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.
Jane Austen fans are flocking to theaters to watch the 2005 Pride and Prejudicefilm in theaters to celebrate its 20th anniversary. And what perfect timing with Jane’s own 250th celebration!
The film’s re-release in theaters was originally set for April 18-24, 2025, but it was extended to April 25-30, 2025 due to its success. It’s a limited engagement, primarily in the U.S., so Jane Austen friend groups, book clubs, and JASNA regional groups are taking advantage of this special event and gathering at movie theaters nationwide to watch it together.
Some, in Regency garb!
Pop Culture Craze
While the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice isn’t a favorite with some Jane Austen fans, who argue that it’s a very loose interpretation of the novel (and rife with historical inaccuracies), it’s been a huge sensation with a whole new wave of Austen fans since it first released 20 years ago. P&P 2005 fans discuss it non-stop online and have created fan groups and an endless library of memes, edits, reels dedicated to it. An entire fandom has formed itself around the film and its actors.
Hand Flex
And its popularity shows no sign of stopping. From Macfadyen’s emotionally complex portrayal of Mr. Darcy, the electricity between Knightley and Macfadyen, and the famous “hand-flex” scene, this highly romanticized adaptation of Austen’s novel is a cultural phenomenon in its own right.
Musical Score
The musical score alone is beloved by fans everywhere. Composed by Dario Marianelli and performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano) and the English Chamber Orchestra), the music is one of the reasons people love the film so much. The title track “Dawn” is just about as dreamy as it can get:
Awards and Nominations
After its release, the film won or was nominated for endless awards from the film industry, including Oscar nominations for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Keira Knightley), Best Achievement in Art Direction (Sarah Greenwood, art director and Katie Spencer, set decorator), Best Achievement in Costume Design (Jacqueline Durran), and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score, Dario Marianelli).
Joe Wright, the film’s director and the 2006 Winner Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer, joined a Q&A several days ago at a special screening of the re-release. Of his directorial debut, he said, “I’m actually prouder of the film tonight than I think I’ve ever been.” (@focusfeatures)
The 2005 Pride and Prejudice is often compared to the 1995 sweeping BCC version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, but it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. They are both so vastly different in every way. Nonetheless, fans have been debating this topic for 20 years now and will probably continue for another 20 years at least.
People outside the Jane Austen fandom probably won’t ever understand why we all feel so passionate about the different film versions of Austen’s novels, but in the words of Mr. Bennet, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”
Re-Watching
Jane Austen fans LOVE to re-watch the films over and over. Have you been to the theater to watch the 2005 P&P re-release? Are you planning to go? (Did you / Will you dress up?) Which version do you prefer? Please comment below!
If you’d like to check showtimes in your local village theater, you can search AMC’s listings HERE. I’m hoping to see it before it’s gone. I can’t pass up the chance to watch a movie with other die-hard Janeites at the theater!
“My dear child, commend Dr. Grant to the deanery of Westminster or St. Paul’s, and I should be as glad of your nurseryman and poulterer as you could be.”—Mrs. Grant to Mary Crawford, Mansfield Park, chapter 22
Churches Mentioned in Mansfield Park
Four real churches are mentioned in Mansfield Park, which talks extensively about the church and clergy. I’ve written about the Garrison Chapel, where the Prices and Henry Crawford went to church. A few days ago, I posted about a church in London, St. George’s, Hanover Square, the wedding venue that Mary Crawford wants to show Fanny.
Two more real London churches are mentioned in Mansfield Park. Mrs. Grant speaks of the two most well-known churches in England, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Mary Crawford tells her sister to greet the nurseryman (who took care of plants) and the poulterer (who provided poultry), but her sister tells her there are no such people in Mansfield. The Grants will need to move to the big city to get such help. She hopes that someone will “commend Dr. Grant to the deanery of Westminster or St. Paul’s,” so they can move to London.
The “deanery” is the office of the dean, the head clergyman of a major church.
Mrs. Grant finally gets that opportunity:
“Dr. Grant, through an interest on which he had almost ceased to form hopes, succeeded to a stall in Westminster, which, as affording an occasion for leaving Mansfield, an excuse for residence in London, and an increase of income to answer the expenses of the change, was highly acceptable to those who went and those who staid.”— Mansfield Park, chapter 48
Dr. Grant, as he had hoped, moves up in the church hierarchy to a prestigious church. He’s been the rector of a small country church at Mansfield Park. He will still receive the tithe income from that church until he dies, when Edmund will become rector. But Dr. Grant has connections to people with influence who can get him a higher church position. The church worked much like the Navy, where Henry Crawford’s uncle, the Admiral, gets William Price a promotion.
Westminster Abbey
One of Dr. Grant’s friends, or more likely a friend of a friend, gets him a “stall in Westminster,” meaning a position as a prebendary. A prebendary was a church official who sat in a prebendal stall, a seat of honor in the church. The position came with income from a “prebend,” specific church possessions.
Stalls in Westminster Abbey, 1908. Image Credit: Rev. Thomas Davidson 1856-1923 (ed.), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Westminster Abbey is, of course, the church in London where monarchs are crowned, as King Charles III was not long ago. All English coronations have taken place there since 1066. It is not a cathedral or a parish church. Instead it is a “Royal Peculiar,” with a dean like other large churches, but under the direct supervision of the monarch rather than a bishop or archbishop.
Westminster Abbey in London, a “Royal Peculiar” directly under the Crown. Credit: Σπάρτακος, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Westminster Abbey is also, of course, a place where many famous people are buried and memorialized. While Jane Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral, there is a small plaque commemorating her in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, adjacent to Shakespeare’s memorial.
St. Paul’s Cathedral
St. Paul’s Cathedral, the other place where Dr. Grant hoped to get a position, is the cathedral of the diocese of London. (A diocese is a geographical group of parishes, led by a bishop, whose “seat” is at the cathedral for the diocese.) The history of the church reflects the history of London.
One interesting fact: women were first ordained as priests in the Church of England in 1994, and St. Paul’s first clergywoman was appointed in 1997. Now the Lord Bishop of London is a woman, installed in 2018, with her seat, of course, at St. Paul’s. She is called the Right Reverend and Right Honorable Dame Sarah Mullally, and she is a member of the House of Lords. No doubt Jane Austen would be amazed.
One more London church is mentioned in Jane Austen’s novels. In Pride and Prejudice, Lydia tells her sisters,
“We were married you know, at St. Clement’s, because Wickham’s lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o’clock.”
We don’t know for sure which St. Clement’s in London Austen has in mind. An old nursery rhyme goes, “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s,” and two churches claim to be the St. Clement’s in the rhyme.
It seems most likely that Austen was referring to St. Clement Danes in the Strand, which served a large parish. The parish included areas of cheap lodgings and less savory areas, where Wickham could have afforded lodgings. It was also some distance from Gracechurch Street where the Gardiners lived, better concealing Wickham and Lydia from her family. (Source: Pat Rogers, editor of the Cambridge Pride and Prejudice.)
Another option, according to Rogers, is St. Clement’s Eastcheap on the east side of Clement’s Lane. However, this was a tiny parish only a block from Gracechurch Street, so was less likely to be the parish Wickham chose to lodge in.
The rhyme goes on to talk about not being able to pay a debt until one gets rich, at some unknown future time. Quite appropriate for Wickham, who was deep in debt but always hoping to get rich.
St. Clement Danes in the Strand, possible location for Lydia and Wickham’s wedding. Image credit: Stephen Richards / St Clement Danes, Strand / CC BY-SA 2.0
Faith in London Today
Another surprise for Jane Austen: In Mansfield Park, Edmund Bertram states, “We do not look in great cities for our best morality.” He implies that there was more virtue in the countryside and more vice in London. That was probably true in Austen’s time, according to all I have read.
