A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Explanatory Notes 201
unfavourable light. Wherever possible, I refer the reader to Jane Austen’s
Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye (3rd edn., 1995) for the most accurate text.
The following emendations have been made to the text:
p. 29, l. 34: if we look] if we could look [1870]
p. 52, l. 8: the chiffonniere, is] the chiffonniere, which is
p. 75, l. 8: on strict survey] on strict survey, [1870]
p. 82, l. 22: till,] till
p. 91, l. 15: worth] worthy [1870]
p. 112, l. 3: dear style] clear style
p. 123, l. 33: Ah, ah!] Ah, ha! [1870]
3 called ‘Lady Susan’: the cancelled chapter of P etc. are not included in
this edition.
8 epigraph: Sir Arthur Helps, The Life of Columbus, the Discoverer of America
(1869), 9–10, slightly misquoted, from a description of Prince Henry
of Portugal, the promoter of the discovery of America.
9 the Dashwoods . . . and Musgroves: families who appear in the six completed
novels on which JA’s nineteenth-century reputation rested. JEAL
lists them in the order of the novels’ first publication: the Dashwoods in
S&S (1811); the Bennets in P&P (1813); the Bertrams in MP (1814);
the Woodhouses in E (1816); the Thorpes in NA; and the Musgroves in P
(published posthumously with NA in 1818).
10 Hasted, in his History of Kent: Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical
Survey of the County of Kent, 2 (1782), 387–88; 3 (1790), 48.
11 Mr. George Austen: JA’s father, the Revd George Austen (1731–1805), son
of William Austen (1701–37) and ward of William’s long-lived elder
brother Francis (1698–1791). George Austen entered St John’s College,
Oxford, in 1747 at the age of 16, held a fellowship there from 1751 to
1760, and was ordained a clergyman in the Church of England in 1754.
Of his two surviving sisters, the elder Philadelphia (1730–92) played a
significant role in the Austen family during JA’s early life, while Uncle
Francis’s second wife was one of her godmothers. JEAL’s information
about George Austen’s clerical livings is not quite accurate. He became
rector of Steventon, Hampshire, in 1761 but of the neighbouring parish of
Deane only in 1773. To confuse matters, however, the newly-wed George
and Cassandra Austen moved into the more comfortable parsonage at
Deane in 1764 and only transferred to Steventon after some improvements,
probably in 1768. This is clearly the source of JEAL’s mistake, for
he seems naturally enough to have assumed that his grandfather was
rector of Deane when he lived there in 1764. On a trip to Steventon to
collect materials for his Memoir, he writes to his half-sister Anna: ‘The
chief discovery that I made is that we were all mistaken in supposing that
our Grandfather was not Rector of Steventon, as well as of Deane, from
1764, the year of his marriage. The Steventon Register proves conclusively
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