A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Explanatory Notes
final chapter (manuscript now in the British Library) is dated on the last
page ‘July 18. 1816’.
two others, entirely different, in its stead: the two concluding chapters of P
were originally numbered 10 and 11 (that is, volume 2, chapters 10 and
11). What JA in fact did was to cancel the greater part of this first version
of chapter 10 and substitute for it two new chapters, 10 and 11. The
original chapter 11 was largely retained and became chapter 12. In most
modern editions the three chapters are numbered continuously, without
regard for the original two-volume division, as chapters 22–4. So, the
final version of the ending was completed on 6 August 1816. What we
have in manuscript are the drafts for the cancelled chapter 10 and the
unrevised chapter 11 (which became volume 2, chapter 12, or chapter
24). The cancelled chapter was first printed by JEAL in Ed.2 of his
Memoir but is not included in this edition because of its wide availability
as an appendix to most modern editions of the novel. Along with the
fragment of the unfinished novel (Sanditon), the manuscript chapters of
P descended after Cassandra’s death to Anna Lefroy.
The following letter: this marks the beginning of a long section (over four
pages) added in Ed.2, comprising the letter to Alethea Bigg, the short
extract from JA’s letter to Caroline, and the quotation from Caroline’s
subsequent recollections. Ed.1 reads: ‘the suppression of which may be
almost a matter of regret. [new paragraph] In May 1817 she was persuaded
to remove to Winchester . . . ’
Miss Bigg . . . Robert Southey: JA’s letter is to Alethea Bigg whose sister
Catherine was married to Southey’s uncle. See note to p. 110 above.
three days before . . . her last work: the reference is to the unfinished novel
now known as Sanditon. According to the date at the top of the first page
of the manuscript (now in King’s College, Cambridge), JA began writing
on 27 January 1817. The tradition in the family was that she intended to
call it ‘The Brothers’, but Anna, who inherited the manuscript fragment,
is calling it ‘Sanditon’ in a letter of 1862 (see Appendix). JEAL refers to it
as ‘The Last Work’ and adopts that phrase for the title of ch. 13 of Ed.2
of the Memoir, in which he includes extracts amounting to about onesixth
of the total. As late as 1925, when R. W. Chapman first published
the fragment in its entirety, it was still ‘Fragment of a Novel’.
126 ‘My Dear Alethea’: extracts from no. 150 in Letters. JEAL omits other
family news from the letter he prints in order to focus attention more
steadily on JA’s health.
I am convinced: JA wrote ‘I am more & more convinced’ (Letters, 326–7).
a good account of his father: Jane’s eldest brother James was in poor health
and died in December 1819.
127 between Streatham and Winchester: Alethea Bigg lived in Winchester with
her widowed sister Mrs Elizabeth Heathcote, and was at this time visiting
their other sister Mrs Catherine Hill in Streatham.