From the Archives: As Used by Jane Austen: Pins, the Regency Post-It

Susan reporting,

Another oldie but goodie from the archives....

I've written before about the importance of pins in everyday 18th c. life. Straight pins were widely used to fasten all kinds of clothing, from women's bodices to infant's diapers, and also used in hand sewing. Pins were considered so indispensable that when Abigail Adams wrote from colonial Massachusetts to her husband John Adams in Philadelphia in 1775, the one thing she requested was for him to "purchase me a bundle of pins and put in your trunk for me." (Read the rest of the letter here.)

Pins for clothing and sewing, yes. But I hadn't realized that pins were also an essential tool for 18th c. writers. Thanks to (or cursed by, depending on your point of view) computers, most modern writers submit manuscripts electronically. Rewrites and copy edits are all conducted now through the magic of track changes and transmissions. Gone are the days of hauling manuscript boxes to the post office, not to mention pages that bristled with pink "flags", the comments and queries pasted to the edges of pages by editors. I've gotten to the point where the only words on paper I see in the entire process are in the finished book – and the way things are going, that may soon vanish, too.

But what did writers do in the days before paper clips and Post-Its? How did an early novelist who was already struggling to make sense of a handwritten manuscript mark revisions and additions? According to the librarians of Oxford's Bodleian Library, the answer is pins – and lots of them. All those notes and insertions and extra copy were handwritten on scraps of paper and pinned in the margin with a straight pin. The pins, above, were all plucked from the library's holdings, and date from 1692 to 1853.

In 2011, the Bodleian acquired a true Jane Austen rarity: the manuscript draft of her abandoned novel, The Watsons. (See here for more about the auction and the staggering realized price, as well as a page of the manuscript itself.) In addition to the clues to cross-outs and rewrites on the draft provide, there were also a wealth of pinned-on additions. For purposes of preserving the manuscript, these pins were carefully removed with their notes, studied, catalogued, and saved – a librarian's scholarly labor of love.

But as a fellow-writer, I like to imagine Jane at work at her small writing table. I wonder: did she use the same pins she used for her clothing, or did she have another stash of pins reserved for writing? Did she keep a pin cushion on the table with a stack of scrap-paper sheets beside her inkwell, prepared and ready to make changes? Or did she tuck them into her sleeve like a hurried seamstress might, keeping them literally at hand when she needed them?

Here is the link to the original article about literary pinning by Christopher Fletcher, Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian Library. Thanks to Deb Barnum for first sharing this story with us. 

Above: Manuscript pins, c. 1690-1850. Bodleian Library.

From the Archives: Jane Austen's Surprising Aunt Philadelphia

Susan reporting,

With my manuscript deadline drawing ever-closer, here's another favorite post from the archives about a woman who could certainly inspire a book of her own.

In 18thc Britain, it wasn't only younger sons who went out to India in search of fortune and adventure. English women also made the arduous journey in the hopes of finding fortune, adventure, and, most importantly, husbands in a male-dominated land where the odds would be much in their favor.

One of these adventuresome women was Philadelphia Austen Hancock, who in her later years became a favorite aunt to novelist Jane Austen. As a child, however, Philadelphia was no one's favorite. Born in 1730, she soon lost her mother in 1733, and her father in 1737. Her stepmother had no interest in raising either Philadelphia or her younger brother and sister, and as was sadly common at the time, the three young siblings were separated and sent to live with other relatives.

While the two younger children were sent to Austen family members, Philadelphia was given to members of her mother's family, the Hampsons. The Hampsons had both money and position - Philadelphia's uncle was a baronet - but they seemed to have shared little of it with the inconvenient little girl. While Philadelphia's brother George was sent to Oxford to become a clergyman, Philadelphia was apprenticed at fifteen to a London milliner named Hester Cole. No doubt the Hampsons considered their familial obligations done.

Some modern Austen-fans choose to interpret Philadelphia's occupation as a euphemism for prostitution, jumping to the conclusion that because many milliners (and seamstresses, and mantua-makers, and parlor-maids, and just about every other trade that a young woman might attempt in 18thc. London) were so underpaid that they turned to prostitution to support themselves. The fact that Mrs. Cole's shop was in Covent Garden also makes it tempting to speculate about Philadelphia's real trade. But however disinterested the Hampsons may have been in her, it seems unlikely they'd send her to a bawdy house, nor is there any historical proof of Philadelphia earning her living in any less-than-honorable way.

