The time of Jane Austen was an historical period in which there was a lessening of the wearing of restrictive undergarments. Such things were worn before and after this period, but not during. This was the age of "Regency" or "Empire" fashion, the fashion inspired by Napoleon's Josephine, we are told.

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the first feminists, but only one of the first english-speaking feminists. Before Mary Wollstonecraft, there were the French feminists; indeed, these men and women were among the vanguard of the French Revolution [Tomalin-MW, Chapter 13]. Women made impressive gains in those heady days. Woman were given the right to vote and there were plans to appoint woman as civil servants and to educate them to take up careers in farming, banking, business, and teaching. Woman were to have the same property rights as men, and they were to have more say in family matters. As is always the case, there was a feminist demand for easier divorce and that was achieved as well. (Isn't it curious that feminists always seem to place a priority on easy divorce which, on the face of it, seems to benefit both sexes?) However, excesses set in and all was to be thrown away as a severe reaction and regression was set in place. Gangs of female political thugs roamed the streets of Paris where they physically assaulted anyone whose politics or appearance gave offense; these were the infamous citoyenes. The most egregious attack was against the person of Theroigne de Mericourt who, although an accomplished feminist, was found to be too mild by the citoyenes. They stripped her and beat her about the head with rocks; the result was a permanently deformed face and a permanently damaged brain. The citoyenes scared the wee out of everyone else - everyone else including Mary Wollstonecraft! Indeed, Mary Wollstonecraft was in France during these events but you will find her perfectly silent on the subject of French feminism. Also, the most infamous political assassin of the day was a woman, Charlotte Corday. A reaction set in and all of the gains were rolled back by a disgusted populace. As a result, French women would not regain the right to vote until 1945 - yes that was 1945!

One has to remind some people that Jane Austen was not a Victorian, not in any sense. Queen Victoria - and her milieu - were born and cultivated after Jane Austen's death. Remember that Jane Austen was a contemporary of Casanova, the Marquis de Sade, and Mary Wollstonecraft and you surely don't think of those persons as Victorians. It is important to understand this so that you don't assume Jane Austen to be too tightly wound, the typical Victorian affliction. I suppose that there is no universally accepted definition of what we mean by "Victorian". To me it was a period of rigid rules, frozen class structures, and calcified sphincters. I also think of the malady as a kind of London flu that spread throughout the English-speaking world. (The rest of us could not expect to import only the good stuff.) Victorian attitudes seem a natural consequence of the industrial revolution combined with the establishment of the British Empire; these were the firm attitudes that disciplined and trained that large middle class that was so necessary for the control and functioning of the two vast domains. The "revolution" and the expansion were well under way in Jane Austen's times; indeed, Jane's brothers were participating in both of these historical processes. However, the bad stuff had not yet begun.

The correct name for the intellectual period that Jane Austen lived in is the "Regency Period". The reference is to the royal control ("regency") assumed by the Prince of Wales, the future George the IV, when his father, George III, became incapacitated.

I think Jane Austen is sometimes mentioned in the Victorian context because she influenced the novelists of that later period, not in content but in artistic ways. For example, I believe she influenced the style of one of my favorites, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). However, as I have argued in another place, confusing Victorian attitudes with those of Jane Austen leads one to misinterpret at least one aspect of Pride and Prejudice, and we can expect that there are other instances of that same danger. Charlotte Bronte was born the year before Jane Austen died, Emily the year after, and their sister Ann was borne a few years later still. Charles Dickens was five years old when Jane died and George Eliot was born two years later.

I don't know for sure, but my impression is that most English novelists in Jane Austen's day (1775-1817) were women. There were Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), Fanny Burney (1752-1840), Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821), Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849), and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) to name just a few female authors. These women were slightly older and first published slightly before Jane Austen. Of course, there was a slightly younger female author, Wollstonecraft's more-famous daughter Mary Shelley (1797-1851).

Jane Austen admired Burney and Edgeworth and had the opposite feelings about Radcliffe. She could not know of Mary Shelley, whose major work, Frankenstein (1818), appeared the year after Jane's death. I have tried to read something from each of these woman authors and have discovered that hardly any of them was an influence for Jane Austen - thank god. They could write well; but, to borrow a phrase from Jane's own family, there is "little of nature or probability" in any of these works. Although Frankenstein is an important work even if it was two centuries premature.

