[those who saw me speak to the JASNA-NYC branch in May, please hold your fire, and keep the secret of the answer until I disclose it tomorrow, so as to give others a chance to try to figure it out]
What is the connection among the following three seemingly completely unrelated bits of Austeniana?
#1: my recent string of posts about my speculation, based on the intersection of textual evidence from _Emma_ and _MP_, on the one hand, and from historical data, on the other, that the young Phila Austen may have been a prostitute in London from age 15 to 20, before she was transported by ship--whether voluntarily or not--to India.
#2: The following charade attributed to Henry Austen:
“I with a Housemaid once was curst,
Whose name when shortened makes my first;
She an ill natured Jade was reckoned,
And in the house oft raised my second,
My whole stands high in lists of fame,
Exalting e’en great Chatham’s name.”
The answer given by David Selwyn for this charade is "pat" + "riot" = "patriot". As the online expression goes, ymmv, i.e., your mileage may vary. _My_ mileage _does_ vary! Hint: think about the names of the housemaids in _Emma_.
#3: The following two passages in _Emma_ which pertain to the family of the lawyer of Highbury:
Ch. 26: "The party was rather large, as it included one other family, a proper unobjectionable country family, whom the Coles had the advantage of naming among their acquaintance, and the male part of Mr Cox's family, the lawyer of Highbury."
Ch. 27: [Harriet]: “...The Coxes were wondering last night whether [Jane] would get into any great family. How did you think the Coxes looked?......They talked a great deal about [Robt. Martin], especially Anne Cox... Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry him."
...[Emma] "She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should be."
My answer, and explanation, will be posted tomorrow morning EST--bonne chance!
Cheers, ARNIE
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Highbury Tradesman
I have written on several occasions in this blog and in Janeites and Austen L about the Harriet Smith of the shadow story of _Emma_ as being the precise opposite of the commonly understood Harriet Smith of the overt story. E.g, I mention it in the context of Jane Austen’s Christianity, in the following post:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/08/jane-austens-christianity.html
There are numerous aspects to the shadow Harriet as being “knowing” in both the cognitive _and_ the carnal senses of that word, which I will be spelling out in detail in my book. Today I bring forward one such aspect, because it directly and powerfully relates to my recent posts about allusions I claim that JA made to Cleland’s _Fanny Hill_ and also to the real life of JA’s aunt Phila Austen Hancock, which are all united around characters named Mrs. Cole and also around millinery shops as covers for brothels.
The most famous millinery business in JA’s fiction is, of course, Ford’s in Highbury, in _Emma_.
Without further preparation or ado, I now present to you the relevant passages in _Emma_ which pertain to Ford’s, with certain excerpts underscored for emphasis. I suggest that if you read these passages _as if_ Ford’s is, covertly, a house of prostitution, in addition to its official millinery business, you may be surprised at how well the “glove” of that interpretation fits the “hand” of the quoted text!
At the end of this post, my P.S. will briefly tie this all together in a pretty bow that would have caught Harriet’s eye, by revealing the significance of the title of this post, and how it _also_ relates directly to the veiled, but omnipresent, theme of sexuality in the shadow story of _Emma_:
Ch. 21: The shower was heavy, but short; and it had not been over five minutes, when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give; and the "Oh! Miss Woodhouse, _what do you think has happened!_" which _instantly burst forth_, had all the evidence of _corresponding perturbation_. As _the blow_ was given, Emma felt that she could not now shew greater kindness than in listening; and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to tell. "She had set out from Mrs. Goddard's half an hour ago -- she had been afraid it would rain -- she had been afraid it would _pour down_ every moment -- but she thought she might get to Hartfield first -- she had hurried on as fast as possible; but then, _as she was passing by the house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she would just step in and see how it went on_; and though she did not seem to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain, and she did not know what to do; so she ran on directly, as fast as she could, and _took shelter at Ford's." -- Ford's was the principal woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher's shop united; the shop first in size and fashion in the place. "_ And so, there she had set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes, perhaps -- when, all of a sudden, _who should come in_ -- to be sure it was so very odd! but _they always dealt at Ford's_ -- who should come in, but Elizabeth Martin and her brother! Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting near the door -- Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; _he was busy with the umbrella_. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly, and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the shop; and I kept sitting near the door! Oh! dear; I was so miserable! I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away you know, because of the rain; but I did so wish myself any where in the world but there. Oh! dear, Miss Woodhouse -- well, at last, I fancy, he looked round and saw me; for _instead of going on with their buyings, they began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me; _ and I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak to me -- (do you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?) -- for presently she came forward -- came quite up to me, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands, if I would. _She did not do any of it in the same way that she used; I could see she was altered; _ but, however, she seemed to try to be very friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking some time; but I know no more what I said -- _I was in such a tremble!_ I remember she said she was sorry we never met now; which I thought almost too kind! Dear, Miss Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, _it was beginning to hold up_, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting away -- and then -- only think! _I found _he was coming up towards me too_ -- slowly you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do; and _so he came_ and spoke, and I answered -- and I stood for a minute, feeling dreadfully, you know, one can't tell how; and then I took courage, and said it did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set; and _I had not got three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole's stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh! dear, I thought it would have been the death of me!_ So I said, I was very much obliged to him: you know I could not do less; and then _he went back to Elizabeth, and _I came round by the stables_ -- I believe I did -- but _I hardly knew where I was_, or any thing about it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I would rather done any thing than have had it happen: and yet, you know, there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and so kindly._ And Elizabeth, too! Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do talk to me and make me comfortable again."
[We may well wonder what “happened” when Harriet “came round by” Mr. Cole’s “stables” that gave Harriet “a sort of satisfaction”, such that she “hardly knew where” she was!]
Ch. 23: A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move. "He must be going. He had business at the Crown about his hay, and _a great many errands for Mrs. Weston at Ford's;_ but he need not hurry any body else."
[We may well wonder why Mr. Weston might have so many “errands” for his wife at Ford’s.]
Ch. 24: "Well," said Emma, "there is no disputing about taste. At least you admire her, except her complexion."
He shook his head and laughed. "I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her complexion."
"Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?"
_
At this moment they were approaching Ford's, and he hastily exclaimed, "Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's. If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford's. It will be taking out my freedom. I dare say they sell gloves."_
"Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will be adored in Highbury. You were very popular _before you came_, because you were Mr. Weston's son; but _lay out half-a-guinea at Ford's, and your popularity will stand upon your own virtues."_
They went in; and _while the sleek, well-tied parcels of "Men's Beavers"_ and "York Tan" were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he said -- "But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me, you were saying something at the very moment of _this burst of my amor patriae. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of public fame_ would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in private life."
"I merely asked, whether you had _known much_ of Miss Fairfax and her party at Weymouth."