Whatever the case, Philadelphia must not have found millinery to her taste, because at twenty she sailed for India, her passage paid by a relative. No one knows if she went boldly through her own choice, or was perhaps sent away by the Hampsons (another hint of scandal?) Either way, it must not have been an easy decision, and it's hard to imagine a young woman making such a desperate journey alone, and without any real prospects or friends waiting for her in a very foreign land. Without a dowry, her face really would have been her only fortune.

But Philadelphia's gamble paid off.  After a short time in India, she did marry, quite respectably, to Tysoe Saul Hancock, who was a surgeon with the East India Company. They had one daughter, Eliza. Again the centuries-old whispers appear, hinting that Eliza's real father was her wealthy godfather Warren Hastings, the future Governor General of India. Again, too, there is no real proof to substantiate the rumors, but Philadelphia had chosen her daughter's godfather - or her own lover - well: Hastings provided Eliza with a substantial legacy of £10,000.

In any event, Philadelphia and her daughter returned to London, while Hancock continued to toil in India. Eliza was raised as a lady, with a full compliment of lessons in dancing, French, and the harp, and all the advantages that Philadelphia hadn't had for herself. When Dr. Hancock died, the two women found London too expensive for the fashionable life they wished to live, and they went instead to Paris, where they were quickly swept up into the gay life of the French society in the last days before the Revolution. Wanting the security for Eliza that she couldn't provide herself, Philadelphia urged her towards a marriage with a French count, who died on the guillotine. (Eliza's second marriage, to her cousin Henry Austen, was both longer and happier.) While Philadelphia's decisions might not always seem today to have been the wisest for her or her daughter, she made them as a woman of her time, with limited options and resources.

Regardless of the shadows in her past, Phila (as she was known in the family) was welcomed at the home of her brother George, now a clergyman, and she was with George's wife when their daughter Jane was born. It's easy to imagine why Aunt Phila became Jane's favorite aunt: not only was she a trusted member of the family, but she also carried with her that hint of mystery and scandal, along with the exoticism of India and the sophistication of Paris - all in short supply in the home of a country clergyman.

When I look at the little miniature of Philadelphia shown here, I see only an elegantly attractive lady, with a fashionable hairstyle and a genteel smile. That little half-smile only makes me long to know the truth about her personal history, and to fill in all those scandalous gaps that time (and perhaps the well-meaning and more respectable George) have glossed over. Ahh, Jane, if only you'd written your aunt's story!

Top: Miniature portrait ring of Philadelphia Austen Hancock, by John Smart, c1768. Private collection. Photograph copyright Rowan & Rowan.

A Backward Letter from Jane Austen, 1817

Susan reporting,

Whenever I'm in New York, I always try to stop by The Morgan Library to see what treasures from their extraordinary collection have been rotated onto display. As usual, I wasn't disappointed. Among the current exhibits are a score by Mozart, a Gutenberg Bible, a proclamation from George Washington, letters from Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (!!!), and this wonderful short letter from Jane Austen. These items and others are part of the current Treasures from the Vault exhibition, on display through March 11, 2018.

At first glance, the words appear to be beautifully written gibberish. But there's a trick to reading it: each word is spelled backward. According to the Library's placard, the letter was written by Austen to her eight-year-old niece Cassandra Esten Austen, the daughter of her brother Charles. The code is a bit challenging, but not so difficult that a clever eight-year-old (and being Jane Austen's niece, Cassandra must have been clever) couldn't decipher it. I also imagine Cassandra treasured it, too; her aunt died only six months later, leaving her final novel, Sanditon, unfinished.

I'm not providing a translation (the Library didn't either), so you can try to figure it out for yourselves. It begins "My dear Cassy I wish you a happy new year" and is signed "Your affectionate aunt Jane Austen." What lies between is up to you. Please click on the image to enlarge.