A possible exception was the influence of Fanny Burney; in fact, the words "nature" and "probability" appear in the preface to Burney's first novel Evelina (1778). A better example is the fact that Jane Austen found the phrase "pride and prejudice" in a Fanny Burney novel. C. S. Lewis suggested that Dr. Johnson was a major influence for Jane Austen. If he is right, then there is an interesting connection here, because Johnson included Burney among his proteges after publication of Evelina.

It is difficult to describe Evelina; try to imagine the Starkadder family of Cold Comfort Farm set down in London - set down in London where they are better dressed but where they display even worse manners. The only explanation I can offer for the popularity of this novel is that, at the time of its publication, it might have seemed very funny. I suspect that we have lost the cultural context to appreciate most of the humor at this date. What once may have seemed slapstick now appears to be simple cruelty. The novel is divided into three volumes and, for me, the first two are shockingly bad. It is impossible for me to imagine an intelligent person - let alone Jane Austen - ever holding a copy of this novel in her hands and thinking the first two volumes to be good. There is absolutely nothing in Jane Austen's writings, professional or private, to prepare me for that possibility.

The third volume is much better; the most serious defect of this final volume is the animal cruelty played for laughs in letter XXII. (Well - there is also a great deal of silly dropping to the knees in this final section by an entire range of characters: You can almost hear the thumping of bruised knees on hardwood.) The only interesting character is introduced in the third volume (the heroine and her Lord are insipid). That would be Mrs. Selwyn whom I would describe as an Elizabeth Bennet at age forty-something, widowed, and grown meaner and more cynical. Mrs. Selwyn makes me laugh, at all the intended places, and saves Burney's reputation a bit for me. Mrs. Selwyn is the only truly competent character in the entire novel; she resolves the main problem facing the heroine after several family members fail miserably at that task. Fanny Burney has her heroine describe Mrs. Selwyn in this interesting way.

EPITHET!? Evelina was published during the middle of the American Revolution and this quote certainly indicates some of the attitudes prevailing at that time. However, don't be fooled: Burney uses this quote to put some distance between Mrs. Selwyn and the heroine (and the author). Fanny Burney allows Mrs. Selwyn to say things that she would like to say herself but doesn't dare. I mean that Fanny Burney obviously didn't much care for men and she spoke to them through Mrs. Selwyn. I suspect that one can learn a lot about the differences between Fanny Burney and Jane Austen by comparing Mrs. Selwyn to Elizabeth Bennet. Another important basis for comparison would be the very different way the two women develop male characters; there will be no Male Voices web site devoted to Fanny Burney anytime soon. In any case, Burney earns the right to be called a Jane-Austen influence in this third volume; however, there is still one mystery. I waded through the dreck to arrive at volume III because I was in search of signs of Jane Austen; what in the world was Jane Austen seeking?

Burney led an amazing life; novelist, Lady-In-Waiting to the queen, wife of a French aristocrat, political hostage to Napoleon, etc. In her diary, she records the details of her mastectomy that was performed in her kitchen and before the invention of anesthetic. Don't read that when you need some cheering-up. The good news is that the procedure stopped the progress of the cancer and she was to live another several decades.

Actually, all of these women authors led very interesting and very eventful lives. Maybe this is why Jane Austen shied away from any possible contact; although, she did send a copy of Emma to Edgeworth just before it was released to the public. Given Jane Austen's extreme shyness, this was a bold and dramatic act. Miss Edgeworth didn't know what to make of it, which doesn't surprise me, but couldn't she at least have sent a letter of acknowledgement? (Actually, Edgeworth's father was a close friend of an uncle and aunt of Jane Austen.) In Edgeworth's Belinda, two woman fought a dual while dressed in drag. Neither character was wounded but the recoil of the pistol bruised the breast of one so severely that she came to believe that she had cancer, and contemplated a mastectomy. I think Belinda has a happy ending because (1) it turns out that the diagnosis was found to be incorrect just before the surgeon's knife was about to fall, (2) the woman's husband was so concerned over her illness that she forgave him for killing her lover, and (3) she was so grateful that she ended her opium addiction - cold turkey. I am not joking, all that is the basis of the plot. If you just read a paragraph or even a few pages at random from Belinda, things are not so silly and you will even be impressed; but, read far enough, and you will perfectly understand why Jane Austen's is the name we all know. Edgeworth's male characters are one-dimensional and otherwise unrecognizable.