However, a survey a few years ago indicated that the opposite is now true: “London is now more religious and socially conservative than the rest of Britain.” According to that survey, Londoners pray more, attend religious services more, and are more conservative on moral questions than those outside London. Also, Christian Londoners help their neighbours and give to charity more than non-religious Londoners. Of course, London is also a diverse religious environment, with people practicing various religious faiths, which are less common outside of the capital.
The London churches Austen mentions in Mansfield Park are still thriving.
Other churches mentioned by name in Jane Austen’s novels and letters
“Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.”—Pride and Prejudice, chapter 42
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s Courtship
Have you ever wondered how on earth intelligent Mr. Bennet came to marry a woman of “weak understanding” and an “illiberal” [uncultured, unrefined] mind? Jane Austen gives us a brief explanation above: he was “captivated by youth and beauty” and an “appearance of good humour.” But what was their courtship like? Emma Wood has imagined that in the play Mr. Bennet’s Bride. First, let’s think a little more about what Austen tells us.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, an ill-assorted pair. Hugh Thomson, 1894, public domain.
It’s often been pointed out that Mrs. Bennet, silly as she seems, has some worldly wisdom. She has legitimate concerns about providing for herself and her children after Mr. Bennet’s death. It seems that Mr. Bennet had earlier considered this, but now has more or less given up. In chapter 50, when Lydia is to marry Wickham, we read:
“Mr. Bennet had very often wished before this period of his life that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. He now wished it more than ever. . . .
“When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia’s birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her husband’s love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income.
“Five thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and the children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the latter depended on the will of the parents.”
So Mrs. Bennet did have some fortune, enough to give her about £250 a year (5% of £5,000). Not enough for a gentry family to live on, but not poverty, either. However, divided between five daughters, once their father died and his estate went to Mr. Collins, it was insignificant.
Mrs. Bennet has some valid concerns mixed with her foolishness. C.E. Brock, 1895, public domain
While her family’s future is uncertain, Mrs. Bennet does not recognize, as her husband does, that saving money would be a help. Her extravagant plans for Lydia’s wedding clothes, and for Lydia and Wickham’s future house, servants, and carriages, show that she has no conception of limiting expenditures according to income. It is her husband whose “love of independence” (desire to avoid debt) has kept their family solvent. Mr. Bennet was at least better than that “foolish, spendthrift baronet,” Sir Walter Elliot of Persuasion, “who had not had principle or sense enough to maintain himself in the situation in which Providence had placed him.”
Mr. Bennet wishes he had saved money to provide for his daughters, but he has not. H. M. Brock, public domain
Mrs. Bennet, when she was lovely young Miss Gardiner, had enough sense to get the attention of young Mr. Bennet, heir to Longbourn estate, and wheedle him into marrying her.
And that’s where the imagination of Emma Wood, an Australian playwright, took off.
The Play, Mr. Bennet’s Bride
Wood says,
“I began to imagine the details of their courtship. I knew the end, but how did the story begin? The characters flew onto the page. It was such a joy to write. Imagining the earlier lives of the ill-suited couple and peopling the stage with other characters in the previous generation to the novel was an adventure. . . . I felt a deep sense of obligation to honour the characters and style of the novel as I wrote, aware that audiences would expect to see people and situations they recognized in a loving tribute to the novel.”
Mr. Bennet’s Bride is a fun play by Australian playwright Emma Wood. Its US premiere was this month in Cartersville, GA. Photo by Brenda S. Cox
Wood’s play, Mr. Bennet’s Bride, has been delighting audiences in Australia and the U.K. since 2014. This February it premiered in the United States, in the small town of Cartersville on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. I was privileged to attend a performance with a group of JASNA friends. We all loved it. The characters were engaging and fun, and the dialogue sparkled. A few little “Easter eggs” were thrown in, Austen quotes that fit well. One started with “It is a truth universally acknowledged . . .”; I won’t give away the others.
