Reading with Austen: What Mary Bennet Reads in “The Other Bennet Sister” by Janice Hadlow

September 30, 2020September 30, 2020 / BookLady Deb / Leave a comment

For our ‘Reading with Austen’ Readers: I posted this originally on my Jane Austen in Vermont blog, but thought it would be an interesting exercise to see which of the many books mentioned by Janice Hadlow in herThe Other Bennet Sister were actually in Edward Knight’s library at Godmersham – so here is the post, with the addition of all titles in the the GPL and whether they are safe in the Knight Collection, or LOST SHEEP.

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In Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennet Sister, a brilliant effort to give the neglected-by-everyone Mary Bennet a life of her own, Mary’s reading is one of the most important aspects of the book – we see her at first believing, because she knows she is different than her other four far prettier and more appealing sisters, that her prospects for the expected life of a well-married woman are very limited, and that she must learn to squash her passions and live a rational life. She also mistakenly thinks that by becoming a reader of philosophical, religious, and conduct texts that she will finally gain approval and maybe even love from her distant, book-obsessed father.

So Mary embarks on a course of serious rational study – and one of the most insightful things in the book is that she learns, after much pain and introspection, that this is no way to lead a life, to find happiness, to find herself. She rejects the novels like the ones Mrs. Bennet finds at the local circulating library as being frivolous, largely because James Fordyce tells her so…

So, I have made a list of all the titles that Hadlow has Mary reading or referring to – all real books of the time, and many mentioned and known by Jane Austen. Hadlow is very specific in what books she puts in Mary’s hands! And shows her own knowledge of the reading and the reading practices of Austen’s era. [If anyone detects anything missing from this list, please let me know…]

I am giving the original dates of publication of each title; most all the titles in one edition or another are available on Google Books, HathiTrust, Internet Archive, or the like – I provide a few of those links, if you are so inclined to become such a rational reader as Mary….

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Anonymous. The History of Little Goody Two Shoes (show JA’s copy). London: John Newbury, 1765. Attributed to various authors, including Oliver Goldsmith. We know that Jane Austen has her own copy of this book, here with her name on it as solid proof.

This exact copy, as noted in Gilson K1, is owned by the great-grandsons of Admiral Sir Francis Austen. It has been on display in the exhibition at the Jane Austen’s House in Chawton in 1975 and at the British Library in 1976.

Mrs. [Sarah] Trimmer. The Story of the Robins. Originally published in 1786 as Fabulous Histories, and the title Trimmer always used. You can read the whole book here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Story_of_the_Robins

image: HockliffeProject: http://hockliffe.dmu.ac.uk/items/0241pages.html?page=001

Nothing in the GPL.

Rev. Wetenhall Wilkes. A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady: Being a System of Rules and Informations: Digested Into a New and Familiar Method, to Qualify the Fair Sex to be Useful, and Happy in Every Scene of Life. London, 1746. Another conduct book.

Full text here: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012393127

Nothing in the GPL.

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Catharine Macaulay-wikipedia

Catharine Macaulay. The History of England. 8 vols. London, 1763-83. A political history of the seventeenth century, covering the years 1603-1689. This was very popular and is in no way related to the later History published by Thomas Babington Macaulay. You can read more about this influential female historian in this essay by Devoney Looser: Catharine Macaulay: The ‘Female Historian’ in Context

5 volumes only are noted in the GPL catalogue and all are extant in the Knight Collection:

image: British Library https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/sermons-to-young-women

Rev. James Fordyce. Sermons to Young Women. London, 1766. A conduct manual.

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Collins chooses to read Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women aloud to the Bennet sisters, Lydia especially unimpressed: “Lydia gaped as he opened the volume, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him …’.

You can find it on google in later editions, but here is an abstract for 2 of the sermons to give you an idea.

And here an essay on Fordyce and P&P by Susan Allen Ford, who also wrote the introduction for the Chawton House Press edition of the Sermons (2012) : http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol34no1/ford.html

Listed in the GPL and in the Knight Collection at Chawton House:

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Frances Burney. Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World. London, 1778. Hadlow gives Evelina a good hearing – in the discussion in Mr. Bennet’s library with Elizabeth and Mary. Elizabeth directly quotes Austen’s own words in defense of the novel that are found in Northanger Abbey. [Evelina, and Mary’s difficulty in coming to terms with such a frivolous story, is mentioned more than once].

Evelina. U Michigan Library

The only work of Frances Burney listed in the GPL is The Wanderer – and that remains in the Knight Collection – only 3 of the 5 volumes, volumes 1 and 5 have gone missing… so are LOST SHEEP:

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Other Novels mentioned are:

– Samuel Richardson. The History of Sir Charles Grandison. London, 1753. 7 vols. Reported to be Austen’s favorite book, all seven volumes!

And all 7 volumes are in the GPL catalogue and remain in the Knight Collection: [but where oh where is Pamela??]

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– Henry Fielding. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. 4 vols. London, 1749. Supposedly the reason Richardson wrote his Grandison. [Mentioned more than once] – and here we find three LOST SHEEP:

There are three Fielding titles in the GPL:

Tom Jones (1749 – it says it is 6 volumes) – it is however, a LOST SHEEP
A Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755) – a LOST SHEEP
And Joseph Andrews (1742) – a LOST SHEEP

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– Laurence Sterne. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. 9 vols. London, 1759-1767.

In the GPL catalogue and in the Knight Collection – only 2 volumes are listed, dated 1760, 2^nd ed. Sterne published the first 2 volumes in 1759, and seven others followed over the next seven years (vols. 3 and 4, 1761; vols. 5 and 6, 1762; vols. 7 and 8, 1765; vol. 9, 1767).

The GPL also lists Sterne’s The Sermons of Mr. Yorick (London, 1765-66) – and the 7^th ed. is happily in the Knight Collection.

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Hugh Blair – wikipedia

Hugh Blair. Sermons. Vol. 1 of 5 published in 1777.

You can view it full-text at HathiTrust.

Mary Crawford refers to Blair in Mansfield Park:

“You assign greater consequence to the clergyman than one has been used to hear given, or than I can quite comprehend. One does not see much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves? How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair’s to his own, do all that you speak of? govern the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for the rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit.”

Well, both Blair’s Sermons (all 5 volumes of varying dates) and Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. 11^th ed. 3 volumes (London, 1809), are in the GPL catalogue and remain in the Knight Collection:

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William Paley, by George Romney (wikipedia)

William Paley. A View of the Evidences of Christianity. London, 1794.

Paley is well-represented in the GPL: this Evidences (2nd. ed., 1794) – in the Knight Collection, but also his:

– The principles of moral and political philosophy. By William Paley, M.A. Archdeacon of Carlisle. The second edition corrected (London, 1786) – in the Knight Collection.

– Horæ Paulinæ, or the truth of the scripture history of St. Paul evinced, by a comparison of the epistles which bear his name, with the Acts of the Apostles, and with one another. By William Paley, M.A. Archdeacon of Carlisle. 1^st ed. (London, 1790) – in the Knight Collection.

– Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of The Deity, collected from the appearances of nature. By William Paley, D.D. Late Archdeacon of Carlisle. The Sixteenth Edition, 1 vol. (London, 1819) – a LOST SHEEP

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Aristotle. The Ethics of Aristotle. [no way to know the exact edition that Mr. Collins gives to Mary – it’s been around for a long time!]

The GPL lists only one Aristotle title, and this is a LOST SHEEP:

Aristotelous Peri Poiētikēs. Aristotelis De Poetica Liber. Textum recensuit, versionem refinxit et animadversionibus illustravit, Thomas Tyrwhitt. Editio Tertia (Oxford, 1806).

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Mentions: all Enlightenment thinkers and heavy reading for Mary!

John Locke – LOC (wikipedia)

– John Locke: the GPL lists only this title and it is a LOST SHEEP

Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, The false Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, And his Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter, is an Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government. By John Locke Esq; The Fifth Edition. 1 vol. (London, 1728).

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– Jean-Jacques Rousseau: much more popular in Edward’s library! – there are several titles listed, these all in the Knight Collection:

Emilius; or, an Essay on Education. By John James Rousseau, Citizen of Geneva. Translated from the French by Mr. Nugent. In two volumes (London, 1763)

A Project for Perpetual Peace. By J. J. Rousseau, Citizen of Geneva. Translated from the French, with a Preface by the Translator (London, 1761).

Lettres de deux amans, Habitans d’une petite Ville au pied des Alpes. Recueillies et publiées par J.J. Rousseau. 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1761)

Oeuvres diverses de Mr. J.J. Rousseau, citoyen de Genève. 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1762):

There is some LOST SHEEP material here, but what is actually missing needs to be sorted – M Rousseau is in need of further investigation and might get his very own blog post!

Collection complette des oeuvres de J.J. Rousseau. 1774-1783. partially a LOST SHEEP

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David Hume (McGill)

– David Hume has three titles in the GPL:

The History of England, from The Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Accession of Henry VII. Containing the Reign of The Prince before Conquest, William the Conqueror, William Rufus, Henry I., Stephen, Henry II, Richard I. and John. By David Hume, Esq. 1 vol. (London, 1777) – in the Knight Collection.

Essays, Moral and Political. The Second Edition, Corrected. 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1742) – a LOST SHEEP (though we know it sold at auction in 2013).

The Life of David Hume, Esq. written by himself. 1 vol. (London, 1777) – a LOST SHEEP

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A Dictionary of the Greek Language – Mr. Collins gives a copy to Mary:

We cannot know what book Mr. Collins gives Mary – but there are a number of titles in the GPL either in Greek or translated from the Greek. There is this one Greek grammar which I shall include here since it is a LOST SHEEP:

The Elements of Greek grammar, with notes for the use of those who have made some progress in the language. By Richard Valpy. 1 vol. (London, 1805).

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Edward Young. Night Thoughts. 1743. wikipedia

Edward Young. The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality. [Known as Night-Thoughts]. London, 1742-45. [No wonder Mr. Hayward suggested a lighter type of poetry!]

You can read the whole of it here, if you are up to it…: https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00267.shtml

This is in the GPL and is unfortunately a LOST SHEEP: The complaint: or, night-thoughts on life, death, and immortality. By Edward Young. 2 vols. (London, 1746).

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image: wikipedia

William Wordsworth, portrait by Henry Edridge, 1804; in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, England. Britannica.com

William Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads. London, 1798. Full title: Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge [Mr. Hayward does not mention Coleridge at all!], first published in 1798 and considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. Most of the poems in the 1798 edition were written by Wordsworth; Coleridge has only four poems included, one being his most famous work, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Here is a link to the full-text of “Tintern Abbey” that so moved Mary: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45527/lines-composed-a-few-miles-above-tintern-abbey-on-revisiting-the-banks-of-the-wye-during-a-tour-july-13-1798

Well, I find this interesting – The Knights must not have been much for the Romantics! Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley – none are in the GPL at all; Robert Southey has three titles, all in the Knight Collection, so I shall leave him for another day…

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William Godwin. Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness. London, 1793. [Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft and was the father of Mary Godwin Shelley]. Outlines Godwin’s radical political philosophy.

William Godwin (portrait by James Northcote) and Mary Wollstonecraft (portrait by John Opie) – from BrainPickings.org

No Godwin either, nor any Wollstonecraft…

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Machiavelli (wikipedia)

Machiavelli – is referred to by Mary, so assume she is familiar with his The Prince (1513).

But we do find Machiavelli!:

The Works of the famous Nicolas Machiavel, Citizen and Secretary of Florence. Written OriginaIly in Italian, And from thence newly and faithfully Translated into English. 1^st ed. 1 vol. (London, 1695) – a LOST SHEEP

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Image: Guide to the Lakes. ‘View on Winandermere’ [now called Windermere], by Joseph Wilkerson. Romantic Circles

William Wordsworth. Guide to the Lakes. [full title: A Guide through the District of the Lakes] – first published in 1810 as an anonymous introduction to a book of engravings of the Lake District by the Reverend Joseph Wilkinson. A 5th and final edition was published in 1835 – you can read that online at Romantic Circles here, along with a full account of its rather tormented publication history: https://romantic-circles.org/editions/guide_lakes

Alas! no Guide either…

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John Milton. Paradise Lost. A mention by Mr. Ryder who is defeated by its length, so we know Mary was familiar with it.

Milton gets his due in the GPL:

Paradisus Amissus. Poema Joannis Miltoni. Latine Redditum A Guilielmo Dobson, LL.B. Nov. Coll. Oxon. Socio. [By John Milton, trans. William Dobson, William]. 1 vol. (Oxford, 1750) – in the Knight Collection.

Paradise Lost. A Poem. The Author, John Milton. 1 vol. (London, 1736) – this is a FOUND SHEEP – thanks to three of our esteemed GLOSS Friends!:

Paradise lost. A poem, in twelve books. The Author John Milton. 1 vol. (London, 1751). This is LOST SHEEP (perhaps Mary Bennet absconded with it??)

Paradise regain’d. A poem, in four books. To which is added Samson Agonistes; and Poems upon Several Occasions: And Poems upon Severl Occasions. The author John Milton. The Second Edition, With Notes of various Authors, By Thomas Newton, D. D. 1 vol. (London, 1743) – another LOST SHEEP.

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The Edinburgh Review / The Quarterly Review – brought to Mary by Mr. Ryder, and for which Mr. Hayward perhaps wrote his reviews. The Edinburgh Review (1802-1929); Quarterly Review (1809-1967, and published by Jane Austen’s publisher John Murray) – both were very popular and influential publications of their time…

None are listed in the GPL catalogue, which is not to say that the Knights and Family did not pour over these on a regular basis…

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The Other Bennet Sister is an enjoyable read – it is delightful to see Mary Bennet come into her own, that despite what she viewed as an unhappy childhood, she finds her way through a good number of books in a quest to live a rational, passionless existence. And that the development of some well-deserved self-esteem with the help of various friends and family, might actually lead her to a worthy equal partner in life, just maybe not with Mrs. Bennet’s required £10,000 !

Here is an excellent review of the book at The Christian Science Monitor: https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2020/0408/The-Other-Bennet-Sister-focuses-attention-on-bookish-Mary
And an interview with the author at NPR: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/09/830069319/elizabeths-more-serious-sister-mary-takes-the-spotlight-in-the-other-bennet-sist

©2020 Reading with Austen Blog

Reading with Jane Austen ~ Lost and Now Found!~ The Edinburgh “Pharmacopoeia” in the Godmersham Park Library

June 21, 2020June 21, 2020 / BookLady Deb / 2 Comments

Our GLOSS Team is very pleased to announce a new LOST SHEEP that has been returned to the Fold!

Pharmacopoeia Collegii Regii Medicorum Edinburgensis. [By the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh]. Edinburgi, Apud W. Sands, A. Murray, & J. Cochran. Sumptibus J. Patoni ibidem Bibliopolae. MDCCXLIV. [Fourth Edition].

A little history:

“Before the existence of the Pharmacopoeia, there were no standardised recipes or methods of producing remedies for apothecaries, and no book or manual for physicians to consult when prescribing drugs or ointments. The move towards standardising medical teaching and practice was yet to happen, and this book acted as the first chain in that process of professionalisation.” [RCPE]

The College of Physicians of London had first published their own Pharmacopoeia in 1618. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh attempted their own such manual in 1683, but ongoing infighting between surgeons and apothecaries delayed the actual publication until 1699. And what followed is an interesting and confusing history of twelve editions with many changes, some due to advances in chemistry and medical science, some due to previous editions having sold out, and some due to infighting as to what should actually be included and how it should be listed.

The various editions remained in general use in Scotland until 1864, when it combined with the London and Dublin Pharmacopoeias in 1864 to create the British Pharmacopoeia, still in use today. But unlike most other medical writing that since around 1750 was rendered in English rather than Latin, the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia was still published in Latin until the 11^th ed of 1839. Translations were made into English and many other languages, and this added to the confusion when trying to gain an understanding of all available editions. None of the various editions stated as such, and only by studying the introductory material and the contents listings can it be determined how much revising actually took place. Fortunately David L. Cowen did all this work for the researcher in 1957 (see resources below).

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Cowen lists the following editions:

First – 1699
Second – 1722
Third – 1735
Fourth – 1744
Fifth – 1756
Sixth – 1774
Seventh – 1783
Eighth – 1792
Ninth – 1803
Revised Ninth – 1805
Tenth – 1817
Eleventh (first in English) – 1839
Twelfth (second in English) – 1841

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In this image of the 1^st edition of 1699, notice the “device” on the title page:

1st ed. 1699 – image from the RCPE

As Cowen notes,

“in the first edition, the device was a combination of medical, national, and municipal symbols. It contained a staff and snake in a double ornamented oval frame that suggests the Badge of the Scottish Order of the Thistle. Within the ovals was the motto of the Order (and also one of the mottos in the Arms of Scotland): Nenw me impune lacesset. This was capped by a shield containing a representation of Edinburgh Castle, supported by a maiden and a hind, or unicorn, and by the enscrolled motto Nisi Dominus Frustra – all derived from the seal of the City of Edinburgh.