Above: Jane Austen (1775-1817) Autograph letter, written backward, to her niece Cassandra Austen, signed and dated Notwahc [Chawton], 8 January 1817, The Morgan Library. 
Below: Mr. Morgan's Library, The Morgan Library
Photos ©2018 Susan Holloway Scott

Fashions for February 1812

Ball Dress February 1812

Loretta reports:

Though I took a detour to 1836 for last month's fashion plate, in order to illustrate my latest book, I’m hoping this year to show you the evolution of style, decade by decade. Of course, if something irresistibly fabulous turns up in the “wrong” era, we’ll make another detour.

But today we’re looking at Regency—interpreting the term very narrowly this time as the period from 1811 to 1820, when the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent because the reigning monarch, King George III, was too ill to rule. (Social historians and others, however, tend to refer to a broader period, which Wikipedia concisely summarizes here, in the second paragraph.)

Walking Dress February 1812

These two dresses, though, fall smack dab into the Prince Regent’s time, with the classic vertical muslin styles we associate with Pride and Prejudice, and which happen to be illustrated in especially beautiful prints in Ackermann’s Repository.

Dress Description February 1812

I would call your attention to the description of the hat, which I would love to see in real life.




 
Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

The Accomplished Young Lady

Morning Dress 1813

Loretta reports:

I thought it would be interesting to compare William Hazlitt’s remarks about ladies' accomplishments with the exchange in Pride and Prejudice dealing with the topic.

The elegant manners of people of fashion have been objected to us to show the frivolity of external accomplishments, and the facility with which they are acquired. As to the last point we demur. There is no class of people who lead so laborious a life, or who take more pains to cultivate their minds as well as persons, than people of fashion. A young lady of quality, who has to devote so many hours a day to music, so many to dancing, so many to drawing, so many to French, Italian, &c. certainly does not pass her time in idleness; and these accomplishments are afterwards called into action by every kind of external or mental stimulus, by the excitements of pleasure, vanity, and interest. A Ministerial or Opposition Lord goes through more drudgery than half a dozen literary hacks; nor does a reviewer by profession read half the same number of productions as a modern fine lady is obliged to labour through.
—William Hazlitt, The Round Table Vol 1, 1817

Image:
Morning Dress, Ackermann’s Repository August 1813, courtesy Philadelphia Art Museum via Internet Archive. Text clippings from Pride and Prejudice online at Google Books.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

From the Archives: As Used by Jane Austen: Pins, the Regency Post-It

Since so many of our readers are new (and this blog is nearly six years old!) Loretta and I have agreed to dip into our archives for our posts this week. Sometimes something old can be new!

Isabella reporting,

I've written before about the importance of pins in everyday 18th c. life. Straight pins were widely used to fasten all kinds of clothing, from women's bodices to infant's diapers, and also used in hand sewing. Pins were considered so indispensable that when Abigail Adams wrote from colonial Massachusetts to her husband John Adams in Philadelphia in 1775, the one thing she requested was for him to "purchase me a bundle of pins and put in your trunk for me." (Read the rest of the letter here.)

Pins for clothing and sewing, yes. But I hadn't realized that pins were also an essential tool for 18th c. writers. Thanks to (or cursed by, depending on your point of view) computers, most modern writers submit manuscripts electronically. Rewrites and copy edits are all conducted now through the magic of track changes and transmissions. Gone are the days of hauling manuscript boxes to the post office, not to mention pages that bristled with pink "flags", the comments and queries pasted to the edges of pages by editors. I've gotten to the point where the only words on paper I see in the entire process are in the finished book – and the way things are going, that may soon vanish, too.

But what did writers do in the days before paper clips and Post-Its? How did an early novelist who was already struggling to make sense of a handwritten manuscript mark revisions and additions? According to the librarians of Oxford's Bodleian Library, the answer is pins – and lots of them. All those notes and insertions and extra copy were handwritten on scraps of paper and pinned in the margin with a straight pin. The pins, above, were all plucked from the library's holdings, and date from 1692 to 1853.

In 2011, the Bodleian acquired a true Jane Austen rarity: the manuscript draft of her abandoned novel, The Watsons. (See here for more about the auction and the staggering realized price, as well as a page of the manuscript itself.) In addition to the clues to cross-outs and rewrites on the draft provide, there were also a wealth of pinned-on additions. For purposes of preserving the manuscript, these pins were carefully removed with their notes, studied, catalogued, and saved – a librarian's scholarly labor of love.