The Plot (Includes spoilers)
Here’s how Ms. Wood imagines the story:
We have James Bennet, age 29. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father has been distant all his life. His father’s sister, Aunt Mary, has raised James. His father is pressuring him to marry and produce an heir for Longbourn. His father’s cousin, Benedict Collins, has just produced his own heir, William Collins, and looks on Longbourn as William’s future inheritance.
First we see James hiding behind a sofa, reading a book. When he is discovered, he is forced to make small talk with one of the appropriate young ladies his father has been trying to set him up with. She is no more interested than he is.
Afterwards, his father lays down an ultimatum: Get married within six months, or you’ll be kicked out and have to make your own way in the world. To get James to take him seriously, he puts it into a contract, involving his lawyer (solicitor), Mr. Gardiner.
Jolly Mr. Gardiner and his wife—an earlier incarnation of Mrs. Bennet—take advantage of the situation. In a hilarious scene, Mr. Gardiner manages to introduce James to their beautiful but air-headed daughter Emily. She is in love with an officer but is savvy enough to quickly replace him in her affections with the heir to Longbourn. The story continues with much laughter.
In a serious scene, the elder Mr. Bennet has a touching reconciliation with his son, then allows him to choose his own bride. He chooses Emily. Only at the end does James get an inkling of what he’s gotten himself into.
Some flashed scenes show the new Bennet couple’s future.
The cast and director of Mr. Bennet’s Bride with some visiting Janeites, Feb., 2024. Photo by Brenda S. Cox
“One of the reasons why I have fallen in love with Mr. Bennet’s Bride is how James (our Mr. Bennet), Emily (Mrs. Bennet), and their families are written. They bring another level of depth and understanding for the matriarch and patriarch we’ve come to know in the classic tale. It’s clear both families want the best for their children and I think it’s so important that they admit their faults too when need be. . . . I hope that our production . . . makes you get those warm fuzzy feelings of love and laughter during this Valentine’s season.”
Renata Dennis, Regional Coordinator of JASNA Georgia, and Imani Anderson, director of Mr. Bennet’s Bride. Photo by Brenda S. Cox
The play did indeed give a deeper understanding of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and how their family came to be what it was.
Gentle readers, how do you imagine Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s courtship?
When I have finished reading a novel, I always write down all family names which occur in it because I would like to ask the author how and why she or he has chosen these names. There occur 35 family names in Pride and Prejudice, but I can no longer ask Jane Austen those questions. I can only guess what she had in mind. Here is what my guesses, fortified by a little research on the Internet, produced.
The name which struck me first was DeBourgh, because the word Bourgh as in Cherbourgh is the French equivalent of the English Burgh as in Edinburgh. If the name DeBourgh refers to a French ancestry of the husband of the Lady DeBourgh it cannot mean “we are aristocrats from a Bourgh” (Burgh) because in French, they would have been named “DuBourgh”. More likely is the interpretation “we are aristocrats from a French town of Bourgh”, hence “DeBourgh”.
Does a French town named Bourgh, or Bourg exist? Yes, it does! It is “Bourg sur Gironde” on the river Garonne and is located approximately 10 miles North of Bordeaux [1]. Hence my guess is that the town was originally named Bourgh and that the DeBourghs were a noble French family of which some members had moved to England.
Next it occurred to me that the 35 family names could logically be arranged in two groups. Group 1 contains the names of the aristocrats. DeBourgh, Darcy, and Fitzwilliam. Group 2 contains the names of the commoners [2]. I guess that Jane Austen had made those choices deliberately. The only French-sounding names were assigned by her to two of the noble families of the novel! Could Darcy, like DeBourgh, also be of French origin? Then there had to be a town named Arcy in France. Well, there is! The town of Arcy is located WSW of Paris near Versailles. In French, De-Arcy which means from Arcy would have been shortened to D’Arcy.
