Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family RecordAusten-Leigh, William
General
Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family Record
Austen-Leigh, William
Austen, Jane, 1775-1817; Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 -- Family; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Family relationships
Jane's expectations were so modest that she laid by a sum out of her
very slender resources to meet the expected loss. She must have been
delighted at the result. By July 1813 every copy of the first edition
had been sold; and not only had her expenses been cleared but she was
one hundred and forty pounds to the good.[233] If we compare this with
the thirty pounds that Fanny Burney received for _Evelina_, the one
hundred pounds that Maria Edgeworth got for _Castle Rackrent_, or the
hundred and forty pounds gained by Miss Ferrier for her first novel, we
shall see that Jane Austen had no reason to complain.
The money was no doubt very welcome; but still more important from
another point of view was the favourable reception of the work. Had it
been a failure and an expense to its author, she would hardly have
dared, nor could she have afforded, to make a second venture. On the
success of _Sense and Sensibility_, we may say, depended the existence
of _Pride and Prejudice_. Now she could return with renewed spirit to
the preparation of the more famous work which was to follow, and on
which she had already been engaged for some time, concurrently with her
first-published novel.
We have no letters and little news for 1812; but we know that in April
Edward Austen and his daughter Fanny came to Chawton House for three
weeks. It was their last visit as Austens; for on the death of Mrs.
Knight--his kind and generous patron and friend--in October of that
year, Edward and all his family took the name of Knight[234]: a name
which had been borne by every successive owner of the Chawton Estate
since the sixteenth century. In June, Jane went with her mother to stay
for a fortnight at Steventon Rectory--the last visit ever paid by Mrs.
Austen to any place. When she determined never to leave home again, she
said that her latest visit should be to her eldest son. Accordingly she
went, and took a final farewell of the place where nearly the whole of
her married life had been spent. She was then seventy-two years old,
and lived on for sixteen more; but she kept her resolution and never
again left Chawton Cottage for a single night. Her long survival can
hardly have been expected by those who had to nurse her through frequent
fits of illness; but these ailments do not seem to have been of the sort
that kills. She was, however, always ready to contemplate the near
approach of death both for herself and others; for in July 1811, after
buying some bombazine in which to mourn for the poor King, she said: 'If
I outlive him it will answer my purpose; if I do not, somebody may mourn
for me in it: it will be wanted for one or the other, I dare say, before
the moths have eaten it up.' As it happened, the King lived nine more
years, and Mrs. Austen sixteen; and it was the lot of the latter to lose
two children before her own time came. When Jane died in 1817, the
health of her eldest brother, James, was failing, and two years and a
half later he died.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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