Mistakes and Misinterpretation, a Re-evaluation of Jane Austen
Dear Henry,
I have noticed that it is easy to decide you know someone, just because you have read their works.
For example, I had always considered Jane Austen to have been someone who had lead a secluded and sheltered life.
That view was challenged by a recent article in the Washington Post.
Oddly the article didn't reveal any new secrets about her life. It did cast the facts in a different light.
For example, her father supplemented his income by running a small boarding school for boys in their home. I knew that, of course, but, it never occurred to me, until the Post pointed it out, that this situation alone would have ensured that Jane Austen was far from the sheltered homebody she has been portrayed.
Another example of her worldliness would have been acquired while living at Bath England. The resort town of Bath was, during her lifetime, quite a fashionable and popular place to live. There would have been a thriving social scene.
Jane Austen knew what the world offered an…
I have noticed that it is easy to decide you know someone, just because you have read their works.
For example, I had always considered Jane Austen to have been someone who had lead a secluded and sheltered life.
That view was challenged by a recent article in the Washington Post.
Oddly the article didn't reveal any new secrets about her life. It did cast the facts in a different light.
For example, her father supplemented his income by running a small boarding school for boys in their home. I knew that, of course, but, it never occurred to me, until the Post pointed it out, that this situation alone would have ensured that Jane Austen was far from the sheltered homebody she has been portrayed.
Another example of her worldliness would have been acquired while living at Bath England. The resort town of Bath was, during her lifetime, quite a fashionable and popular place to live. There would have been a thriving social scene.
Jane Austen knew what the world offered an…
