Jane Austen Character Throwdown: Favorite Library

Miss Jane Fairfax's superior singing and talent at the pianoforte won the throwdown for her against Mary Crawford and her harp. We wonder what the outcome would have been had we pitted Jane against Georgianna Darcy? The next Jane Austen Character Throwdown compares a Jane Austen fictional character for the first time to an actual person. This week we ask: Whose library do you prefer? Mr. Bennet's inner sanctum, which helped to develop Lizzy's fine mind, or Rev. Austen's influential library, which inspired Jane Austen's creativity?

Favorite Library

Mr.Bennet's Library, Pride and Prejudice
When we think of Mr. Bennet we think of him reading or answering his mail in his ground floor library, surrounded by a quantity of serious books. He stayed there most of the day regardless of time, coming out only for dinner or appointments. Mr. Bennet liked to have the library to himself, though Lizzy and Jane were always welcome. He was also willing to conduct business within his sanctum, especially in regard to seeing his daughters settled, and spoke most willingly to Mr. Bingley and with some surprise to Mr. Darcy. Mr. Collins, however, was another matter: "Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, and have his library to himself; for thither Mr. Collins had followed him after breakfast; and there he would continue, nominally engaged with one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr. Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford. Such doings discomposed Mr. Bennet exceedingly. In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquility; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room of the house, he was used to be free from them there"

Rev. Austen’s Library, Steventon Parsonage
Jane Austen grew up in a bookish family. Rev. Austen was a great reader (and writer of sermons) and he read aloud to his children.When her family moved to Bath, Jane's father sold or gave away over 500 books from his vast library, which must have crammed the parsonage in Steventon. Under her father's direction, Jane read English, classical and foreign literature by such authors as Samuel Johnson, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Alexander Pope, George Crabbe, William Cowper, and William Shakespeare. Jane was also encouraged to buy subscriptions to the popular novels written by Frances Burney, Sarah Harriet Burney, Maria Edgeworth and Ann Radcliffe. Rev. Austen's library at Steventon provided inspiration for the short satirical sketches Jane wrote as a girl and with which she entertained the family. To entertain each other, the close knit Austen family would also read to each other, play games, and produce plays. One imagines that Rev. Austen's library played an important part in devising these amusements.

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Jane Austen Character Throwdown: Favorite Library

Mr. Bennet's Rev. George Austen's

During the Georgian era, serious private libraries were expected to showcase a variety of rare volumes, classics, topics, and great authors in a number of languages, including Latin, Greek, and French. Thomas Jefferson's library is representative of the great libraries of the world. His extensive collection formed the basis for The Library of Congress in the United States. View a list of his books at this link. One imagines that Rev. Austen and Mr. Bennet collected many of the books listed by Mr. Jefferson.

Posted by Vic, Jane Austen's World

Seen on the Blogosphere

Happy Father's Day, Reverend George Austen! I have placed a tribute to his early life on Jane Austen's World. Please click here to read it.

Laurel Ann wrote an informative post about Douglas Warner Gorsline, whose beautiful illustations of Pride and Prejudice elevate that particular edition of Jane's novel. Click here to view some of the illustrations.

Jane Austen's Father

Rev. George Austen was by all accounts a handsome man. Anna LeFroy, Jane's niece wrote, “I have always understood that he was considered extremely handsome, and it was a beauty which stood by him all his life. At the time when I have the most perfect recollection of him he must have been hard upon seventy, but his hair in its milk-whiteness might have belonged to a much older man. It was very beautiful, with short curls about the ears. His eyes were not large, but of a peculiar and bright hazel. My aunt Jane's were something like them, but none of the children had precisely the same excepting my uncle Henry.”

George Austen was born in 1731. His mother died in childbirth and his father died a year after marrying a new wife, who did not want the responsibility of taking care of the young lad. George then lived with an aunt in Tonbridge and earned a Fellowship to study at St. John’s. He received a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts, and a Bachelor of Divinity degree at Oxford. Called "the handsome proctor", he worked as an assistant chaplain, dean of arts, Greek lecturer while going to school.

He first met Cassandra Leigh in Oxford when she was visiting her uncle Theophilus. After they married, George became rector in several country parishes. The family grew by leaps and bounds, and eventually he and Cassandra Leigh had six sons and two daughters. Shortly after Jane was born, her father said: "She is to be Jenny, and seems to me as if she would be as like Henry, as Cassy is to Neddy.”

By all accounts George and Cassandra Austen had a happy marriage. His annual income from the combined tithes of Steventon and the neighboring village of Deane was around 210 pounds. The sales of his farm produce also supplemented his income. With so many mouths to feed, the family was not wealthy, to say the least. To augment his income even more, Rev. George Austen opened a boarding school at Steventon Rectory for the sons of local gentlemen.

Rev. Austen encouraged Cassandra and Jane to read from his extensive library. For entertainment, the family read to each other, played games, and produced plays. George Austen must have been proud of his daughter's accomplishments. He tried to get Pride and Prejudice published. The "Memoir" by Edward Austen-Leigh contains a letter from George Austen to Mr. Cadell, the publisher, dated November 1797, in which he describes the work as a "manuscript novel comprising three volumes, about the length of Miss Burney's 'Evelina'" and asks Mr. Cadell if he would like to see the work with a view to entering into some arrangement for its publication, "either at the author's risk or otherwise." Unfortunately, nothing came of this query, but P&P became hugely popular among the friends and family who read it before it was published in a much shorter form. The original 3-part manuscript no longer exists. Regardless, countless readers have delighted in the much shorter version for 200 years.
The Rev. George Austen died January 21, 1805, where the Austen family had moved after living in Steventon for over 30 years. (The silhouettes above are of George and Cassandra). On the 2nd. January 1805, Jane Austen wrote sorrowfully to her brother, Frank: "We have lost an excellent Father. An illness of only eight and forty hours carried him off yesterday morning between ten and eleven. His tenderness as a father, who can do justice to?"

The inscription on Rev. George Austen's grave reads:

"Under this stone rests the remains of
the Revd. George Austen
Rector of Steventon and Deane in Hampshire
who departed this life
the 1st. of January 1805
aged 75 years."

Double click on this grave marker to read the words. (From: Find a Grave Memorial)


Read about Jane's mother, Cassandra Austen nee Leigh on this site. Click here.

• Jane Austen: A Picture Taken

• Austen Family Genealogy

• The Reverend George and Mrs. Austen

• About Jane Austen: Her Life and Her Novels