A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Explanatory Notes
novels–– by Marianne Dashwood, in S&S, ch. 3, where his ‘beautiful
lines . . . have frequently almost driven me wild’; and by Fanny Price, in
MP, chs. 6 and 45; JA mentions her father reading ‘Cowper to us in the
evening’, in Letters, 27.
71 a sister novelist: a reference to Fanny Burney, for whom see note to p. 20
above.
fancy being Mrs. Crabbe: see JA’s letter to Cassandra, 21 October 1813:
‘No; I have never seen the death of Mrs Crabbe. I have only just been
making out from one of his prefaces that he probably was married. It is
almost ridiculous. Poor woman! I will comfort him as well as I can, but I
do not undertake to be good to her children’ (Letters, 243). Sarah Crabbe
had died on 21 September 1813. On her recent stay in London (September
1813) JA had joked about hoping to catch sight of Crabbe, known to
be there too.
72 Scott’s poetry . . . merits of ‘Waverley’: Walter Scott (1771–1832), poet and
novelist. Scott’s medievalized verse tales were huge bestsellers between
1805 and 1815, setting a fashion for historical romance and extravagant
adventure which would be continued in his novels, the first of which was
Waverley, appearing in 1814, the same year as MP. In MP, ch. 9, Fanny
Price quotes from Scott’s poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), and
in P, ch. 11, Anne Elliot and Captain Benwick argue the relative merits of
Scott’s two most successful poems, Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the
Lake (1810). In both instances, JA uses an enthusiasm for Scott’s poetry
to signal the sensitivity and melancholy romanticism of the characters,
and, more critically, to suggest their disinclination to reality. JA in fact
lived to see five of Scott’s novels published, not three: Waverley (1814),
Guy Mannering (1815), The Antiquary (1816), The Black Dwarf (1816),
and Old Mortality (1816), the last two appearing together as Tales of My
Landlord. In 1816 Scott provided JA with her first major critical appraisal
when he reviewed E for the Quarterly Review (see Ch. 8 below). From her
letter to JEAL of 16–17 December 1816, it is clear that JA has read The
Antiquary (Letters, 323).
no business to write novels: an extract from a letter of 28 September 1814,
to Anna Austen (she became Lefroy in the November), no. 108 in Letters.
Unlike his poetry, Scott’s novels were published anonymously; hence
JA’s ready attribution of Waverley to him is interesting. How did she
know? The novel appeared in a first edition in July 1814 and quickly went
through three more editions before the end of the year. A notice of
publication in the Edinburgh Review, 23 (Sept. 1814), 509, listed MP and
Waverley together, which may possibly account for JA’s jealous reference
in this letter.
Mrs. —— ’s: JA wrote ‘M rs West’s Alicia de Lacy’ (Letters, 277). The
novelist was Jane West (1758–1852), a moral and conservative writer, and
this her latest work was also published in 1814 and listed in the same
notice in the Edinburgh Review as Waverley and MP.