The result may not be very illuminating about Jane Austen, but speaks volumes about the art of biography. Both conclusions are supportable by evidence, but obviously not all the evidence.
According to Nokes, Austen's relationship with her friend Mrs Lefroy 'was marked as much by suspicion as by affection', while in Tomalin's version she is Austen's 'dear friend' and role model, 'the ideal parent'. Austen hated Bath, or loved Bath, had a happy or unhappy childhood, did or didn't resent the good fortune of her rich brother Edward or neglect her mad brother George, depending on which book you read. What is fascinating about the two latest biographies of Jane Austen, by Claire Tomalin and David Nokes, is that they seem to be revising in concert, using just the same material, and come to pretty much the same general conclusions, but their emphases and subtler interpretations are remarkably unalike. We are used to revisionism in biography and tend to equate it with progress towards truth. The Victorians used the letters to corroborate the popular cult of 'Divine Jane's harmless gentility', and now the same material is called as evidence to prove that she was 'Noisy and Wild', 'Profligate and Shocking' and a regular 'Wild Beast', to quote three chapter headings from David Nokes's book. Without any new manuscripts having come to light, or any miraculous discoveries (of a diary, say, or a hidden stash of uncensored letters), there seems more to say about Jane Austen than ever.Īusten was a prolific correspondent, but most of her letters were destroyed after her death by her sister, Cassandra. 'A life of usefulness, literature and religion was not by any means a life of event.' One hundred and eighty years and possibly as large a number of books on Austen later, her fame and her readership worldwide continue to grow and however 'uneventful' and ill-documented her life, there are always plenty of biographers queuing up to write it. 'Short and easy will be the task of the mere biographer,' he wrote. W hen Jane Austen's brother Henry wrote the first 'Biographical Notice' about the author for the posthumous publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in 1818, he clearly thought it would be the last word on the subject.
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