A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Explanatory Notes 247
to a publisher in Bath: though JA was at that time living in Bath, the
manuscript of ‘Susan’, a version of which had been written, according to
Cassandra’s memorandum, in 1798 and 1799, was in 1803 offered to and
bought by the small London publisher Crosby and Co. However, it seems
likely that Crosby had provincial connections with booksellers in Bath
(Gilson, 83); so JEAL’s information is not necessarily inaccurate. JA
enquired after her manuscript in April 1809 when Crosby informed her,
somewhat oddly, that its purchase had not bound his firm to publish the
manuscript, and that she might have it back on repayment of the £10 (see
Letters, 174–5). It is not known exactly when JA bought it back–– perhaps
not until early in 1816. At this time she changed the heroine’s name and
the working title to ‘Catherine’; but the novel was only published posthumously,
under the title Northanger Abbey, which by family tradition
Henry Austen gave it (Fam. Rec., 210–11 and 233).
106 old fishing-tackle in Scott’s cabinet: Walter Scott himself tells this story of
the interrupted composition of Waverley (1814) in the ‘General Preface’
(1829) written for the collected edition of his novels. There he claims the
work was begun in 1805 but ‘laid aside in the drawers of an old writing
desk’, and only rediscovered several years later when he ‘happened to
want some fishing-tackle for the use of a guest . . . and, in looking for
lines and flies, the long-lost manuscript presented itself ’ (Waverley, ed.
Claire Lamont (1981), 352–4).
One of her brothers: Ed.1 reads ‘Her brother Henry’.
for that which had cost her nothing: JEAL is here drawing on Henry
Austen’s words in his ‘Biographical Notice’ (1818). Writing to Frank
Austen on 3–4 July 1813, JA noted with pleasure that the first edition of
S&S had sold out and earned her £140 in profits (Letters, 217).
extracts from two of her letters: both to Anna Lefroy (nos. 111 and 118 in
Letters). Both were given by Anna to JEAL for use in the Memoir, and
both are since lost (see notes to Letters, 438 and 443).
Mr. C.’s opinion . . . in my list: in Letters, 282, ‘Mr.C’ reads ‘M rs Creed’.
The list, which survives, records ‘Opinions of Mansfield Park’, and is in
Minor Works, 431–5, with Mrs Creed’s preference of S&S and P&P
over MP at p. 435.
a close imitation of ‘Self-Control’: for JA’s anxious preoccupation with
the success of Mary Brunton’s Self-Control and the popularity of its
highly decorous heroine, see note to p. 75 above and her own humorous
‘Plan of a Novel’ (pp. 97–9 above).
‘Rosanne’ in our Society: Laetitia Matilda Hawkins, Rosanne; or, a Father’s
Labour Lost (1814), a novel written to illustrate ‘the inestimable advantages
attendant on the practice of pure Christianity’. ‘Our Society’ is the
Chawton Book Society or Reading Club.
107 Two notices . . . in the ‘Quarterly Review’: see notes to pp. 28 and 101
above.