A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Explanatory Notes 245
100 ‘Waterloo’: Walter Scott’s poem, The Field of Waterloo, jointly published
by Murray in October 1815. It commemorated the allied victory against
Napoleon in June 1815 and its profits went to the Waterloo subscription.
Hans Place, December 11 (1815): no. 130 in Letters, again in the Murray
archive.
all unbound: that is, in publishers’ boards, a temporary covering until the
book should be leather-bound by the purchaser. Murray allowed JA
twelve presentation copies of E in addition to the copy for the Prince
Regent. His three-volume set was presented already bound in red
morocco leather, at JA’s own expense. JA published E on commission, a
method she used for S&S and MP–– that is, she as author was responsible
for paying all the expenses of publication (paper, printing costs, etc.)
out of profits, while the publisher distributed the copies and took a percentage
commission on what was sold. In this way JA reserved copyright
in the work to herself–– hence her freedom to publish a second edition of
MP with Murray rather than with Egerton, its first publisher, a detail
mentioned at the end of this letter. But publishing on commission meant
that she also took upon herself the risk of financial loss and, as this letter
suggests, she still had to rely heavily on her publisher’s sense of the
market. The best account of JA’s dealings with her publishers is to be
found in Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life. For precise details of the
printing of E and MP (2nd edn.) see Gilson, 59–60 and 66–9.
101 Hans Place, December 11 (1815): no. 131 in Letters. JEAL’s copy in the
Memoir is the source for all other printings, the original being untraced.
the proper place for a dedication: Murray must have pointed out immediately
that dedications are not normally printed on title-pages.
Chawton, April 1, 1816: no. 139 in Letters, the original now in King’s
College Library, Cambridge.
Reviewer of ‘Emma’: this was JA’s first major critical review. The
anonymous reviewer was Walter Scott, in the Quarterly Review, 14 (dated
October 1815, but published March 1816), 188–201. The Quarterly was
Murray’s own periodical and it was he who asked Scott to promote the
novel: ‘Have you any fancy to dash off an article on “Emma”?’ (see
Gilson, 69). We do not know whether JA knew that Scott was the ‘clever’
reviewer.
the late event in Henrietta Street: JA wrote, ‘the late sad Event’, a reference
to Henry Austen’s bankruptcy, declared 15 March 1816. 10 Henrietta
Street, Covent Garden, housed the offices of the banking business of
Austen, Maunde, & Tilson. The best family account of the circumstances
surrounding the bankruptcy, and its effect on the Austen family
and on JA’s health, is to be found in Caroline Austen’s Reminiscences,
47–8.
102 the Countess of Morley: Frances Talbot (1782–1857), second wife of John
Parker, second Lord Boringdon, created in 1815 first Earl of Morley.