Several books are being published this year to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, one of England’s most enduring authors. The one under review here should be on everyone’s Janeite list.
Of the 3,378 novels published between 1770 and 1829, very few are remembered, much less read, anymore. Every novel by Jane Austen is not only remembered, but cherished. They would all be included in any list of the top 20 of those 3,378. In part I of this book by Devoney Looser (Arizona State University), each of the six novels is given its own chapter. There is one word that binds them all together is, for Dr. Looser, embodied in one word: Wild. Here I will highlight some ‘wild’ aspects that Looser identifies.
Sense and Sensibility “deserves to be admired as her wildest full-length story, thanks to its vivid, intrepid characters, bizarre love triangles, and volatile plot, not to mention the fact that it’s her only novel to use the word ‘wildest.’” So opens Looser’s chapter on Jane’s 1811 novel, which is also her first.
Of the character Marianne, Looser writes that “Wildness allows her to be beautifully close to the earth, and to experience deep feeling, but it also leads her to the brink of self-endangerment.”
Pride and Prejudice, considered by most to be Jane’s best novel, was published in 1813. “When Elizabeth Bennett is described behind her back by a frenemy as looking ‘almost wild,’ it’s delivered as a haughty insult. Yet readers are meant to sympathize with the heroine at this moment. Elizabeth’s almost-wildness …deserves serious unpacking,” Looser intones. “It’s a stunning line that doesn’t get it’s due.”
Our author carefully elucidates the various meanings of ‘almost wild’ in the early 19th century. While Mrs. Hurst, who flings the insult, associates Elizabeth with fright and horror, for Darcy and Bingley the phrase “signals delight. Readers familiar with the positive and negative uses of the phrase were being nudged to revise Mrs. Hurst’s insult of Elizabeth’s energy and action into comic, romantic joy.”
Jane Austen’s third novel, Emma, was published in 1816 and is quite current, with the 2020 film Emma. “The only character who’s directly called ‘wild’ is Emma’s doppleganger, Mrs. Elton. We are also told that Emma has “the power to prompt those who love her to engage in ‘wild speculation’ about her future.” But the really wild aspect of the novel centers on the so-called Voluble Lady, whose role spawned short performances on stage for decades. “The Voluble Lady was almost exclusively played by amateur male actors…This gender-bending history means that performances of adapted, and arguably queer works by Austen have a history that goes back to the 1860s.” Austen’s last two novels were published after her tragically short life ended in 1817.
Northanger Abbey, from 1818, features the characters Catherine and Isabella. Both are addicted to reading Gothic novels. Catherine promises not to share plot spoilers in her book reading. “Oh! I would not tell you what is behind the black veil for the world! Are you not wild to know?” Looser admits that Catherine is Austen’s “least intelligent heroine.”
Also from 1818 is the novel Persuasion. Here intimacy blooms between Louisa and Frederick Wentworth, who sets out on a journey to the seaside town of Lyme to visit a wounded naval friend. Louisa and her friends are keen to go along. “The young people,” writes Austen, “were all wild to see Lyme.” Looser adds that “it’s a sentence that directly foreshadows the wild behaviour of Louisa at the seaside.”
As you can readily understand from these snippets from the 6 novels, the word ‘wild’ embodied many connotations, not just wild behaviour, although it could be used as a signpost for such behaviour (as in Persuasion). Like “CAUTION: BAD BEHAVIOUR AHEAD.” Looser deftly weaves a narrative around every nuance of meaning.
The text of the book extends to 278 pages, and all this only takes us to page 103. The book continues on for another 40 pages, with Notes that can lead you to every source used. As such, this is a fully academic book, but it is not burdened with academic prose.
Indeed, the last half of the text takes the reader on a truly ‘wild’ ride. An entire chapter is devoted to a study of films inspired by Pride and Prejudice that never made it to the silver screen. As far back as 1917, a silent film was advertised but never shown by the Ideal Film Company. It produced 80 films, mostly lost. Can you imagine a Judy Garland musical, Pride and Prejudice? It nearly happened in 1946.
But these failed films pale in comparison to the “rise of Austen erotica.” Looser assets that “Austen-inspired erotica encourages readers to imagine that all manner of racy things lurk around every corner and character.” Whether that is good or bad is a personal decision!
In real-world history, Looser traces the efforts of descendants of the Austen family who campaigned on the subject of the right of women to vote. But it’s not what you think! Augustus Austen Leigh (1840-1905) married his cousin Florence Emma Austen Leigh. She did her utmost to ensure women would NOT get the right to vote. She also said that universal suffrage would mean that women would become the majority of voters. “I ask myself whether the country is prepared for so momentous and revolutionary a change as this. I think it is not.” Florence died in 1926. Two years later Parliament allowed every man and woman over the age of 21 to vote.
What did it mean to love and adore Jane Austen in the Britain of the 20th century? I think this paragraph from the book sums it up.
“Cataloguing the love of Austen expressed by politicians and activists across the political spectrum is jaw-dropping and never fails to fascinate me. On the British right, Prime Minister Winston Churchill is one of Austen’s most cited admirers. He attributed his wartime recovery from illness to escaping into the supposedly calming pleasures of Austen’s fiction.” And here in the United States, the favourite book of First Lady Barbara Bush was Pride and Prejudice.
As Austen herself wrote in her juvenile novella Lady Susan, “Facts are such horrid things!” Well, the fact is, this is a delightfully wild and thoroughly researched romp through Jane Austen’ s writing and legacy. Not so horrid after all! This book deserves to be widely read.
Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane is by St. Martin’s Press. It lists for $30.
Image: a portrait of Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra. Done in 1810. PD-Art, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.