It’s been a while since I posted here, to state the obvious. I was unexpectedly diverted by other things in December, but chiefly with creating videos for Vlogmas over on my YouTube channel. It was very fun making so many videos in such a short amount of time. It was also quite time consuming. Now that I’ve had a rest over the holidays, and eased up on my YouTube posting schedule — I’ll just be posting one to two videos per week from here on out — I can get back to working on these longer form reviews, which I have missed doing.
One of the books I started the year off with is Lucy Worsley’s wonderful, Jane Austen at Home (2017). I don’t read very much non-fiction. Novels are the books I predominantly gravitate towards. I also happen to be quite a slow reader, so I often don’t pick up chunkier books even if they are on topics I’m interested in because of how long they will take me to finish. But one of my resolutions this year is to not let little things like page count discourage me from reading a book I’m interested in. I’m looking for quality over quantity in my reading this year. And that’s quality of reading experience, not necessarily the quality of the book. The two may not always coincide.
Anyway, I am so happy I finally picked this one up. Lucy Worsley’s writing is conversational without being too simplistic, and reading this book was an absolute joy. I learned so much about Jane Austen, the spaces she inhabited, as well as odd little tidbits about the time in which she lived.
As so often happens when I read non-fiction, it is these odd bits that got my attention and that I am still thinking about when I am washing the dishes, getting my dog bundled up for a cold walk, or doing any of the other daily tasks that make me thankful I am a reader so I have something to think about other than my life or the state of the world. Here is one such morsel of information that made me stop in my tracks when I came across it.
Recent scholarship, however, has emphasised that Georgian ‘accomplishments’ weren’t just for the ladies. Jane’s brother Frank was obsessed, as were many Georgian gentlemen, with turning out small wooden items on a lathe: he ‘is so delighted with the employment, that he is at it all day long’. And Jane herself would in later life treasure the gift of a footstool embroidered by a nephew. […] The fact was that young men of the leisured classes needed hobbies simply to pass the time. (57)
The part about the embroidery, while interesting is not what grabbed my attention. Embroidery is not a messy hobby. It can be done inside while socialising with family or guests. Woodworking is another thing entirely. Somehow, I cannot picture Mr. Darcy engaged in woodworking. Edward Ferrars is more easy to imagine in this scene, I grant you, but what would he be wearing? And where, pray, would he be working? It’s certainly not something that could be done in the drawing room. A lathe would leave quite the mess of shavings. Would there be a room in the house designated for woodworking, as there might be a room reserved for sewing? Again, I cannot picture a gentleman choosing to work on a hobby that required him to be in a draughty and uncomfortable barn or other outbuilding. There are just so many questions.
And I’m still thinking about the footwear situation. When Jane and her family were living in Steventon, Hampshire, the weather would greatly restrict her mobility. A freeze would have made the ground solid enough to walk on, providing Jane with increased independence in winter (125). This is something that had not occurred to me. I would have thought the winter would have been the most uncomfortable time to be walking about in the countryside, and I imagine it would be when temperatures were above freezing and the lanes and fields would be muddy. I found this next part quite interesting, because it seemed to contradict the information I learned from Hilary Davidson about men and women wearing more rugged footwear with a proper sole to dances, and carrying their dancing slippers along to be changed into upon arrival.*
Nice young ladies generally wore useless footwear, and even Lizzy Bennet’s travelling shoes were not suitable ’to encounter the remains of a white frost’. (125)
Initially, I thought this ran contrary to my previous knowledge, but it has since occurred to me that Worsley is speaking specifically about the suitability of ladies footwear for walking in the countryside. One can well imagine that the same pair of shoes or light boots one might show up to a dance in that would only be required to get from the carriage to the door would not be suitable for traipsing down country lanes or across country. The passage continues…
Jane was usually sensibly shod, saying of her shoes, that ‘at any rate they shall all have flat heels’. She and Cassandra were sometimes seen in the lanes of Steventon wearing pattens, wooden clogs or overshoes held on over normal shoes by an iron ring. (125)
Worsley describes pattens as “ungainly”. Wooden overshoes held on by an iron ring that “chimed out loudly against the hard ground”? I would hazard a guess that they were unsightly too. Good for Jane and Cassandra for having more sense than fashion. I would love to say that I would be just as practical in their place, but a neighbour once said I had “more fashion than sense”, which was a little too on the nose.
Jane and her sister Cassandra were away from home, and each other, quite often which has provided a lot of information about Jane that we would not otherwise have. Jane returned to Steventon from one such visit to find that in her absence her father had decided the family would move to Bath. The wheels were already in motion, providing Jane with no say in the matter. Move to Bath they did, and Jane had to leave most of her books behind, which, when I read that part my heart broke for her. Having to leave the countryside she loved for a city she didn’t know is bad enough, but not being able to bring your cherished book collection along is unimaginable. Of course, there were lending libraries and other such places in Bath that Jane could make use of, but it is certainly not the same as having your own books that you can read and reread whenever you like. Now the really shocking bit, that actually made me gasp, is that the family showed up in Bath with their belongings and then started looking for a place to rent. What what what? I feel anxious just thinking about that. I can only imagine what Jane must have felt. Daunted, I expect.
There were so many interesting parts in this book and as I was borrowing the book from the library I could not just mark the passages to return to them later. Instead, I ended up writing down page numbers and making vague notes to myself. Page 214 — swimming, 216 — mysterious gentleman at seaside, 224-25 — Jane breaking engagement to Harris Biggs-Wither next day! don’t blame her, that name!, 255 — Henry sounds like Mrs John Dashwood — how could he not have recognised himself in that character?! The list in my reading journal goes on and on like this for an additional four pages.
I left Jane Austen at Home feeling both satisfied and full of a longing to know more about this fascinating woman whose books I’ve been reading since I was in my early teens. Now that a little over a week has passed since I finished this book, I feel this book may have raised more questions for me than it answered. Perhaps, that is the sign of a good work of non-fiction — one that keeps the reader interested in its subject to not only want to read to the end, but to keep on reading in the subject after the book is done.
My wishlist is now stocked with books I really must read immediately — as if it wasn’t already. But now I have a list solely dedicated to Austen-related books, both fiction and non-fiction. I’ve already started reading Miss Austen by Gill Hornby, and I’m excited to get stuck into this series. I read Godmersham Park when it first came out, but I don’t think I knew enough about Austen or her family at the time to fully appreciate that book.
If you are reading this and have any recommendations for Austen-related books or books on the Georgian period, please do comment down below, or drop me a line.
*I have not read any of Hilary Davidson’s books, yet. She talks about footwear in this interview with Izzy Meakin on the What the Austen podcast.
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