"And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a very unfair one. It is always the lady's right to decide on the degree of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account. I shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow."
"Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance with her."
"May I indeed? Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set. Col. Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly, warm-hearted woman. I like them all."
_"_You know Miss Fairfax's situation in life, I conclude; what she is destined to be."
"Yes -- "(rather hesitatingly) -- "I believe I do._" _
_"You get upon delicate subjects, Emma," said Mrs. Weston smiling,_ "remember that I am here. Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say when you speak of Miss Fairfax's situation in life. I will move a little farther off."
[We may well wonder why Mr. Weston is so obsessed with Ford’s, and about Frank’s “burst of amor patriae”, and, more important vis a vis Jane Fairfax, why Frank hesitates when speaking about Jane F’s “situation in life” and “what she is destined to be”, and also why Mrs. Weston smiles when she refers to these as “delicate subjects”.]
Ch. 27: "She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry him."
"Very likely. I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar girls in Highbury."
_ Harriet had business at Ford's._ Emma thought it most prudent to go with her. _Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and, in her present state, would be dangerous._
Harriet, tempted by every thing and swayed by half a word, was always very long at a purchase; and while she was still hanging over muslins and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement. ….A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
[We may wonder what business Harriet had at Ford’s, why a meeting with the Martins “would be dangerous”, and most of all we can safely say that in the shadow story of the novel, Emma indeed “can do with seeing nothing” of what is actually going on all around her right under her upturned nose.]
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.: The title of this post is a spin on a best seller from 1747 entitled _The London Tradesman_, written one year after Phila Austen began her apprenticeship with the “milliner” Mrs. Cole in Covent Garden, the “garden” of earthly pleasures in London, and three years before publication of _Fanny Hill_. The author of that book devotes significant attention to the millinery profession as a cover for prostitution, and it should not surprise anyone to learn that the name of the author of that book was Robert _Campbell_--whether he was a Colonel, I have yet to ascertain.
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/08/jane-austens-christianity.html
There are numerous aspects to the shadow Harriet as being “knowing” in both the cognitive _and_ the carnal senses of that word, which I will be spelling out in detail in my book. Today I bring forward one such aspect, because it directly and powerfully relates to my recent posts about allusions I claim that JA made to Cleland’s _Fanny Hill_ and also to the real life of JA’s aunt Phila Austen Hancock, which are all united around characters named Mrs. Cole and also around millinery shops as covers for brothels.
The most famous millinery business in JA’s fiction is, of course, Ford’s in Highbury, in _Emma_.
Without further preparation or ado, I now present to you the relevant passages in _Emma_ which pertain to Ford’s, with certain excerpts underscored for emphasis. I suggest that if you read these passages _as if_ Ford’s is, covertly, a house of prostitution, in addition to its official millinery business, you may be surprised at how well the “glove” of that interpretation fits the “hand” of the quoted text!
At the end of this post, my P.S. will briefly tie this all together in a pretty bow that would have caught Harriet’s eye, by revealing the significance of the title of this post, and how it _also_ relates directly to the veiled, but omnipresent, theme of sexuality in the shadow story of _Emma_:
Ch. 21: The shower was heavy, but short; and it had not been over five minutes, when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give; and the "Oh! Miss Woodhouse, _what do you think has happened!_" which _instantly burst forth_, had all the evidence of _corresponding perturbation_. As _the blow_ was given, Emma felt that she could not now shew greater kindness than in listening; and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to tell. "She had set out from Mrs. Goddard's half an hour ago -- she had been afraid it would rain -- she had been afraid it would _pour down_ every moment -- but she thought she might get to Hartfield first -- she had hurried on as fast as possible; but then, _as she was passing by the house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she would just step in and see how it went on_; and though she did not seem to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain, and she did not know what to do; so she ran on directly, as fast as she could, and _took shelter at Ford's." -- Ford's was the principal woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher's shop united; the shop first in size and fashion in the place. "_ And so, there she had set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes, perhaps -- when, all of a sudden, _who should come in_ -- to be sure it was so very odd! but _they always dealt at Ford's_ -- who should come in, but Elizabeth Martin and her brother! Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting near the door -- Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; _he was busy with the umbrella_. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly, and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the shop; and I kept sitting near the door! Oh! dear; I was so miserable! I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away you know, because of the rain; but I did so wish myself any where in the world but there. Oh! dear, Miss Woodhouse -- well, at last, I fancy, he looked round and saw me; for _instead of going on with their buyings, they began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me; _ and I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak to me -- (do you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?) -- for presently she came forward -- came quite up to me, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands, if I would. _She did not do any of it in the same way that she used; I could see she was altered; _ but, however, she seemed to try to be very friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking some time; but I know no more what I said -- _I was in such a tremble!_ I remember she said she was sorry we never met now; which I thought almost too kind! Dear, Miss Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, _it was beginning to hold up_, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting away -- and then -- only think! _I found _he was coming up towards me too_ -- slowly you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do; and _so he came_ and spoke, and I answered -- and I stood for a minute, feeling dreadfully, you know, one can't tell how; and then I took courage, and said it did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set; and _I had not got three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole's stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh! dear, I thought it would have been the death of me!_ So I said, I was very much obliged to him: you know I could not do less; and then _he went back to Elizabeth, and _I came round by the stables_ -- I believe I did -- but _I hardly knew where I was_, or any thing about it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I would rather done any thing than have had it happen: and yet, you know, there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and so kindly._ And Elizabeth, too! Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do talk to me and make me comfortable again."
[We may well wonder what “happened” when Harriet “came round by” Mr. Cole’s “stables” that gave Harriet “a sort of satisfaction”, such that she “hardly knew where” she was!]
Ch. 23: A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move. "He must be going. He had business at the Crown about his hay, and _a great many errands for Mrs. Weston at Ford's;_ but he need not hurry any body else."
[We may well wonder why Mr. Weston might have so many “errands” for his wife at Ford’s.]
Ch. 24: "Well," said Emma, "there is no disputing about taste. At least you admire her, except her complexion."
He shook his head and laughed. "I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her complexion."
"Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?"
_
At this moment they were approaching Ford's, and he hastily exclaimed, "Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's. If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford's. It will be taking out my freedom. I dare say they sell gloves."_
"Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will be adored in Highbury. You were very popular _before you came_, because you were Mr. Weston's son; but _lay out half-a-guinea at Ford's, and your popularity will stand upon your own virtues."_
They went in; and _while the sleek, well-tied parcels of "Men's Beavers"_ and "York Tan" were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he said -- "But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me, you were saying something at the very moment of _this burst of my amor patriae. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of public fame_ would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in private life."
"I merely asked, whether you had _known much_ of Miss Fairfax and her party at Weymouth."
"And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a very unfair one. It is always the lady's right to decide on the degree of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account. I shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow."
"Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance with her."
"May I indeed? Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set. Col. Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly, warm-hearted woman. I like them all."
_"_You know Miss Fairfax's situation in life, I conclude; what she is destined to be."
"Yes -- "(rather hesitatingly) -- "I believe I do._" _
_"You get upon delicate subjects, Emma," said Mrs. Weston smiling,_ "remember that I am here. Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say when you speak of Miss Fairfax's situation in life. I will move a little farther off."
[We may well wonder why Mr. Weston is so obsessed with Ford’s, and about Frank’s “burst of amor patriae”, and, more important vis a vis Jane Fairfax, why Frank hesitates when speaking about Jane F’s “situation in life” and “what she is destined to be”, and also why Mrs. Weston smiles when she refers to these as “delicate subjects”.]
Ch. 27: "She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry him."
"Very likely. I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar girls in Highbury."
_ Harriet had business at Ford's._ Emma thought it most prudent to go with her. _Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and, in her present state, would be dangerous._
Harriet, tempted by every thing and swayed by half a word, was always very long at a purchase; and while she was still hanging over muslins and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement. ….A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
[We may wonder what business Harriet had at Ford’s, why a meeting with the Martins “would be dangerous”, and most of all we can safely say that in the shadow story of the novel, Emma indeed “can do with seeing nothing” of what is actually going on all around her right under her upturned nose.]
Cheers, ARNIE
P.S.: The title of this post is a spin on a best seller from 1747 entitled _The London Tradesman_, written one year after Phila Austen began her apprenticeship with the “milliner” Mrs. Cole in Covent Garden, the “garden” of earthly pleasures in London, and three years before publication of _Fanny Hill_. The author of that book devotes significant attention to the millinery profession as a cover for prostitution, and it should not surprise anyone to learn that the name of the author of that book was Robert _Campbell_--whether he was a Colonel, I have yet to ascertain.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Morality of Philadelphia Austen Hancock
Diana Birchall just wrote the following post in Janeites and Austen L:
[Christy Somer] "Imho, to also introduce and attach a theory around Eliza's mother, Phila, Rev. George Austen's sister and Jane Austen's aunt, being a prostitute before she sailed to India is offensive, unacceptable, and most likely, unpublishable."
[Diana] "Perhaps you'll think it odd, Christy, but I can't quite agree with you. Philadelphia has always been a somewhat suspect character. Doesn't it strike you as odd that her brother was sent to Oxford, but she wasn't trained to be anything even marginally genteel, or put in the way of getting married: she was sent, at only 15, to be apprenticed to a milliner! Why was this? Had she already behaved badly, like some young Lydia? And then, "milliner" was famously a euphemism for prostitute. I can't enter into the whole Fanny Hill/Mrs. Cole thing - it seems rather a coincidence, at too far a remove of time, to know who was who in Covent Garden back in the day. But there is something about Philadelphia that bespeaks a certain lack of character, or at any rate, sense. Why did she go, or why was she sent, dowryless, to India, another world, to marry a stranger? That's an incredibly drastic and desperate measure, and nothing like it happened to anyone else in the Austen family. Maybe the rumors about her daughter being Hastings' child were spiteful but then why did Hastings provide for Eliza so lavishly? And
then, why did Phila unwisely push Eliza to marry the shadily suspect de Feuillide? She was clearly not a wise woman, and had probably misbehaved at some point in her own career. Eliza adored her mother, but it was in a protective sort of way. We can't know the story - it was surely the sort of thing families would hide - but Jane Austen knew it. I don't think the Cole name is enough to conclude that Phila was ever a prostitute (a clergyman's sister? And she did marry respectably), but as Mrs. Elton says, "nothing more is positively known of the Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected." END OF DIANA'S POST
And I just replied as follows in Austen L:
Diana, thank you very much for your post. As I've been saying in my recent exchanges with Christy, I don't think JA saw her aunt as a Lydia Bennet so much as a would-be Fanny Price or Jane Fairfax who took a desperate wrong step.
[Diana] "I can't enter into the whole Fanny Hill/Mrs. Cole thing - it seems rather a coincidence, at too far a remove of time, to know who was who in Covent Garden back in the day."
There being a real Mrs. Cole in Fanny Hill, in Emma, and in Phila's teenage life would be one thing standing alone--but that triple intersection, like Darcy, Wickham and Collins--who are each part of, or closely connected to, the Darcy family---all converging on Meryton within a very short period of time, does _not_ stand alone. The evaluation of such coincidences is always interesting in regard to Jane Austen.
Just to be sure you've seen them, the following are the posts where I previously presented a fair amount of textual evidence for my claim that JA intentionally alluded to Fanny Hill in both Mansfield Park and Emma. That claim does not depend on my claim regarding the real life "Mrs. Cole" connection, or vice versa, but I think they each reinforce the other:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/answer-to-my-trick-question.html
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/mrs-cole-direct-connection-between.html
Cheers, ARNIE
[Christy Somer] "Imho, to also introduce and attach a theory around Eliza's mother, Phila, Rev. George Austen's sister and Jane Austen's aunt, being a prostitute before she sailed to India is offensive, unacceptable, and most likely, unpublishable."
[Diana] "Perhaps you'll think it odd, Christy, but I can't quite agree with you. Philadelphia has always been a somewhat suspect character. Doesn't it strike you as odd that her brother was sent to Oxford, but she wasn't trained to be anything even marginally genteel, or put in the way of getting married: she was sent, at only 15, to be apprenticed to a milliner! Why was this? Had she already behaved badly, like some young Lydia? And then, "milliner" was famously a euphemism for prostitute. I can't enter into the whole Fanny Hill/Mrs. Cole thing - it seems rather a coincidence, at too far a remove of time, to know who was who in Covent Garden back in the day. But there is something about Philadelphia that bespeaks a certain lack of character, or at any rate, sense. Why did she go, or why was she sent, dowryless, to India, another world, to marry a stranger? That's an incredibly drastic and desperate measure, and nothing like it happened to anyone else in the Austen family. Maybe the rumors about her daughter being Hastings' child were spiteful but then why did Hastings provide for Eliza so lavishly? And
then, why did Phila unwisely push Eliza to marry the shadily suspect de Feuillide? She was clearly not a wise woman, and had probably misbehaved at some point in her own career. Eliza adored her mother, but it was in a protective sort of way. We can't know the story - it was surely the sort of thing families would hide - but Jane Austen knew it. I don't think the Cole name is enough to conclude that Phila was ever a prostitute (a clergyman's sister? And she did marry respectably), but as Mrs. Elton says, "nothing more is positively known of the Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected." END OF DIANA'S POST
And I just replied as follows in Austen L:
Diana, thank you very much for your post. As I've been saying in my recent exchanges with Christy, I don't think JA saw her aunt as a Lydia Bennet so much as a would-be Fanny Price or Jane Fairfax who took a desperate wrong step.