I read somewhere that a character in Belinda, a certain "Harriet Freke", is Edgeworth's disguised portrayal of Mary Wollstonecraft. If true, we are given a much different portrait than that rendered by Godwin. To be sure, Harriet is of an ambiguous sexuality (a bit mannish), but she is also monumentally mean-spirited, and a dedicated and gifted trouble-maker. Have you ever heard anything along these lines about Ms Freke?

I have a more severe complaint about Edgeworth. This bothers me because I so very much want to love everyone that Jane Austen loved - but, I cannot. I read a little about Edgeworth before I picked up Belinda and I was impressed to learn that although she was the daughter of an English owner of Irish lands, she demonstrated a clear respect for Irish culture and the Irish predicament. Given that, you can imagine my surprise to discover Belinda tainted with the author's racial stereotypes. People tell me that I should not try to apply a modern sensitivity to a novelist of two hundred years ago. Excuse me - I don't believe that! I know, for a fact, that I can apply this same sensitivity to Jane Austen and have her pass every test and then teach me something besides.

The plots of the other women authors consist of such things as a woman marrying her former priest-confessor and/or being lead astray by a seducer or an evil ravager-abductor (a ravager-abductor always has an evil and ugly accomplice-servant).

It is true, however, that Jane Austen's novels did well enough, especially among the discerning. In fact, Pride and Prejudice was the best seller of its season. I wish that someone would bequeath me just one day's profit earned from her work nowadays.

I think that the only contemporary English male novelist, of any note, was Walter Scott (Invanhoe, Waverly, etc.). Scott acknowledged that Jane Austen was his superior and he was certainly correct in that. Scott was well known as a poet, but he published his novels anonymously. I think he did that because novels had a low reputation at the time, perhaps because it was a female-dominated activity. Novels were "things written by women for women". I have the impression that novels were not even considered "literature" in England at that time. Men did read novels of course, but it was a brave admission to make in public. You can read of just such a brave admission by Mr. Tilney in Northanger Abbey. (Although, this was an admission unashamedly made by Jane Austen's father, brothers, and nephews.)

Claire Tomalin quotes some lines from Cowper and suggested that if Jane Austen had noticed them, she would not have pointed them out to her brothers--these lines express Cowper's detestation of field sports and their cruelty [Tomalin-JA, Chapter 13]. Ms. Tomalin is probably right, but I choose to believe that Jane did notice them and liked them:

The savage din of the swift pack...detested sport
That owes its pleasures to another's pain,
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature

To me, one of Jane Austen's great contributions was to raise her art form up to and perhaps beyond the male-dominated discipline of poetry. Do you agree that Auden makes just that point in his Letter To Lord Byron?

Isaac Newton died about fifty years before Jane Austen was born. In the interval, the centers for both the physics and mathematics had moved elsewhere, primarily to France. In those days, the two disciplines were not as divisible as today. Apparently, the English and the continental scientists had become alienated. The breach began with the controversy over the priority claims of Newton and Leibnitz over the "discovery" of calculus. It was a silly argument, calculus has two component parts - differentiation and integration - and both parts had an antiquity long before Newton's time. Newton - or maybe it was Leibnitz - merely discovered that the two processes were inversions of one another. Also, continental philosophers had considered Newton's theory of gravitation to be somewhat occult and that attitude had caused an angry reaction in England. In retrospect, the French seem correct in this characterization of Newton's "action-at-a-distance" force - it is only with Einstein, that the gravitational force is stripped of this metaphysical aspect. So it is that the English school would choose to ignore the accomplishments of the French scientists. So it is, that by the time of Jane's death, English physics and mathematics had fallen behind the rest of Europe by nearly a hundred years!

Well, the English had fallen behind in the physical sciences of mechanics but they retained their lead in another, unrelated branch of physics, and that would lead to developments that have a profound effect on your life and mine. Joseph Black (1728-1799) was a Professor of Medicine at the University of Glasgow, but it was his experiments in physics that would bring him everlasting fame. In particular, he was the first to correctly describe the physics of water and steam. He correctly characterized and demonstrated the way in which these two phases could store heat as well as the nature of energy exchanges during the conversions between the two phases. His lab technician was James Watt (1736-1819) who had the job title of "scientific instrument maker". Watt first became aware of steam engines when he was asked to adjust a small laboratory version used for classroom demonstration. Watt didn't invent steam engines, but he did revolutionize the design of these devices.

