things tedious, then don’t stop here again. And please stop standing in judgement on this “parasitical cottage industry”. You may not like it and you are entitled to your opinion. But there are many who do. Your message wound all around the place so it was tough to decide just what ticked you off the most, or perhaps you’d had a bad day and decided to take out your frustrations here. Please reconsider before you decide where you are going to display your arrogance on Jane Austen. You did not say who you were addressing in your first comments but we all assumed it was Vic and then the readers of Vic’s blog. Your “apology” was negated by the words following it. Your words were disingenuous at the very least. Please pick another blog to have your “hissy-fit” on next time.
I adore this blog. I find it fun, interesting, challenging and a wonderful escape from the tedium of everyday life. I enjoy some of the modern day Janeite type novels, some I don’t, but to each their own. This is a happy place :)
Mitchell, go away… You are no fun. Find somewhere else to spit your vile venom – and please stay away from my blog.
Thank you!
I shall unsubscribe at once. I have been reading this blog, merely to amuse myself because of my fondness and appreciation of Austen, and have often winced at the constant syntactical and sometimes even grammatical errors I find in Vic’s writing consistently. Obviously someone myself should stick to more literate and knowledgeable blogs.
“Obviously someone myself should stick to more literate and knowledgeable blogs.”
This just happens to have a grammatical mistake in it. Also using the word,”Obviously,” is a colloquial way of speaking.The use of “consistently,”in the second to last sentence is wrong, Mitchell. As for you being literate and knowledgeable,you appear to be neither.You don’t really seem to be that well educated. You come across as uncouth.
Now just go away and learn some manners and I think you should read some books properly.
Don’t like, don’t read? Why try to put down the writer of a fine blog, who is passionate about her subject, and who has readers (including me) that love her posts? Why not start your own blog whining about how tired you are of Jane Austen, vampires, zombies, all those who write, not to mention cottage industries. Good luck!
Vic, my diatribe was not directed towards you, which you would have seen had you read it without having an instant hissy-fit. I merely pointed out that the Bennets were fictional; when I still taught one of the courses I taught was called “Autobiography and Fiction: Versions of Self” and this is a topic that has always fascinated me. I apologise for having inadvertently ruffled your feathers from what you chose to infer as criticism. Had you read this without the grip of emotion you might have seen that my contempt is — justifiably — reserved for the hordes of second raters who flood the market with their faux-Jane novels.
I no longer live in England. I am American although I was a Londoner for many years.
mitchell
Mitchell, from what I’ve read from both of your comments here, you show no respect for this blog nor for its readers. Your comments were your opinions and you are entitled to them, but do you really think that this was the place to put them, and in such and arrogant fashion? I found both of your comments (posts) to be offensive to both Vic and this community. I did not find that Vic’s response to your first comment was at all “in the grip of emotion” nor was she engaging in a “hissy-fit” but I do find your comments completely inappropriate and full of emotion. As to your contempt on fan-fiction being “justifiable”, that is merely your opinion. Try selling that arrogance somewhere else, since you clearly don’t add anything but vitriol here.
What a brilliant deduction, Vic! I’d never have thought of it, and it makes perfect sense. Thank you.
P.S. I was not going to comment on the fellow above (and I quote him here: “Obviously someone myself should stick to more literate and knowledgeable blogs.” — copied and pasted, so it is exactly as he wrote it), because I think Elinor said it best, in Sense and Sensibility, I “…did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.” (Ch. 36 – BIG thanks to Graciela at RoP for finding it for me!)
So, Vic, if your blog is not “literate and knowledgeable” (*giggle*), I’ll eat my hat! Thanks, yet again, for all you’ve done to add to our understanding of Jane Austen’s World!
Cathy, I was just about to comment on the last comment of Mitchell’s about exactly what you called him out on but found you had already done it. Well done.
Good musings…Vic. Cassandra’s intentions in burning the letters are definitely well intentioned for her time, after all it wasn’t the era of bare it all on reality tv shows. But for us the Austen fans it does seem like a shame that we did not have a window to her private thoughts. Ah, the mysteries of the universe…
What an interesting theory, Vic! It makes a lot sense. And as much as I wish that we had more letters from Jane, I am thankful that we have any at all. Cassandra’s burning and censoring of letters of a more personal and/or sensitive nature does make sense to me. I can understand her reluctance to share those things. And thanks for sharing the portrait of Maria Edgeworth too. It is so pretty!
And in regards to Mitchell, sometime it is not the opinion itself that is the problem, it is the manner in which it is expressed.
mitchell, dude, get over yourself. Yes, I called you “dude”. It’s more polite than other words that could be used.
Vic, this was a very interesting post. I had never before thought about Lydia’s underlined text as a means of communicating to her sister what was not to be shared with others. The speculation that this was also a method used by Jane and Cassandra seems a valid theory to me.
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