Searching
(in vain) for the Real Jane Austen on the Proposed British 10-Pound Note
&
Exposing the Still-Prevailing 1870 Myth-making of Nephew James Edward Austen
Leigh
While
all Janeites worthy of the name ought to continue to closely monitor and
support the progress of Catherine Criado-Perez’s inspiring pushback against abusive,
threatening Internet thugs….
…we
should also keep our eye on the ball that Ms. Criado-Perez’s initial efforts
put in play, i.e., her having led the successful charge to push the Bank of
England to agree to put Jane Austen on the new 10-pound note in 2017.
I see
that a few informed commentators, like Janine Barchas…
…are
echoing my own bill of attainder against the Bank…..
…for
its staggeringly bad choices for the images and words they (tentatively, I hear---I
sure hope so!) plan to put on the proposed British 10-pound note in 2017, in
honor of Jane Austen. If we don’t get
them to correct each of the three major gaffes, then the honor will be a hollow
one, as it won’t be true to the ethos of the greatest female writer in English
literary history, but instead will be an empty paean to the mythical personage
invented after her death by some of her closest family members!
However,
let’s be realistic. The commentaries of a handful of informed Austen scholars
like myself and Barchas, are still largely invisible and unknown to the vast
majority even of informed literate people in the English speaking world, who
continue to buy into the false stereotype about Jane Austen which the current
concepts promulgated by the Bank of England would only perpetuate and even
expand. So it’s really important that these critiques be spread far and wide on
the Internet, if the kind of pressure is to be brought on the Bank to get it
right the second time around.
As I
previously have noted, there is a sad irony in that the one thing that most of
the comments about the new banknote, both pro and con, agree about, is that Jane
Austen was not particularly feminist, not particularly interested in the wider
world, and, worst of all, that even though she did not come from money, somehow
she was totally comfortable with the sharp economic divide of her world between
the haves and the have nots (which latter group included her!).
As I
noted in my above linked post about the three large errors by the Bank, using
the fake image of Jane Austen on the note would take us back 143 years to the
primary architect of the mythical Jane Austen was her nephew, James Edward
Austen Leigh (or JEAL), whose 1870 Memoir of Jane Austen was the primary
vehicle for generating that mythology. It was an amazingly successful bit of
propaganda.
I
have previously blogged on several occasions about the clearly intentional editorial
distortions and outright lies that JEAL promulgated in the Memoir, such as
these…
And that’s
only skimming the surface. I want to conclude by bringing to your attention what
I believe to be the best treatment out there in print on the subject of JEAL’s deceptions
in the Memoir--- Searching for Jane Austen (2004), by Emily Auerbach.
My
source for what follows are Chapter 1 of her book, entitled “Dear Aunt Jane: Putting Her Down and
Touching Her Up”, but you will find much of that same material in the 2005
print Persuasions, under the title "Searching for Jane Austen:
restoring the 'fleas' and 'bad breath'."
Here
are some excerpts from Auerbach’s first chapter, which perfectly sum up why the
Bank of England should change everything in their planned 10-pound note (while
keeping Jane Austen, of course!). Tell me if you don’t get M.A.D. just reading what
JEAL did!:
“Book
jackets of new Austen studies sport prettified images of her face surrounded
with flowers and lace, and comedians joke about men dragged to Austen movies
against their wills. Old attitudes die hard. Old texts die hard, too…Internet
users [and here I would add, the Bank of England] priding themselves on their
state-of-the-art technology unknowingly download not only distorted
representations of Austen’s face, but also incomplete or altered versions of
her writing. As we will see, Austen’s relatives and early editors would be
pleased to know this: they worked hard to sweeten her image, weaken her words,
and soften her bite. Paradoxically, JA nowadays seems everywhere yet still hard
to find. Hence my title: Searching for Jane Austen.”
And
then this about JEAL’s techniques for deception and distortion:
“Like
his brother Henry, James Austen emphasized his sister’s mild and traditional
feminine nature….His sister did not let her writing inflame her vanity or pride
or distract her from completing useful chores, James insisted. James’s son,
JEAL, continued this verbal softening in his 1870 Memoir…We are still feeling
the effects of the JA myth constructed in 1870 for public consumption ….Noting
that her nephews and nieces ‘did not think of
her as being clever’….JEAL emphasizes those qualities considered
ladylike …JEAL presents his modest aunt’s occupation as a little hobby for her
own amusement and claims she felt no mortification about her lack of early
success…”
Then,
after detailing the cynical, calculating and unacknowledged editing of the
first JA letter JEAL refers to in the Memoir, Auerbach brilliantly concludes:
“In
effect, JEAL creates a brilliant Catch-22. After removing references to
politics and literature from the letters, he then observes that his
songbird-like aunt takes ‘no notice of politics or public events’ and avoids
‘discussions of literature.’ This pattern continues throughout the Memoir…”
Well, it’s time to end the Catch-22, and make sure that the
new 10-pound note becomes a ‘teachable moment’ for a new generation of Brits,
so that they will not carry the distortions and myths about Jane Austen around
literally in their pockets and wallets, but also in their minds, but will
instead recognize who she really was, and how worthy she truly is of the honor
being bestowed on her legacy.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
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