But as a fellow-writer, I like to imagine Jane at work at her small writing table. I wonder: did she use the same pins she used for her clothing, or did she have another stash of pins reserved for writing? Did she keep a pin cushion on the table with a stack of scrap-paper sheets beside her inkwell, prepared and ready to make changes? Or did she tuck them into her sleeve like a hurried seamstress might, keeping them literally at hand when she needed them?

Here is the link to the original article about literary pinning by Christopher Fletcher, Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian Library. Thanks to Deb Barnum for first sharing this story with us. 

Above: Manuscript pins, c. 1690-1850. Bodleian Library.

Jane Austen and the Pelisse

Walking Dress March 1809

Loretta reports:

Readers of Regency era stories will have encountered pelisses from time to time, but not all will have a clear picture in mind.

According to Jane Ashelford’s The Art of Dress, “During the first five years of the nineteenth century the pelisse was half-way between an over-tunic* and a coat. It was usually made with long sleeves and a high waist, and was knee-length, extending to the ankles only after 1810.”**

Nancy Bradfield’s Costume in Detail offers on page 97 an illustration of the construction of this 1816 caped coat or pelisse. And on pages 133-34 she provides a detailed look at this ca 1826-28 blue woolen cloth coat or pelisse.

Here’s a beautiful pelisse ca 1820, probably American.

For this quick tour of the pelisse world, you can thank alert reader Jill Sardella, who sent me to a set of blog posts about a pelisse believed to have belonged to Jane Austen, the project to reconstruct it, and the resulting article.  The garment is a historical mystery: Will we ever be absolutely certain it was hers? My optimistic self believes that one of these days, a really good portrait of Jane Austen will turn up somewhere. And so of course I believe we’ll one day know definitely whether she wore this pelisse.

Morning Dress 1800

*I’ve seen the shorter lengths called “demi-pelisse.”

**The 1800 November fashion plate description reads: "Pelise of shot-silk, lined with pink. A ruff round the neck, and full at the bosom." You will note that it reaches the ground, which contradicts Ms. Ashelford's dating.

Image at top courtesy Internet Archive. Image below courtesy Google Books.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Friday Video: A View of the Peak, in Derbyshire

Matlock Dale

Loretta reports:

Following up on Miss Wonderful’s recent audio release, here’s a short, very atmospheric video that I think captures the beauty of the Peak. Background is a little hazy, but I think you’ll understand why this part of England has attracted visitors for hundreds of years, as well as playing an important part in Pride & Prejudice.

However, you may wish to turn off the music, which seems to me a peculiar choice.

Image: Joseph Wright of Derby, Matlock Dale, looking toward Black Rock Escarpment (alternate title: View of the Boathouse near Matlock), between 1780 and 1785, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

A German Lady Travels to Matlock in Jane Austen's Time

Matlock Tor by Moonlight

Loretta reports:

Those familiar with Pride & Prejudice will remember Elizabeth Bennett’s trip to Derbyshire, when she fell in love with Mr. Darcy’s house.

Johanna Schopenhauer (mother of the philosopher) traveled to Derbyshire early in the first decade of the 1800s. Her account of her travels was published in German, but not translated into English until the 1980s. If you understand German, you might want to listen to the audio version here.

The following excerpt is from Ruth Michaelis-Jena and Willy Merson’s A Lady Travels: The Diaries of Johanna Schopenhauer, the translation that helped me time travel as I wrote Miss Wonderful.

~~~

This lovely valley, friendly yet vast, lonely yet full of life, is one of the most beautiful in Britain.  It may be that Matlock’s springs are not very effective, but this is not necessary to the finding of new energy and vitality in this heavenly place ...

The actual spa consists of three large inns and two lodging-houses, with the village of Matlock about a mile and a half away. It is impossible to describe the charm of this valley in mere words: it is so peaceful, so intimate, with the Derwent flowing through it, surrounded by high cliffs which stand rugged and bare against the sky, yet usually looking friendly, as their summits are crowned with beautiful trees.

We took a boat on the Derwent as far as it is navigable, which is only a short stretch. After that it becomes a wild torrent, full of rapids and whirlpools ... Opposite us was the highest cliff in the neighbor hood, which the local people call the High Tor. We climbed it easily, up a shaded path, and from the top we could see on one side the narrow valley in all the glory of its rich vegetation, with the river running through the center. ON the wooded rocks opposite were the fine buildings of the spa, providing a friendly picture of pleasant social life ... On the other side we saw a second valley, looking as if no human foot had ever trod there, so remote and silent was it, enclosed by green hills ... Nowhere else had we seen the wild, simple beauty of nature more happily combined with civilization than here on the banks of the Derwent.