The older versions of the steam engine weren't very efficient, but that didn't matter in the mining of coal because there was always a lot of low-grade coal lying around one couldn't sell at a profit, so operators would just use it to fire the pump engines. The main feature of the new Watt engine was the higher efficiency, so his first sales were in the copper mining industry where fuel costs were important. Another of his first successes was in the iron industry where the engines were used to pump air into the furnaces to produce a higher temperature to reduce the ore to metal. Watt was an excellent engineer and he solved a number of interesting technical problems. For instance, he invented the best way to convert the initial and unavoidable reciprocating motion of the steam engine to rotary motion and that opened up a number of new applications and sales. He also added a number of safety features such as a pressure-release valve and a water-level control valve. It is important to control the level of liquid in a boiler because if all the fluid boils off, the pressure rapidly builds up in the boiler and the result is an explo- excuse me - the result is a rapid disassembly.

Have you ever heard that expression, "good writers borrow and great writers steal"? If you have, then you will understand what I mean when I say that Watt was a great inventor. In particular, he violated the patent rights of British millwrights in order to place speed control devices on his steam engines. (My encyclopedia erroneously says that he invented the "flyball" governor for speed control - NOT!) Precise control of engine speed is not required for pumping water out of mines, but it is required for most factory applications such as in textile mills. I mean that without speed control, a factory designer simply could not put together the hardware required to properly exploit child labor or the labor of any other category of under-represented and powerless persons - so, show your appreciation! Actually, Watt died about the same time as Jane Austen and so neither would have an inkling of the nature of the economic and social forces that Watt had unleashed. The early evidence was already there perhaps, but no one seemed to comprehend what was happening at that early date.

There was one important problem that Watt could not solve and that was the low material strength of boiler walls. In his day that strength was about 8 psi, many, many orders of magnitude less than that of today. The practical implication is that boilers of his time were constructed very large in order to supply the capacity required. For that reason, he could only design stationary engines. So, when we call Jane's brothers "sailors", we can mean sailors in the strictest, literal sense of the word. The Austen men sailed from one end of the earth to the other (and then came to command large stretches of water in the bargain). However, in the near term of Jane Austen's death, the material strengths improved to such an extent that steam locomotion did become possible, and Jane's sailor brothers may have ended their careers in command of steamships.

So, what if Jane Austen had been born a generation later, would she have continued to ignore the existence of the lower classes? Would she have continued to ignore the plight of the working poor? Of course not! The woman was liberal-minded and she was a passionate, compassionate human being. She would have been another George Eliot or Charles Dickens - just a whole lot funnier. But, here is my question for you, would you and I have been better off with another George Eliot or do we need Jane Austen for other purposes? You can probably guess my answer.

It is no accident that a discussion of economic theory follows an account of advent of steam power. Just as it was no accident that the rapid development of economic theory followed the advent of the First Industrial Revolution. I mean, can the communist manifesto be far behind the invention of speed controls for factory engines?

Adam Smith (1723-1790) published The Wealth Of Nations a few months after Jane Austen's birth. It is no coincidence that this seminal work of economic theory was published in the same year as the Declaration of Independence. The two documents were published, in part, as a reaction to the same set of British policies - the infamous mercantile policies. The English were establishing a nice, comprehensive policy that would allow the British sphere-of-influence to operate efficiently, and what happens? Everyone gets pissy! The Americans decide that they will have their own nation, thank you, and then this Scotsman publishes a bomb-shell of a book in which he proves, mathematically, that any amount of government interference in the marketplace will lead to disaster. The modern proponents of Adam Smith's theory rigorously prove their case that the unfettered, competitive marketplace will operate at the optimal efficiency, just as optimally as the equations suggest. I am anxiously awaiting the discovery of a competitive marketplace, so that all this beautiful mathematics can be verified; however, I expect that dark matter and gravity waves will be observed first. Marketplaces are just too important for any society to allow them to be anything like competitive - we are not stupid you know.

Jane Austen lived most of her life in the county of Hampshire. Her father and two of her brothers were clergymen there. Another clergyman, living in the neighboring county of Surrey, was Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) who was about the age of Jane's oldest brother. Malthus was the founder of population theory and an early contributor to economics. In spite of all the danger and turmoil, those were optimistic times that Jane Austen was living in, and Malthus was, of course, a pessimist. For that reason alone, he must have inspired a great deal of discussion (only an optimist can bear to discuss the views of a pessimist at length.)