The second edition, and all subsequent printings that used the device, dropped the symbols of the City, and changed the staff to a triple thistle plant about the stalk of which a snake was entwined. A double circle frame, suggesting the Star of the Order of the Thistle was used, containing the same motto as before. On several printings these circles were encased in a black square with corner ornaments.” [Cowan, Part II, 342-43]

It is the 4^th edition of 1744 we are most interested in, because this is the copy that was in the Godmersham Park Library. Here is the title page with the revised device that Cowen refers to:

4th ed. of 1744

It has the Montagu George Knight bookplate: [note the price of £20 – very painful! as well as the incorrect date of 1745 – someone did not know their Roman numerals…]

To give you an idea of the contents (there is no T of C in the 1744 edition), these are the main headings:

Medicamenta Simplicia which identifies botanicals, minerals and animals. Then there are the sections that tell how to prepare the remedies with these headings: Praeparationes; Destillate; Spiritus Stillatitii; Aquæ infusæ & Aceta; Tincturae; Decota; Syrupi; Melita, Gelatinæ, Succi & Succorum fæcul; Condita, Confervæ, & Sacchara; Pulvis Antiepilepticus, de Gutteta di êfus; Electuaria, Confeétiones, Anti dota, & Lohoch; Pilulæ Æthiopicæ; Trochifci; Olea per expreffionem; Balsama; Unguenta; Emplastra; Cataplasmat; and finally Medicamenta chemica. Followed by a detailed Index.

And I am sure that all made a good deal of sense… a later edition that did have a contents page (6th ed. of 1774) reads like this:

Changes to the Pharmacopoeia were ridden with conflict – folk medicine and tradition often rivaling the learnings of science and pure reason. Cowen gives an example of the animal simples in our 4^th edition of 1744 still listed under Man as: “blood, urine, fat, milk, cranium, and mummy of man.” [Pharmacopoeia, 1744, p. 24.]

You can read the entire text of this 1744 edition here (and hope your Latin is up to the task…]

Here are a few pages to give you an idea of layout and content: [click on each for full page]

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When first researching this post, I thought I would make a list of all the titles in the GPL that are in Latin. In a count of the spreadsheet titles, I find 100 in Latin, and another 21 that are an English / Latin combination. So I shall not be listing those, but what is important to note is that the 1818 GPL catalogue does contain this title (and mentioned above):

Pharmacopoeia Collegii Regalis Medicorum Londinensis. By Royal College of Physicians of London. London: Apud T. Longman, T. Shewell, et J. Nourse, 1746.

And this is a LOST SHEEP!

I find another medical text, though in English, that is also a LOST SHEEP, so will add that in here as well and add these two titles to our list of LOST SHEEP:

William Lewis, ed. Medical Essays and Observations, published by A Society in Edinburgh, In Six Volumes; Abridged and disposed under General Heads, In Two Volumes. Containing Vol. I. Meteorology, Mineral Waters, Materia Medica and Pharmacy, Animal Oeconomy. Vol. II. Anatomy and Chirurgery, Essays on particular Diseases, Histories of Morbid Cases, Improvements and Discoveries in Physic. With Copper Plates. By William Lewis, M.B. F.R.S. London: Printed for C. Hitch at the Red Lion, and T. Astley at the Rose in Pater-noster Row, 1746.

Image: Internet Archive

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In sum, the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia is now at the Library at Chawton House, and images will soon be added to its rightful place on the Reading with Austen website. A hearty thank you to the GLOSS team for their generous donations to make this purchase possible, and now on to the next find … eyes peeled one and all for the many LOST SHEEP still waiting to be found ….

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Resources for Further Reading:

British Pharmacopoeia. https://www.pharmacopoeia.com/what-is-the-bp

Cowen, David L. “The Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia.” Medical History 1.2 (1957): 123–39. Web. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1034260/

_____. “The Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia. II. Bibliography.” Medical History 1.4 (1957): 340-51. Web. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1034312/

Lloyd, Rachael.“A Manual for Medicine: The Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia.” Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh website. Web. https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage/manual-medicine-edinburgh-pharmacopoeia

[With sincere thanks to Katie Childs at Chawton House for sending along the book images.]

©2020 Reading with Austen Blog

At Edward Austen Knight’s Godmersham Library ~ Down the Research Rabbit-Hole with Vice-Admiral John Byron

June 4, 2020June 6, 2020 / BookLady Deb / 1 Comment

In the most recent issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine, there is an essay by Emily Brand on “Foul-weather Jack,” a tale about poet Byron’s grandfather Vice-Admiral John Byron (1723-1786). Brand has recently published her book on the Byron family, The Fall of the House of Byron (John Murray, 2020), and it looks like a compelling read about a family that seemed to be cursed with all manner of misfortune through at least three generations.

[You can hear about the book on several episodes at BBC Sounds – only good for a few more days.]

What caught my eye was Brand’s reference to the Godmersham Park Library and three narratives of sea-faring adventures involving a John Byron apparently housed there – so my GLOSS view of the world went into high-gear to see what books are listed in the 1818 library catalogue and if they are Lost Sheep. And from there, down the research rabbit-hole… here are the results:

First, a bit about John Byron:

Byron was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer. He earned the nickname ‘Foul-Weather Jack’ because of his frequent encounters with bad weather at sea. At the age of 16 he was a midshipman on the ship HMS Wager, part of George Anson’s squadron intending to circumnavigate the globe – Byron made it only to southern Chile, when the Wager shipwrecked, a mutiny ensued and it took Byron more than five years to get back to England. The story of this adventure has been told in various accounts, including Byron’s own Narrative published in 1768 (more on this below).

Vice-Admiral The Hon. John Byron – by Joshua Reynolds, 1759,
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

You can read more about Byron and his further sea adventures circumnavigating the globe (which he did as commodore with his own squadron in 1764–1766), to a stint as Governor of Newfoundland, action in the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution here. He rose to Vice Admiral of the White before his death in 1786. He fathered nine children (three died in infancy), his son John the father of Byron. Admiral Byron died two years before our poet was born, but Byron was familiar with his grandfather’s adventures and paid tribute to him in his shipwreck scene in Don Juan. He wrote to his half-sister Augusta Leigh that his own turbulent, unlucky life was similar to his grandfather’s: “he had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.”

But as compelling as Admiral Byron’s life may be, our interest is in the books in the 1818 GPL catalogue – there are three books in the collection that relate to Byron and his voyages, and all are LOST SHEEP:

Two works are about the 1764-66 voyage of the Dolphin with Byron as Commodore:

1. A Voyage Round the World, In His Majesty’s ship The Dolphin, Commanded by the Honourable Commodore Byron. In which is Contained, A faithful Account of the several Places, People, Plants, Animals, &c. seen on the voyage: And faithful Account of the several Places, People, Plants, Animals, &c. seen on the voyage: And, among other Particulars, A minute and exact Description of the Streights of Magellan, and of the Gigantic People called Patagonians. Together with An Account of Seven Islands lately discovered. In the South Seas. By an Officer on Board the said Ship. The second edition.

Printed for J. Newbery, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard; and F. Newbery, in Pater-noster Row, 1767.

The author as stated on the title page reads: By an Officer on Board the said Ship, and the book has been attributed to Byron himself – indeed this copy is listed in the GPL catalogue as “Byron’s Voyages” and Byron is listed as the author in the 1908 catalogue. As the author remains unknown it is now listed and catalogued in libraries under the publisher Newbery. It is for us a LOST SHEEP.

At the time, there was controversy about the unknown author(s) : I find this (rather lengthy) in The Gentleman’s and London Magazine for May, 1767:

A Voyage round the World in his Majesty’s Ship the Dolphin, commanded by the Honourable Commodore Byron

SOON after the publication of this book, the following paragraph appeared in the Daily Advertiser:

“We are authorised by the undermentioned officers of the Dolphin man of war, to assure the public, in relation to a book lately published for Mr. Newbery, bookseller, in St. Paul’s Church-yard, entitled, “A voyage round the world in his Majesty’s ship the Dolphin, under the command of the Hon. Commodore Byron, and said to be wrote by an officer of the said ship,” that neither of them is the author thereof; that they will not presume to publish the voyage without obtaining leave for that purpose; and that the said bookseller is entirely unknown to them ; P. Mouat, captain; John Marshal, 2d lieutenant; George Robertson, 3d lieutenant, Henry Stacy, purser. The first lieutenant has been abroad seven months, the master three months, and both are still absent, which with the surgeon (who is at present out of town) and those whose names are signed above, were the principal officers of the Dolphin.”

To this paragraph the following answer was published two days afterwards in the Gazetteer.

“Some of the officers belonging to the ship, from motives, perhaps, of a private nature, have disavowed their having any concern in the publication of this volume, and asserted, that they neither know the author or the bookseller. But this amounts to nothing. The author is an officer; but the same motives that induced them to publish their advertisement, obliges him to keep himself conceal’d. All we pretended to was, that the book we published contained a faithful and true account of what was seen on the voyage, and was written by an officer on board the said ship. This is true, and is a truth which these gentlemen will not contradićt, nor, indeed, have they attempted it. Could the author have prefixed his name to the volume without incurring the displeasure of his superiors, he would; but, as that cannot be done, he hopes that so slight a circumstance will not be suffered to invalidate that truth, which the opposers of this publication, and, indeed, all the world cannot contradict.”

The truth seems to be, that the book in question is made from one of the ship journals, kept on board the Dolphin, in consequence of the curiosity excited by a report of some gigantic savages having been discovered in the course of the voyage on the coast of Patagonia. It is undoubtedly genuine, and contains innumerable facts and incidents that it would have been impossible to feign; the account of the Patagonians, however, does not fill quite seven pages of the work, in which, as the editor candidly acknowledges, the reader must not look for that entertainment which many books of the same kind afford, as, fortunately for the adventurers, but unfortunately for the reader, they met with no considerable distress during the voyage, and lost but 12 men out of both ships* [the other ship was the Tama]. The book is adorned with three cuts, not ill designed or executed, two representing the Patagonians, which were certainly drawn from fancy, aided by a verbal description ; and one representing a very picturesque scene in one of the islands of the South-Seas, said in the title to be seven in number, but appears, by the account, to be eight. It is to be wished that instead of one of them at least there had been a chart of the Straits of Magellan, and of the coasts of the principal places mentioned in the narrative; for, without this, the reader has so imperfect and confused a notion of the course, that his imagination cannot accompany the adventurers.

The discovery of the islands in the South-Seas was the object of the voyage, and the editor has, with great propriety, suppressed the latitudes and longitudes of them, in obedience to government, and to prevent any other nation from availing itself of our discovery.

The Commodore left Masa Fuero, called by the Spaniards the lesser Juan Fernandes, an island lying in latitude 33 deg 28 min. south, and in longitude 84 deg 27 min. west from London, and after a passage of 36 days, steering northward, discovered two small islands, which afforded a very delightful prospect, and perfumed the air with the fragrance of their fruits, but the people were prevented from landing by the Indians, who crowded in an hostile manner to the shore, and ran along the coast watching the boat. To these islands, therefore, they gave the name of the Islands of Disappointment. At the distance of about 67 leagues to the W. S. W. they discovered a third island, which all round next the sea was covered with beautiful red and white coral, fine shells and pearls. This they called Coral-Island; it is about, 11 leagues long, and near three broad, but has little fresh water. In the middle of it, however, there is a lake, where the Indians catch turtle, of which they saw many shells. They found also great quantities of fish hanging on the limbs….

[etc. it goes on for a few more pages outlining their discovery of a few more islands, one of which they name Byron after the Commodore. No more is said about the authorship…]

You can read more here [scroll down to the May issue]: The_Gentleman_s_and_London_Magazine-p257

A sale at Christies of this title in 2009 lists the author as Byron, with this note: “This work is normally ascribed to midshipman Charles Clerke” (which is a whole other story … about the Patagonian giants). You can see said giants in this frontispiece from the 1st edition of Voyage:

For sale at E C Books here on Biblio

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2. John Hawkesworth. An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, And successively performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, In the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: Drawn up From the Journals which were kept by the several Commanders, And from the Papers of Joseph Banks, Esq; By John Hawkesworth, LL. D. In Three Volumes. Illustrated with Cuts, and a great Variety of Charts and Maps relative to Countries now first discovered, or hitherto but imperfectly known.

London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell in the Strand, 1773

This title is listed in the 1908 catalogue but is not in the Knight Collection – so another LOST SHEEP.

You can read this account here [Byron’s voyages take up the first 14 chapters].

[UPDATE: Jocelyn Harris in a comment below reminds us that Jane Austen would have certainly been familiar with this Hawkesworth account of the voyages: notice the names of Wallis and Carteret; there is also a Dalrymple and an Elliot – all names Austen uses in her Persuasion. See Harris’s brilliant book A Revolution Beyond Expression: Jane Austen’s Persuasion (U of Delaware P, 2007). A future post will discuss the other books in the GPL about James Cook’s voyages, where we will discover additional LOST SHEEP.]

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3. The third work in the GPL tells the tale of Byron’s first voyage as a midshipman on the HMS Wager, in 1740-41, its shipwreck and mutiny of some of the crew. It was published in 1743.

John Bulkeley and John Cummins, Late Gunner and Carpenter of the Wager.
A Voyage to the South-Seas, In the Years 1740-1. Containing, A faithful Narrative of the Loss of his Majesty’s Ship the Wager on a desolate Island in the Latitude 47 South, Longitude 81:40 West: With the Proceedings and Conduct of the Officers and Crew, and the Hardships they endured in the said Island for the Space of five Months; their bold Attempt for Liberty, in Coasting the Southern Part of the vast Region of Patagonia; setting out with upwards of Eighty Souls in their Boats; the Loss of the Cutter; their Passage through the Streights of Magellan; an Account of their Manner of living in the Voyage on Seals, Wild Horses, Dogs, &c. and the incredible Hardships they frequently underwent for Want of Food of any Kind; a Description of the several Places where they touch’d in the Streights of Magellan, with an Account of the Inhabitants, &c. and their safe Arrival to the Brazil, after sailing one thousand Leagues in a Long-Boat; their Reception from the Portuguese; an Account of the Disturbances at Rio Grand; their Arrival at Rio Janeiro; their Passage and Usage on Board a Portuguese Ship to Lisbon; and their Return to England. Interspersed with many entertaining and curious Observations, not taken Notice of by Sir John Narborough, or any other Journalist. The Whole compiled by Persons concerned in the Facts related, viz. John Bulkeley and John Cummins, Late Gunner and Carpenter of the Wager.

London: Printed for Jacob Robinson, Publisher, at the Golden-Lion in Ludgate-Street, 1743.

This title was in the GPL, listed in the 1908 catalogue (but has been crossed- out), and has gone missing, so a LOST SHEEP.

You can read it here.

It is this 1740-41 voyage that Byron writes about in his own Narrative in 1768, interestingly enough the year after the “By an Officer on Board the said Ship” author-disputed voyage of the Dolphin (#1 above) was published.

John Byron. The narrative of the Honourable John Byron (commodore in a late expedition round the world) containing an account of the great distresses suffered by himself and his companions on the coast of Patagonia, from the year 1740, till their arrival in England, 1746. : With a description of St. Jago de Chili, and the manners and customs of the inhabitants. : Also a relation of the loss of the Wager man of war, one of Admiral Anson’s squadron. / Written by himself and now first published. London: Printed for S. Baker and G. Leigh; and T. Davies, 1768.

His book sold well enough and went into several editions. [And a little aside: this narrative forms the basis of the novel The Unknown Shore by Patrick O’Brian*]. Byron’s account was the only one which in any way defended Captain Cheap.

Frontispiece -Byron Narrative – BHL

This book is not in the GPL, which I find interesting since the library contained the other three titles concerning Byron – it is not listed in 1908 or in the Knight Collection either. But I find Byron’s “Preface” worth a read, as he mentions the 1743 Bulkeley account of this voyage (#3 above):

PREFACE.

As the greatest pain I feel in committing the following sheets to the press, arises from an apprehension that many of my readers will accuse me of egotism; I will not incur that charge in my preface, by detaining them with the reasons which have induced me, at this time, to yield to the desire of my friends. It is equally indifferent to the public to be told how it happened, that nothing should have got the better of my indolence and reluctance to comply with the same requests, for the space of twenty years.