[Diana] "I can't enter into the whole Fanny Hill/Mrs. Cole thing - it seems rather a coincidence, at too far a remove of time, to know who was who in Covent Garden back in the day."
There being a real Mrs. Cole in Fanny Hill, in Emma, and in Phila's teenage life would be one thing standing alone--but that triple intersection, like Darcy, Wickham and Collins--who are each part of, or closely connected to, the Darcy family---all converging on Meryton within a very short period of time, does _not_ stand alone. The evaluation of such coincidences is always interesting in regard to Jane Austen.
Just to be sure you've seen them, the following are the posts where I previously presented a fair amount of textual evidence for my claim that JA intentionally alluded to Fanny Hill in both Mansfield Park and Emma. That claim does not depend on my claim regarding the real life "Mrs. Cole" connection, or vice versa, but I think they each reinforce the other:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/answer-to-my-trick-question.html
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/mrs-cole-direct-connection-between.html
Cheers, ARNIE
Thursday, December 9, 2010
...and still more about Philadelphia Austen, Fanny Hill, Miss Wynne, Misella and Jane Austen
And my conversation in Austen L with Christy Somer continues, very fruitfully and respectfully:
"When you post something such as this, I also partake of the freedom to express my sometimes- reactive dissidence."
Christy, I don't think you were overly reactive, I presented a potentially very significant argument, with major implications about how we see both Jane Austen and her family, and her sense of her place and role in that family, and your reaction was temperate and I took nothing personally--we just disagree very passionately about this matter, but I find our discussion valuable. It is important that such a discussion take place, that we challenge each other respectfully and then each take away what we think in the aftermath.
"Jesus himself was very clear about casting the first stone at women who have sinned, and so that is why I am certain that JA, who without question followed the precepts of the Jesus who showed such compassion for the fallen, and also warned the hypocrites not to cast stones."
"Jane Austen, would not have vainly placed herself in a Jesus/saint position."
Well, we disagree very strongly about that, my sense is that JA was first and foremost an author of fictions and that was her most sacred duty, in her eyes--because she saw herself as having a great gift from God, which it was her duty to share with the world.
It was not vanity for a very great genius to see herself as playing a special role in the world, it was pragmatic reality. She understood from a very young age that she was different, special, "chosen", and she struggled to come to terms with what to do with her gift. She chose a path that I celebrate, honor, enjoy and learn from every single day. She has been a great teacher for me in so many profound ways.
I think she resolved that struggle on how to reconcile her role in the family with her role as an author in 1809, and decided that this was her destiny, to bring these stories to the world, including the shadow stories of women in her time. From that point forward, she was resolute in executing her plan.
I have emphasized several times that JA made use of her aunt's painful early life as grist for her literary mill, not in a cynical, selfish, judgmental way, but with a combination of compassion and worldly wisdom which put her aunt's early life choices in perspective, and found useful life lessons in life. Her aunt did not live and die in vain. Her story was preserved by her loving niece.
Read what Anne Elliot says in Persuasion. Read what the narrator says in Northanger Abbey. JA saw herself as telling the history of women--the HERstory of women, from a woman's perspective, something that she saw a desperate need for, a need that trumped all other considerations.
You and I and others were in great dispute about Samuel Johnson recently. It is not accidental that JA alluded to Johnson's Misella, the prostitute, in her novels. Emma (with Jane Fairfax) and Mansfield Park (with Fanny Price) both have the painful shadow story of prostitutes hanging over them, that is why Fanny Hill is such an important subtext of both of those novels, and that is why Phila Hancock is there too. Despite my other complaints about Johnson, he did not write about Misella in a prurient or evil way, he was telling that untold story. And JA saw her aunt as a real life Misella.
I am not saying that Phila Austen was the real life model for Fanny Hill, or the real life model for Misella, but she may as well have been, from JA's creative perspective, as she wove those fictional sources together with her own aunt's life to create her own suffering heroines.
"And if I were an editor of a non-fiction about Jane Austen, I would want to see diaries, letters, or familial oral tradition showing that this was most likely the case....otherwise I would consider it crossing a line, and most likely a mistake to publish."
You've begged the question. I will be very careful to present my evidence and to say that it is a plausible inference from that textual evidence that JA was pointing toward her aunt in connection with Fanny Hill and Misella. I think it would be a mistake to keep this plausible inference from other Janeites---let each one make his or her own judgment as to what it means-but to keep it in Pandora's Box, to keep this hiding that has been going on for 200 years, I will do my best to end that awful silencing.
And note that there is already a well established thread in modern Austen criticism about Philadelphia Hancock as having conceived Eliza out of wedlock with Warren Hastings. So I am bringing valuable new information that sets that existing thread of scholarship in a fresh context, we can see that the young Philadelphia Austen, like the Miss Wynne of Catherine or the Bower who is a representation of her, was in a desperate Catch 22. My interpretation explains what could drive a young woman to such actions as to be a prostitute, and/or to marry a much older man where there was no genuine mutual affection and attraction. I know that Le Faye would like to silence the whole thread, but Pandora's Box is wide open already.
I really truly believe that Jane Austen loved, and sympathized with, her aunt Philadelphia. That says good things about Philadelphia, and about Jane Austen. She lived by Jesus's precepts, as well as by the best moral teachings of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the best morality that secular learning could offer. There can be nothing offensive in making that argument in this context.
"If Phila had truly been in this "profession", the giving of sex for money between her and her customers might be seen as the *only place* where any semblance of honesty would exist....Most everywhere else this type of life would involve continual lying, artificiality, and familial deception which would be the greater destroyer of integrity and ones soul...and I do not see this as being acceptable to Jane Austen, her family or anyone who would wish to live an openly honest Christian life. That is what is most offensive to me...accusing her of this type of insidiously-deceiving betrayal."
I have no idea what you are driving at. I believe that Phila came to terms with what she did to survive as a desperate teenaged orphan girl in an oppressively male dominated society, I think she felt at peace with what she did, and I believe she told her daughter and JA, because they loved her and did not judge her, but had compassion for what she had suffered through. I don't think there was any dishonesty in those relationships.
Remember, Mary Crawford is Eliza Hancock de Feuillide Austen.
"The love that existed between Eliza and her mother(and there are letters and oral tradition about this great love they had for each other), imho, would not have been born and nurtured from such double standards of hypocrisy and pretense. For now, I cannot psychologically accept this."
And I don't think it was hypocrisy, it was nobody's business what Phila had done, other than those precious few whom she trusted and confided in. And then Phila died when JA was 16 and was just beginning to go through her own major life changes and crises, and that is why, I think, the 16 year old JA wrote about her aunt, to mourn her passing, to remember her life.