If the families DeBourgh and D’Arcy (later changed to Darcy) had come from France when and how had the first DeBourgh or Darcy emigrated? I had to go to the Internet to try my luck. I found the following in an article by Sharon Latham. According to her there had existed a French nobleman Richard D’arcy who had joined William the Conqueror’s army, had sailed with William to England, and had fought for him at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Under the existing economic system William became the owner of every square inch of land of England when he became King of England. It was in his interest, and it was common practice at the time, to make nobles his vassals by loaning them tracts of land. Apparently, William bequeathed large tracts of land to Sir Richard D’Arcy, among others in Dorset where Jane Austen located Pemberton. Eventually the most powerful nobles ignored their vassalage and declared that they owned their lands outright.
Today many Darcy’s live in Ireland. It is not fully clear to me why, how, and when they moved there but, in 1320, King Edward II sent Sir John D’Arcy as Lord Justice and General Governor to Ireland.
A second item on the Internet (in “Jane Austen in Vermont”) mentions a connection between the families of DeBourgh and Darcy. In 1329 there was a marriage of a John Darcy 1st Lord of Knaith with Joan De Burgh (the o was apparently dropped) whose father was Richard de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster.
I am sure that there are numerous additional Internet and other studies on DeBourgh and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice done by real experts. I was satisfied that the two studies which I had consulted produced a sufficiently rational explanation for Jane Austin’s choice of two French-sounding names for the two noble families of her novel to set them apart from the commoners. Whether she knew the histories of these families, which existed in England at her time, I leave to the experts to debate.
____________
[1] There is also a French town named “Le Bourg” 50 miles North of Toulouse. The reason why I have chosen Bourg sur Gironde for my guesses is its location in Aquitaine. After Eleanor of Aquitaine died the region was ruled by English Kings for about 300 years.
Dr. Heymann was born in Germany and received his M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam, Nederland. Today he is Professor Emeritus, Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. Research areas: cosmochemistry, conditions in the early solar system, origin of elements, causes of elemental and isotopic inhomogeneities in the solar nebula.
Last month, I wrote about Pin Money, or allowances, in Jane Austen’s life and novels. This time, I’m looking more closely at the importance of money in a genteel woman’s life and how it plays out in Austen’s novels.
Money is one obvious way parents could put limits on their children and keep them under control. This happened to both sexes for various reasons in Jane Austen’s time, but it carried even more weight for a woman because there were also financial consequences that came with marriage once she left her father’s home, even if she came from a wealthy family.
At that time in England, husbands had complete control over the finances of their wives. Without an adequate personal budget to spend as she liked, a wife had to go to her husband to ask for money to buy anything and everything she might need. Without a set allowance, wives could find themselves in a very difficult or unhappy position. This is one of many reasons why the marriage settlement (or prenuptial agreement) was so crucial because it was one way fathers could make sure their daughters (and grandchildren) were taken care of financially.
Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma, 1996.
Marriage Settlements
A young woman from a wealthy family would obviously qualify for better marriage terms than a young woman with very little. Her father could leverage what his daughter brought to the marriage for a highly favorable marriage settlement, allowing for her to have the pin money she needed, portions for her children, and a widow’s pension in the event that her husband died. Young women who did not bring as much to the marriage would have a smaller personal budget or, in some cases, no personal budget whatsoever.
In Daniel Pool’s What Jane Austen Ate and What Charles Dickens Knew, he writes, “Typically the bride’s family would have their lawyers negotiate with the husband’s lawyers, to get the husband to agree to grant her ‘pin money,’ which was a small personal annual allowance while he lived, a hefty chunk of property or money to support her after he died, and ‘portions’ of money for their children. All this would be written up in the ‘marriage settlement’ by the lawyers before anybody walked down any aisles.”