I will employ these few introductory pages merely to shew what pretensions this work may have to the notice of the world, after those publications which have preceded it. It is well known that the Wager, one of lord Anson’s squadron, was cast away upon a desolate island in the South-seas. The subject of this book is a relation of the extraordinary difficulties and hard-ships through which, by the assistance of Divine Providence, a small part of her crew escaped to their native land; and a very small proportion of those made their way in a new and unheard-of manner, over a large and desert tract of land between the western mouth of the Magellanic streight and the capital of’ Chili; a country scarce to be paralleled in any part of the globe, in that it affords neither fruits, grain, nor even roots proper for the sustenance of man; and what is still more rare, the very sea, which yields a plentiful support to many a barren coast, on this tempestuous and inhospitable shore is found to be almost as barren as the land; and it must be confessed, that to those who cannot interest themselves with seeing human nature labouring, from day to day, to preserve its existence under the continual want of such real necessaries as food and shelter from the most rigorous climate, the following sheets will afford but little entertainment.

Yet, after all, it must be allowed there can be no other way of ascertaining the geography and natural history of a country which is altogether morass and rock, incapable of products or culture, than by setting down every minute circumstance which was observed in traversing it. The same may be said of the inhabitants, their manners, religion, and language. What fruits could an European reap from a more intimate acquaintance with them, than what he will find in the following accidental observations? We saw the most unprofitable spot on the globe of the earth, and such it is described and ascertained to be.

It is to be hoped some little amends may be made by such an insight as is given into the interior part of the country; and I find what I have put down has had the good fortune to be pleasing to some of my friends; insomuch that the only fault I have yet had laid to my papers is, that of being too short in the article of the Spanish settlements. But here I must say, I have been dubious of the partiality of my friends; and, as I think, justly fearful lest the world in general, who may perhaps find compassion and indulgence for a protracted tale of distress, may not give the fame allowance to a luxurious imagination triumphing in a change of fortune, and sudden transition from the most dismal to the gayest scenes in the universe, and thereby indulging an egotism equally offensive to the envious and censorious.

I speak as briefly as possible of matters previous to our final separation from the rest of lord Anson’s squadron; for it is from this epocha that the train of our misfortunes properly commences: and though Mr. Bulkeley, one of the warrant officers of the Wager, has long since published a Journal and Account of the return of that part of the ship’s company, which, dissenting from captain Cheap’s proposal of endeavouring to regain their native country by way of the great continent of South America, took their passage home in the long-boar, through the Streights of Magellan; our transactions during our abode on the island have been related by him in so concise a manner as to leave many particulars unnoticed, and others touched so slightly, that they appear evidently to have been put together with the purpose of justifying those proceedings which could not be considered in any other light than that of direct mutiny. Accordingly, we find that the main substance of his Journal is employed in scrutinizing the conduct of captain Cheap, and setting forth the conferences which passed between him and the seceders relative to the way and measures they were to take for their return home. I have, therefore, taken some pains to review those early passages of the unfortunate scene I am to represent, and to enter into a detail, without which no found judgment can be formed of any disputed point, especially when it has been carried so far as to end in personal resentment. When contests and dissensions shall be found to have gone that length, it will be obvious to every reader, why a licentious crew should hearken to any factious leader rather than to the solidity of their captain’s advice, who made it evident to every unprejudiced understanding, that their fairest chance for safety and a better fortune, was to proceed with the long-boat till they should make prize of some vessel of the enemy, and thereby be enabled to bring to the commodore a supply of stout fellows to assist in his conquests, and share in the honour and rewards.

And yet it is but justice even to this ungovernable herd to explain, that though I have said above they appeared in the light of mutineers, they were not actually such in the eye of the law; for till a subsequent act, made, indeed, on this occasion, the pay of a ship’s crew ceased immediately upon her wreck, and consequently the officers authority and command.

Having explained the foregoing particulars, I hope I may flatter myself there are few things in the following sheets, which will not be readily understood by the greatest part of my readers; therefore I will not detain them any longer.

You can read Byron’s whole narrative here.

John Byron’s 1786 death notice – wikipedia

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So three Lost Sheep – keep your eyes open GLOSSers!

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* Patrick O’Brian’s The Unknown Shore (1959), a sort of sequel to his The Golden Ocean (1956), is neither part of his well-known Aubrey-Maturin Napoleonic War series that started with Master and Commander in 1969, but rather a precursor. The Unknown Shore tells the story of a Jack Byron and Tobias Barrow, who sail aboard HMS Wager as part of the voyage around the world led by Anson in 1740 (sound familiar?) These two characters are considered the prototypes of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin – the series of course was O’Brian’s literary tribute to Jane Austen (notice the JA in both names) – so proof once again, that everything does come back to Jane Austen, no matter how far afield we think we are…

–

©2020 Reading with Austen Blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part V

April 22, 2020April 22, 2020 / BookLady Deb / 2 Comments

There’s been a gap of over seven months (!) since the last posting on Charles’ reading at Godmersham – so I’ll repeat some of the introductory material to refresh your memory. I again offer hearty thanks to Austen scholar Hazel Jones for sharing this with us as she mines Charles’ diaries – and please see below about information on her just published work The Other Knight Boys, wherein we learn not just more about Charles Bridges Knight, but all his brothers as well!

The Reading with Austen website focuses on the contents of the Godmersham Park Library as noted in the 1818 catalogue of the collection. We know that Jane Austen read and rested in this library because her letters tell us so, and the RwA website has brought this long-ago library back to colorful life. So it is a very interesting treasure to stumble upon other mentions of this library. The scholar Hazel Jones* has been very generous in sharing her research into the diaries of Austen’s nephew Charles Bridges Austen (later Knight), who also spent time in this very library. In doing the research for her new book on Edward Austen Knight’s sons, Hazel’s reading (and transcribing) Charles Bridge’s diaries (which are housed at Jane Austen’s House Museum ), she finds numerous references to the titles he is reading.

Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

You can read the other parts here that tell of Charles’ reading while living at Godmersham:

-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part I
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part II
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part III
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part IV

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We continue now with Diary 11, dated November 2nd 1837 – January 28th 1840

Hazel notes: There is very little of interest in this diary concerning books. Charles is largely obsessed with detailing symptoms of the gout, various remedies and ‘lowering’ diets.

1. ‘Sunday Nov 5 … Received cookery garden and cellar books from Alton.’

These books are not identified by title, so we can only assume Charles has ordered books from the local bookseller in Alton about cookery, gardening, and cellar (root cellar? wine cellar?) books – these would have been his own books and not part of the Godmersham library – but nice to know he is reading something other than religious tomes!

2. ‘Monday Nov 6 ... ‘Sent by Gale for some books.’

No information, though I do find a printer / bookseller imprint for a Gale, Curtis and Fenner out of London – they printed and sold books on sporting as well as religion, but mostly around the 1810s – so this may be an offshoot of that original firm. There is also a later Gale bookseller in London. Here is a title page from their book on sporting.

3. ‘Tuesday Dec 5 … I wrote to Johnson about the furniture, & to Roche about some books.’ / and ‘Monday March 26 … Wrote to Roche & Varty for some books.’ / and ‘Saturday April 7 … I found a parcel of books arrived for me from Roche & Varty.’

So I was able to find references to Varty in WorldCat, and with the help of Peter Sabor, we find that “Roche” actually refers to “Roake” –

Roake & Varty were publishers and booksellers / stationers in London from about 1829-1842. They published a number of political, religious, and educational books – so Charles could have been either buying and reading for his own edification or, as Hazel suggests, purchasing books for the Chawton and Alton schools. He mentions supplying the teachers with various texts. [According to Hazel, Charles apparently was in the habit of turning up in the classrooms unannounced to examine the pupils! Every teacher’s nightmare!…] There are no Roake & Varty books at GPL, but here is a title page of one such published by them:

On the laws and liberties of Englishmen: Britons ever shall be free! 1831
(from Internet Archive)

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4. ‘Friday April 20 … I bought today Edward’s Gibbon, at three guineas and a half.’

Ok, so the interesting thing here is that Charles seems to have BOUGHT the Gibbon from his brother Edward! Edward SOLD it to him?? OR Edward is Gibbon’s first name, so did he just mean Edward Gibbon, no possessive? Or, is he just completely confused about author and title? He later mentions “Gibbon’s decline and fall” so we know he is talking about The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, first published 1776 and succeeding volumes through 1789, and many re-printings. It is not listed in the GPL.

Title page from 2^nd ed volume I: Heritage Auctions

The only Gibbon book at Godmersham was this, his first published work: Essai sur l’étude de la literature (1761) and a LOST SHEEP:

[Image: Gallica.bnf.fr]

Edward Gibbon, by Henry Walton – wikipedia

[Aside: Human interest story (i.e. gossip): While living in Switzerland as a young man, Gibbon met the love of his life: Suzanne Curchod, the daughter of the pastor of Crassy. Their romance was thwarted by family on both sides – but Curchod went on to marry Louis XVI’s finance minister Jacques Necker – their daughter became Madame de Staël.]

You can read all about Jane Austen and de Staël at this virtual exhibition tour at Chawton House from 2017: “Fickle Fortunes: Jane Austen and Germaine de Staël”

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5. ‘Sunday April 22 … I came home soon after 5 and read till 7 when I dined — at 1/2 past 9 I read the first chapter of Anderson’s Expositions of the Epistle to the Romans, to the servants, meaning to go on with it every Sunday.’

Robert Anderson. A practical exposition of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans. London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1833. [also an appendix was published in 1837]

[Image: Internet Archive]

Not in the GPL – so one wonders where DID Charles’ own books go??

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6. ‘Monday June 11 ... Today I have been silly enough to subscribe to a publication going about of the lives of eminent Englishmen.’

Charles must mean this: Lives of eminent and illustrious Englishmen, from Alfred the Great to the latest times, on an original plan. George Godfrey Cunningham. Glasgow, A. Fullarton & Co., 1834-42.

Not in the GPL – but it is good to know that Charles had a moment of “silliness”! It was originally published in 16 parts (then into 8 volumes).

[Image: Internet Archive]

7. ‘Wednesday June 13 ... I read some of Waddingtons History of the church & some of Johnson’s Life by Boswell … I have generally passed the time in reading the above books, besides the Bible’. (Hazel notes: He finds time for reading over a period when he is laid up with the gout.) – Not in the GPL, but here is a title page [from HathiTrust]:

History of the church, from the earliest ages to the reformation, by George Waddington / Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. London: Baldwin & Cradock, etc…, 1830-1833.

Boswell’s Life of Johnson was covered in this post on Samuel Johnson in the GPL: this is a LOST SHEEP, however, and therefore worth repeating…

8. ‘Monday July 23 … I began to read Gibbon’s decline and fall today.’

See above for details: he bought it on April 20, started it July 23 – Charles, like all of us, must have had a piled-high TBR stack!

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9. 1839 ‘Thursday (Feb 7th) I began this morning reading to the servants before prayers, instead of having prayers only. I began Slade’s psalms …’

Slade is mentioned in Part IV of Charles’s reading: James Slade wrote a few works on the Psalms, a number of them after the diary date of 1839. There is nothing in the GPL: but maybe this was what he was reading to the servants (did Charles always “practice” on the servants I wonder?)

An Explanation of the Psalms as read in the Liturgy of the Church. By the Rev. James Slade, Canon of Chester. London, 1832. [ title page from MW Books on abebooks]

10. ‘Friday March 8 … The rest of the day I passed in reading Abercrombie’s Intellectual powers, which I finished; & began his moral feelings.’

We have two works mentioned here, neither in the GPL catalogue:

In 1830, John Abercrombie published his Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth. Edinburgh / London, 1830. We don’t know what edition Charles had, but here is a title page from the 5th edition of 1835 [HathiTrust].

This was followed with The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings in 1833, published by John Murray (Jane Austen’s own publisher!)

John Abercrombie (1780-1844) was a Scottish physician and philosopher, known for his medical treatises. These two works of philosophy were widely popular at the time of their publication and were variously reprinted in Britain and the United States.

John Abercrombie – ( c) Wellcome Library; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Though these books are not in the 1818 GPL catalogue, it gives me an opportunity to tell of two books by a different John Abercrombie that were at Godmersham, but are now LOST SHEEP.

This John Abercrombie (1720-1806) was a Scottish horticulturist who wrote a number of books on gardening, and was as a young man employed at the Royal Gardens at Kew, and at Leicester House.

Kew Gardens – William Marlow, 1763 – MetMuseum

John Abercrombie. The propagation and botanical arrangements of plants and trees, useful and ornamental, proper for cultivation in every department of gardening; nurseries, plantations and agriculture. …etc. [a very long title!]. London, 1784.

The Universal Gardener And Botanist; or, a General Dictionary of Gardening and Botany. Exhibiting in Botanical Arrangement, according to the Linnæan System,…. Etc, etc.,[another very long title!]. By Thomas Mawe and John Abercrombie. London, 1778.

Abercrombie2-Universal Gardener-1778-HeritageAuction

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And finally, the last entry for Diary 11:

11. ‘Tuesday March 19 … I began reading Thicas’s history of the French revolution, which Edward lent me.’

I can find nothing on this exactly, but perhaps it is a mistake on Charles’s part or illegible, because I do find this (it is not in the 1818 catalogue):

Adolphe Thiers, circa 1830 – wikipedia

Histoire de la Révolution française, by Adolphe Thiers (could this be the “thicas” ?) The first two volumes appeared in 1823, the last two (of ten) in 1827. It was the first major history of the French Revolution in French and won Thiers a seat as the second-youngest elected member of the Academie Française. He was the second elected President of France, and the first President of the French Third Republic.

There are other books in the 1818 catalogue about the French Revolution, as well as a number of books in French– so if Edward lent it to Charles around 1839, where did it come from if not the Godmersham or Chawton libraries? It is not listed in the 1908 catalogue either. Did Charles never return the set to Edward? And, is it clear that Charles spoke / read French?

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This book on the French Revolution is listed in the GPL catalogue and is in the Knight Collection, and has the Montagu George Knight bookplate:

Archibald Alison. History of Europe during the French Revolution. Embracing the period from the Assembly of the Notables, in M.DCC.LXXXIX., to the establishment of the Directory, in M.DCC.XCV. By Archibald Alison. London / Edinburgh, 1833-1842.

[Images from the Reading with Austen website]

So many unanswered questions to ponder…

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There is one more post in this series about Charles’ Godmersham reading, which I shall prepare shortly. In the meantime, you can learn more about Charles and his brothers in Hazel Jones’ just published The Other Knight Boys: Jane Austen’s Dispossessed Nephews – watch this space for an upcoming interview with Hazel – I highly recommend the book, so many interesting tales of the children Jane Austen knew and played with, and the various directions their lives took them. You can purchase it here at Jane Austen Books.

Stay tuned for Part IV…

©2020 Reading with Austen Blog

Reading with Jane Austen ~ Women Writers in the Godmersham Park Library ~ Episode 2!

March 28, 2020 / BookLady Deb / 2 Comments

UPDATE: I have re-posted this list of women writers in the Godmersham Park Library to include the titles of their works and have noted their current location or if they are LOST SHEEP.

Abbreviations:

KC = Knight Collection at Chawton House
JAHM = Jane Austen House Museum
LOST SHEEP – please help us find this title!

Of the 45 authors listed with a total of 62 titles, 23 are in the Knight Collection at Chawton House, 29 are LOST SHEEP, 3 works are partially in KC and partially LOST, 2 are in private collections, and the 5 Jane Austen 1st editions are at the Jane Austen’s House Museum.

As mentioned in my previous post on Sarah Scott, it is interesting to search the Godmersham Park Library 1818 catalogue for titles written by women, knowing that Jane Austen would have had access to them. So here is a list of all the women writers and their works, with hopes to eventually do a post on each (which might actually get done in these times of quarantine…).

It is quite an impressive list – novelists, poets, playwrights, philosophers, historians, essayists, translators, letter-writers! And while many of the works remain in the Knight Collection, there are more that are Lost Sheep, our effort still to locate them. If you might have a copy of any work by any of these women with a Knight bookplate in them, please get in touch with us!

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Jane Austen

Hannah More

Maria Edgeworth

Austen, Jane (1775-1817) [of course!]

Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion. 1^st 4 vols. London, 1818. JAHM
Sense and Sensibility: A Novel. 1^st 3 vols. London, 1818. JAHM
Pride and Prejudice: A Novel. 1^st 3 vols. London, 1813. JAHM
Mansfield Park: A Novel. 1^st 3 vols. London, 1814. JAHM
Emma: A Novel. 1^st 3 vols. London, 1816. JAHM

Baillie, Joanna (1762-1851)

A Series of Plays, in which it is attempted to delineate The Stronger Passions of the Mind, each passion being the subject of A Tragedy and a Comedy. 4^th 2 vols. London, 1803. LOST SHEEP

Barbauld, Anna Letitia (1743-1825) [as A. Aikin, her maiden name]

Miscellaneous pieces, in prose, by J. and A. L. Aikin. 2^nd 1 vol. London, 1775. LOST SHEEP

Bowdler, Jane (1743-1784)

Poems and essays, by A Lady Lately Deceased. 2 vols. Bath, 1786. KC

[Jane Bowdler] Poems and Essays by A Lady Lately Deceased. Bath, 1786.