~~~

Image above: Joseph Wright of Derby, Matlock Tor by Moonlight (1777-80), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Note: This work is part of the splendid exhibition, The Critique of Reason: Romantic Art 1760-1860, very well worth seeing.

Image below: Joseph Wright of Derby, Matlock Tor by Daylight, ca 1785, from the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, via Wikipedia.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Jane Austen's Surprising Aunt Philadelphia

Isabella reporting,

Because my newest book features a heroine who was born in India and came to England, my last few posts (here and here) have featured the English in 18th c. India. But it wasn't only younger sons who went out to India in search of fortune and adventure. English women also made the arduous journey in the hopes of finding fortune, adventure, and, most importantly, husbands in a male-dominated land where the odds would be much in their favor.

One of these adventuresome women was Philadelphia Austen Hancock, who in her later years became a favorite aunt to novelist Jane Austen. As a child, however, Philadelphia was no one's favorite. Born in 1730, she soon lost her mother in 1733, and her father in 1737. Her stepmother had no interest in raising either Philadelphia or her younger brother and sister, and as was common at the time, the three young siblings were separated and sent to live with other relatives.

While the two younger children were sent to Austen family members, Philadelphia was given to members of her mother's family, the Hampsons. The Hampsons had both money and position - Philadelphia's uncle was a baronet - but they seemed to have shared little of it with the inconvenient little girl. While Philadelphia's brother George was sent to Oxford to become a clergyman, Philadelphia was apprenticed at fifteen to a London milliner named Hester Cole. No doubt the Hampsons considered their familial obligations done.

Some modern Austen-fans choose to interpret Philadelphia's occupation as a euphemism for prostitution, jumping to the conclusion that because many milliners (and seamstresses, and mantua-makers, and parlor-maids, and just about every other trade that a young woman might attempt in 18thc. London) were so underpaid that they turned to prostitution to support themselves. The fact that Mrs. Cole's shop was in Covent Garden also makes it tempting to speculate about Philadelphia's real trade. But however disinterested the Hampsons may have been in her, it seems unlikely they'd send her to a bawdy house, nor is there any historical proof of Philadelphia earning her living in any less-than-honorable way.

Whatever the case, Philadelphia must not have found millinery to her taste, because at twenty she sailed for India, her passage paid by a relative. No one knows if she went boldly on her own, or was perhaps sent away by the Hampsons (another hint of scandal?) Either way, it must not have been an easy decision, and it's hard to imagine a young woman making such a desperate journey alone, and without any real prospects or friends waiting for her in a very foreign land. Without a dowry, her face really would have been her only fortune.

But Philadelphia's gamble paid off.  After a short time in India, she did marry, quite respectably, to Tysoe Saul Hancock, who was a surgeon with the East India Company. They had one daughter, Eliza. Again the centuries-old whispers appear, hinting that Eliza's real father was her wealthy godfather Warren Hastings, the future Governor General of India. Again, too, there is no real proof to substantiate the rumors, but Philadelphia had chosen her daughter's godfather - or her own lover - well: Hastings provided Eliza with a substantial legacy of £10,000.

In any event, Philadelphia and her daughter returned to London, while Hancock continued to toil in India. Eliza was raised as a lady, with a full compliment of lessons in dancing, French, and the harp, and all the advantages that Philadelphia hadn't had for herself. When Dr. Hancock died, the two women found London too expensive for the fashionable life they wished to live, and they went instead to Paris, where they were quickly swept up into the gay life of the French society in the last days before the Revolution. Wanting the security for Eliza that she couldn't provide herself, Philadelphia urged her towards a marriage with a French count, who died on the guillotine. (Eliza's second marriage, to her cousin Henry Austen, was both longer and happier.) While Philadelphia's decisions might not always seem today to have been the wisest for her or her daughter, she made them as a woman of her time, with limited options and resources.