In JASNA’s Persuasions, you can read all about The Marriage Law of Jane Austen’s World. (For more on marriage settlements and marriage law in the Regency Era, please see the resources at the end of this article.)
Marriage Settlement, Mills College Library Heller Rare Book Room, Special Collections. Photo by Rachel Dodge, 2019.
Money Matters in Jane Austen’s Novels
In each of Austen’s novels, we find intriguing scenes that relate to women and personal money. Each of these examples shows us just how important it was for a woman to have her own money and the problems (and dangers) that could arise if she did not have any money or ran out of money, especially if she was away from home:
Fanny Price’s £10
In Fanny’s case in Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas supplies her with money before she leaves for her journey to visit her family in Portsmouth:
It had very early occurred to her that a small sum of money might, perhaps, restore peace for ever on the sore subject of the silver knife, canvassed as it now was continually, and the riches which she was in possession of herself, her uncle having given her £10 at parting, made her as able as she was willing to be generous.
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
Harriet Smith’s Purse
In Emma, we see evidence of Harriet Smith’s allowance, which comes in handy when she meets the “trampers” on the road:
More and more frightened, she immediately promised them money, and taking out her purse,gave them a shilling, and begged them not to want more, or to use her ill.
Emma, Jane Austen
“The terror … was then their own portion.” Illustration by C.E. Brock.
Lydia and Kitty Bennet’s Mismanagement
In Pride and Prejudice, Lydia and Kitty spend their pin money money at the shops and must borrow money from Elizabeth and Jane when they surprise them for a meal at the inn in Hertfordshire:
“And we mean to treat you all,” added Lydia, “but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there.” Then, showing her purchases—“Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better.”
Lydia Bennet, Pride and Prejudice
Nancy Steele’s Fright
In Sense and Sensibility, we find this intriguing passage about the Steele sisters and personal money when Nancy Steele must go to Mrs. Jennings for money after Lucy borrows all of Nancy’s money and marries Robert Ferrars:
Not a soul suspected anything of the matter, not even Nancy, who, poor soul! came crying to me the day after, in a great fright for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, as well as not knowing how to get to Plymouth; forLucy it seems borrowed all her money before she went off to be married, on purpose we suppose to make a show with, and poor Nancy had not seven shillings in the world…
Mrs. Jennings, Sense and Sensibility
Lucy Steele (Anna Madeley) and Anne, or “Nancy,” Steele (Daisy Haggardand), Sense and Sensibility, 2008.
Catherine Morland’s Borrowed Fare
In Northanger Abbey, money becomes quite important in a crucial moment. First, money is mentioned when Catherine Morland goes to Bath. Her parents send her with money for her personal expenses and ask her to keep account of her spending:
I beg, Catherine, you will always wrap yourself up very warm about the throat, when you come from the rooms at night; and I wish you would try to keep some account of the money you spend; I will give you this little book on purpose.”
Mrs. Morland, Northanger Abbey
Money is mentioned again when Catherine is suddenly and unexpectedly sent home from Northanger Abbey. While she is in Bath, she is under the care of her hosts, the Allens, who would, of course, pay for many of her expenses while she is under their roof and their protection. However, once she goes to Northanger, she is essentially under the care and protection of General Tilney. When he sends her home abruptly, he does not provide the funds necessary for her journey home, leaving her in a very precarious and even dangerous situation. This was a terrible oversight on his part. Thankfully, Eleanor is able to provide the funds, which we may assume is from her own personal allowance:
It had occurred to her that after so long an absence from home, Catherine might not be provided with money enough for the expenses of her journey, and, upon suggesting it to her with most affectionate offers of accommodation, it proved to be exactly the case.
Catherine had never thought on the subject till that moment, but, upon examining her purse, was convinced that but for this kindness of her friend, she might have been turned from the house without even the means of getting home; and the distress in which she must have been thereby involved filling the minds of both, scarcely another word was said by either during the time of their remaining together.