Brooke, Frances (1724-1789)

The History of Lady Julia Mandeville. By the translator of Lady Catesby’s letters. 2^nd 2 vols. London, 1763. LOST SHEEP

Brunton, Mary (1778-1818)

Self-control: a novel. 3^rd 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1811. KC

Burney, Frances (1752-1840)

The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties. By the author of Evelina; Cecilia; and Camilla. 5 vols. London, 1814. KC (vol 2-4 only)

Campan, Jeanne Louise Henriette Genest (1752-1822)

Memoirs of the private life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre. To which are added, recollections, sketches, and anecdotes, illustrative of the reigns of Louis XIV. Louis XV. And Louis XVI. By Madame Campan, First Lady of the bed-chamber to the Queen. 3^rd 2 vols. London, 1824. KC

Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Poems on Several Occasions. 1 vol. London, 1762. LOST SHEEP
All the Works of Epictetus, Which are now Extant; consisting of His Discourses, preserved by Arrian, In Four Books, The Enchiridion, and Fragments. Translated from the Original Greek, By Elizabeth Carter. With An Introduction, and Notes, by the Translator. 1 vol. London, 1758. KC (2 copies)

Chapone, Hester (1727-1801)

Letters on the Improvement of the mind, addressed to a young lady. 1^st 2 vols. London, 1773. KC

Cornwallis, Mary (1758-1836)

Observations, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical, on the Canonical Scriptures. By Mrs. Cornwallis, of Wittersham, Kent. 4 vols. London, 1817. LOST SHEEP

Craven, Elizabeth Craven, Baroness (1750-1828)

A Journey through The Crimea to Constantinople. In A Series of Letters from the Right Honourable Elizabeth Lady Craven, To His Serene Highness The Margrave of Brandebourg, Anspach, and Bareith. Written in the Year M DCC LXXXVI. 1^st 1 vol. London, 1789. LOST SHEEP

Dixon, Sarah (1671/2-1765)

Poems on Several Occasions. 1^st 1 vol. Canterbury, 1740. LOST SHEEP

Dobson, Susannah (d. 1795) [as translator]

The Life of Petrarch. Collected from Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarch. Jacques-François-Paul-Aldonce de Sade (1705-1778); translated by Mrs. [Susannah] Dobson. 4^th 2 vols. Embellished with eight copper-plates, designed by Kirk, and engraved by Ridley. London, 1799. KC

Edgeworth, Maria (1768-1849)

Patronage by Maria Edgeworth. 4 vols. 2^nd London, 1814. KC
Tales of Fashionable Life, by Miss Edgeworth. 1^st 6 vols. London, 1809-12. KC
Harrington, a tale; and Ormond, a tale. 2 vols. London, 1817. LOST SHEEP

Elie de Beaumont, Anne-Louise Morin-Dumesnil (1729-1783)

Lettres Du Marquis de Roselle. Par Madame E. D. B. Nouvelle Edition. 2 vols. London, 1764. KC

Elwood, Anne Katharine (1796-1873)

Narrative of a Journey Overland from England by the Continent of Europe, Egypt, and the Red Sea, to India; including a residence there, and voyage home, in the years 1825, 26, 27, and 28. By Mrs. Colonel Elwood. In two volumes. 1 vol ed? London, 1830. LOST SHEEP

Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) [as translator]

Xenophon’s Memoirs of Socrates. With the Defence of Socrates, before His Judges. Translated from The Originial [sic] Greek. By Sarah Fielding. 1^st 1 vol. Bath, 1762. KC

Gardiner, Jane (1758-1840)

An excursion from London to Dover: containing some account of the Manufactures, Natural and Artificial Curiosities, History and Antiquities of the Towns and Villages. Interspersed with Historical and Biographical Anecdotes, Natural History, Poetical Extracts, and Tales. Particularly intended for the amusement and instruction of youth. By Jane Gardiner, Elsham Hall, Lincolnshire. In Two Vols. 1^st. ed. 2 vols. London, 1806. KC

Jane Gardiner. An Excursion from London to Dover. London, 1806.

Genlis, Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de (1746-1830)

Adèle et Théodore, ou, Lettres sur l’éducation, Contenant[.] Tous les principes relatifs aux trois différens plans d’éducation des Princes, des jeunes Personnes, & des Hommes. 1^st 3 vols. Paris, 1782. KC (vol 3 only), LOST SHEEP (vol 1 and 2)
Les Veillées du Château, ou, cours de morale à l’usage des enfans, par l’auteur d’Adèle et Théodore. 1^st 3 vols. Paris, 1784. KC

Graffigny, (Françoise d’Issembourg d’Happoncourt), Mme de (1695-1758)

Letters written by a Peruvian Princess. A New Edition, in two Volumes. London, 1771. LOST SHEEP
The Peruvian letters, Translated from the French. With An additional original Volume. By R. Roberts, translator of Select Tales from Marmontel, author of Sermons by a Lady, and translator of the History of France, from the Abbé Millot. 2 vols. London, 1774. KC
Lettres d’une Peruvienne. 1 vol. Paris, n.d. LOST SHEEP

Grant, Anne (1755-1838)

Poems on various subjects, by Mrs. Grant. 1^st Edinburgh, 1803. LOST SHEEP
Letters from the mountains; Being the real correspondence of a lady, between the years 1773 and 1807. 2^nd 3 vols. London, 1807. KC

Hays, Mary (1759-1843)

Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of all ages and countries. Alphabetically arranged. By Mary Hays. 1^st 6 vols. London, 1803. In the collections of the Godmersham Park Heritage Centre.

Haywood, Eliza Fowler (1693-1756) – as a contributor

A Companion to the theatre: or, a view Of our most celebrated Dramatic Pieces: In which the Plan, Characters, and Incidents of each are particularly explained. Interspers’d With Remarks Historical, Critical and Moral. 2 vols. London, 1747. LOST SHEEP

Lee, Harriet (1757-1851) and Sophia Lee (1750-1824)

Canterbury tales. By Harriet Lee [and Sophia Lee]. 5 vols. London, 1804. [The original 5 volumes of this work were published in 1797, 1798, 1799, 1801 and 1805. The 4th edition of vol. 1 was published in 1804; it’s not possible to identify the editions of the rest of volumes in the Godmersham Library copy from the Godmersham catalogue details]. LOST SHEEP

Lee, Sophia (1750-1824) [see under Harriet Lee]

Lennox, Charlotte (ca. 1730-1804) [as translator]

Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully, Prime Minister to Henry the Great. Containing The History of the Life and Reign of that Monarch, And his own Administration under Him. By Pierre Mathurin de L’écluse des Loges (ca. 1713-1783). Translated from the French by the Author of The Female Quixote [Charlotte Lennox]. To which is added, The Trial of Ravaillac for the Murder of Henry the Great. 5 vols. London, 1757. KC

Macaulay, Catharine (1731-1791)

The history of England from the accession of James I. to that of the Brunswick Line. By Catharine Macaulay. 1^st 5 vols. (of 8). London, 1763-83. KC

Catharine Macaulay. • The history of England from the accession of James I. to that of the Brunswick Line. London, 1763-83.

Maintenon, Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de (1635-1719)

Lettres de Madame de Maintenon. Contenant[.] Des Lettres à différentes personnes, celles à M. d’Aubigné, & celles à M. & à Me. de Villette. Nouvelle Edition. 16 vols. Maestricht [Maastricht], 1778. KC

Marlborough, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of (1660-1744)

An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, From her first coming to Court, To the Year 1710. In a Letter from Herself to my Lord––. 1 vol. London, 1742. LOST SHEEP

Masters, Mary (fl. 1733-1755)

Familiar Letters and Poems on Several Occasions. By Mary Masters. 1^st 1 vol. London, 1755. LOST SHEEP

Meades, Anna (b. ca. 1734)

The history of Sir William Harrington. Written some years since, And revised and corrected By the late Mr. Richardson, author of Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, &c. 1^st 4 vols. London, 1771. LOST SHEEP

Montagu, Elizabeth Robinson (1718-1800)

An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear, compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets. With Some Remarks Upon the Misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire. 1^st 1 vol. London, 1769. LOST SHEEP
The letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, with some of the letters of her correspondents. Part the first, Containing her letters from an early age to the age of twenty-three. Published by M. Montagu, Esq. M.P., her 1^st 2 vols. (of 4). London, 1809-13. KC

Montolieu, Isabelle de (1751-1832)

Agathoclès, ou Lettres écrites de Rome et de Grèce, au commencement du Quatrième Siècle, Traduites de l’allemand de Mme. Pichler, Par Mme. Isabelle de Montolieu. 1^st 4vols. Paris, 1812. LOST SHEEP

More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Florio: A Tale, For Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies: and, The Bas Bleu; or, Conversation: Two Poems. 1^st 1 vol. London, 1786. LOST SHEEP
Strictures on the modern system of female education. With a view of the principles and conduct prevalent among women of rank and fortune. By Hannah More. 9^th 2 vols. London, 1799. LOST SHEEP
Coelebs in search of a wife. Comprehending Observations on domestic habits and manners, religion and morals. 9^th 2 vols. London, 1809. KC

Orléans, Charlotte-Elizabeth, duchesse d’ (1652-1722)

Fragmens de lettres originales De Madame Charlotte-Elizabeth de Bavière, Veuve de Monsieur, Frère unique de Louis XIV, Ecrites à S. A. S. Monseigneur le Duc Antoine-Ulric de B** W****, & à S. A. R. Madame la Princess de Galles, Caroline, née Princess d’Anspach. De 1715 à 1720. 1^st 2 vols. Hambourg, 1788. KC

Parry, Catherine (d. 1788)

Eden Vale. A Novel. In Two Volumes. Dedicated, by permission, To Lady Shelburne. By Mrs. Catherine Parry. 1^st 2 vols. London, 1784. KC (vol. 2 only); LOST SHEEP (vol. 1)

Piozzi, Hester Lynch; Thrale, Hester Lynch (1741-1821)

Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. To which are added some poems never before printed. Published from the original mss. in her possession, by Hester Lynch Piozzi. 1^st 2 vols. London, 1789. LOST SHEEP
Observations and reflections made in the course of a journey through France, Italy, and Germany. By Hester Lynch Piozzi. 1^st 2 vols. London, 1789. In a private collection.
Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. during the last twenty years of his life. By Hesther Lynch Piozzi. 1^st 1 vol. London, 1786. LOST SHEEP

Porter, Jane (1776-1850)

The pastor’s fire-side, a novel. 1^st 4 vols. London, 1817. LOST SHEEP

Radcliffe, Ann Ward (1764-1823)

A Journey made in the summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany, with a Return Down the Rhine: to which are added observations during a tour to The Lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland. By Ann Radcliffe. 1^st 1 vol. London, 1795. LOST SHEEP

Riccoboni, Marie Jeanne de Heurles Laboras de Mézières (1713-1792)

Lettres de Mylady Juliette Catesby, A Mylady Henriette Campley, Son Amie. Quatrieme Edition. 4^th 1 vol. Amsterdam, 1760. KC

Marie Jeanne Riccoboni. Lettres de Mylady Juliette Catesby, A Mylady Henriette Campley, Son Amie. Amsterdam, 1760.

Scott, Sarah (1723-1795)

The history of Sir George Ellison. 1^st 2 vols. London, 1766. LOST SHEEP
A Description of Millenium Hall, and the Country Adjacent: Together with the Characters of the Inhabitants, And such Historical Anecdotes and Reflections, as May excite in the Reader proper Sentiments of Humanity, and lead the Mind to the Love of Virtue. By A Gentleman on his Travels. 1^st 1 vol. London, 1762. LOST SHEEP

Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de (1629-1696)

Recueil des lettres de Madame la Marquise de Sévigné, a Madame la Comtesse de Grignan, sa fille. Nouvelle Edition augmentée. 9 vols. Paris,m 1785. KC

Smith, Charlotte Turner (1749-1806)

Elegiac sonnets, by Charlotte Smith. The fifth edition, with additional sonnets and other poems. 5^th 1 vol. London, 1789. LOST SHEEP
The letters of a solitary wanderer: containing narratives of various description. By Charlotte Smith. 1^st 2 vols (of 3?). London, 1800. LOST SHEEP

West, Jane (1758-1852)

Letters to a young lady, in which the duties and character of women are considered, chiefly with a reference to prevailing opinions. By Jane West. 4^th 3 vols. London, 1811. KC

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There are several titles in the catalogue with no author listed. Here are two novels – could either of these been written by a woman? [these 2 titles were not counted in the totals noted above] – more on these two books in a future post…

Edward. A novel. Dedicated (by permission) to Her Majesty. London, 1774. 2 vols. LOST SHEEP
The correspondents, an original novel; in a series of letters. A new edition. London, 1775. 1 vol. LOST SHEEP

[Title page images are courtesy of the Reading with Austen website].

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Catharine Macaulay

Joanna Baillie

Frances Burney

c2020 Reading with Austen Blog

Reading with Jane Austen: Sarah Scott in the Godmersham Park Library

February 26, 2020February 27, 2020 / BookLady Deb / 3 Comments

While many of the interesting titles found in the Godmersham Park Library of Edward Austen Knight are of religious or historical nature, I find the listings of works by women writers to be the most I am drawn to – and with questions: Did Edward acquire and read these? Did his wife Elizabeth Bridges? We know that all in the family were “great Novel-readers & not ashamed of being so…” [Le Faye, Ltr. 14] Or, perhaps were some of the earlier works those of the original owner of the estate, Mrs. Thomas Knight, Edward’s adoptive mother Catherine Knight?

Catherine Knight, by George Romney – Occeansbridge.com

[Aside: We know that Mrs. Knight was a reader. In Austen’s letters, we find a good number of references to her and it is clear that she and Austen had a respectful and affectionate relationship. This goes back to as early as Austen’s composition of The History of England (completed in 1791), when Austen, in her defense of Mary, Queen of Scots writes:

Oh! what must this bewitching Princess whose only freind was then the Duke of Norfolk, and whose only ones are now Mr Whitaker, Mrs Lefroy, Mrs Knight & myself, who was abandoned by her Son, confined by her Cousin, abused, reproached & vilified by all, what must not her most noble mind have suffered when informed that Elizabeth had given orders for her Death!

Mr. Whitaker was the author of Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated (1787) [the title page states: “Author of the history of Manchester; and rector of Ruan-Lanyhorne, Cornwall”] – this book is not in the GPL collection, though there are a few other titles on the history of Mary, Queen of Scots – we can wonder if Jane was influenced by these as well – a topic for another blog post!

Mrs. Lefroy was a neighbor and great friend to Jane. And the mention of Mrs. Knight shows that even at this young age, she and Mrs. Knight would have some sort of rapport discussing history and literature.

Mrs. Knight is also in on the great secret of Jane as author: in an April 25, 1811 letter written to Cassandra while at Henry’s in London, Austen writes of her working on the proofs of Sense and Sensibility:

“I have had two sheets to correct, but the last one only brings us to W.s first appearance. Mrs. Knight regrets in the most flattering manner that she must wait till. May, but I have scarcely a hope of its of its being out in June [it was not published until 23 October 1811]….I am very much gratified by Mrs. Knight’s interest in it; & whatever may be the event of it as to my credit with her, sincerely wish her curiosity could be satisfied sooner than is now probable. I think she will like my Elinor, but cannot build on anything else.”

The point being that Mrs. Knight was a reader and may have added a good number of novels to the collection before she left Godmersham and gave the estate to Edward. Something to be investigated…]

But, back to the topic at hand: women writers at the GPL. I shall start with Sarah Scott. Two of her most popular works were in the GPL and both are now Lost Sheep.

Sarah Scott,1744, by Edward Haytley [wikipedia]

Sarah [Robinson] Scott (1720-1795), born in Yorkshire to Matthew and Elizabeth Robinson, the youngest of nine children, lived much of her life in Cambridge. They were a distinguished family and the children went on to have successful careers. Her older sister was the acclaimed Bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu, who was more well-known and regarded than Sarah for her writings and literary salons, though Elizabeth herself thought Sarah the more talented.

Elizabeth Montagu, 1762, by Allan Ramsay – wikipedia

Gary Kelly in his DNB entry for Scott writes:

Her early letters exhibit a witty, satirical, and fastidious outlook on people, fashionable society, and courtship and marriage, a strong interest in handsome and intelligent men, and contempt for men who feared educated women, for women with no intellectual interests, and for unclean persons of either sex.