Regardless of the shadows in her past, Phila (as she was known in the family) was welcomed at the home of her brother George, now a clergyman, and she was with George's wife when their daughter Jane was born. It's easy to imagine why Aunt Phila became Jane's favorite aunt: not only was she a trusted member of the family, but she also carried with her that hint of mystery and scandal, along with the exoticism of India and the sophistication of Paris - all in short supply in the home of a country clergyman.

When I look at the little miniature of Philadelphia shown here, I see only an elegantly attractive lady, with a fashionable hairstyle and a genteel smile. That little half-smile only makes me long to know the truth about her personal history, and to fill in all those scandalous gaps that time (and perhaps the well-meaning and more respectable George) have glossed over. Ahh, Jane, if only you'd written your aunt's story!

Top: Miniature portrait ring of Philadelphia Austen Hancock, by John Smart, c1768. Private collection. Photograph copyright Rowan & Rowan.

Friday Video: A Jane Austen Dance

Isabella reporting,

While we Nerdy History Girls make our living with words, it's still entertaining to consider how much can be expressed without them. This is a clip from the 2007 film Becoming Jane, a fictionalized interpretation of a romance between a young Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) with a likewise young Irishman (James McAvoy). True, there's a sizable amount of speculation and wishful thinking in the film's storyline, but I thought this particular scene was quite wonderful. No matter how heavily chaperoned a dance may be (and no one chaperons like Maggie Smith!), young people can always find a way to make their feelings for one another known.

I also enjoyed how the sounds of the dance were accurately captured. Whenever I've attended a recreated dance, I've always been surprised by how audible the dancers' footsteps are, how the shush of silk can be heard over the music. Again, quite wonderful.

Friday Video: Visiting Jane Austen's Home

Isabella reporting,

Featuring historian Amanda Vickery, this thoughtful (and beautiful) tour of Chawton Cottage, Jane Austen's home, is an excerpt from Professor Vickery's mini-series, At Home with the Georgians. Based on her wonderful book Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England, it's an equally wonderful series, incorporating visits to 18th c. houses large and small, readings from letters and diaries, and costumed actors and actresses. I don't believe the series has ever been shown on American TV (perhaps not unless the networks develop CSI: Bath first), but it is available in its entirety on DVD from Amazon. If you enjoyed Professor Vickery's behind-the-scenes recreation of the Netherfield Ball, you'll love this series, too. Highly recommended for all you Georgian & Regency fans out there!

Casual Friday: Pride & Prejudice by Thug Notes

View at source here

Loretta reports:

Thanks to Isabella for calling this to my attention. We've seen other short, amusing treatments of Jane Austen's work (here and here are just a couple of examples).  This is a wonderful, brief, funny, accurate summary & analysis, in a language that, like Jane Austen's, may be foreign to some of us, yet understandable for all that.  Of course, the illustrations help.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Illustration courtesy Wikipedia.

The Last Word on Jane Austen's Ring

Isabella reporting,

Last year one of the few pieces of jewelry known to have belonged to author Jane Austen was put up for auction by a descendant. The ring, left, is simple and unassuming in design - an oval odontalite (a less expensive substitute for turquoise) stone, set in gold - but it was the connection to that first owner that made it so special. Interest in the auction was high, and grew higher still when the final prize realized at the sale was £152,450 (or about $236,000), considerably more than the £20,000-£30,000 that was original estimate projected by the auction house. Our original post about the sale is here.

The winning bidder's identity wasn't known at first, (more about that here) but when it was finally revealed that American Idol winner and pop singer Kelly Clarkson was the buyer, the howls of outrage began in Britain. The government declared the ring to be a "national treasure," and a temporary export ban was put into effect. Ms. Clarkson was prohibited from taking the ring home to Texas, and the Jane Austen's House Museum - a disappointed bidder in the original auction - was given until the end of September to match the amount of the winning bid. A world-wide campaign successfully raised the funds, and graciously Ms. Clarkson gave up her prize - not that she had any choice. The Museum will soon be putting the ring on display, while Ms. Clarkson had an exact replica made to wear whenever and wherever she pleased - surely a somewhat bittersweet memento.

