Austen’s Letters: 77, 29-30 Sun-Mon, Nov 1812, 3rd to Martha,Chawton to Barton

First (1813) edition, title page

Dear friends and readers,

This is an important letter. For two reasons: it is the first mention of P&P as P&P, and the only one Austen left of her arduous whole-scale rewriting and cutting down of First Impressions in her determination to somehow get someone to publish it. It is sold.

And it is her third letter to her beloved friend, perhaps near-lover, Martha Lloyd.

P&P: As Diana B suggests, the language suggests that either Henry let her know his hassle had been too much for him or she felt it had — and it cost him. I read a couple of articles recently about self-publishing in this era: in fact what happened is the publisher paid for the materials and distribution and the author refunded the money, and so S&S had cost Henry beyond what she had put in. Note she won’t see the £110 for another year.

P.&P. is sold. — Egerton gives £110 for it.-I would rather have had £150, but we could not both be pleased, & I am not at all surprised that he should not chuse to hazard, so much.-Its’ being sold will I hope be a great saving of Trouble to Henry, & therefore must be welcome to me. — The Money is to be paid at the end of the twelvemonth. —

From the time she first mentions this publication project and all the work she is doing on her books (Letter 71) to this, there has not been one mention of her daily work. There she does say she never has her mind off her “darling suckling child” (S&S), has two sheets to correct, has heard Mrs Knight’s flattery, tells of Henry’s brother and how when she leaves London the further proofs are to go to Eliza and finally how she’s going to alter the incomes if she can. She is enormously guarded. Here she sounds relieved.

Diane R:

Such a few cool lines. Five words to give the news:

P. & P. is sold.

How laconic, how understated Austen is even to Martha! How excited JA must be, underneath it all, to have sold a second novel! She is on her way. S&S is not a fluke. Her life’s work, after all the frustrations, is coming to fruition. Yet all we hear of is the financing and business end. A dry 110 pounds instead of 150. Overly cool. The lady doth protest too little. I imagine she and Martha getting together, acting initially cool, catching each other’s eye and then jumping up and down and squealing, locking arms: “You sold it! You sold it! You did it! Girlfriend!” But none of that here. It comes across all as business transaction, with a nonchalant sense of anti-climax. Is the sale really “welcome” because it is ‘”a great saving of Trouble to Henry?” Can we be deceived? Certainly Martha can’t be deceived.

Of course, as we know, money mattered greatly to Austen–but again she is too laconic. Even what would translate to 11,000 dollars in our (US) money would have had her jumping up and down for joy, this woman accustomed to begging carriage rides and wearing last year’s
decorations in her hat. She should have been exhibiting joy just for
the money. Or is there a little bragging in her coolness–“oh, I
wanted 15K but I settled for 11K.” By all measures, she must have
been beyond pleased: 11,000 is not 15,000 but it is better than zero.

And to wait to tell the news–the news JA must be bursting to tell
Martha from the first drop of ink on the page–until so far down in
the letter! Buried amid all the other domestic chatter–grey cloaks
being made for 10 shillings, visits. Does Austen know this letter will be shared? Is she doing her best to downplay the significance of selling her second novel to protect herself from prying eyes? Yet
would she have put what she was paid in the letter if she expected it to be passed around? Am I right to imagine the same stigma applied then as now to talking about money–especially for a lady, provided for by her brothers?

Martha Lloyd late in life

Martha. The beloved person she actually wanted to have as a partner for life and did indeed manage to live with on and off for some years and take trips with (to Worthing). It seems while Edward was in the house during this trip he had Martha’s room (“a very large Bedroom”). Was Martha given the largest to bribe her to stay with them? That’s putting it hard, but it is clear from so many mentions of disappointment in Martha over the course of the time in Southampton, the early equally reciprocated relationship and Austen’s idealizing of her is long gone.

Let us review the previous Martha letters: 26, 12-13, Wed-Thurs, Nov 1800 — read her euphoria, intense eagerness to be with her

Letter 27, 20-21, Thurs-Fri, November 1800. She is in a state of trembling intense expectation. No she’s not going to take any books. She is not going to Martha to sit next to her and read as she does in her own home. She wants to mingle her mind (and whatever else they do) with Martha — I mean walk but also physical interactions. I have wondered at the timing of Austen’s one visit. It seems to me no coincidence that this visit was allowed just before the announcement of turning Steventon over to James. One last softening intense happiness. It may just be coincidental but how often families do chose such moments to drop the beam. When the person is strong.

Letter 28, Sun 30 Nov, Mon 1 Dec, from Ibthorpe

Then the devastating upheaval, 29, 3-5, Sat-Mon, Jan 1801

Who was Mrs Dundas? She was Martha’s employer and is dying — died the next day as we eventually learn. Martha was Mrs Dundas’s nearly unpaid companion; that’s how Martha lived and now the money will surely cease. Martha’s silence over this illness is of a piece with the way that Cassandra destroys all untoward letters and Austen is indirect on family matters. This means a real loss: despite Martha’s several attempts to establish herself separately she never managed it. In one letter we had Jane determined to set up a way of life with Cassandra and Martha, and they would tell Frank and the family and then it’s only referred to much later. They were deliberately thwarted. The family was nervous about this. As I notice here so many never respond to my list of possible loves to include Martha – and Frank too.

Austen still cares so much for her. The opening (as Diana says) is unusually clumsy at moments, repetitive. Austen is just so emotionally involved and she herself cannot imagine herself doing this kind of watching over someone die — except as a stupendous heroic effort. and Martha is not just sitting there, she’s nursing this woman. At the close of the letter Austen returns to Martha to say what she can to her friend. She is sorry Martha’s nephew not well. Hopes his mother and father not uneasy. Miss Murden who she is sorry to hear is so often described as an “invalid.”