After contracting smallpox in 1741, Sarah’s stock in the marriage market would have plummeted; it may have led to her retreat from the expected social life of a young woman and directed her into a life of writing and female friendships. She developed a close friendship with Lady Barbara Montagu (no relation to Elizabeth), and after a rather disastrous marriage to George Lewis Scott in 1751, of which little is known (and certainly scandalous in some manner*), she and Barbara pooled their small resources and settled in Bath.

Scott published all her works anonymously, though as with Jane Austen, it was likely an “open secret” among her friends and correspondents. Her first novel was The History of Cornelia, published in 1750, and wherein the Heroine has a number of Gothic encounters but returns to a rational and safe view of the world, the book similar to Northanger Abbey in its emphasis on the dangers of reading and female sexuality.

She continued to write novels, largely of a sentimental nature, translated a work from the French, wrote two political histories, and several educational texts. Her 1762 work A Description of Millenium Hall was her most popular, followed by its sequel The History of Sir George Ellison in 1766. These are the two novels that were in the GP Library to which Austen had access, though there is no mention of Scott in her letters (only Sir Walter!). Both are now missing and Lost Sheep (they do show up in the 1908 catalogue under their titles), Scott is well-represented in the Library at Chawton House with several (but not all) of her works: 1^st editions of Millenium Hall, George Ellison, Life of Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigné, and The History of Cornelia (though it doesn’t show up on WorldCat as being in any library!)

Millenium Hall provided a fictional example of what Scott and Lady Barbara were attempting to create in real life, a utopian community of women who would provide help and educational opportunities to the poor women and children in their neighborhood. Millenium Hall, published as written “by A Gentleman on his Travels,” is narrated by a male character who Scott later uses as her protagonist in Sir George Ellison. He tells the life stories of the women living in their secular convent-like home. It is said that it took Scott all of a month to write. The November 1762 of the Monthly Magazine carried the following review of the novel:

Millenium Hall is a name given to the rural and elegant abode of a happy society of Ladies, which the Author tells us he met with in the West of England. The respective histories of these accomplished female Worthies, with their motives for retiring from the World, and forming this delightful connection; together with a particular description of their residence; an account of the rules, and orders of the society; and a view of the very laudable manner in which the amiable Recluses employed their time and their fortunes; — these are the outlines of a work well calculated, as the title justly professes, to inspire the Reader with proper senti ments or humanity, and the love of virtue. We have perused it with pleasure; and heartily recommend it, as a very entertaining as well as a truly moral and sensible performance.

The book was popular and went into several editions through 1778.

[Aside 2: There is a connection to Jane Austen I must mention. It seems that Sir Egerton Brydges, brother of Austen’s great friend and neighbor Anne Lefroy, was the first to note in his Censura Literaria of 1805 that Sarah Scott was the author of nine works. Egerton was married to Mary Robinson, the daughter of Mrs. Scott’s youngest brother, William, and thus probably knew Mrs. Scott’s literary efforts from personal contact. It was a small world! And more proof again that Austen would have known of her. [See Walter M. Crittenden’s introduction to Millenium Hall, p. 18].

1767 Edinburgh ed.

The other title listed in the GP Library catalogue is The History of Sir George Ellison (1766) [also with the title A Man of Real Sensibility; or The History of Sir George Ellison]. The narrator of Millenium Hall tries to improve slaves’ lives in Jamaica, and later establishes a charity school for boys in England modeled after what he had observed at Millenium Hall. His character is likened to Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison, Jane Austen’s very own favorite Hero. Scott prefaces the book with an epigraph from Lawrence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey:

Dear SENSIBILITY!—Source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our Joys, or costly in our Sorrows.—’Tis here I feel thee—’tis thy Divi|nity that stirs within me.—For that I feel some generous joy—some generous care beyond my self.—All comes from Thee—

Here is a letter to Scott from her sister Elizabeth Montagu about the impending publication of this book: [from the EMOC twitter account, dated 18 February 2020:

[See below for the list of all Scott’s works].

Lady Barbara died in 1765, and Scott lived in various places. Her efforts to again establish a real Millenium Hall at Hitcham House in Buckinghamshire in 1767, to which she invited the writer (and Henry’s sister) Sarah Fielding, among others, proved a failure. She finally settles in Catton, near Norwich, where she dies after a lengthy illness. All of her letters and papers were destroyed after her death in 1795 as per her instruction, though a number of letters to and from her sister Elizabeth Montagu remain. Many of these letters are in the Elizabeth Montagu Collection at the Huntington Library, and currently part of an ongoing project to digitize all of Montagu’s correspondence.

And though most of her letters were destroyed, it seems that there is a 2-volume recent publication of all her extant letters, edited by Nicole Pohl, that runs to 912 pages! – Nicole Pohl, ed., The Letters of Sarah Scott, 2 vols. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014). It too is prohibitively expensive (starting at $350 even on the used book market) – you can find it here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/letters-of-sarah-scott/nicole-pohl/9781848934689

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There has been renewed interest in Scott and her contributions to the female literature of her time, called of late “Bluestocking Feminism” [see Kelly]. There have been scholarly editions of her most popular works and all her titles are available in either these scholarly texts, online, or in readily available reprints. What we GLOSSers want however, are the original copies of Millenium Hall and Sir George Ellison that sadly went missing from the Godmersham / Chawton House library sometime after 1908. Let’s hope we can locate (and hopefully) return these two Lost Sheep to the Library at Chawton House! Please contact us if you have any information.

List of works by Sarah Scott:

– The History of Cornelia (1750) [no author noted]: at Chawton House and available as a Gale ECCO reprint.

–Agreeable Ugliness, or, The Triumph of the Graces; Exemplified in the Real Life and Fortunes of a Young Lady of Some Distinction (1754). A loose translation of Le Laideur aimable by Pierre Antoine, Marquis de La Place, it is a morality tale of two sisters, one beautiful but vain, and the other plain but virtuous. There is a copy at the British Library, a free ebook on Google Books, and a Gale ECCO reprint POD.

Dublin ed, 1754

– A Journey through Every Stage of Life, Described in a Variety of Interesting Scenes, Drawn from Real Characters. By a Person of Quality (1754). An Arabian Nights sort of work “comprising tales told by a witty female servant to divert her mistress, a disgruntled princess exiled by her brother to clear his way to the throne.” [Kelly, DNB]. A copy at the British Library and available as a Gale ECCO reprint.

– The History of Gustavus Ericson, King of Sweden; With an Introductory History of Sweden, from the Middle of the Twelfth Century. By Henry Augustus Raymond, Esq. (pseud. for Scott) (1761). Full text on HathiTrust, available in reprints.

-The History of Mecklenburgh, from the First Settlement of the Vandals in that Country, to the Present Time; including a Period of about Three Thousand Years (1762). [No author noted]. Likely prompted by the marriage of King George III to Charlotte, the Princess of Mecklenburgh in 1761. At the British Library; full text at HathiTrust, Google Books; various reprints available.

-A Description of Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent, Together with the Characters of the Inhabitants and such Historical Anecdotes and Reflections as May Excite in the Reader Proper Sentiments of Humanity, and Lead the Mind to the Love of Virtue (1762). By A Gentleman on his Travels. At Chawton House, full text at HathiTrust, the 1955 edition by Walter Crittenden, a scholarly edition edited by Gary Kelly in 1995 (Broadview), and various reprints abound, including kindle.

-The History of Sir George Ellison (1766)]. [No author noted]. Full text available on Google Books (vol 2); also on HathiTrust, a 1767 Edinburgh edition titled A Man of Real Sensibility; or The History of Sir George Ellison; a 1774 Philadelphia edition, printed by James Humphreys, is online at Evans Early American Imprint Collection: ; a scholarly edition edited by Betty Rizzo (1996); and various reprints now available.

-The Life of Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigné, Containing a Succinct Account of the Most Remarkable Occurrences during the Civil Wars of France in the Reigns of Charles IX, Henry III, Henry IV, and in the Minority of Lewis XIII (1772). [No author noted.] Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigné (1552-1630) was a French poet, soldier, and historian. At the British Library and a few other libraries in the UK and one in Dublin; full text at HathiTrust and Google (same copy); various reprints available.

-The Test of Filial Duty; In a Series of Letters between Miss Emilia Leonard, and Miss Charlotte Arlington: A Novel (1772). Scott’s final work, it is an epistolary novel, emphasizing female friendship and criticizes clandestine marriages as well as “the male-dominated systems of property and patronage.” [Kelly, DNB]. At the British Library, no full-text available except here [subscription needed] : vol. 4 of Bluestocking Feminism: Writings of the Bluestocking Circle, 1738-1785, edited by Gary Kelly – print edition is available for exorbitant prices!), but there are cheaper reprints available of Filial Duty.

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*George Lewis Scott (1708–1780) was a mathematician and literary figure who was tutor to the future George III from 1751 to 1755. He was a friend of the historian Edward Gibbon, the poet James Thomson, Samuel Johnson and other members of the Georgian era literary world, as well as Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin. [Wikipedia]. He was a Robinson family friend, twelve years Sarah’s senior, and family lore says the marriage was never consummated. One problem may have been that Lady Bab tagged along on their honeymoon and lived with them after their return! Scandal would have resulted when Scott returned to her family, so Scott agreed to pay Sarah an annuity, but sources says they spoke of each other with bitterness for the rest of their lives…[Wikipedia, which alas! can sometimes be wrong!]

We can never really know what happened, Scott continued to write and work on her charities, rather than having the requisite twelve children or dying in childbirth…. I am currently reading Millenium Hall – will report on it when I am finished – a bit of a slog, but interesting at the same time! I hope this short intro will entice others to read her, her works thankfully now so readily available.

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A Select bibliography for further reading: there are an increasing number of scholarly essays on Sarah Scott – I list here just a few that I consulted.

Backscheider, Paula R., ed. Revising Women: Eighteenth-Century “Women’s Fiction” and Social Engagement. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U, 2000.
Crittenden, Walter Marion. The Life and Writings of Mrs. Sarah Scott, Novelist (1723-1795). Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania, 1932.
Kelly, Gary. Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720–1795). DNB, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/24912
Le Faye, Deridre. Jane Austen’s Letters. 4^th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.
Onderwyzer, Gaby Esther. Sarah Scott: Her Life and Works. Berkeley: U California, 1957.
Pearson, Jacqeline. Women’s Reading in Britain 1750-1835: A Dangerous Recreation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.
Nicole Pohl, ed., The Letters of Sarah Scott, 2 vols. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014.
Robertson, Mary L. “The Elizabeth Robinson Montagu Collection at the Huntington Library.” Huntington Library Quarterly 65.1/2 (2002): 21-23.
“Sarah Scott.” Wikepedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Scott.
Scott, Sarah. Millenium Hall. Ed. Gary Kelly. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview, 1995.
_____. Millenium Hall. Ed. Walter M. Crittenden. New York: Bookman, 1955.

Frontispiece to Millenium Hall, 1762 – a closer image. A Walker is likely Anthony Walker (1726-1765), etcher and engraver from Yorkshire

C2020 Reading with Austen blog

Reading with Jane Austen ~ Holy Bibles in the Godmersham Park Library

December 27, 2019December 30, 2019 / BookLady Deb / Leave a comment

UPDATE: since this was posted I have done a bit more research re: the Bibles at Godmersham.

First, I discover (with thanks to Gillian Dow) that the Chawton House blog has an in-depth essay by the then CH librarian Jacqui Grainger on the Holy Bibles extant in the Knight Collection. You can read that here:

http://chawtonhouselibraryreadinggroup.blogspot.com/2011/11/family-bibles-455-years-of-bibles-in.html

This list gives more detail of each bible title than what is listed in the Knight Collection – you can find a link to the excel file here (scroll down): https://chawtonhouse.org/the-library/library-collections/the-knight-collection/

So in comparing what bibles are listed in the Godmersham 1818 catalogue to those listed in the 1908 Chawton Library catalogue (a nightmare of a list), and seeing what is today in the Knight Collection, we find some overlap, some discrepancies, some books gone missing, and more questions than when I started on this adventure… I note in red below what is new information; at the end of the post I add in the bible titles Grainger listed in her blog post that could have been listed in the 1818 catalogue based on their publication date (i.e. 1818 or before) to see if they are in either the 1818 or 1908 catalogue. Confused?? I submit that this is a proven way to absolutely lose your mind – but bear with me if you can….

A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. The Bible was written in Belgium in 1407 AD, for reading aloud in a monastery – image from Wikipedia

In the spirit of Christmas, I thought a look at the Bibles at Godmersham Park might bring up some interesting finds. There were many religious books in Edward Austen’s Library, many commentaries, sermons, and theological treatises – all reflecting a thoughtful gentleman’s moral approach to life. Edward, as George Austen’s son, was certainly grounded in such, and his brother James and later Henry were both rectors. You can read several posts on this blog of Edward’s son Charles’s diary entries regarding his study in this very library (with grateful thanks to Hazel Jones for sharing those with us!) – and most of what he was reading were these very religious texts.

But in limiting this post to just the Holy Bible to see which editions were housed at Godmersham, and likely works that Jane Austen would have had access to while visiting her brother, I find that there are only six Bibles listed in the catalogue, and NONE of them remain in the collection.

If one looks at biblical references in Jane Austen’s writings (fiction and letters), we find mostly joking references to characters or scenes from the Bible, and though we can infer her religious upbringing and her moral approach to life as seen in her characters and plots, Austen mentions little about the celebration of Christmas itself or any references to the actual meaning of Christmas (we can forgive her! – she gave us the wonderful Christmas Eve story of Mr. Elton’s drunken proposal to Emma! AND we cannot forget that she really created the very first Scrooge, long before Dickens ever did so!).

BIBLICAL REFERENCES IN JANE AUSTEN:

Here are a few examples from her Letters showing this tendency to jokingly comment on Biblical characters or stories:

Ltr. 90 to Francis Austen 25 Sept 1813 – she likens the transporting family members in various fashion (post-chaises, chairs, horses, and a coach) to “St. Paul’s Shipwreck, where all are said by different means to reach the shore safely” [see Acts 27:44]
In Ltr. 108 to Anna Austen, 28 Sept 1814, Austen jokes about one of Anna’s use of the “vortex of dissipation” in her book: “… I cannot bear the expression; it is such thorough novel slang – and so old, that I dare say Adam met with it in the first novel he opened.”
“We do not much like Mr. Cooper’s new Sermons; – they are fuller of Regeneration & Conversion than ever – with the addition of his zeal in the cause of the Bible Society” Austen writes Cassandra in September 1816 [Ltr. 145].
And Austen jokingly writes to her niece Fanny about Anna who is visiting and is “so young & so blooming & so innocent, as if she had never had a wicked Thought in her Life – which yet one has some reason to suppose she must have had, if we beleive the Doctrine of Original Sin, or if we remember the events of her girlish days.” [Ltr. 151, February 1817].
In Ltr 153, March 1817, she again writes Fanny: “As to making any adequate return for such a Letter as yours my dearest Fanny, it is absolutely impossible; if I were to labour at it all the rest of my Life & live to the age of Methusalah [sic], I could never accomplish anything so long & so perfect…”

CHRISTMAS REFERENCES:

Christmas references in the letters are few and far between, and all just make mention of visitors either being there for Christmas, or staying through Christmas, or not visiting for Christmas at all. She wishes Cassandra “a Merry Christmas, but no compliments of the season” [Ltr 15, 1798], whatever that means! She makes a quick reference to Cassandra’s “Christmas gaieties” in 1801 [Ltr. 29]. But it is only in Letter 77, dated 29-30 November 1812, when she is at Godmersham and writing to Martha Lloyd that she touches on seasonal doings:

“We are just beginning to be engaged in another Christmas Duty, & next to eating Turkies, a very pleasant one, laying out Edward’s money for the Poor; & the Sum that passes through our hands this year is considerable, as Mrs. Knight left £20 to the Parish.”

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THE HOLY BIBLES AT GODMERSHAM:

So let’s look at what Holy Bibles were in the Godmersham Library, and add these titles to our ever-growing list of Lost Sheep. You will see that many are very old, now very collectible and expensive to acquire. As we have no images of these Bibles, and most were lavishly and beautifully illustrated, I include a title page image if one was available online. And we ask that if you should have any of these Bibles on your shelves, to please check to see if they might have one of the Knight bookplates – we live in hope!

The Holy Bible, according to The Authorized Version, with notes, explanatory and practical; taken principally from the most eminent writers of the United Church of England and Ireland: together with appropriate introductions, tables, indexes, maps, and plans: prepared and arranged by the Rev. George D’Oyly, B.D. and the Rev. Richard Mant, D.D. Domestick Chaplains to His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Under the direction of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. For the Use of Families.

Oxford: Printed for the Society at the Clarendon Press, by Bensley, Cooke, and Collingwood, printers to the university; sold by F. C. and J. Rivington, booksellers to the Society, St. Paul’s Church-Yard; and by all other booksellers in the United Kingdom, 1817. 4to. 3 vols.

