Stolzi, yes!
Posted by Bonny on January 01, 1998 at 05:36:03:
In response to Catherine etc., written by Stolzi on December 30, 1997 at 17:48:56
] I have wondered whether the description of Catherine's energetic and joyful childhood, with its boyish romps, -- not what we might have thought likely for the era -- is based to some degree on Jane's memories of her own childhood. Has any Austen biography gone into this?
I had similar thoughts when 1st reading NA, and can offer, from Marilyn Butler's introduction to Jane Austen's selected Letters :
"At Steventon rectory Jane Austen had enjoyed a happy, gregarious childhood rather like that attributed to Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey : she learnt boys games, rolled down the slope behind the house, and watched the older children acting comedies in her fathers barn"
There! and I continue, because it's * in-ter-est-ing * ...
"But by the 1970's, with the boys gone, the girls and their parents lived more sedately in the roomy house, where Mrs Austen, having lost her occupation as a cheerful and competent mother became hypochondriac and depressed."
A hypochondriac parent, hmmmm...* and *
"The family circle became less agreeable with the second marriage of James in 1797 to the former Mary Lloyd, a woman who Jane Austen characterizes as domineering, uncultivated and obsessed with money"
Mmmm... Fanny Dashwood, * domineering * *obsessed with money * ? or Augusta Elton *domineering * and *uncultivated *?
Loved the quotes, but sadly omitted was any mention of Henry's parody of a Simpering Young Man at Bath. I * Love * it!
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