Cheers, ARNIE
"When you post something such as this, I also partake of the freedom to express my sometimes- reactive dissidence."
Christy, I don't think you were overly reactive, I presented a potentially very significant argument, with major implications about how we see both Jane Austen and her family, and her sense of her place and role in that family, and your reaction was temperate and I took nothing personally--we just disagree very passionately about this matter, but I find our discussion valuable. It is important that such a discussion take place, that we challenge each other respectfully and then each take away what we think in the aftermath.
"Jesus himself was very clear about casting the first stone at women who have sinned, and so that is why I am certain that JA, who without question followed the precepts of the Jesus who showed such compassion for the fallen, and also warned the hypocrites not to cast stones."
"Jane Austen, would not have vainly placed herself in a Jesus/saint position."
Well, we disagree very strongly about that, my sense is that JA was first and foremost an author of fictions and that was her most sacred duty, in her eyes--because she saw herself as having a great gift from God, which it was her duty to share with the world.
It was not vanity for a very great genius to see herself as playing a special role in the world, it was pragmatic reality. She understood from a very young age that she was different, special, "chosen", and she struggled to come to terms with what to do with her gift. She chose a path that I celebrate, honor, enjoy and learn from every single day. She has been a great teacher for me in so many profound ways.
I think she resolved that struggle on how to reconcile her role in the family with her role as an author in 1809, and decided that this was her destiny, to bring these stories to the world, including the shadow stories of women in her time. From that point forward, she was resolute in executing her plan.
I have emphasized several times that JA made use of her aunt's painful early life as grist for her literary mill, not in a cynical, selfish, judgmental way, but with a combination of compassion and worldly wisdom which put her aunt's early life choices in perspective, and found useful life lessons in life. Her aunt did not live and die in vain. Her story was preserved by her loving niece.
Read what Anne Elliot says in Persuasion. Read what the narrator says in Northanger Abbey. JA saw herself as telling the history of women--the HERstory of women, from a woman's perspective, something that she saw a desperate need for, a need that trumped all other considerations.
You and I and others were in great dispute about Samuel Johnson recently. It is not accidental that JA alluded to Johnson's Misella, the prostitute, in her novels. Emma (with Jane Fairfax) and Mansfield Park (with Fanny Price) both have the painful shadow story of prostitutes hanging over them, that is why Fanny Hill is such an important subtext of both of those novels, and that is why Phila Hancock is there too. Despite my other complaints about Johnson, he did not write about Misella in a prurient or evil way, he was telling that untold story. And JA saw her aunt as a real life Misella.
I am not saying that Phila Austen was the real life model for Fanny Hill, or the real life model for Misella, but she may as well have been, from JA's creative perspective, as she wove those fictional sources together with her own aunt's life to create her own suffering heroines.
"And if I were an editor of a non-fiction about Jane Austen, I would want to see diaries, letters, or familial oral tradition showing that this was most likely the case....otherwise I would consider it crossing a line, and most likely a mistake to publish."
You've begged the question. I will be very careful to present my evidence and to say that it is a plausible inference from that textual evidence that JA was pointing toward her aunt in connection with Fanny Hill and Misella. I think it would be a mistake to keep this plausible inference from other Janeites---let each one make his or her own judgment as to what it means-but to keep it in Pandora's Box, to keep this hiding that has been going on for 200 years, I will do my best to end that awful silencing.
And note that there is already a well established thread in modern Austen criticism about Philadelphia Hancock as having conceived Eliza out of wedlock with Warren Hastings. So I am bringing valuable new information that sets that existing thread of scholarship in a fresh context, we can see that the young Philadelphia Austen, like the Miss Wynne of Catherine or the Bower who is a representation of her, was in a desperate Catch 22. My interpretation explains what could drive a young woman to such actions as to be a prostitute, and/or to marry a much older man where there was no genuine mutual affection and attraction. I know that Le Faye would like to silence the whole thread, but Pandora's Box is wide open already.
I really truly believe that Jane Austen loved, and sympathized with, her aunt Philadelphia. That says good things about Philadelphia, and about Jane Austen. She lived by Jesus's precepts, as well as by the best moral teachings of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the best morality that secular learning could offer. There can be nothing offensive in making that argument in this context.
"If Phila had truly been in this "profession", the giving of sex for money between her and her customers might be seen as the *only place* where any semblance of honesty would exist....Most everywhere else this type of life would involve continual lying, artificiality, and familial deception which would be the greater destroyer of integrity and ones soul...and I do not see this as being acceptable to Jane Austen, her family or anyone who would wish to live an openly honest Christian life. That is what is most offensive to me...accusing her of this type of insidiously-deceiving betrayal."
I have no idea what you are driving at. I believe that Phila came to terms with what she did to survive as a desperate teenaged orphan girl in an oppressively male dominated society, I think she felt at peace with what she did, and I believe she told her daughter and JA, because they loved her and did not judge her, but had compassion for what she had suffered through. I don't think there was any dishonesty in those relationships.
Remember, Mary Crawford is Eliza Hancock de Feuillide Austen.
"The love that existed between Eliza and her mother(and there are letters and oral tradition about this great love they had for each other), imho, would not have been born and nurtured from such double standards of hypocrisy and pretense. For now, I cannot psychologically accept this."
And I don't think it was hypocrisy, it was nobody's business what Phila had done, other than those precious few whom she trusted and confided in. And then Phila died when JA was 16 and was just beginning to go through her own major life changes and crises, and that is why, I think, the 16 year old JA wrote about her aunt, to mourn her passing, to remember her life.
Cheers, ARNIE
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
More about Philadelphia Austen, Fanny Hill and Jane Fairfax
This is a continuation of my ongoing discussion with Christy Somer in Austen-L:
"....and here is where we radically disagree Arnie."
Yes, I never meant to suggest that we were in agreement in all important ways, quite the contrary, it is fascinating to me that we can so profoundly agree about many important aspects of Jane Austen's writing, and yet also disagree so profoundly about may others.
"So with all due respect to the freedom of ideas..and all that...."
Well, you say that, but the rest of your comments...........
"Isn't it enough to allow, with some reasonable consideration, the possibility of Eliza de Feuillide actually being Warren Hasting's biological daughter?"
I think it's more than possible, I think it's probable. What I believe is certain is that JA herself must have been well aware of the rumor, regardless of whether it was actually true or not, and so if JA addressed it in her novels, obliquely, as I claim she did, I believe that JA herself believed the rumor to be true, because I don't believe JA would memorialize a rumor like that, if she thought it was false.
"Imho, to also introduce and attach a theory around Eliza's mother, Phila, Rev. George Austen's sister and Jane Austen's aunt, being a prostitute before she sailed to India is offensive, unacceptable, and most likely, unpublishable."