[This set is listed as being in the Knight Collection, so we are hoping it is NOT a Lost Sheep – so stay tuned!] – ok, question resolved, I think: The Knight Collection’s D’Oyly and Mant’s set is the 1826 edition, not 1817. WorldCat lists several editions published between 1817 and 1839, 1826 included. So either the 1818 catalogue has the date wrong (it may have been an 1826 printing and this was not noted), or Edward had an 1817 edition and someone later acquired the 1826, which is listed in the 1908 catalogue AND the Knight Collection – so one scenario: Edward’s set went missing, and a later Knight wanted to replace the title that was in the 1818 catalogue but could only get an 1826 ed…

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The Holy Bible Containing the old Testament and the New Newly translated out of the Original Tongues And with the former Translations diligently Compared and revised by his Majesties speciall command. Appointed to be read in Churches.

Cambridge: Printed by John Hayes Printer to the Universitie, 1683.1st ed. 8vo. 2 vols.

Update: this is listed in the 1908 catalogue but is not in the Knight Collection.

[Image from The Wellcome Collection: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/wrrcjgya]

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The Holy Bible: containing the Old Testament and the new: newly translated out of the originall tongues: and with the former translations diligently compared and revised: by his Majesties speciall commandment. Appointed to be read in churches … London: By Robert Barker, printer to the Kings most excellent Majestie, 1641. 8vo. 1 vol.

[For an image, all I can find is this title page for the 1611 edition printed by Robert Barker – from the University of Michigan]

Update: not listed in 1908; not in Knight Collection.

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1660 Holy Bible – title page from the Royal Trust Collection

The Holy Bible Containing the Bookes of the Old & New Testament.

Cambridge: Printed by John Field, Printer to the Universitie. And illustrated wth. Chorographical Sculps by J. Ogilby, 1660. 4to. 2 vols.

A copy of this Bible is presently for sale at Bauman Rare Books for $32,000. Their catalogue entry reads:

Monumental 1660 Cambridge edition of the King James Bible, richly illustrated with engraved title page, 128 double-page engravings by Visscher, Hollar, Lombart and others after Rubens, De Bruyn de Vos, Tintoret and others, eight folding maps (including a double hemisphere by John Seller and a plan of Jerusalem), 13 engraved portraits of apostles and 12 small plates mounted on four sheets of scenes from Revelations. “It presented the standard text of the Authorized Version in perhaps the most impressive form available in the mid-17th century.” Beautifully bound in nicely restored contemporary paneled morocco-gilt.

The King James Version of the Bible (first published 1611) has exercised an incalculable impact on piety, language and literature throughout the English-speaking world. Macaulay praised it as “a book, which if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power” (PMM 114). “In 1660, John Ogilby reissued the large folio Bible of 1659, published by John Field, the printer to the University of Cambridge, with a number of additional engraved plates… For this issue, Ogilby supplied eight whole sheet engravings, seven of which were by [Wenceslaus] Hollar… Nicolaes Visscher supplied Ogilby with sets of engravings from his own stock, most of which were the work of Cornelis Visscher, after Rubens, de Vos, de Bruyn, Tintoretto and others… Ogilby’s Bible was a very expensive book… It presented the standard text of the Authorized Version in perhaps the most impressive form available in the mid-17th century. Its illustrations were works of the best artists, and allowed those who could afford the book to visualize the events of the Bible in a grand style” (Museum of the History of Science, Oxford). “The finest edition of the Holy Bible then extant” (Lowndes, 1367). The collation and number of plates vary greatly from copy to copy—the present copy is bound with the largest number of illustrations we have seen offered. The most expensive of these Bibles were ruled in red—as is this copy. Published in two volumes, this copy is bound with the Old Testament in Volume I, and the Apocrypha and New Testament in Volume II; this copy without the Volume II title page or separate New Testament title page. Engraved general title page depicts Solomon (i.e., the restored Charles II) enthroned. Text and plates ruled in red throughout.

https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/bible-book-of-common-prayer/holy-bible/115092.aspx

1660 Holy Bible, engraving image from Bauman Rare Books

Update: the 1908 catalogue lists a “Bible and Prayer Book, 1660 – no other information, so possibly this; not extant in the Knight Collection.

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The Holy Bible Containing the Old Testament and the New: Newly translated out of the originall Tongues, and with ye Former translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties speciall command. Appointed to be read in churches.

Cambridge: Printed by Tho: Buck, and Roger Daniel, Printers to the University of Cambridge. And are to be sold by Roger Daniel, at the Angell in Lumberstreet, London, 1638. 4to. 1 vol.

This Cambridge edition, containing the first major revisions of the King James version, standardized the use of italics and altered several readings in the New Testament. Image is from Sothebys.

Update: listed in 1908 as “Bible and Prayer Book, Cambridge 1638,” so possibly this – not in Knight Collection.

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The Holy Bible, or, the Old and New Testament, Explained by Question and Answer, From the Writings of the most eminent Historians, Divines, and Commentators; Containing Many Useful and Entertaining Parts of Knowledge; And embellished with Proper Maps, neatly Engraved, and other Ornamental and Instructive Representations. Designed for the Promoting of Christian Knowledge. [Epigraph on title page].

London: Printed for S. Austen, in Newgate-Street, 1748. 1^st ed. 8vo. 1 vol.

[Image is from Chanticleer Books on Abebooks – for sale for $650 – but alas! no MGK bookplate…]

Update: not listed in 1908; not in Knight Collection according to Grainger essay – but the KC list shows a Holy Bible, 1748 – and why I now feel nuts….

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I have also chosen two works on the history of the Bible, as these two works remain in the Knight Collection and we have images for them:

Thomas Stackhouse. A New History of the Holy Bible, from the Beginning of the World, to the Establishment of Christianity. With Answers to most of the Controverted Questions, Dissertations upon the most remarkable Passages, and a Connection of Profane History all along. To which are added, Notes explaining difficult Texts, rectifying Mis-Translations, and reconciling seeming Contradictions. The whole illustrated with proper Maps and Sculptures. By The Reverend Mr. Thomas Stackhouse, Curate of Finchley, and Author of The Compleat Body of Divinity.

London: Printed for the Author, and sold by T. Payne, at the Crown in Pater-Noster-Row, and the Booksellers in Town and Country, 1733. 4to. 2 vols. (one is missing, so we have a partial Lost Sheep).

This title has the older Thomas Knight bookplate:

Update: this is listed in 1908 as being 2 vols, so the missing volume went missing after 1908.

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J. Hamond. An Historical Narration of the Whole Bible. In Two Parts. The First, treating of the Old Testament, with the various Histories of the Lives, eminent Examples, and glorious Actions of the Patriarchs, Judges, Kings, and Prophets; interspersed with many plain, profitable and pious Instructions and Observations thereupon. The Second, containing an Account of the Life and Travels of Our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles. With a Summary of the of the [sic] Matter, Doctrine Scope, and Divine Authority of all the Canonical Epistles. And an Explanation of several chief Heads in that Mysterious Book of St. John’s Revelation. By J. Hamond, D.D. The Whole being an useful Guide to such as desire to read the Holy Scriptures to their Spiritual Comfort and Advantage. Curiously adorn’d with Proper Cuts, engraven by Mr. John Sturt.

London: Printed for R. Ware, at the Bible and Sun upon Ludgate-Hill, 1749. 8vo. 1 vol.

This title bears the oblong bookplate of Montagu George Knight:

Update: this title is happily found in 1818, 1908, and remains in the Knight Collection!

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Bibles listed in Grainger essay with earlier dates:

7. Leusden, J. and Hooght, E.v.d. (eds.) (1831) Biblia Hebraica, secundum ultimam editionem jos. athiae a Johanna Leusden…ab Everado van der Hoght, V. D. M. Editio nova, recognita, et emendata, a Judah D’Allemand. Londini: Typie excudabat A. Macintosh, 20 Great New Street. Impensis Jacobi Duncan, Paternoster Row. [Accession no. 9478] Inside the front board is the stamp of Adela Portal, and inside the back board the bookplate of her son, Montagu Knight.

Update: not in 1818, in 1908 as “Bible Hebrew, Van de Hooght, London, 1831,” and in Knight Collection.

11. Scott, T. (ed.) (1850) The Holy Bible; containing the Old and new Testaments, according to the authorized version; with explanatory notes, practical observations, and copious marginal references / by the late Rev. Thomas Scott… a new edition, with the authors last corrections and improvements, and eighty-four illustrative maps and engravings. [New edn.] London: Printed for Messrs. Seeleys, Fleet-Street and Hanover-Street; Hatchard and Co., Piccadilly; and Nisbet and Co., Berners-Street. [Accession no. 9473]

Update: in 1908 and in Knight Collection, 6 vols.

15. Girdlestone, C. (ed.) The Old Testament. With a commentary consisting of short lectures for the daily use of families by the Rev. Charles Girdlestone M.A. vicar of Sedgley, Staffordshire (1837). London: Printed for J. G. & F. Rivington. [Accession no. 9477]

16. Girdlestone, C. (ed.) The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. With a commentary consisting of short lectures for the daily use of families by the Rev. Charles Girdlestone M.A. vicar of Sedgley, Staffordshire (1835). London: Printed for J. G. & F. Rivington. [Accession no. 9476]

Both of the Girdlestone testaments contain the bookplate of Montagu Knight.

Update: in 1908 listed as Girdleston’s [sic] Commentary, 1835, no. 21-26. WorldCat has dates on this 6 vol. set from 1833-1842; New Testament was 2 vols; Old Testament 4 vols. – so likely the set now in the Knight Collection.

17. Scott, T. (ed.) (1835) The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, according to the authorized version; with explanatory notes, practical observations, and copious marginal references / by Thomas Scott, Rector of Aston Sandford, Bucks. New edn. with the author’s last corrections and improvements; and with two maps London: Printed for L. B. Seeley and Sons; Hatchard and Son; Baldwin and Cradock; and R. B. Seeley and Burnside. [Accession no. 9474]

Update: there is the 1850 edition (see 11 above) in 1908, not this 1835 ed – need to check dates noted in Grainger’s essay against the 6 volumes.

21. Cranmer, T. (1585) The Holy Byble, conteining the Olde Testament and the New. Authorised and appointed to be read in churches. Imprinted at London: By Christopher Barker, printer to the Queen’s most excellent Maiestie. [Accession no. 8962] contains the bookplate of Montagu Knight.

Update: there is a listing in 1908, “Bible, 1585” – no other info, so possibly this title?

All the other bibles in the Grainger post are not listed in either the 1818 or 1908 catalogues as far as I can tell. There are however a number of other bible titles listed in 1908, and whether it can be determined that any of these actually refer to any titles in the Knight Collection is a detective journey for another day (also need to be at Chawton – wouldn’t that be nice!). Here is a listing of those:

Bible and Prayer Book, 1660.
Bible and Prayer Book, Cambridge, 1663.
New Testament, Latin. Amsterdam 1686 (in Poet’s Cabinet)
New Testament, French. Paris, 1668 ( ” ) – could this be Grainger’s #20?

La Bible qui est toute la Ste. Ecriture du Vieil et du Nouveau Testament autrement L’Ancienne et la Nouvelle Alliance (1678) .Amsterdam: chez la Veuve de Schippers. [Accession no. 9479] Contains Montagu Knight’s bookplate.

New Testament, Latin. London, 1584 ( ” ) – could this be Grainger’s #22??

Il Nvovo Ed Eterno Testamento Di Giesv Christo (1556). Lione: Per Giouanni di Tornes e Guillelmo Gazeio. [Accession no. 9480] Contains the bookplate of Montagu Knight.

Prayer Book with matching Bible. Cambridge, 1582 (or 1682)
Testament, Greek; by Valpy. London, 1831.

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So, just giving you a small taste of what Edward Austen’s library at Godmersham offered the family and visitors in need of a Bible close at hand. We can perhaps picture them all sitting around the fire during Christmas week and reading in the round…

Wishing you all a Festive Holiday Season!

c2019 Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part III

April 28, 2019April 30, 2019 / BookLady Deb / 6 Comments

This is a continuation of recording the diaries of Charles Bridges Knight, son of Edward Knight, and his mentions of the books he is reading in the Godmersham Park Library. We thank Austen scholar Hazel Jones for so graciously sharing her finds with us. It very much brings this library to life as we imagine Charles sitting and reading there, much like his aunt Jane Austen would have done several years before. Some of his diary entries are about the Library itself – fires and warmth (or lack thereof), pictures, outside trees, etc., which brings us vividly back to Austen’s own comments of being there: “Mistress of all I survey…”

You will see that the majority of books he is reading are religious tracts, commentaries, sermons, and such (all but one are by old white men as you will see – I cannot resist the comment…) – Charles was ordained in 1828 and was the curate of West Worldham and later rector of Chawton. One might want to whisper the words of Anne Elliot into his ear (in reverse of her advice to Capt. Benwick): perhaps a little more poetry and literature and a little less didactic prose might be added to his reading diet – it may have also enlivened his sermons!

[I will add this so we do not too hastily align Charles with the idea he is a real-life Mr. Collins, picturing him quoting from Fordyce at every opportunity when in the company of young Ladies. Hazel tells me that Charles was, at the time of these diaries, doing clerical duties at the parish in Molash, a small village in Kent near Godmersham – he was busy at work preparing sermons and offering solace to parishioners, and he often stood in for the Revd. Richard Tylden at Chilham. As we can see from his reading material over these few years, he was certainly diligent in his duties. We will have to wait for Hazel’s book on all of Jane Austen’s nephews to be published (hopefully later this year) for more details – we shall find I think that Charles has a more interesting story than just these lists of religious and philosophical books!]

You can read the previous blog posts here:

A quick review of Charles: Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8^th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

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Listed here are the books in the GPL library that Charles mentions, beginning with his Diary no. 5, dated January 1, 1833 – April 30, 1833. Not all these books were in the 1818 catalogue, often being published after that date – please note where the books are in the 1818 catalogue and are Lost Sheep – we are constantly on the alert for these!

‘January 1 (1833) … not going out much on account of the gout I have plenty of time to read all day. I read in the library until luncheon time, then take a ride, then read in my room till dinner …’

‘Thursday Feby 28 … Rice & I played at Rackets in the Library.’

Ok, now what is “Rackets” being played in the Library?? Defined on Wikipedia as follows:

Rackets court – Eglinton Castle

“Rackets or racquets is an indoor racket sport played in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, United States, and Canada. Historians generally assert that rackets began as an 18th-century pastime in London’s King’s Bench and Fleet debtors prisons. The prisoners modified the game of fives by using tennis rackets to speed up the action. They played against the prison wall, sometimes at a corner to add a sidewall to the game. Rackets then became popular outside the prison, played in alleys behind pubs. It spread to schools, first using school walls, and later with proper four-wall courts being specially constructed for the game. And later, specific indoor courts were built as shown here at Eglinton Castle in 1842.”

The idea of Charles playing against the walls of the library is a tad disconcerting! Would his father approve? Would Jane??

In Diary no. 6 (May – Nov 1833), Hazel tells us: “No mention of books or the library. Mainly hunting and fishing and generally slaughtering anything that moves.”

In Diary no. 8 (Oct 1834 – Oct 1835), we find Charles back at work on his reading:

‘Sunday March 8 … Read some of Hannah More’s correspondence;’ and again on ‘Monday March 9 … I read some of Hannah More’

Hannah More by Henry William Pickersgill, 1821

In the 1818 catalogue, there are three Hannah More (1745-1833) titles:

– Strictures on the modern system of female education. With a view of the principles and conduct prevalent among women of rank and fortune. 9^th ed. By Hannah More. In two volumes. London: Printed for T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, in the Strand, 1799. A Lost Sheep!

– Coelebs in search of a wife. Comprehending Observations on domestic habits and manners, religion and morals. The ninth edition. In two volumes. London: Printed for T. Cadell & W. Davies, in the Strand, 1809. In the Knight Collection, with the less common oblong Montagu George Knight bookplate:

– Florio: A Tale, For Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies: and, The Bas Bleu; or, Conversation: Two Poems. 1^st ed. London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1786. A Lost Sheep!

Hannah More (1745 – 1833) was an English religious writer and philanthropist, a poet and a playwright, and an original member of the BlueStockings. She became more and more evangelical in her writings and campaigned actively against the slave trade.