It's interesting to read how differently the story was presented by the media in America and the UK. While the facts are the same, the perspective certainly isn't. NBCNews.com's headline was Kelly Clarkson forced to sell $250,000 ring to Jane Austen museum, while the BBC.co went with Kelly Clarkson thwarted in bid to keep Jane Austen ring. 

The policy of designating and restricting "national treasures" is a complicated one; every major museum in the world contains national treasures removed from other nations, treasures that are never going to be returned to their one-time owners. So what do you think - should Kelly have been permitted to keep the ring she paid for, or does it belong on display in the Jane Austen's House Museum?

Friday Video: Mr. Darcy & That Infamous Wet Shirt

Isabella reporting,

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is one of the most-filmed books in literature. For many fans of the book, the ultimate Mr. Darcy remains Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC production. Those same fans can be even more specific: in a recent poll, viewers named the scene where Darcy takes a fully-clothed dip in his pond as the all-time most memorable moment in British TV drama. It's so famous, in fact, that there's now a twelve-foot fiberglass sculpture of Firth as Darcy, right, rising up from the Serpentine in London's Hyde Park, which is really pretty scary.

Is the scene worth all the fuss? Here's the clip so you can judge – and enjoy – for yourself.

Friday Video: Jane Austen's Netherfield Ball Recreated

Isabella reporting,

As every good Nerdy History Person and reader knows, 2013 marks the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In honor of this anniversary, the BBC recreated one of the book's most famous and pivotal scenes: the Netherfield Ball. The resulting documentary, "Pride & Prejudice: Having a Ball," aims to show every aspect of a Regency-era ball, from the invitations to the clothes, music, food, and dances. With social historian Amanda Vickery and a team of other historians and experts to lead the way, this behind-the-scenes show is a delight.

As Used by Jane Austen: Pins, the Regency Post-It

Isabella reporting,

I've written before about the importance of pins in everyday 18th c. life. Straight pins were widely used to fasten all kinds of clothing, from women's bodices to infant's diapers, and also used in hand sewing. Pins were considered so indispensable that when Abigail Adams wrote from colonial Massachusetts to her husband John Adams in London in 1775, the one thing she requested was for him to "purchase me a bundle of pins and put in your trunk for me." (Read the rest of the letter here.)

Pins for clothing and sewing, yes. But I hadn't realized that pins were also an essential tool for 18th c. writers. Thanks to (or cursed by, depending on your point of view) computers, most modern writers submit manuscripts electronically. Rewrites and copy edits are all conducted now through the magic of track changes and transmissions. Gone are the days of hauling manuscript boxes to the post office, not to mention pages that bristled with pink "flags", the comments and queries pasted to the edges of pages by editors. I've gotten to the point where the only words on paper I see in the entire process are in the finished book – and the way things are going, that may soon vanish, too.

But what did writers do in the days before paper clips and Post-Its? How did an early novelist who was already struggling to make sense of a handwritten manuscript mark revisions and additions? According to the librarians of Oxford's Bodleian Library, the answer is pins – and lots of them. All those notes and insertions and extra copy were handwritten on scraps of paper and pinned in the margin with a straight pin. The pins, above, were all plucked from the library's holdings, and date from 1692 to 1853.

In 2011, the Bodleian acquired a true Jane Austen rarity: the manuscript draft of her abandoned novel, The Watsons. (See here for more about the auction and the staggering realized price, as well as a page of the manuscript itself.) In addition to the clues to cross-outs and rewrites on the draft provide, there were also a wealth of pinned-on additions. For purposes of preserving the manuscript, these pins were carefully removed with their notes, studied, catalogued, and saved – a librarian's scholarly labor of love.

But as a fellow-writer, I like to imagine Jane at work at her small writing table. I wonder: did she use the same pins she used for her clothing, or did she have another stash of pins reserved for writing? Did she keep a pin cushion on the table with a stack of scrap-paper sheets beside her inkwell, prepared and ready to make changes? Or did she tuck them into her sleeve like a hurried seamstress might, keeping them literally at hand when she needed them?

Here is the link to the original article about literary pinning by Christopher Fletcher, Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian Library. Thanks to Deb Barnum for first sharing this story with us. 

Above: Manuscript pins, c. 1690-1850. Bodleian Library.

