Early January 1796 Jane AustenThe 20-year-old wrote a gossip-filled letter to his beloved older sister. Cassandra. In it, Jane told her about “a very gentlemanly, handsome and pleasant young man” with whom she was in love. Tom Lefroy was an Irish lawyer with whom Jane had danced happily at three parties. He jokingly said to his sister: “Imagine everything that is most debauched and scandalous about dancing and sitting together.”.
He looked forward to their next meeting and wrote to Cassandra again a few days later. In this letter she offered to let her friend Mary have “all my other admirers” since she only had eyes for Tom. However, Tom had to leave the country and wrote in the same note: “The day has come when I will have my last flirtation with Tom Lefroy, and when you get that it will all be over. Given the melancholy of this idea, tears are rolling down my cheeks as I write it.”
These letters, the oldest we have from Jane, reveal a vibrant young womanflirtatious and fun who enjoyed parties, dancing and the attention of the opposite sex. It is a vivid picture and all the more valuable because so few of Jane’s letters survive.
Although She was a prolific correspondent. – It is estimated that she wrote thousands of letters over the course of her life – we only have 160. years after Jane’s death in 1817 due to an unknown illness, Cassandrato whom her sister wrote almost daily when they were separated, he burned almost all of his letters. This decision confused and angered historians and biographers.
Jane Austen is one of the most important writers in the English language.. His six novels – funny, biting and psychologically insightful, groundbreaking in form and content – are still very popular today, as are the numerous film adaptations.
Beyond basic biographical information Information about them is relatively scarce. Was she, as claimed, a secret radical? Lesbian? How much more would we know about her if Cassandra, her greatest supporter in life and keeper of her flame after her death, had kept her letters? What secrets did they contain that would make Cassandra think it would be better to burn them?
This mysterious act of destruction was investigated Miss Austena four-part television drama based on the critically acclaimed bestselling novel of the same name by Gill Hornby. In it, years after Jane’s death, Cassandra (Keeley Hawes) travels to the Berkshire town of Kintbury, where the Fowles, friends of the Austen family, lived.
Cassandra apparently comes to help Isabella Fowle (Rose Leslie), whose father is dying. However, this house holds many bittersweet memories (in real life he lived there when Jane wrote to him about Tom Lefroy), and it has an ulterior motive. She wants to retrieve some letters that the late Jane wrote to her friend Eliza Fowle, Isabella’s mother, fearing that they may contain details that could damage the writer’s legacy. When he finds the correspondence, he experiences powerful memories of events from years ago..
Hornby became interested in Cassandra after moving to Kintbury and learning that Miss Austen had become engaged to the son of the local church vicar. Regarding the reason for burning the letters, Hornby told BBC Culture: “I have my own theory, as laid out in the novel, and I think it holds up.”
“But there are other, albeit more prosaic, reasons,” he continues. “One of them was that there was a lot of talking in these letters. They both shared everything, including some very difficult sisters-in-law (Jane and Cassandra had six siblings). I imagine she said some indiscreet things about annoying relatives and Cassandra.” I would have wanted to avoid future injuries. There would also have been a lot of complaints. Jane was constantly worried about money; There are still many mentions to prove this. So ultimately they wouldn’t necessarily show her in the best light.”
Devoney Looser is Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and a respected authority on Jane Austen. “A less well-thought-out theory, but one that I think is likely, is this one Maybe Cassandra was watching closely tooin the early 1840s, the brutal treatment inflicted by critics in the reviews of the letters recently published by the late writer Frances Burney,” he tells the BBC.
Burney was a writer of social comedies that Austen read in her childhood and was inspired by. “Such cruel criticism would have given Cassandra pause, considering that Jane’s letters could have received similar treatment. They may have been criticized in the early Victorian pressif they had been published then. Of course, almost two centuries later, we can be sure that the opposite would ultimately have occurred: that these additional letters would be welcomed and admired by Austen. This part is particularly devastating.”
However, both Looser and Hornby defend Cassandra for her actions. In fact, Hornby wrote “Miss Austen” at least in part with the intention of explaining her actions. “Whatever his motives, the truth is that no matter how much biographers complain, Cassandra did the right thing. “Jane was a very private person,” says Hornby.
He emphasizes that Jane Austen published anonymously throughout her life and that her identity was only widely revealed in December 1817 by her brother Henry through the biographical note he wrote for a posthumous edition of conviction And Northanger Abbey. “He wasn’t interested in fame, just writing.”Hornby continues.
“Both sisters would be horrified if they thought we knew their secrets. And the fact that we know so little about the author thanks to Cassandra’s Bonfire proved to be a complete success. This element of mysterious, quiet dignity is crucial to the success of the Jane Austen brand.” For loosers, “Cassandra’s reputation as the greatest destroyer of Jane’s letters is not entirely fair.”.
“As some researchers have recently pointed out, Cassandra was also the only Austen sister known to have preserved a large number of her sister’s letters. However, I find it deeply disturbing that one of Jane’s letters was destroyed. That is clear.” They needed to contain more of his trademark humor and social insightsin addition to daily news and gossip.”
Jane and Cassandra, who was three years older, had a very close bond. They were the only daughters of a Hampshire clergyman. According to her mother, “If Cassandra’s head had been cut off, Jane’s head would have been cut off too.” They lived together most of their lives and Cassandra was the only person Jane talked to about her work.
A pencil and watercolor portrait painted by Cassandra is the only authenticated image of Jane. The day after her death, Cassandra wrote in a letter: “She was the sun of my life, the one who illuminated all my joys, the one who soothed all my sorrows. It is as if I had lost a part of myself.” None of them married.
In fact, the mystery of Hornby’s novel is merely the mechanism that creates a moving examination of single women’s lack of control over their own lives during this period. Often They had little or no money and had to rely on the charity of their relatives.which may or may not arrive.
“The oppression of women was the dominant theme of their existence,” says Hornby. “Her life was an obstacle courseand overcoming difficulties was part of his daily life. Of course we don’t see it because we live with so many options ourselves. But Austen’s novels are about the oppression of women. All of her heroines, except Emma, are in danger at the start. Those Bennett girls pride and Prejudice), they would have neither money nor a home after their father’s death. Marriage is his only plan of salvation, as Mrs. Bennet so wisely realizes. We read it as a comic creationand of course she is played for fun, but in reality she is the sensible one who can see the great dangers that lie ahead.”
Andrea Gibb, who has adapted Miss Austen For the big screen, he says he immediately liked the book. “It is so beautifully conceived that it could have been written by Austen herself. It has it all: intrigue, mystery, romance and love. Not just romantic love, but the enduring love that exists between sisters. The female experience is at the heart of the story.” At that time, women were completely economically dependent on men.. Having a good marriage was both a survival mechanism and a romantic ideal.”
This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth.. In addition to Miss Austencommissioned by the BBC The other Bennet sistera drama derived from pride and Prejudice about Mary Bennet, based on the novel by Janice Hadlow. For its part, Netflix is preparing an adaptation of pride and Prejudice. And a book published later that year states: Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed LegacyLooser is hoping for a win “The persistent myth that Austen was dull, primitive and boring”he states.
Apparently, The appeal of Jane Austen shows no signs of waning. “I think it endures because it speaks to universal concerns and sheds light on society and its inherent contradictions,” says Gibb. “I think she has a lot to say to women today, whether they are young and idealistic or older. She is an excellent documenter of human behavior and also very funny.”
AND Cassandra, we shouldn’t judge her too harshly. After all, who wants the gossipy messages we send to those closest to us to be read by everyone?
*By Neil Armstrong
About The Author