That does not sound like you are looking for the truth, so much as you are looking for some alternative to the truth which is inoffensive and acceptable to mainstream beliefs about Jane Austen and her family. I am looking for the truth, without regard to whose sensibilities it may or may not offend. I do not seek to offend, or not to offend, I seek the truth, as best I can determine it.
And if it turns out to be so that the truth about a woman who died 200 years ago cannot even be published because of such considerations, as you suggest, then that is a very very sad state of affairs, and that is certainly not what I call intellectual freedom, quite the opposite actually.
Do you think JA was a fan of censorship? Not my JA, just the opposite, she hated being stifled, especially by those who were not treating her well.
And for the record, and this is very important, here is what I wrote about the possibility that Aunt Phila Austen Hancock might have been a prostitute when she was a teenager and that JA might have memorialized that story:
"And....ten times more important--no, ten _thousand_times more important---I believe that Jane Austen took her aunt's plight _deeply_to heart--because surely if Phila Austen is represented by Jane Fairfax, as I believe she is, then Jane Austen was not alluding to Fanny Hill in a salacious or vulgar way, but because she (and by the way, so was Cleland, as many critics have also pointed out previously) was appalled at how women in her world were treated-- the words they heard put them on a pedestal, but when it came down to brass tacks, they were, metaphorically, treated as if they were whores, to be bought and sold, and the "Price" for their "Fanny" was too dear."
Jesus himself was very clear about casting the first stone at women who have sinned, and so that is why I am certain that JA, who without question followed the precepts of the Jesus who showed such compassion for the fallen, and also warned the hypocrites not to cast stones.
And I believe that JA truly understood, and empathized, that her aunt, a young teenaged orphan without prospects or money, realistically may have had no option other than starvation as an alternative to prostitution, if that is what she wound up doing for a while, until she could get out of such a situation, and find a decent man to marry her and give her a modicum of financial security. It was a cruel cold world her aunt was born into, and I think JA felt great compassion for her aunt, and wanted to preserve her aunt's story.
JA paid her aunt the greatest compliment of all, because I also believe that Jane Fairfax is a representation of Jane Austen herself. So allowing her aunt to inhabit that same fictional character would have been a very positive and loving act on JA's part.
I certainly do not judge a young woman making such choices in such a world, and I know JA did not judge them either.
So what exactly is offensive about telling this story?
It seems that when we agree, we agree profoundly, and when we disagree, we disagree profoundly as well. But I am glad we can continue to disagree civilly.
It all is very fascinating...
Cheers, ARNIE
"....and here is where we radically disagree Arnie."
Yes, I never meant to suggest that we were in agreement in all important ways, quite the contrary, it is fascinating to me that we can so profoundly agree about many important aspects of Jane Austen's writing, and yet also disagree so profoundly about may others.
"So with all due respect to the freedom of ideas..and all that...."
Well, you say that, but the rest of your comments...........
"Isn't it enough to allow, with some reasonable consideration, the possibility of Eliza de Feuillide actually being Warren Hasting's biological daughter?"
I think it's more than possible, I think it's probable. What I believe is certain is that JA herself must have been well aware of the rumor, regardless of whether it was actually true or not, and so if JA addressed it in her novels, obliquely, as I claim she did, I believe that JA herself believed the rumor to be true, because I don't believe JA would memorialize a rumor like that, if she thought it was false.
"Imho, to also introduce and attach a theory around Eliza's mother, Phila, Rev. George Austen's sister and Jane Austen's aunt, being a prostitute before she sailed to India is offensive, unacceptable, and most likely, unpublishable."
That does not sound like you are looking for the truth, so much as you are looking for some alternative to the truth which is inoffensive and acceptable to mainstream beliefs about Jane Austen and her family. I am looking for the truth, without regard to whose sensibilities it may or may not offend. I do not seek to offend, or not to offend, I seek the truth, as best I can determine it.
And if it turns out to be so that the truth about a woman who died 200 years ago cannot even be published because of such considerations, as you suggest, then that is a very very sad state of affairs, and that is certainly not what I call intellectual freedom, quite the opposite actually.
Do you think JA was a fan of censorship? Not my JA, just the opposite, she hated being stifled, especially by those who were not treating her well.
And for the record, and this is very important, here is what I wrote about the possibility that Aunt Phila Austen Hancock might have been a prostitute when she was a teenager and that JA might have memorialized that story:
"And....ten times more important--no, ten _thousand_times more important---I believe that Jane Austen took her aunt's plight _deeply_to heart--because surely if Phila Austen is represented by Jane Fairfax, as I believe she is, then Jane Austen was not alluding to Fanny Hill in a salacious or vulgar way, but because she (and by the way, so was Cleland, as many critics have also pointed out previously) was appalled at how women in her world were treated-- the words they heard put them on a pedestal, but when it came down to brass tacks, they were, metaphorically, treated as if they were whores, to be bought and sold, and the "Price" for their "Fanny" was too dear."
Jesus himself was very clear about casting the first stone at women who have sinned, and so that is why I am certain that JA, who without question followed the precepts of the Jesus who showed such compassion for the fallen, and also warned the hypocrites not to cast stones.
And I believe that JA truly understood, and empathized, that her aunt, a young teenaged orphan without prospects or money, realistically may have had no option other than starvation as an alternative to prostitution, if that is what she wound up doing for a while, until she could get out of such a situation, and find a decent man to marry her and give her a modicum of financial security. It was a cruel cold world her aunt was born into, and I think JA felt great compassion for her aunt, and wanted to preserve her aunt's story.
JA paid her aunt the greatest compliment of all, because I also believe that Jane Fairfax is a representation of Jane Austen herself. So allowing her aunt to inhabit that same fictional character would have been a very positive and loving act on JA's part.
I certainly do not judge a young woman making such choices in such a world, and I know JA did not judge them either.
So what exactly is offensive about telling this story?
It seems that when we agree, we agree profoundly, and when we disagree, we disagree profoundly as well. But I am glad we can continue to disagree civilly.
It all is very fascinating...
Cheers, ARNIE
"Pictures of Perfection"
I just responded to a very insightful post by Christy Somer in Janeites and Austen L as follows:
[Christy] "Though, imho, not because she personally, and secretly resonated to irreligious, freedom-oriented Whig-like immorality more than to her conservative-Tory, religiously-moral upbringing..."
And I claim that JA invented for herself a very personal and unique blending of secularism and Christianity, freedom and duty, and other comparable transcendances of apparent paradoxes, that was distant from the two options you described, both of which I think she found very unappealing and unsatisfactory in numerous ways. She could not be contained by either of those "boxes", she beat to her own drum, the more so with each passing year of her tragically too-short life.
