Jane’s beloved niece, Fanny, recalled Jane and Cassandra in 1869, when Fanny was in her seventies.
[Jane] was not so refined as she ought to have been from her talent . . . They [the Austens] were not rich & the people around with whom they chiefly mixed, were not all high bred, or in short anything more than mediocre & they of course tho’ superior in mental powers and cultivation were on the same level as far as refinement goes . . . Aunt Jane was too clever not to put aside all possible signs of “common-ness” (if such an expression is allowable) & teach herself to be more refined . . . Both the Aunts [Cassandra and Jane] were brought up in the most complete ignorance of the World & its ways (I mean as to fashion &c) & if it had not been for Papa’s marriage which brought them into Kent . . . they would have been, tho’ not less clever & agreeable in themselves, very much below par as to good Society & its ways.*
Fanny’s seeming ungratefulness to an aunt who doted on her is deplored by many Jane fans. A forgiving Claire Tomalin explains this passage, saying “it should be remembered that Fanny was very fond of her aunt, and that she ended the passage, which was written in a private letter to her sister Marianne, ‘If you hate all this I beg yr. pardon, but I felt it at my pen’s end, & it chose to come along & speak the truth.’”
Image #1: Jane Odiwe’s watercolour of Jane and Cassandra
Image #2: Cassandra’s watercolour portrait of Fanny Knight.
*Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin, ISBN 0-679-44628-1, pages 134-135
Read a book review about Jane and Fanny in Austen’s Ungrateful Niece
Click on image.
on first reading, i don’t think she was ungrateful at all! i rather like the image of austen, quite out of fashion, penning the most enjoyable insights on society. i think most writers *must* be like this, in a way–or else, how would they find time to write? and how could they find irony in the frivolous, worldly concerns of others?
Agreed. Fanny recollected her aunts with fondness but with a realistic attitude. I find nothing grating in this statement. Neither do I think that it is condemning of Jane. Rather, Fanny adds details about a woman of whose life we have so few descriptions and images.
Apparently, there have been Jane fans who were/are upset with this description, believing Fanny to be ungrateful.
yes, possibly fans who wish her to be like a heroine in one of her novels (becoming jane, anyone?). i wish someone would make a movie about jane austen portraying what she was really, probably like. i would find that much more interesting. maybe there is one and i don’t know about it…?
btw, thanks for the shoutout to Girlebooks in your other blog!
Long overdue I know but have you maybe tried Miss Austen Regrets? It’s lovely.
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