Dr Syntax with a Blue Stocking Beauty – T. Rowlandson

Austen famously writes of More in a few letters to Cassandra:

You have by no means raised my curiosity after Caleb; – my disinclination for it before was affected, but now it is real; I do not like the Evangelicals. – Of course, I shall be delighted when I read it, like other people- but till I do, I dislike it. [Ltr. 66, 1809]

And in her next letter, Austen speaks on being corrected in the spelling of the title with the added Dipthong [sic]: “I am not at all ashamed about the name of the Novel… the knowledge of the truth does the book no service; – the only merit it could have was in the name of Caleb, which has an honest, unpretending sound; but in Coelebs, there is pedantry & affectation. – Is it written only to Classical Scholars?… [Ltr. 67, 1809]

And Austen later refers to More’ new book Practical Piety published in 1811. [Ltr. 74, 1811]

But Charles refers to More’s “correspondence,’ which I find to be first published in 1835: Memoirs of the life and correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More, by William Roberts, so this may have been added to the library just recently after its publication – OR he refers to another book entirely…

Back to Charles:

‘September 29 Tuesday … I read a chapter in the old & in the new testament as soon as I am dressed, & then some of Taylors holy living … At 1/2 past 8 I go to Henry & read to him the morning psalms, two chapters out of each testament, & some of Sherlock on Death. After breakfast I write a sermon or read for it, or read Burnets own times till between 11 & 12 … I want to read some French too, but have no time, & also Chillingworth, but have no time. I am also reading at odd times Le Bas s life of Wickliffe.’

‘Wednesday Sepr 30 … Began reading George’s Warsaw tour after dinner.’ (Brother George Thomas Knight)

‘Friday Oct 2 … I finished the preface to Bagster’s Bible, & am now going to begin Genesis. It is impossible to look at all the references, & I think it is a good plan to read with some particular object in view.’

So lots here:

– Taylor’s holy living: The only Taylor listed in the catalogue is The Worthy Communicant – but Taylor also published a work titled The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (1650), not found in the catalogue.

William Sherlock.

– Sherlock on Death:

William Sherlock: The 1818 catalogue lists several works by William Sherlock, including his A Practical Discourse concerning Death, published in London in 1751 (it was a very popular work, originally published in 1689). This is A Lost Sheep!

– Burnet’s times must refer to Gilbert Burnet’s Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. Vol. I. From the Restoration of King Charles II. to the Settlement of King William and Queen Mary at the Revolution: To which is prefix’d A Summary Recapitulation of Affairs in Church and State from King James I. to the Restoration in the Year 1660. London, 1724, 1734. Charles mentions reading this a number of times in his diaries – and happily we find this in the Knight Collection, with the older Thomas Knight bookplate:

– Chillingworth refers to Richard Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants (1674) – see Part I for more information.

John Wycliffe at work

– Le Bas Life of Wickliffe is a book dilemma: Charles Webb Le Bas wrote The Life of Wiclif in 1832, not in the catalogue. William Gilpin wrote The Lives of John Wicliff, and the 1766 edition was in the GPL – and alas! A Lost Sheep! – but not the book Charles was reading….

– Bagster’s Bible: Samuel Bagster published his first Polyglot Bible in 1816; his Comprehensive Bible (see the next entry for Oct 3) was first published around 1829. Neither appears in Edward’s 1818 catalogue.

Diary no. 9 (Oct 3, 1835 – Jan 18, 1836)

Charles has a few comments on Bagster’s Bible:

‘Saturday Oct 3d 1835. I got up at 6. Read the first chapter in Genesis in Bagster’s Comprehensive Bible, referring to all the New Testament references, as I had determined, but found so many of them quite nihil ad rem [nothing to the point], only containing fanciful allusions to the text, that I resolved to give it up, and mean in future only to refer to such as relate to passages I don’t understand, or are of any particular interest.’ [So much for Bagster… ‘nothing to the point’ seems awfully harsh!]

‘Sunday Oct 4th … I finished Sherlock on Death to Henry for the 3d time. I wonder how long we shall go on reading it once a year.’ [goodness, this seems depressing!]

‘Thursday Oct 6th … I looked over an old journal to Naples in 1825 – 6, & mended a little my Kissingen journal – It is the fashion now to read these things, & Marianne & At Louisa have begun by George’s last Schwalbach tour …(family journals) … I read some of Burnets times.’ (Many other refs to the latter, including ‘like them very much’.)

‘Sunday Oct 11th … I wrote a list of chapters to be read by the sick, taken from Stonehouse’.

– Sir James Stonhouse (1716–1795) was an English physician and cleric – he published many treatises on religion, one of them Every Man’s Assistant and the Sick Man’s Friend, 1788 – to which Charles might be referring. It is not in the 1818 catalogue.

‘Monday Oct 12th … The Sycamore close to the Library was cut down today: I wish a great many more trees were moved; the house is too much shut in by them.’

‘Tuesday Oct 13 … read a good deal of Burnets’ times. What a disgraceful set of libertines the great men of Charles the 2ds time were! Even the churchmen seem to have had but little religion; as for the way of establishing episcopacy in Scotland, it was quite enough to disgust any reasonable man with the very name, & I should think must have left an impression that has not yet worn away. I sat in the hall and read, as I usually do now, the fire being lighted, & find it very comfortable.’

‘Wednesday Oct 14 … After breakfast I read the thoughts of Pascal for some time. I think them hard, & get on very slow, but like them, they are well argued I think.’

– Blaise Pascal: The only Pascal in the GPL is: Les provinciales ou les lettres ecrites par Louis de Montalte a un provincial de ses amis, et aux RR. PP. Jesuites. By Blaise Pascal. Cologne, 1738. A Lost Sheep!

But Charles is more than likely reading Pascal’s Pensées [Thoughts], incomplete at his death in 1662 and published in 1670. This is not in Edward’s catalogue.

Pascal was a renowned mathematician and Catholic theologian. He invented the first calculator, called the Pascaline, this one on exhibit at the Musee des Arts et Metiers, Paris:

[iamge: By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53246694%5D

‘Monday Oct 19 … began Benson’s Hulsean lectures 1820 for the 2^d time … I saw the pictures hung up again in the library.’

– Christopher Benson, Hulsean lectures for 1820: Twenty discourses preached before the University of Cambridge in the year 1820 – and not in the catalogue.

Alexander the Great

‘Wednesday Oct 21 … I began Pastor William’s s life of Alexander the great for the 2^d or 3^d time, & probably shall not go on long with it.

– The Rev. John Williams’s The life and actions of Alexander the Great was published in 1829. It was not in the 1818 catalogue, but is in the 1908 catalogue of Chawton House library.

[Image: Andrew Dunn at Wikimedia commons ]

‘Thursday Oct 22 … ‘I consulted Hooker & Prideaux about the way of spending the Sabbath & the Jewish synagogues. I should think Echard’s eccles. history must be a useful book.’

– We mentioned Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity in Part I.

There are two works by Humphrey Prideaux in the 1818 catalogue; perhaps this is the one Charles was reading: The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations (1715–17). It is in the Knight Collection:

– Echard’s eccles. History is clearly this:

Laurence Echard. A General Ecclesiastical History from the Nativity of our Blessed Saviour to The First Establishment of Christianity By Humane Laws, Under the Emperour Constantine the Great. Containing the Space of about 313 Years. With so much of the Jewish and Roman History as is Necessary and Convenient to illustrate the Work. To which is added, A Large Chronological Table of all the Roman and Ecclesiastical Affairs, included in the same Period of TIme. By Laurence Echard, A. M. Prebendary of Lincoln, and Chaplain to the Right Reverend James, Lord Bishop of that Diocese. London, 1702.

This work is listed in the 1818 catalogue and is in the Knight Collection, with the older Thomas Knight bookplate and this interesting cover: this Elizabeth Knight is the original cousin with the Knight name which was taken by Thomas Brodnax May in order to inherit the estate in Chawton. It was his son Thomas who adopted Jane Austen’s brother. For a full understanding of all these names see Chawton Manor and Its Owners; A Family History, by William Austen-Leigh and Montagu George Knight.

There are two other titles by Echard in the catalogue and both are extant in the Knight Collection.

*****

‘Friday Oct 23 … Marked some texts on the Sabbath & looked in Bishop of Bristol’s Ch. history about it.’ – which must refer to:

Robert Gray: The Connection between the Sacred Writings and the Literature of Jewish and Heathen Authors, particularly that of the Classical Ages, Illustrated, principally with a view to evidence in confirmation of the truth of Revealed Religion. By Robert Gray, D. D. Prebendary of Durham and of Chichester, and Rector of Bishop Wearmouth. [Later the Bishop of Bristol], published in London in 1816 – in the 1818 catalogue and A Lost Sheep! You can read the 2^nd edition here: https://archive.org/details/connectionsacred01grayuoft/page/n5

‘Sunday Oct 25th … after dinner dipped into White’s Selborne – but it is impossible to read in a party, & if one goes into one’s own room, it ends always in a nap.’

– Charles is Funny! (who knew!) – he is here talking about Gilbert White’s The natural history and antiquities of Selborne, in the county of Southampton: with engravings, and an appendix. London, 1789 – This 1^st edition is in the catalogue and A Lost Sheep!

Gilbert White House

Austen would have been familiar with White, his work and his home – it was not far from her in Steventon and later Chawton. You can visit his house and gardens here. (Gilbert White died in 1793 and left his home to his nephew John White).

[Austen mentions Selborne a few times in her letters – this one dated May 31, 1811 (Ltr. 74 to her sister) speaks of Anna [Lefroy, her niece] going to visit Selborne on the Tuesday: “Poor Anna is also suffering from her cold which is worse today, but as she has no sore throat I hope it may spend itself by Tuesday … She desires her best love to Fanny, & will answer her letter before she leaves Chawton, & engages to send her a particular account of the Selbourn [sic] day.”]

‘Saturday Oct 30th … Read to Henry – a sermon of Porteous.’

– Charles unfortunately doesn’t tell us which sermon, but this is the book: Sermons on Several Subjects. By the Right Reverend Beilby Porteus, D. D. Bishop of Chester. By Porteus, Beilby. London, 1783, 1794 – is in the GPL catalogue and is still in the Knight Collection.

Beilby Porteus (1731 – 1809) was a chaplain to King George III, and the Bishop of Chester and later Bishop of London – he is mostly known for being at the forefront of the abolitionist movement.

‘Sunday Nov 1st … We began the Apocrypha a day or two ago, & read 3 or 4 chapters of the 1st book of Esdras – we have skipped the rest & today began the 2d book.’

Wednesday Nov 4th … I read Blanco White’s Evidence agst catholicism till dinner time.’

– Joseph Blanco White. Practical and Internal Evidence Against Catholicism, With Occasional Strictures on Mr. Butler’s Book of the Roman Catholic Church; In Six Letters. Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. Joseph Blanco White, 1825 – this is not in the 1818 catalogue.

‘Thursday Nov 5th … read 2 of Horsley’s sermons on the coming of our Saviour.’

‘Saturday Nov 7th … finished Horsley’s sermons on the Sabbath, read one of Sharp‘s on the same subject.’

Samuel Horsley

Charles could be referring to:

– Samuel Horsley. Letters from the Archdeacon of Saint Albans, in reply to Dr. Priestley. With an appendix, containing Short Strictures on Dr. Priestley’s Letters by an unknown Hand. London, 1784. – which is in the 1818 catalogue and remains in the Knight Collection. But Horsley, the Bishop of Rochester, wrote a number of tracts, sermons, and treatises, and Charles may have been reading a different book…

– Sharp? – there is a Samuel Sharp in the catalogue (and in the Knight Collection): Letters from Italy, describing the Customs and Manners of that Country, In the Years 1765, and 1766. To which is Annexed, An Admonition to Gentlemen who pass the Alps, in their Tour through Italy. By Samuel Sharp, Esq. The Third Edition. London, 1767 – but this is unlikely the book with a sermon on the Sabbath…

‘Monday Nov 9th … began Sumner’s sermons on Ctian faith & practice for the 2d time … after dinner I dipped into Pope’s essay on man which is always lying about – it is a very fine piece I think. I am overwhelmed with books just now, that I am reading or want to read – this happens now & then, & on the other hand I am sometimes at a loss what to read. This comes I think of not having a regular course of reading marked out.’ [Note from Hazel: Mr. Knightley needs a word].

– Nothing by Sumner in the 1818 catalogue, but I do find this in searching: A series of sermons on the Christian faith and character, by John Bird Sumner. London, 1823. There are also a number of other Sumner titles extant in the Knight Collection

– Alexander Pope. The Works of Alexander Pope Esq. In Nine Volumes Complete. London, 1751. We can assume this set of nine volumes was what was “always lying about” the GP Library… It is in the catalogue and is extant in the Knight Collection.

‘Wednesday Nov 11th … I read Jebb & Knox before dinner.’

– Jebb and Knox must refer to the Thirty years’ correspondence between John Jebb and Alexander Knox, published in 1834 (compiled by James Forster). Both John Jebb and Alexander Knox were Irish theologians and writers, and mostly known today for this collection of their letters. It is not in the 1818 catalogue.

[Peter Sabor, the creator of the Reading with Austen website, and also a Frances Burney scholar and Director of the Burney Centre at McGill, tells me that Burney had an interesting connection with this very same duo Jebb and Knox: the elderly Mme d’Arblay (Burney) met John Jebb, corresponded with him, and gave him a copy of her Memoirs of Doctor Burney. Jebb appears both in the final volumes of Journals and Letters of Mme d’Arblay, ed. Joyce Hemlow, and in Sabor’s own Additional Journals and Letters of Frances Burney, vol. II, that published last year. I will find these citations and do another post on Burney – she is after all also in the GPL 1818 catalogue – only The Wanderer however, which is interesting in itself – we know that Austen not only read and admired Burney, she also was a subscriber to her Camilla, along with Edward’s adoptive mother Catherine Knight].

[But I digress… see how one thing leads to another?? how in one post there are the seeds for at least 20 more…]

‘Friday Nov 13 … The stove that was in the Billiard room is moved into the library, & was lighted today for the first time: I think it will give more heat than the other did, but is not half enough to warm so large a room with so many outside walls windows & draughts of air.’

[In a letter dated September 23-24, 1813 [Ltr. 89], Austen is visiting Godmersham and she writes Cassandra: “We live in the Library except at Meals & have a fire every Eveng.”]

‘Saturday Nov 14 … read part of Knox’s letter on preaching … I read some of Pope’s essay on Man, & some of a book on the antiquity of the Irish nation, proving that a great grandson of Jephet called Partholan was the first known invader of it …’ [Hazel: This book belongs to Lord George Hill].

The earliest surviving reference to Partholón is in the Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century British-Latin compilation attributed to Nennius. Partholon was the first colonist of Ireland by way of Greece. He is now considered just a character in medieval Irish Christian pseudo-history, probably an invention of the Christian writers.

One wonders what book Charles was getting his information from – there is a book on the history of Ireland in the catalogue, but alas! don’t know if this is what Charles is reading:

John O’Driscol. The History of Ireland. 2 vols. London, 1827. There is a chapter on “Ancient State of Ireland” – but a quick search does not bring up anything on Partholon … We care about this title however, because it is A Lost Sheep!

‘Monday December 28 … read one of Wartons Deathbed scenes, which I liked very much …’

– Warton, John. Death-bed scenes and pastoral conversations. London: John Murray, 1830.

This is exciting to see referenced in Charles’s diaries because this was found and returned to Chawton by our famed GLOSS book detectives! – and although it is not in the 1818 catalogue, it is in the 1908 Chawton catalogue and has the Montagu George Knight bookplate.

‘Wednesday Dec 30 … We are reading Scougal’s Life of God in the soul of man, & like it.’) … (‘One of the best books I ever read’ he reports on completing Scougal). I read a little of Stanley on birds in the evening.’

– Henry Scougal. The Life of God in the Soul of Man: or, the Nature and Excellency of the Christian Religion. With Nine other Discourses on important Subjects. By Henry Scougal, A. M. and S. T. P. The Second Edition. To which is Added, A Sermon Preached at his Funeral, by G. G. D. D. London, 1735.

You can read more on Scougal and a summary of his book here. This is in the GPL catalogue and in the Knight Collection: and lots of writing in these volumes – done by Charles?? one can wonder! (Love this “Amen!!!)

Stanley on birds must refer to Edward Stanley’s A Familiar History of Birds: Their Nature, Habits, and Instincts. First published in 1835, this is not in the catalogue and may have been Charles’s own personal copy.

I’ll finish with these two last jottings in Charles’s Diary no. 9:

‘Jany 2d (1836) I read some of D Israelis curiosities of literature before dinner.’

– Isaac D’Israeli. Curiosities of literature. 7th ed, corrected. In five volumes. London: John Murray, 1823. Vols. 3-5 are in the Knight Collection (not yet on the RwA website).

Finally a little lighter reading for Charles! The “Curiosities” is a collection of anecdotes about historical persons and events, unusual books, and the habits of book-collectors. It was very popular and remained in print through many editions. D’Israeli’s other claim to fame is that he was the father of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

‘Jany 10 … contrived to spin out my toilet with a little of Nelson’s devotions till 9 our breakfast hour.’

