Happy 200th Birthday, Pride and Prejudice!

Opinion: Shades of Jane Austen

Would Pride and Prejudice be a bestseller if it were released today?

January 29, 2013

Opinion/Editorial (Section A-9)

BY KATHLEEN GERARD

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Who really was Jane Austen?

What better way to spend an autumn afternoon than to stop in at The Morgan Library in New York City and check out "A Woman's Wit: Jane Austen's Life and Legacy." It's the first time in more than a quarter of a century that The Morgan has exhibited manuscripts and letters penned by Austen herself. The four novels published in her lifetime have no surviving manuscript versions. But this exhibition features early editions of Austen's novels and the "only surviving complete draft of any of her novels, Lady Susan, an early epistolary tale whose heroine is more Machiavellian than any schemer Austen later imagined." A review of the exhibit was published in The New York Times (11/07/09) and here's some of what they had to say:

...Austen also wrote perhaps 3,000 letters over the course of her 41 years, most to her sister, Cassandra, who burned many and expurgated others that she believed reflected badly on Jane or other family members. Only 160 survive; the Morgan holds 51, more than any other institution. This exhibition offers a healthy sampling, some with pieces cut out in Cassandra’s quest for decorum...

...Because paper was expensive, Austen typically used a single sheet, folded in half to make four pages. But when she had more to say, she would fill all usable space, then (as was sometimes the custom) turn the sheet sideways and write perpendicularly over her own script. She completed one letter here by turning it upside down and writing between the lines...

...And though Austen was very much a private person — her novels were published anonymously at first — there is also a trace here of a public world that she mostly turned her back on, as if it might crassly impinge on her novelistic universe...

The show at The Morgan allows readers and fans of Austen's work to glimpse the woman beyond the page. In addition to the exhibit, there's also a short (16 minute) documentary, "The Divine Jane," which shows some of her letters and manuscripts and features contemporary writers and scholars speaking about Austen's importance. The film is directed by the Italian photographer (and filmmaker) Francesco Carrozzini. You can view the documentary while you're at The Morgan or see it HERE.

Picture of Jane Austen - Anonymous, British School (19th Century) - Morgan Library