[Christy] "but because she knew and understood how often these supposed "pictures" were more likely born from desperation, desire, fantasy, or all of the above...thus forcing an unnatural portraiture to be presented..in art as in life."
And there I totally agree with you, and would add in support thereof that she recognized that the desperation, desire, fantasy, or all of the above you describe were pitfalls that respected no boundaries between different superficial categories of human behavior and attitudes, but were the _common_ pitfall of every human being--she had, intuitively, a very Buddhist understanding that it was the central challenge for _everyone_ to learn to overcome pride and prejudice, not to be too vulnerable to persuasion or too stubborn, and not to suffer from an imbalance between sense and sensibility.
[Christy] "Through the irony and wit of her novels, one sees how she saw many more of her 'fellow creatures' filled with ridiculously-constructed rationalizations, glaring inconsistencies, and serious deceptions which would lead to unsatisfactory outcomes of hardship and deep unhappiness....unless realized an transformed."
And there I totally agree with you as well, that is exactly the way she did what she did, and you described it perfectly.
I think our agreements are more significant than our disagreements, and am glad to say that. ;)
Cheers, ARNIE
[Christy] "Though, imho, not because she personally, and secretly resonated to irreligious, freedom-oriented Whig-like immorality more than to her conservative-Tory, religiously-moral upbringing..."
And I claim that JA invented for herself a very personal and unique blending of secularism and Christianity, freedom and duty, and other comparable transcendances of apparent paradoxes, that was distant from the two options you described, both of which I think she found very unappealing and unsatisfactory in numerous ways. She could not be contained by either of those "boxes", she beat to her own drum, the more so with each passing year of her tragically too-short life.
[Christy] "but because she knew and understood how often these supposed "pictures" were more likely born from desperation, desire, fantasy, or all of the above...thus forcing an unnatural portraiture to be presented..in art as in life."
And there I totally agree with you, and would add in support thereof that she recognized that the desperation, desire, fantasy, or all of the above you describe were pitfalls that respected no boundaries between different superficial categories of human behavior and attitudes, but were the _common_ pitfall of every human being--she had, intuitively, a very Buddhist understanding that it was the central challenge for _everyone_ to learn to overcome pride and prejudice, not to be too vulnerable to persuasion or too stubborn, and not to suffer from an imbalance between sense and sensibility.
[Christy] "Through the irony and wit of her novels, one sees how she saw many more of her 'fellow creatures' filled with ridiculously-constructed rationalizations, glaring inconsistencies, and serious deceptions which would lead to unsatisfactory outcomes of hardship and deep unhappiness....unless realized an transformed."
And there I totally agree with you as well, that is exactly the way she did what she did, and you described it perfectly.
I think our agreements are more significant than our disagreements, and am glad to say that. ;)
Cheers, ARNIE
Mrs. Cole: a direct connection between Fanny Hill, the Austen Family, and Emma
Yes, you read it correctly. It turns out that not only is the character name Mrs. Cole in Emma an allusion to the character of Mrs. Cole in Fanny Hill, it is also, I will argue below, an allusion to the real life Mrs. Cole who is described as follows in Claire Tomalin's 1997 biography of Jane Austen:
"As soon as [Philadephia Austen] reached her fifteenth birthday in May 1745, she was apprenticed to a Covent Garden milliner, Hester Cole...while [her brother] George [i.e., Jane's father] was at Oxford..she was in central London serving her apprenticeship to a trade...John Cleland’s famous pornographic novel Fanny Hill made good use of this equivocal status when he delivered his heroine Fanny into the care of a Mrs. Cole of Covent Garden, ‘a middle aged discreet sort of woman’, ostensibly a milliner, actually a bawd...The coincidence of names and professions is all the more startling in that Fanny Hill was published in 1748-9, which was exactly the period of Philadelphia’s employment by Hester Cole."
Tomalin gives credit for discovering this connection of Phila Austen to a real Mrs. Cole to Robin Vick, long active in the Jane Austen Society in England, but I have done some digging and I found another earlier source for this same info, the late EJ Burford who mentioned all this in a 1986 book I am in the process of retrieving from the library, waiting with "bated" breath for any additional details Burford's book may contain in this regard!
In any event, that connection of Phila Austen to Hester Cole is mind-blowing enough, especially when we consider that Phila Austen has long been associated with another very dicey rumor--which I believe to be fact even though Deirdre Le Faye has tried so long to put the kibosh on it---which is that Eliza Hancock de Feuillide Austen, Jane Austen's favorite cousin/sister in law, was the illegitimate daughter of the powerful nabob of colonialism and notorious impeachee, Warren Hastings.
But...in terms of the fascinating dynamics of contemporary Austen studies, where would be censors like Le Faye continue to fight a losing battle to re-close Pandora's Box, what is even more mind blowing is the following caveat issued by Tomalin immediately after the above-quoted bombshell:
"Two things may be said about this. First, that it seems unlikely Cleland was unaware of the existence of the real Mrs. Cole—Covent Garden was not a vast area—and that if he intended his allusion to her business purely as a joke, it must have caused some embarrassing moments for Philadelphia and her fellow apprentices, Sarah and Rose. But secondly, even if it was not a joke, and Hester Cole was indeed engaged in more than one type of activity, we are not entitled to conclude anything about Philadelphia from Cleland’s fiction. The two Mrs. Coles of Covent Garden remain no more than a striking coincidence."
"Wow!" is all I can say--here we have Tomalin seemingly at war with herself. If it really were true that "we are not entitled to conclude anything about Philadelphia from Cleland's fiction" (and note that Tomalin gives no reason to back up this strange edict, it's just a naked statement of opinion as if it were a fact), then why does Tomalin even mention any of these facts at all?
She seems to be at war with herself, fascinated by information she knows is significant, but deeply ambivalent about readers inferring the logical implications from it.
But what is most astounding is that one might imagine that Tomalin has not read Emma, or else, how is it possible that she does not even mention the Mrs. Cole who is a character in Jane Austen's Emma mentioned by name THIRTY TWO TIMES in the novel!
My previous post has given a significant array of evidence to show that Mrs. Cole in Emma is merely the most visible marker of a complex covert allusion to Fanny Hill in Emma. What does it say about the powerful forces of suppression and Bowlderization that are still at work in the Janeite world, that Tomalin, for whatever reason, would not "go there"?
And note that there are a dozen pages in Tomalin's bio which do discuss Emma--its characters--several are mentioned by nam--but also the famous Dedication, and even the opinions Jane Austen collected about the novel--so one must think that Tomalin actually did read Emma. In fact, it would be literary "malpractice" if someone writing a biography of Jane Austen had not read each of her novels at least a couple of times!
