Jane Austen's World

A Book Review by Brenda S. Cox

“Mr. Curtis’s [the apothecary’s] opinions were succinct . . . He looked at me–and into me, by way of a lanthorn beam directed down my throat–and pronounced me in want only of a period of rest and refreshment.”–Jane and the Year Without a Summer

Jane and the Year Without a Summer is the fourteenth book in a delightful series by Stephanie Barron. The novels show Jane Austen solving mysteries. I’ve enjoyed all of them! In the first of the series, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, she solved the murder of an earl in 1802. In each book, actual events, people, and places in Jane’s life are mixed with fiction, mystery, and a little romance.

In Jane and the Year Without a Summer, we’ve reached May 1816. So we’re nearing the end, sadly. Jane is suffering from the disease that will eventually kill her. But, of course, she doesn’t know that yet. So she goes to Cheltenham Spa with Cassandra to try the waters. She hates them, but, as always, gets involved in, and solves, a mystery. And she meets up with a romantic interest from a previous book.

You can enjoy this story without having read earlier books in the series. It’s been quite some time since I read the previous book, and I still followed this one easily.

Nothing really mysterious happens until over a third of the way through the book. But I enjoyed hanging out with Jane and Cassandra until then, and appreciating the real historical details woven into their story. The family is experiencing hard times, with Henry’s bank failure; Edward fighting a lawsuit; and Charles surviving a shipwreck and facing an inquiry over the loss of his ship. The apothecary tells Jane she needs a rest, so she uses some of her income from Emma to take Cassandra to a popular spa town.

The Year Without a Summer

At their boarding house, they meet a clergyman who calls himself a “man of Science.” (Though “natural philosophy” or “natural history” would have been more common terms used at the time.)  He prophesies apocalyptic desolations on the earth, based on an actual event.

Mount Tambora in Indonesia had erupted the year before (1815), the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.  It filled the world’s atmosphere with ash for several years. This made 1816 a “year without a summer,” when crops failed and people went hungry around the globe. 

Medicine

In another area of science, we hear the dubious medical advice of the Alton apothecary and the Cheltenham doctor. A real doctor is mentioned, though, who revolutionized medicine during Austen’s time by inventing vaccines.

Edward Jenner lived in Cheltenham at the time. He discovered that he could give people cowpox in order to prevent smallpox. (“Vaccination” comes from Latin “vacca,” meaning cow.)  Jane thinks that he “is of such dubious brilliance that some regard him as the Devil, and others as a god.” She says she was vaccinated by her friend Madame Lefroy, a clergyman’s wife who did vaccinate many people in her parish, near the Austens’ parish.

“Weaknesses” of Women

The Cheltenham doctor Jane consults claims that her health problems are due to “an excess of uterine influence.” He claims that “denying the organ its proper function of childbearing” causes it to release poisons into the body, causing “every kind of affliction” common to women! Jane doesn’t think much of his advice. She comments to Cassandra that childbearing itself is even worse; some of their relatives died in childbirth.

Attitudes toward women are threaded through the novel. Jane’s brother James tells her, “the female mind is too weak to support the rigors of composition, and must necessarily fall into vice.” Jane, of course, ignores this. I’m wondering if James ever said anything like this (readers, do you know?), or if it’s just a reflection of popular attitudes. James wrote a poem, after the publication of Sense and Sensibility, praising her writing and adjuring her to continue writing. So if he said something like this later, it was quite a change.

[Spoiler alert—skip this paragraph if you wish.] The mysteries of the novel center around a frail young invalid, Miss Williams. She is trying to achieve independence. Her wealthy father’s will gave her an inheritance when she married, but she will lose control of it if she gets pregnant (or dies). So she becomes anorexic, refusing to eat. One of Barron’s many helpful notes tells us that anorexia frequently prevented menstruation and conception. So women sometimes used that choice as a way to control their own lives. However, when people close to “Miss Williams” die, questions arise. Is her wastrel husband trying to kill her to get her inheritance? Or is something else going on?

Stephanie Barron not only tells a compelling story, she has obviously done her research on Jane Austen’s life and world. We learn fun details ranging from how transparencies were made and displayed, to how much Princess Charlotte’s wedding gown cost.

I think any Austen fan will enjoy reading about Jane Austen’s fictional adventures during “the year without a summer.”

Jane and the Year Without a Summer comes out on Feb. 8. Enjoy!

Brenda S. Cox also posts on “Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen,” and is working on a book entitled “Fashionable Goodness: Faith in Jane Austen’s England.”

For a scholarly examination, see Tambora and the “Year Without a Summer” of 1816