The problem with Terry Castle’s thesis about Austen’s lesbianism is she had not read Austen with care. She leapt onto the obvious (Cassandra and Jane) and then did not look to see Cassandra and Jane had separate beds. It was Martha that Austen laid on the floor with one long night of apparent real enjoyment when there were not enough beds. (Some will say Chacun a son gout, but love is blind.)

Olivia Williams and Gretta Scacchi as Jane and Cassandra Austen, now old, living marginally and Jane no longer well (2008 BBC Miss Austen Regrets)

The two threads come together when Austen writes about funeral or appropriate clothes and fringe single women on the edge of desperation. She is not going to get that 110£ for another year so she will have a moderately-priced “Grey Woollen . . . ten shillings.” So Miss Benn is there and should be given “something of the shawl kind” to wear indoors (it had better not to be too “very handsome” or she’ll never wear it) Mrs Stent will soon be out of her misery (“not much longer a distress to anybody”). Miss Murden invalided. It’s pleasant to see that like Austen Martha remembers a servant, Sally another girl with almost or really nothing. Note Sally genuflecting in front of Austen (she means to “be a good girl if I please”), and that “there is no apparent deficiency.” That’s Austen’s emphasis, translated: Let’s not think about under-clothes.

I agree with Diana B that Austen is satirizing weddings again in her commentary on Miss W’s wedding and the ditty:

Camilla good humoured & merry & small
For a Husband it happend was at her last stake;
& having in vain danced at many a ball
Is now very happy to Jump at a Wake

but it’s not out of complacency about her own publications. That’s not what her words refer to. They refer to the reality the groom is so much older than the bride. Camilla “good-humored, merry and small” is going to dance “at a wake.” He’s not far from death. She married because “it was her last stake.”

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Chawton

Family matters and (dare I say this) echoes and parallels with Emma fill the rest of the letter.

It seems Edward and his “harem” were at Chawton. This word is a muted reference to Austen’s awareness of how Edward had dominated his wife in his way; he likes women – he never did re-marry though, enough children he might have thought. They did cost even then. They have arrived at Winchester and sent word of “their happiness,” but it appears they do not look forward to their next stop: Steventon. Mary Lloyd. How sorry were they to go away? “they were certainly very sorry to go away, but a little of that sorrow must be attributed to a disinclination for what was before them.”

Steventon as seen from the side with a Anne Hathaway as a young Jane Austen writing on a bench (2007 BBC Becoming Jane)

Later in the letter this tension between the Godmersham and Steventon families is brought back: “Monday. A wettish day, bad for Steventon.” Although the loss to Jane Austen of Steventon was bitter, it was no beautiful house (perhaps something like Thornton Lacey as Henry Crawford describes, not really fit for a gentleman’s residence); it was damp. Dampness did not improve Mary Lloyd or her husband’s mood. The 1870 idyllic picture of Steventon JEAL invented was a response to his memories of Steventon as a boy; with Mary Lloyd it was no harmonious place.

But Mary Deeds is with them, says Jane, and “must be liked .. so perfectly unaffected & sweet temper … as ready to be pleased as Fanny Cage, deals less in superlatives & rapture.” So maybe more believable to the sharp Mary.

For Edward something important happening: name change in order to secure the inheritance. They’ve a letter now to forward from a lawyer. (I”ll mention lawyers cost.)

There is some chitchat of a coming Tuesday evening event – no vibes here about Tuesday at all. (Again the unmarried women.) The Miss Webbs to come, Cap and Mrs Clement, Miss Benn (cannot do without her — I think of Miss Bates. Mrs Digwood but not Mr prefers to kill rabbits at Steventon. I know “shoot” is her word, but the preference is clear. They need the turkey for Christmas is coming.

Romola Garai and Johnny Lee Miller as Emma (when we first meet her all grown up), with a wry Mr Knightley (our first sight of him too) (2009 BBC Emma)

As to hints of Emma: Has there been work on a brief draft. I discern a number of parallels and contrasts between the novel and what is going on in this letter. The “Steventon edition” for the ditty — as in Emma there is a Hartford edition (of poetry, of lines about first loves)

But yes there is an Emma reference that is light mockery — making fun of herself for the way she pretends to publish all these years — consider the many copies that have survived. What’s more the mockery of Mrs Butler is pure Mrs Elton. Then the eating Turkeys – Emma filled with diurnal food. And Miss Benn (Bates). Women who don’t marry are so poor. Edward is laying out money and the “sum” passing through their hands “considerable” 20£ At any rate she didn’t have it herself. So little to vex her had Emma. So Austen would begin …

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Daisy Haggard as Nancy and Anna Madeley as Lucy Steele (2008 BBC S&S)

Like others on Austen-l about this letter: I’m glad it’s survived because it’s to Martha. Everyone seems determined to ignore this; its opening, its frame, its closing, the fringe women it’s all Martha all the way.

P&P really takes a small proportion of her mind. It’s a done deal and at the moment a relief to be so. A backseat here. I just read how some TV station in Utah won’t let a situation comedy about gay people get on the air. Martha was not in a situation comedy as she sits next to her dying patron.

Martha is found in Austen’s novels. In a minor character. Nancy Steele mentions eavesdropping on her sister, Lucy.

And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me; for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets together, she never made any …

When Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets together. Jane has conflated her two favorite women, Martha Lloyd and Anne Sharpe. In this scenario, she is Nancy … More seriously, alas, we don’t know enough about Martha’s inward character accurately described to try to discern which of Austen’s characters might have some of her traits, unless aspects of Nancy Steele caricature Martha. While in Southampton Austen several times expresses irritation through humor of Martha’s chasing after men.

Ellen

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