So, could this be unconscious on Tomalin's part, or was she prevented from speculating about Jane Austen's Mrs. Cole being a part of this matrix by her publisher? The mind reels either way, but I think it must be the latter--someone got to her, and said, "You can't write that, you can't even hint at it."
Anyway, it sure seems to me as a genuine possibility that Jane Austen's paternal aunt, the mother of her dear cousin Eliza, might well have been a prostitute for five years in Covent Garden, in the guise of working at a milliner's shop (like Ford's in Highbury!)--and that she might even have "crossed paths" (to put it euphemistically) with the likes of Cleland and the rest of literary London circa 1750, when not only Fanny Hill was being written, but also Richardson's Pamela (who herself resembles Fanny Hill in several startling ways, as some critics have previously pointed out) and Fielding's Tom Jones--
And....ten times more important--no, ten THOUSAND times more important---I believe that Jane Austen took her aunt's plight deeply to heart--because surely if Phila Austen is represented by Jane Fairfax, as I believe she is, then Jane Austen was not alluding to Fanny Hill in a salacious or vulgar way, but because she (and by the way, so was Cleland, as many critics have also pointed out previously) was appalled at how women in her world were treated-- the words they heard put them on a pedestal, but when it came down to brass tacks, they were, metaphorically, treated as if they were whores, to be bought and sold, and the "Price" for their "Fanny" was too dear.
And that message has been simply unassimilable by many in the Janeite world up till now. But I mean, by bringing forward all the evidence I will publish during the coming years, hopefully end that censorship forever, and allow this discussion of Jane Austen's radical, highly Christian (in the best sense of that word) feminism to receive the recognition it so richly deserves.
Cheers, ARNIE
"As soon as [Philadephia Austen] reached her fifteenth birthday in May 1745, she was apprenticed to a Covent Garden milliner, Hester Cole...while [her brother] George [i.e., Jane's father] was at Oxford..she was in central London serving her apprenticeship to a trade...John Cleland’s famous pornographic novel Fanny Hill made good use of this equivocal status when he delivered his heroine Fanny into the care of a Mrs. Cole of Covent Garden, ‘a middle aged discreet sort of woman’, ostensibly a milliner, actually a bawd...The coincidence of names and professions is all the more startling in that Fanny Hill was published in 1748-9, which was exactly the period of Philadelphia’s employment by Hester Cole."
Tomalin gives credit for discovering this connection of Phila Austen to a real Mrs. Cole to Robin Vick, long active in the Jane Austen Society in England, but I have done some digging and I found another earlier source for this same info, the late EJ Burford who mentioned all this in a 1986 book I am in the process of retrieving from the library, waiting with "bated" breath for any additional details Burford's book may contain in this regard!
In any event, that connection of Phila Austen to Hester Cole is mind-blowing enough, especially when we consider that Phila Austen has long been associated with another very dicey rumor--which I believe to be fact even though Deirdre Le Faye has tried so long to put the kibosh on it---which is that Eliza Hancock de Feuillide Austen, Jane Austen's favorite cousin/sister in law, was the illegitimate daughter of the powerful nabob of colonialism and notorious impeachee, Warren Hastings.
But...in terms of the fascinating dynamics of contemporary Austen studies, where would be censors like Le Faye continue to fight a losing battle to re-close Pandora's Box, what is even more mind blowing is the following caveat issued by Tomalin immediately after the above-quoted bombshell:
"Two things may be said about this. First, that it seems unlikely Cleland was unaware of the existence of the real Mrs. Cole—Covent Garden was not a vast area—and that if he intended his allusion to her business purely as a joke, it must have caused some embarrassing moments for Philadelphia and her fellow apprentices, Sarah and Rose. But secondly, even if it was not a joke, and Hester Cole was indeed engaged in more than one type of activity, we are not entitled to conclude anything about Philadelphia from Cleland’s fiction. The two Mrs. Coles of Covent Garden remain no more than a striking coincidence."
"Wow!" is all I can say--here we have Tomalin seemingly at war with herself. If it really were true that "we are not entitled to conclude anything about Philadelphia from Cleland's fiction" (and note that Tomalin gives no reason to back up this strange edict, it's just a naked statement of opinion as if it were a fact), then why does Tomalin even mention any of these facts at all?
She seems to be at war with herself, fascinated by information she knows is significant, but deeply ambivalent about readers inferring the logical implications from it.
But what is most astounding is that one might imagine that Tomalin has not read Emma, or else, how is it possible that she does not even mention the Mrs. Cole who is a character in Jane Austen's Emma mentioned by name THIRTY TWO TIMES in the novel!
My previous post has given a significant array of evidence to show that Mrs. Cole in Emma is merely the most visible marker of a complex covert allusion to Fanny Hill in Emma. What does it say about the powerful forces of suppression and Bowlderization that are still at work in the Janeite world, that Tomalin, for whatever reason, would not "go there"?
And note that there are a dozen pages in Tomalin's bio which do discuss Emma--its characters--several are mentioned by nam--but also the famous Dedication, and even the opinions Jane Austen collected about the novel--so one must think that Tomalin actually did read Emma. In fact, it would be literary "malpractice" if someone writing a biography of Jane Austen had not read each of her novels at least a couple of times!
So, could this be unconscious on Tomalin's part, or was she prevented from speculating about Jane Austen's Mrs. Cole being a part of this matrix by her publisher? The mind reels either way, but I think it must be the latter--someone got to her, and said, "You can't write that, you can't even hint at it."
Anyway, it sure seems to me as a genuine possibility that Jane Austen's paternal aunt, the mother of her dear cousin Eliza, might well have been a prostitute for five years in Covent Garden, in the guise of working at a milliner's shop (like Ford's in Highbury!)--and that she might even have "crossed paths" (to put it euphemistically) with the likes of Cleland and the rest of literary London circa 1750, when not only Fanny Hill was being written, but also Richardson's Pamela (who herself resembles Fanny Hill in several startling ways, as some critics have previously pointed out) and Fielding's Tom Jones--
And....ten times more important--no, ten THOUSAND times more important---I believe that Jane Austen took her aunt's plight deeply to heart--because surely if Phila Austen is represented by Jane Fairfax, as I believe she is, then Jane Austen was not alluding to Fanny Hill in a salacious or vulgar way, but because she (and by the way, so was Cleland, as many critics have also pointed out previously) was appalled at how women in her world were treated-- the words they heard put them on a pedestal, but when it came down to brass tacks, they were, metaphorically, treated as if they were whores, to be bought and sold, and the "Price" for their "Fanny" was too dear.
And that message has been simply unassimilable by many in the Janeite world up till now. But I mean, by bringing forward all the evidence I will publish during the coming years, hopefully end that censorship forever, and allow this discussion of Jane Austen's radical, highly Christian (in the best sense of that word) feminism to receive the recognition it so richly deserves.
Cheers, ARNIE
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