– Nelson, Robert. The Practice of True Devotion, In Relation to the End, as well as the Means of Religion; With an Office for the Holy Communion. By Robert Nelson, Esqr; 14^th ed. To which is added The Character of the Author. London, 1758.

This is in the 1818 catalogue but is not in the collection, so we end with A Lost Sheep!

*****

More to come with Charles’s Diaries … another long list, so stay tuned. And with many thanks again to Hazel Jones for all these library references.

c2019 Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part II

April 10, 2019April 12, 2019 / BookLady Deb / 5 Comments

To continue where we left off in the last post on the reading of Charles Bridges Knight, I repeat here the introduction for the background:

The Reading with Austen website focuses on the contents of the Godmersham Park library as noted in the 1818 catalogue of the collection. We know that Jane Austen read and rested in this library because her letters tell us so, and the RwA website has brought this long-ago library back to colorful life. So it is so very interesting a treasure to stumble upon other mentions of this library. The scholar Hazel Jones [HJ]* has been very generous in sharing her research into the diaries of Austen’s nephew Charles Bridges Austen (later Knight), who also spent time in this very library. Ms. Jones is writing a book on Edward Austen Knight’s sons, and in reading (and transcribing) Charles Bridge’s diaries (which are housed at Jane Austen’s House Museum ), she finds numerous references to his titles he is reading in the library.

Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8^th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

****

Here are the books in the library that Charles mentions, continuing in his dairy marked number 2. As noted before, not all these books were in the 1818 catalogue, often being published after that date, and therefore not part of the RwA project. But I list them just the same, as it shows the continuing depth and use of the library in succeeding years, as well as Charles’s reading habits and often humorous commentary. We must also consider that Charles had his own copies of books and why they do not appear in either the 1818 or 1908 catalogues.

Basil Hall. Travels in America, 1829, etc..

Tuesday March 6. … Read Captn Hall’s memoirs of his early life & thought it very entertaining & instructive. A very good present for a young mind or any youngster just beginning life. He says it is a difficult thing to write a good journal which is very true. People are too apt to write down mere matters of fact such as the height of a mountain the proportions of a temple the beauty of a climate, all which things remain the same, whilst they say nothing of their prevailing feelings and particular trains of thought & pursuit.’

Basil Hall has a few publications, all in the 1818 catalogue (though some are dated after 1818):

Hall. Travels – RwA

Travels in North America in the years 1827 and 1828. By Captain Basil Hall, Royal Navy. In three volumes. Second Edition. Edinburgh: 1830. In the Knight Collection
Extracts from a journal, written on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, in the years 1820, 1821, 1822. By Captain Basil Hall, Royal Navy, author of a voyage to Loo Choo. In two volumes. Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh; and Hurst, Robinson, and Co. London, 1824. In the Knight Collection

Saturday March 10. … Finish’d Hall’s fragments & like them much.’ – must refer to this:

Fragments of Voyages and Travels, including anecdotes of a naval life: chiefly for the use of young persons. By Captain Basil Hall, R.N. F.R.S. In Three Volumes., Edinburgh; Whittaker, Treacher, & Co. London, 1831. A Lost Sheep!
Fragments of Voyages and Travels. By Captain Basil Hall, R.N. F.R.S. Second Series. In Three Volumes. Robert Cadell, Edinburgh; Whittaker, Treacher, & Co. London, 1832. A Lost Sheep!

Basil Hall – wikipedia

A side note: Capt. Basil Hall was on the HMS Endymion, as was Jane Austen’s brother Charles Austen – one wonders if they were ever on the ship at the same time, as their dates do coincide! [I shall look into this further…]

*****

Frances Milton Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans 1832.

Frances Trollope

‘Saturday April 28. … George & I are anxious to go to America since reading Mrs Trollope & Capn Hall, but my father will not stand the money.’ (Ibid.)

Trollope’s very successful (and very controversial – she was not overly kind to the budding country, nor was Capt. Hall) Domestic Manners is not in the 1818 catalogue nor do I see it in the 1908 – the most interesting bit here is that Edward Austen would not send his son off to America… and also that the book was in the Godmersham library shortly after it was published in order for Charles to read it before his April 28 journal entry.

*****

‘Tuesday. July 10. … I have spent the time generally in reading making sermons till breakfast, and have been out mostly the rest of the day, but most times have sat & read in the library a little sometimes an hour or more before luncheon. My studies have been chiefly sermonizing, Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity book 5 about preaching, Chillingworth’s and a book about altering many things in the Church of England, written I think about 1740, or rather earlier; some parts seem good, but much carried too far.’

6. Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity:

The Works Of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker, in Eight Books of Ecclesiastical Polity, Compleated out of his own Manuscripts. Printed for Robert Scot, Thomas Basset, John Wright and Richard Chiswel, 1682. In the Knight Collection

What is interesting in this copy is that the Montagu George Knight bookplate is the least commonly seen:

Hooker – MGK bookplate

a larger close-up view: this bookplate was the first one done by Charles Sherborn in 1900

7. Chillingworth, Richard: The Religion of Protestants (1674)

by; after Francis Kyte; Unknown artist. print,c1724 – wikipedia

The Religion of Protestants A Safeway to Salvation. Or, An Answer to a Book Entituled Mercy and Truth, or, Charity maintain’d by Catholiques: Which pretends to prove the Contrary. TO which is Added The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy. As also, IX. Sermons, The First Preached before His Majesty King Charles the First, the other Eight upon special and eminent Occasions. By William Chillingworth Master of Arts of the University of Oxford. The Fourth Edition. Printed by Andrew Clark, for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-yard, 1674. In the Knight Collection

******

8. Ross Cox. Adventures on the Columbia River (1831)

‘Saturday (11 August omitted). Tired. I read on the library sofa Ross Con (?).’

and later on Monday August 13^th Charles writes in the beginning of his Diary number 3:

‘Monday August 13th … read & finished Ross Cox’.

This title was initially indecipherable, but further sleuthing on Ms. Jones’s part tuned up a second reference to Ross Cox, so we know Charles was referring to Cox’s Adventures on the Columbia River (Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, London, 1831).

According to Wikipedia, Cox’s Adventures is one of the most important documents relating to the later history of the North West Company. Several geographic features in Canada, including Ross Cox Creek and Mount Ross Cox are named after him.

Not in the Knight Collection or in the 1818 catalogue, so not officially a Lost Sheep.

*****

We are now into his Diary number 3, dated from August 13, 1832 – December 18, 1832.

9. George Montagu, Ornithological Dictionary (1802).

‘Thursday Sepr 29 …[‘ checks on the identity of a wagtail in ‘Montague’s Ornithological Dictionary.’]

Here the reference is to George Montagu, Ornithological Dictionary, or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds. London: 1802. This work is not in the 1818 catalogue or in the Knight Collection…

10. ‘Monday Ocr 8 … I read in the morning before breakfast, & for an hour or more afterwards. Hooker is a great book.’

[referring again to Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity – see above]

11. George Nugent. Memorials of John Hampden (1832)

‘Friday Oct 26 … I began to read L—Nugents Memoirs of Hampden.’

The reference here is to [Lord] George Nugent’s Memorials of John Hampden (1832), not in the 1818 catalogue or in the Knight Collection.

12. ‘Wednesday Decr 12 … I generally read in the library as soon as I am drest.’ (A comment on his winter regime.)

**********

Charles Knight’s grave – St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton

Stay tuned for more references of Charles Bridges Austen’s reading habits. I do think it worth noting that along with his interest in the Church and its laws and traditions, he obviously has a love of travel and adventure – a shame he never came to America to explore on his own.

And thank you Hazel for sending all these diary entries to me and to Peter Sabor with help identifying some of the books.

Hazel Jones is the author of Jane Austen & Marriage (Bloomsbury Continuum 2009, Uppercross Press 2017), Celebrating Pride & Prejudice (co-authored with Maggie Lane, Lansdown 2012), Jane Austen’s Journeys (Hale 2014) and is currently writing a book on Jane Austen’s Knight nephews. She was a tutor in the Department of Lifelong Learning at Exeter University until 2005 and continues to teach residential courses on aspects of Jane Austen’s writing, life and times. She is the membership secretary and a co-founder of the UK Jane Austen Society, South West Branch.

**Winchester College, a boarding school for boys founded in 1382, had 70 scholars and 16 “Quiristers” (choristers). The statutes provided for ten “noble Commoners,” paying guests of the Headmaster, and later had up to 130 such boarders [Wikipedia].

Sources:
1. Austen, Jane. Jane Austen’s Letters. 4^th ed. Ed. Deirdre Le Faye. Oxford, 2011.
2. Find a Grave (information by Brodnax Moore): https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/108100107/charles-bridges-knight
3. Reading with Austen website: http://www.readingwithausten.com/index.html

c2019, Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part I

March 19, 2019April 12, 2019 / BookLady Deb / 6 Comments

Godmersham Park, 1826

The Reading with Austen website focuses on the contents of the Godmersham Park library as noted in the 1818 catalogue of the collection. We know that Jane Austen read and rested in this library because her letters tell us so, and the RwA website has brought this long-ago library back to colorful life. So it is a very interesting treasure to stumble upon other mentions of this library. The scholar Hazel Jones [HJ]* has been very generous in sharing her research into the diaries of Austen’s nephew Charles Bridges Austen (later Knight), who also spent time in this very library. Ms. Jones is writing a book on Edward Austen Knight’s sons, and in reading (and transcribing) Charles Bridge’s diaries (which are housed at Jane Austen’s House Museum ), she finds numerous references to the titles he is reading.

Charles-Bridges Knight

Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8^th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

***

Listed here are the books in the library that Charles mentions, beginning with his diary entry for February 17, 1832. Not all these books were in the 1818 catalogue, often being published after that date, and therefore not part of the RwA project. But I list them just the same, as it shows the continuing depth and use of the library in succeeding years, as well as Charles’s reading habits and often humorous commentary. We must also consider that Charles had his own copies of books and why they do not appear in either the 1818 or 1908 catalogues.

Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia libri tres:

Friday Feby. 17. … In the morning I examined the Greenfinch. It differed from Willoughby’s (Charles’ spelling) description in having no white on the belly but all greenish yellow, inclining to white just by the vent. Its four outmost tail feathers on each side were black about a third from the top yellow below, the underside the same only the colours more dusky. Examined the wind[jammer?] or Kestrel, but not much for the feathers round the mouth were covered over with little insects, not distinguishable but thro’ a microscope. Less than Willughby’s — ‘ (CHWJA:JAH409.1) (Diary marked number 2, January 22, 1832 – August 10, 1832)

[HJ notes: Charles was a keen amateur naturalist and often shot small birds and mammals, as well as game, in order to dissect them and record his findings.]

The book is a Lost Sheep:

Willughby, Francis. The Ornithology of Francis Willughby of Middleton in the County of Warwick Esq; Fellow of the Royal Society. In Three Books. Wherein All the Birds Hitherto Known, Being reduced into a Method sutable [sic] to their Natures, are accurately described. The Descriptions illustrated by most Elegant Figures, nearly resembling the live Birds, Engraven in LCCVIII Copper Plates. Translated into English, and enlarged with many Additions throughout the whole Work: To which are added, Three Considerable Discourses, I. Of the Art of Fowling: With a Description of several Nets in two large Copper Plates. II. Of the Ordering of Singing Birds. III. Of Falconry. By John Ray, Fellow of the Royal Society. [Epigraph on title page]. London: Printed by A.C. for John Martyn, Printer to the Royal Society, at the Bell in St. Pauls Church-Yard, 1678.

***
2. ‘Butler’s Analogy Sermon on the creed’ etc:

Sunday March 11. My birthday 29 years old. I ought to make better use of my time, & hope to spend this year more profitably than the preceding … I should like to get up at six dress & read the Bible till 1/2 past 7, then sermonize for two hours every other day, on the alternate days read Butler’s Analogy Sermon on the creed or some other doctrinal work. From ten till 1/2 past 11 Horace’s satires or some other classic, alternate days some scripture history; till past one natural history. Before bed time read a sermon or some practical work of divinity. Any intermediate time reviews or some other modern light reading. Then the history of England & modern Geography in which I am sadly deficient ought to come in … I read part of Barrow’s sermon on the Gunpowder Treason. (Ibid.)

[HJ notes: He is distracted from this very worthy list by a flock of birds in the high trees at the end of the lawn. What a pity he does not specify which room he is occupying.]

The book is in the Knight Collection with the Thomas Knight bookplate.

Butler, Joseph. The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. To which are added Two brief Dissertations: I. Of Personal Identity. II. Of the Nature of Virtue. By Joseph Butler, LL. D. Rector of Stanhope, in the Bishoprick of Durham. [Epigraph on title page]. London: Printed for James, John and Paul Knapton, at the Crown in Ludgate Street, 1736.

***

Horace’s satires are is also in the 1818 library collection and so Charles may have continued with his consciously-plotted daily plan of study. The “Satires” are part of a 4-volume edition of the works of Horace:

A Poetical Translation of the Works of Horace: with the Original Text, and Critical Notes collected from his best Latin and French Commentators. By the Revd Mr. Philip Francis, Rector of Skeyton in Norfolk. In Four Volumes. The Fourth Edition, Revised and Corrected. London: Printed for A. Millar, at Buchanan’s Head, opposite to Katharine-Street, in the Strand, 1750.

These volumes all contain Thomas Knight’s signature but have the MGK armorial bookplate – they are extant in the Knight Collection.

[My note: the reference to “Barrow’s sermon on the Gunpowder Treason” brings nothing up in the collection. There is a John Barrow, The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H. M. S. Bounty (1831) in the catalogue, but nothing re: the Gunpowder plot. A search finds a Thomas Wilson, A Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason from 1679, but this is not in the 1818 catalogue. Perhaps Charles was confusing two books he was reading about English history…]

***

Chesterfield’s Letters:

April 11. … I have lately been reading Chesterfield’s letters. I think they contain very good rules for good manners, such as must be good for every one who would follow them, that is the spirit of them generally, but there is a great want of warmth, in fact no feeling in them: they are written by a cold hearted man of the world, who would make his son very polished graceful & genteel, very learned, and rather moral, whether religious or no he does not seem to care. He would recommend him to court [someone’s?] acquaintance because he is rich and likely to be of consequence.'(Ibid.)

The book is in the Knight Collection; it has the less-common MGK oblong bookplate:

Chesterfield, by William Hoare

Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of (1694-1773). Letters written by the late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to his son, Philip Stanhope, Esq; Late Envoy Extraordinary at the court of Dresden: together with several other pieces on various subjects. Published by Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope, from the originals in her possession. In four volumes. The second edition. London: Printed for J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, 1774.

***

Stay tuned for Part II as we continue with Charles’s reading … Thank you Hazel for sharing these with us!

***

*Hazel Jones is the author of Jane Austen & Marriage (Bloomsbury Continuum 2009, Uppercross Press 2017), Celebrating Pride & Prejudice (co-authored with Maggie Lane, Lansdown 2012), Jane Austen’s Journeys (Hale 2014) and is currently writing a book on Jane Austen’s Knight nephews. She was a tutor in the Department of Lifelong Learning at Exeter University until 2005 and continues to teach residential courses on aspects of Jane Austen’s writing, life and times. She is the membership secretary and a co-founder of the UK Jane Austen Society, South West Branch.

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“We are just beginning to be engaged in another Christmas Duty, & next to eating Turkies, a very pleasant one, laying out Edward’s money for the Poor; & the Sum that passes through our hands this year is considerable, as Mrs. Knight left £20 to the Parish.”

Wishing you all a Festive Holiday Season!

c2019 Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part III

c2019 Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part II

Saturday March 10. … Finish’d Hall’s fragments & like them much.’ – must refer to this:

‘Saturday April 28. … George & I are anxious to go to America since reading Mrs Trollope & Capn Hall, but my father will not stand the money.’ (Ibid.)

‘Saturday (11 August omitted). Tired. I read on the library sofa Ross Con (?).’

‘Monday August 13th … read & finished Ross Cox’.

c2019, Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part I

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©2020 Reading with Austen Blog

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c2020 Reading with Austen Blog

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“We are just beginning to be engaged in another Christmas Duty, & next to eating Turkies, a very pleasant one, laying out Edward’s money for the Poor; & the Sum that passes through our hands this year is considerable, as Mrs. Knight left £20 to the Parish.”

Wishing you all a Festive Holiday Season!

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Saturday March 10. … Finish’d Hall’s fragments & like them much.’ – must refer to this:

‘Saturday April 28. … George & I are anxious to go to America since reading Mrs Trollope & Capn Hall, but my father will not stand the money.’ (Ibid.)

‘Saturday (11 August omitted). Tired. I read on the library sofa Ross Con (?).’

‘Monday August 13th … read & finished Ross Cox’.

c2019, Reading with Austen blog

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