How to mend Mr. Darcy's pen

Miss Bingley wants to help

Loretta reports:

If you’ve read Pride and Prejudice, you might have found yourself wondering, among other things, about Miss Bingley’s offer to mend Mr. Darcy’s pen for him.

Letter writing, which is either extinct now or nearly so, was in the early 19th century an extremely complicated process.  The Young Lady’s Book:  A Manual of Elegant Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits, devotes 30-plus pages to the topic of letter writing in a chapter titled “The Escruitoire.”

I’m still trying to figure out how to fold the paper.

The hard-core nerdy among you will wish to peruse the entire chapter.  For those who’d rather not, thank you, I offer from its pages the art of mending a pen.

 

              

Please click on text to enlarge to readable size.  If that still isn't big enough, please click on the link to the chapter.

Publication Day for Jane Austen's "Pride & Prejudice", January, 1813

Isabella reporting,

As all good nerdy history folk likely already know, this week marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice. Countless words are being written around the world in praise of P&P and its author in celebration, and every laudatory syllable is well-deserved. There's not much I can add in the way of literary brilliance, but I can contribute a few words of my own regarding Jane Austen as a fellow author.

Long before she posthumously became one of the most famous of authors, Jane was just one more working novelist, A Lady whose name wasn't even on her title page. The details that survive about Jane and the publication of P&P, in three volumes, sound all too familiar to 21st c. writers.

Receiving her first printed author-copies (here are first editions) was at once a glorious experience and a taxing one. There were the inevitable errors, discovered too late to be corrected. She worried about the newspaper advertisement – ah, promo! – and whether the book would sell. (The sad truth was that she never earned enough from her books to support herself, something that many modern writers will also recognize.) She worried, too, that readers wouldn't understand her characters, especially her heroine Elizabeth. In the excerpt, below, from a letter she wrote to her sister Cassandra on January 29, 1813, Jane describes anonymously sharing the new book with an unsuspecting Miss Benn, relishing every appreciative word even as she dreads hearing a critical one.

Writers understand this. To Jane, Pride and Prejudice isn't a mere book, but her "own darling Child." Those who don't write believe that professional story-telling takes perseverance, talent, ideas, inspiration, and creativity. Those who do write know that a successful writer also needs a good measure of courage, enough to be able to send her or his "own darling Child" out into the cold, cruel world of critics and readers. It's a courage that Jane clearly must have had – and we're all grateful she did.

"I want to tell you that I have got my own darling Child from London; – on Wednesday I received one Copy, sent down by Falknor....The Advertisement is in our paper to day for the first time; – 18s–He shall ask £1-1- for my two next, & £1-8 for my stupidest of all....Miss Benn dined with us on the very day of the books coming & in the evening we set fairly at it, and read half the first vol. to her, prefacing that, having intelligence from Henry that such a work would soon appear, we had desired him to send it whenever it came out, and I believe it passed with her unsuspected. She was amused, poor soul! that she could not help, you know, with two such people to lead the way, but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least I do not know. There are a few Typical errors; and a "said he," or a "said she," would sometimes make the Dialogue more immediately clear – but I do not write for such dull Elves."

Update: Who Bought Jane Austen's Ring?

Isabella reporting:

One of our most popular posts of this past year was Would You Wear Jane Austen's Ring? The gold ring, left,  is one of the few possessions that were undeniably Jane's, with the special magic such a connection brings. This summer the ring sold at auction for £152,450, or about $236,000. At the time, the identity of the buyer was unknown, with much speculation as to whether the ring had been bought by a museum or a private collector.

At last the buyer's name is public, and I doubt anyone would have guessed it: chart-topping singer and American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson. Turns out Kelly is not only a Jane Austen fan - she also owns a first edition of Persuasion – but a self-proclaimed "really big history nerd." Kelly, welcome to the club.

But whether Kelly will ever be able to take her prize back home to Texas remains up in the air. She still has not been granted an export request; because the ring has been declared a British national treasure, she is not permitted to take it from the U.K. Will Kelly be taking the ring home with her at the end of her British tour? Stay tuned...the saga of Jane Austen's ring continues!

Above: A gold and gem ring, once belonging to Jane Austen. Photograph: Sotheby's.