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
Catherine makes it home safely and repays the money to Eleanor by mail with only a short note: “The money therefore which Eleanor had advanced was enclosed with little more than grateful thanks, and the thousand good wishes of a most affectionate heart.”
The Morlands, a very practical bunch, decide after a bit that it all ended well in the end, but even they cannot understand such a “breach of conduct” on General Tilney’s part:
They were far from being an irritable race; far from any quickness in catching, or bitterness in resenting, affronts: but here, when the whole was unfolded, was an insult not to be overlooked, nor, for the first half hour, to be easily pardoned.
Mr. and Mrs. Morland could not but feel … that, in forcing her on such a measure, General Tilney had acted neither honourably nor feelingly—neither as a gentleman nor as a parent. Why he had done it, what could have provoked him to such a breach of hospitality . . . was a matter which they were at least as far from divining as Catherine herself…
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
Felicity Jones as Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey, 2007.
Mrs. Smith’s Recovered Property
In Persuasion, we turn our attention to the widowed Mrs. Smith, whose husband had badly mismanaged their finances: “She was a widow and poor. Her husband had been extravagant; and at his death, about two years before, had left his affairs dreadfully involved.” In this situation, it is not just Mrs. Smith’s personal finances that are at stake, but her finances at large. Here, we see Captain Wentworth use his influence to work on her behalf and help improve her financial circumstances. At the end of the novel, we read this:
[Mrs. Smith] was their earliest visitor in their settled life; and Captain Wentworth, by putting her in the way of recovering her husband’s property in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, and seeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with the activity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fully requited the services which she had rendered, or ever meant to render, to his wife.
Persuasion, Jane Austen
When we look at the parents, guardians, husbands, and friends in the examples above, it’s clear that Austen uses money matters (just as she uses so many other clever devices) to point to character and propriety. We could go through each novel and study each of the male and female characters and surmise quite a bit about their personalities just from the way they each manage money.
It’s clear that the characters in Austen’s books who provide well for their wives, children, and friends–and those who are generous and charitable with their money–are the characters we should admire and respect. Conversely, those who handle their money poorly–and those who manipulate and use and abuse others for financial gain or for personal control–are the characters we should distrust and, in some cases, even despise. In Austen’s novels, money matters.
Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen's England is now available! By JAW contributor Brenda S. Cox. See Review. Available from Amazon and Jane Austen Books.
Available through December 31st, 2025. Click on image for details, and share this poster with other teachers and students!
The Obituary of Charlotte Collins by Andrew Capes
Click on image to read the story.
Comments
“My idea of good company…is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation.” – Jane Austen, Persuasion
Gentle readers: Please feel free to post your comments and continue the conversation! Due to SPAM, we will no longer accept comments on posts after 30 days of publication. In some instances, links will be removed from comments as well.
Administrators and Contributors
Vic Sanborn, founder of this blog, is supported by a team of talented and knowledgeable writers about Jane Austen and the Regency era. They are:
Tony Grant, who now contributes his photos from London and England
Click on their names to enter their own blogs.
In addition, we thank the many experts and authors who frequently contribute their posts and opinions, and who continue to do so freely or at our request.
Click here to enter the page. Topics include Regency fashion, historic foods, Jane Austen societies, British sites, related topics. Click on image.
May we suggest?
Hello, my name is Vic and I live in Maryland, USA. I have adored Jane Austen almost all of my life. I am a proud lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me and my team. We do not accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. However, we do accept and keep books and CDs to review.
If you would like to share a new site, or point out an error, please email us. (Yes, we are fallible. We'll own up to our mistakes and will make the corrections with a polite smile on our faces.) Write us at
Thank you for visiting this blog. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome.
Project Gutenberg: eBook of Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore, Volume 2 (of 2), by Charles G. Harper
STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE: A PICTURESQUE HISTORY
OF THE COACHING AGE, VOL. II, By CHARLES G. HARPER. 1903. Click on this link.