I seem to have come full circle at this point because, as it turns out, Malthus mentions William Godwin quite prominently in his essays. In fact, it is said that Malthus began his researches as an outgrowth of his debates with his father who was an ardent admirer of Godwin.

We don't talk a lot about Malthus these days, because Marx and Engles sunk his reputation, they could go on and on about what a fool and a devil he was. In a way, Malthus laid himself open for that because he made the greatest error an intellectual can make, he became involved in politics. I mean, he became involved in the politics of welfare and applied his theories, in a logical manner, to come to some misguided and cruel conclusions. Politicians seized upon these pronouncements and exploited them to terminate some welfare practices that had been working quite well for some time.

Although, before that, we may come to discuss Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and The Last Man more and more. As I write this, I can turn to my TV and watch Dr. Kevorkian and his legal accomplice-servant explain that they will soon add an organ-harvesting clause to their suicide compacts. And, I recently watched an account of the experiment in which fetal spinal tissue was observed to grow when implanted into a living human spine. A result that promised new medical benefits and a new way for medical faculty to earn tenure and respect. This means that fetal spinal tissue is in the same category as fetal brain tissue, and all of us are glad of that because we don't want aborted fetuses to become the proverbial sow's ears of the next millennium. All this promises to become a vast new industry for America and a way to finally balance our foreign trade. Also, since every family has unwanted pregnancies and unwelcome older family members, I may actually live to observe the til-now theoretical but long sought-after competitive marketplace. I only hope that Doctor Death doesn't observe me first.

By the way, Jane Austen wrote some prayers [Other Works]. I am not a spiritual man, never have been and never could be; yet, her prayers make me ashamed of myself and otherwise deeply affect me for reasons I can't comprehend.

Jane Austen died very well - if such a term can be applied in such a case. I think it can; in fact, I think she died beautifully and I hope people can say the same about you and me some day. This was her final lesson for us - a final gift. She died in the bosom of her family and with more than a single act of charity toward those about her. She practiced what she preached in her prayers. She was forty-one years old and so her best novels perished, unborn, within her. Her doctor was clueless but he understood his duty and gave her one of those diagnoses that every generation of doctors keep in reserve for just such occasions. Nowadays everyone will tell you that she died of Addison's disease (adrenal insufficiency). It must be said that Dr. Addison did not describe his disease until well after Jane's death and so this diagnosis is mere 20^th century speculation. You can read about Addison's disease if you wish - I did, and would never recommend such a painful exercise.

There is a story in the family about Jane sitting with her sister Cassandra and her niece Anna (James's oldest child) while the three of them are sewing. Jane and Anna began to trade quips and jokes and they made Cassie laugh so hard and so long that she begged for mercy and pled with them to stop. Anna spent a lot of time at her aunts' home, but why should that be? For the company to be sure, but there may also have been a slightly darker reason. Anna's mother had died, James had remarried, and the new wife was the former Mary Lloyd. Some biographers hint that Mary may not have been the loving stepmother for whom Jane Austen would have hoped [Le Faye-89]. There are hints of worse things. The darkest suggestion of all is that Mary may have undone Jane and Cassie in a most underhanded way. The sisters arrived home from a visit to relatives to discover, to their complete and unpleasant surprise, that their parents had decided to resign the fathers "living" in favor of James, and the family was to abandon even the home to James and Mary and retire thence to Bath. To BATH! Of all places! The hint is that Mary was the instigator of all this and had waited until the daughters were out of the neighborhood to make her move. (It makes you think of the younger Mrs. Dashwood, does it not?) [Tomalin-JA, Chapter 16]

Jane Austen spent the last few months of her life in the south of Hampshire, at Winchester, as her family slowly began to grasp the grim fact that Jane had already comprehended. For whatever reason, it was that same Mary who had joined Cassandra to attend upon Jane. In a letter to her niece, Fanny Austen-Knight, Cassandra described Jane's last hours in this way.

The golden loom had been transported and so the sister reached down and closed Jane's eyes. Cassandra would perform one other act as Jane lay in state: In accordance with Jane's wishes, she cut some of the locks of Jane's hair and sent them to various members of the family. Cassandra's own share of this would be found among her last possessions. Mary must have wept, but what were her thoughts? What could she have been thinking during those two and a half hours when she supported Jane's head? We will never know, but perhaps she stroked that curly hair and thought over something that Jane had said to her only a few weeks earlier: