Jane Austen discussion
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what should i read
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Beth-In-UK
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Jan 01, 2021 10:56AM
(Just to mention in passing that I'm writing this as I'm watching back to back reruns of the Colin Firth P and P on UK TV. Such a joy!!!)
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Watching P and P again, the scenes at Pemberley, shows just how many staff Darcy had - it's almost, for a house that size, as if he owned a business company, I suppose, and they were all the employees that ran it for him.I wonder what the actual numbers of 'house' staff were (I mean, not tenants on the farms, but those who did all the work at the great house and in the grounds)? Presumably a good few dozen at least? I wonder how it scaled? As in, did it scale to the number of bedrooms, or the size of the grounds, or what?
Mary - yes, Emma is quite scathing, isn't she, about how so many older unmarried women (like poor Miss Bates) are so, so often poor as well....I wonder how she'd have fared if her father had remarried (I always thought it would be nice if he'd married Miss Bates! eg, after old Mrs Bates had died, and Emma and Mr Knightley had finally removed to Donwell Abbey), and then had had a son? Even if provision had still been made for Emma and her sister, it would have been considerably less if more children, especially boys, had appeared on the scene. Emma and Isabella might have ended up as Elinor and Marianne.....not a comfortable outcome.
Isabel - that John Mullan book is brilliant! I just love the way it takes 'themes' or 'issues' and then discusses them across all the novels.
Highly recommended for all Janeites. :) :)
Re: entailed estates. No, they could not be mortgaged because the person living there (Mr. Bennet in P&P) is really a tenant for life, not the owner. The entail might also stipulate how the and could be used (whether timber could be sold, and so forth.)As for Wentworth's apprehension that he was considered an engaged man, this would be a problem because if a man broke off an engagement, he could be sued for breach. Technically, a woman could be, too, though it was not the norm because a man's proposal raised expectations of the woman's future financial security and it was he who initiated the offer. An engagement was considered a binding contract, i.e., offer and acceptance - which was why Edward Ferrars in S&S was in such a bind after he rashly proposed to Lucy, who finally let him off the hook when she married his brother.
Shana wrote: "Isabel wrote: "Concerning the matter of money, I read in John Mullan's "What Matters in Jane Austen?" (How Much Money is Enough, ch. 13) that around Jane Austen's time you needed an annual income o..."Not boring at all. Like you, I want to be able to compare life back then (or any other period) to something I can gauge, so to speak
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Shana, does that estimable book on Household Economy go into the finances of renting versus owning the property you lived in? If you owned the house, were there local taxes (the current rates/counc..."Well, I am having fun digging into my basket of research materials today!
Real estate is a tough topic. Not only am I American (and we have a much greater percentage of people here who own rather than rent than exists in the UK), but I'm a landlord for rental properties I own with my husband. And I've found that the concept of property ownership doesn't translate well between our two cultures. Even though the Queen "gave" Harry Frogmore Cottage, trust me, his name is nowhere on the deed! He gets to use the house, he gets to pay for the remodeling, lol, but he cannot sell or bequeath that property. And in America, selling or bequeathing to whomever you want to leave the property to (forget entails), is a BIG part of the concept of ownership.
So take my comments with a grain of salt, please.
First, back to annual incomes. I've read that curates made about 50 pounds a year and would live without a servant. The booklet referenced by Susanna Ives has the following info (by income level) all for the same five person family:
55 pounds a year, no servants, annual rent = 2 shillings 9 denarius
78 L/year, no servants, annual rent = 3 shillings 6 denarius
150 L/year, 1 part time maid-servant, annual rent = 15 pounds
The part time maid-servant earned 3 pounds per year (!) and presumably had at least one other job, or possibly more.
200 L/year, 1 full time maid-servant, annual rent = 20 pounds
The full time maid servant earned 9 L, 10 S a year; and the maid would have had free room and possibly board. So perhaps her the total value of her compensation was 30 pounds??
So there's no perfect dividing line between being a servant and then having a servant. There are so many other expenses to pay, that your income must far surpass a maid-servant's wages before you can hire one. 150L means you can hire a maid-servant part time. And 200L a year allows for you to hire one full time maid-servant.
Susanna Ives also has an article she wrote on Feb 7, 2012 on her website which I will save for another post. Rent could include the local taxes, but it had to be spelled out in the lease. Subletting happened all the time. House were divided into multiple units. You could rent a room (or two) and still not have access to the house's kitchen. Etc, etc.
www.wattpad.com has a very interesting posting called "Great Reading in the Regency" which talks about property values and how property can be purchased. In the Regency you could purchase a house in-town without purchasing the land underneath. You would rent the land from the owner. As an American investor in real estate, that idea makes me queasy! What's the point of buying the house if you still have to pay rent to a landlord? Like I said before, there's a cultural gap here! But the post is great because it relates the price of purchase with the rental rate. "The standard method of calculating what a house was worth was to find the amount it would cost someone to rent for a year and then multiply that by a set number of years known as the Years Purchase. The years purchase averaged around twenty years during the first half of the Regency." More desirable houses could sell for 30, 40, even 80 years purchase, but 20 was the average. This was just for the house. The land had to be valued separately using the same methodology and the same average of 20 years purchase.
So an estate with an income of 4,000 L a year, at 20 years purchase, would be worth 80,000 L. The house on the land which let's say could be rented for 800 L a year, at 20 years purchase, would be worth 16,000 L. This makes the total valuation of the land and the house together 96,000 L. These numbers are from the article, they are not mine. So I'm assuming a house that rents for 800 L/year would be normal on an estate that had an income of 4,000 L a year. Longbourn in P&P would have half this valuation, which is interesting. And renting Longbourn (just the house) would cost 400 L/year. They never divulged the rent rate for Kellynch in Persuasion.
I've looked for real estate information for a few years and this is the best I've found.
A writer discussing poverty in London used hiring servants as the dividing line between the poor -- and the very poor. Poor people might hire children or the elderly, but they used servants because there were NO appliances.
Mary wrote: "A writer discussing poverty in London used hiring servants as the dividing line between the poor -- and the very poor. Poor people might hire children or the elderly, but they used servants because..."Mary,
That line is such a poignant reminder of the stark realities of the Regency. I can almost hear Jane Austen saying something to that effect, as she would only consider the economics of having or not having servants. Though her family's income was very constrained after her father passed, her upbringing was far too genteel to consider a situation where she would have to support herself by BEING a servant. I think that is why her writings focus so little on the actual lives the servants lived. These people did function as modern day appliances, just as you say, and surely did have hopes and dreams for improving their lives, but that is never explored by Austen.
Isabel wrote: "Shana wrote: "Isabel wrote: "Concerning the matter of money, I read in John Mullan's "What Matters in Jane Austen?" (How Much Money is Enough, ch. 13) that around Jane Austen's time you needed an a..."Isabel,
I just bought the kindle version of Mullan's book! Thank you for mentioning it, and thanks to Beth-in-UK for endorsing it. This book is interesting! I'm only through three chapters, but he really digs into each concept, like sisters sharing rooms (by necessity or preference) and how it illustrates their intimacy as friends or even rivals. I can't wait to read more!
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Isabel - that John Mullan book is brilliant! I just love the way it takes 'themes' or 'issues' and then discusses them across all the novels.
Highly recommended for all Janeites. :) :)"
I absolutely agree with you. In fact, I got the recommendation for the book from this very group, I think. It might even have been your very own recommendation if you've recommended it before? It' really a good, informative book.
Shana wrote: "Isabel wrote: "Shana wrote: "Isabel wrote: "Concerning the matter of money, I read in John Mullan's "What Matters in Jane Austen?" (How Much Money is Enough, ch. 13) that around Jane Austen's time ..."I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. :)
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Watching P and P again, the scenes at Pemberley, shows just how many staff Darcy had - it's almost, for a house that size, as if he owned a business company, I suppose, and they were all the employ..."Hi Beth,
My quick reference excerpt will answer your question for Mr. Bingley. This 1823 excerpt only goes up to 5000 L and is for a family of five who are renting their house. Apparently they have enough grounds to require a gardener, a second gardener, and an assistant gardener. So this pretty well describes the situation at Netherfield, though Bingley is feeding a household of four adults, not a couple with 3 children.
The 5000 L income is expected to have 13 male servants, 9 female servants, 10 horses, a Coach, a Curricle, and a Tillbury Chaise or Gig. The rent being paid by the gentleman is expected to be 600 L a year. And our gentleman is still expected to save 500 L a year as well.
This isn't Pemberley of course. This very detailed breakdown has all the household expenses (sugar, tea, milk, butcher's meat, fish, beer, coal, soap, medical expenses, clothing, etc, etc.) but of course it will not include the costs associated with running farms, harvesting timber, mining minerals, paying a steward; all of which Mr. Darcy, as the owner, would have to deal with in generating his 10,000 L. He truly did run a company, as you say!
I've always thought that though Mr. Darcy had a more serious nature than Mr. Bingley, part of the difference in their manner could be explained by the difference in responsibilities that the two men shouldered.
Gosh, lots and lots of fascinating posts here filled with meaty substance to digest!On just a couple of points...
The whole issue of 'land ownership/property ownership' is very tricky. In the UK we now more or less have two types - one is freehold, the other is leasehold.
Freehold implies you own the land on which your property sits, ie, you own the land 'underneath' the house itself. (You may not own the mineral rights, or the land 'deep' underneath - which is why horizontal fracking, withdrawing shale oil from underneath your house is SO controversial here! - and you may not own the 'air' above the house - eg, planes will be allowed to fly over....hopefully, though, not drones!....but not sure on that).
Freehold ownership is what 'most' people want and get when they buy a house, ie, a property that 'touches the ground it sits on'.
However, leasehold is common for apartments, where you own a horizontal 'slice' of a property. In that case you don't own the ground the property sits on (unless you have also bought a share of the freehold - usually a percentage of the number of apartments, eg, four leasehold apartments, and each owner of an apartment owns 25% of the freehold),
You can buy a leasehold house (ie, one that touches the ground it sits on), and a lot of new developers try this on - ie, that new buyers buy a newbuild house but the developer retains freehold ownership of the land it's built on. It's controversial, as houses usually are bought freehold. (See below however)
You have to be careful when buying leasehold property because the value is determined by the length left on the lease. It's 'usually' something like 99 years, so is considered relatively safe to buy. However, an apartment that looks 'cheap' to buy may actually be on a very short remining lease, eg 30 years. At the end of the term of the lease, the apartment's ownership reverts to the freeholder! So, in effect, the purchase price of the apartment is really only the 30 year rental price.
These days, legislation has been passed allowing, I believe, all leaseholders the right to buy their own (share of) freehold, but I'm not sure if the freehold price has to be a 'fair' one, or whether the owner of the freehold, eg the house developer, can rip off the leaseholder by demanding a ridiculously high sum. In some new build housing developments I've read in the press that the developer offers the new purchaser the freehold at a reasonable price, but if you don't buy it then, the price soars!
One of the reasons that leasehold arose, I believe, was that in cities like London the land itself was owned by a 'great estate' (famously, in London, the Duke of Westminster), who wanted the land developed for housing, but didn't want to lose the freehold reversion of the land itself. (Not sure about the new 'right to buy freehold' that leaseholders should have now??)
By and large, though, purchases of apartments are usually leasehold, and houses usually freehold - but the former are increasingly buying their share of the freehold, so leasehold may disappear in time as a purchasing method.
(Leaseholders do have to pay a degree of rent, but it is usually quite small, and very often applies to communal costs, such as roofing, exterior painting, grounds maintenance etc, rather than sheer profit for the freeholder.)
What happens in the USA to those who purchase apartments - do they come with a share of freehold automatically?
PS - we also have a rather nice curiosity variant of freehold - the flying freehold and the creeping freehold!This is where an upper portion of a property overhangs (flies over) someone else's property or a lower portion intrudes (creeps under) beneath someone else's property.
Buying or selling either has to take these into account, and they come with reciprocal obligations, eg, on keeping the roof in good repair, or not letting damp rise, etc etc.
I do like that point about the difference in character and personality between Bingley and Darcy - that the former has inherited 'trade' money (even if now genteely invested in government bonds etc to 'cleanse' it of the taint of the shop etc), and only rents the properties he lives in, however lavish they are . Whereas Darcy is a true 'landlord' with huge responsibilities for his employees, his tenants, his land and, eventually, his heirs.
I remember his housekeeper, showing Lizzie and the Gardners around (while Mr D is refreshing himself in his weed-filled pond...er, not!), makes a point of saying what a good landlord Mr D is.
In terms of how poor you had to be not to be able to afford servants, I guess Mrs Smith in Persuasion is just about that poor, isn't she? Living in lodgings, sharing the 'house maid', and having the nurse in to help her, that's about all she gets, doesn't she?In Mansfield Park, Fanny's birth family have a pretty ramshackle household, with scanty servants and very disorganised and illrun, which shocks Fanny quite badly.
One would assume that any 'genteel' female would fight tooth and nail to avoid having to resort to actually working as a 'servant', and try and always present it as a companion, or secretary, or governness or something that would lift her that essential distance from 'service'.
Conversely, the 'taint' of service must have been almost impossible to shift for those former servants who did manage to make good and escape into entrepreneurship and prosperity.
We see it in Downton Abbey, with the former chauffeur, who remains 'always' the chauffeur (even though they came with the kudos of being, effectively, an 'engineer' capable of dealing with a complicated mechanism, ie, the car), and in one episode a former housemaid comes to lunch as the guest of someone else, as she has become a teacher (or some such). Even Mosely the former valet, becoming a school teacher, still has that 'taint' hanging over him.
To have been 'in service' is a lifelong 'stain' ....almost like having been 'in prison', as in, the taint never leaves you.
(For a more lighthearted and heartwarming account of 'service' do read Eva Ibbotson's magical A Countess Below Stairs, which is about a Russian aristocrat after WWI who takes a job as a housemaid in an English great house.....very 'sanitised' but such fun!)(She marries the Earl of course....and from the start ALL the servants know she may be foreign, but OF COURSE she is herself an aristocrat....!)
Beth-In-UK wrote: "As a PS to that last post of mine, if anyone has ever seen the old wartime black and white movie 'I Know Where I'm Going' (essentially a romcom I guess), the hero is a Scottish laird (on leave from..."Mr. Morris is mentioned once in P & P. That is who shows Mr. Bingley the house at Netherfield. But the book does not say if he is the owner or the land agent/attorney representing the owner.
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Gosh, lots and lots of fascinating posts here filled with meaty substance to digest!On just a couple of points...
The whole issue of 'land ownership/property ownership' is very tricky. In the UK..."
Beth, The article at www.wattpad.com, which is the most informative that I've ever found in my research, could have been written by you! Wow! Very informative post!
Your freehold in the UK is our fee simple here in the US.
Renting any sort of property, an apartment, a shop, a house, is spelled out by the terms of the lease. Just as Sir Walter was saying about whether he would let his future tenants enjoy his park but didn't want them approaching his shubbery, lol. It all has to be detailed in the lease. There may be customary terms, but nothing is set in stone, like who pays the taxes, until the lease is drawn up and agreed upon.
Buying an apartment (ie a slice of the property) is typically called buying a condo here. Condominium, that is. I've just never heard of leasing the land that corresponds to a property that you've purchased; condo, house, or other. Now when you buy a condo (and let's assume you've paid cash, so no mortgage) you still have home owners association dues, so you are still paying monthly fees for things like utilities, insurance for the common areas, a door man, snow removal, and yes, even a set-aside fund for the eventual replacement of the roof.
I think the property is called a co-op (this is a New York City thing, which is not where I am) when the land under the building is allotted, by share, to each owner of the building. If there are 20 units in a co-op building, each owner gets a 5% share of the land. Don't quote me on this, NYC has some weird real estate practices and I'm only licensed to practice real estate in Texas and Illinois.
But the whole concept of renting land under a property you own is just weird to me. And I agree with you that I think this concept was how Mayfair was originally built, because the land owner did not want to give up the land. I've read that elsewhere, before.
So, when you buy a condo, who owns the land the building is erected on? Is that the HOA, which then becomes a legal entity? If so, who owns the HOA etc?Ownership is a complicated business when it comes to lawyers etc. :)
I would imagine that the concept of non-freehold was never popular in the USA, right from the off, because it would have smacked of 'landlords', 'feudalism' etc, which is, after all, what most of the immigrants were trying to get away from.
A nation of 'owner-occupiers' was, after all, one of the founding precepts of the USA I would imagine? (And rightly so!)
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So it's a bit of a mystery, isn't it, who actually owns Netherfield? Maybe it has recently been inherited by someone living a long way away, and Netherfield was just one of the properties inherited, so the owner had no interest in living there himself, but preferred to rent it out. Rich families with lots of properties acquired over the generations through intermarriage etc often seemed to have 'spare' houses, and bunged relatives in them (maiden aunts, dowagers etc) , maybe almost as 'caretakers' but also to house 'spare' members of the family. From the opening of P and P it would seem that the Bennets and other local families have been keeping an eye on Netherfield and wondering what might happen to it. In a way, it must have been quite exciting to have a big property that was usually rented out in one's environment, because, just as Bingley does, it represents lots of possibilties (like marrying one of the Bennet girls!), and stirs up the locals who are probably all very familiar with each other, and probably quite bored too.
Thinking about it, don't four of Austen's novels involve the arrival of a 'new person' to a small community? Bingley and Darcy in PandP, Mary and Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park, Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill in Emma, and the Crofts and Captain Wentworth in Persuasion.
And in the other two it is the protagonists who move areas - in S and S, it is the Dashwood ladies who move into a new area, and in NA it is the brother and sister who travel to Bath.
Shana, I have a feeling that in the UK 'freehold' is also 'fee simple'. I will check with a lawyer friend of mine (whose stock answer, whenever I ask her a legal question, is to shake her head and say 'well, it all depends'.....!!!!!).There also used to be a form of ownership called copyhold, which I am extremely uninformed about - I don't think it applies any more (or got converted either to leasehold or freehold)
The only reason I've even heard of it is from school history lessons about the gradual extension of the franchise in the UK in the 19th century. Freeholders whose property was worth 40 shillings a year (not quite sure how they calculated worth - would it be by that method you outlined in your highly informative post above?) had the vote, and copyholders whose property was worth £10 (I think???) (seems a big difference, £8 more than freeholders, but maybe that's because tenure was a lot less certain - freehold could be passed between generations, but maybe copyhold ceased on death?)
I've read that people often held lots of different types of property under different tenures, especially when it came to farms that were 'patchworked' together. So inheritance must have been quite complicated I would imagine.
Beth-In-UK wrote: "So it's a bit of a mystery, isn't it, who actually owns Netherfield? Maybe it has recently been inherited by someone living a long way away, and Netherfield was just one of the properties inherited..."Yes. There might be, of course, matches between neighbours (as happens in other novels), of course, but the introduction of a new character/environment always leads to meeting new people, after all and you need a handsome, rich stranger for a suitable partner if everyone in the neighbourhood is either married or not rich enough. ;-)
As to marriage in general, up to quite recently, marriage in all parts of society, but especially in the richer/blue blooded families, was more about making the right alliance (i.e. get married to titled and rich people) than for love. Love, as far as I know, never played a role for most people in those circles. It was all about enhancing your own fortunes and making sure your offspring didn't go without a good amount of money in life. Especially important for the non-inheriting children. So you had marriage alliances with the daughters of other rich/title people that came with a nice dowry in form of land. Or married your daughters off to titled/landed people.
Beth-In-UK wrote: "So, when you buy a condo, who owns the land the building is erected on? Is that the HOA, which then becomes a legal entity? If so, who owns the HOA etc?Ownership is a complicated business when it..."
The HomeOwners Association can own the land or it can be a corporation that is set-up to own the HOA. It just depends on how the documents are set-up when the development is being built. But the condo unit owners are the owners of the HOA or the corporation and ultimately the land and all common areas. Common areas are things like the elevators, the concierge desk, the community mailbox, the lobby, etc. But there is no renting of the land from an outside landlord. In fact there's no renting the land at all, indirectly the unit owners own it.
Ownership is tricky! But the properties all make an interesting backdrop for the stories being told. Whether it's Pemberley, Netherfield, Hartfield, Kellynch, Norland Park, or wherever. The property drives the economic situation of the characters which of course drives the plot. We are supposed to hate Mrs. John Dashwood as a matter of feeling! Her husband inherits Norland as a legal consequence of how his father inherited it and she does everything in her power to not help her father-in-law's second family. Her cruelty and selfishness make us all the more attached to the Misses Dashwood.
Isabel wrote: "Beth-In-UK wrote: "So it's a bit of a mystery, isn't it, who actually owns Netherfield? Maybe it has recently been inherited by someone living a long way away, and Netherfield was just one of the p..."Mr. Morris is mentioned only once in all of P&P. He shows Netherfield Hall to Mr. Bingley. But nowhere does it say who he is! The owner? The steward? The land agent? I am using him in a P&P rewrite I am working on (that's going nowhere fast at present and in it, he is the owner).
By the way, I use www.pemberley.com for etext searching when I have to find something in particular in any of Austen's books. Love this tool!
The main trick for a landowner to pull off, it seems, was in trying to generate, or perhaps separate, sufficient capital (whether in land or investments) and/or cash, to provide dowries for daughters and to fund 'salary-generating' careers and professions for younger sons.I think in S and S, Elinor and Marianne's father tries to get some money together for their dowries to make them independent of their half brother and the ghastly Fanny (surely one of the most repellent characters in fiction, let alone Jane Austen!), but dies before he can do so (I think he was trying to cut down timber and hand the sale cash to his daughters??), and so John D inherits the lot, and poor E and M are penniless just about. Presumably Mrs Dashwood, who is, of course, notably, not John D's own mother, was not that rich when she married the girls's father, and so could not count on getting much back from in terms of her own dowry repaid to her as her widow's settlement?
In a way, it is scary how vulnerable even such privileged girls as M and E are - their father might have been wealthy, owning a large estate, but without financial protection they were penniless.
Mr Bennet, in P and P, is conscious of this, but selfishly blanks it, and refuses to cut back on expenditure to put some more money aside for the 5 daughters who will only get £1k apiece (generating £50 income a year, would that be all?) (Presumably if they all lived together, assuming none of them married, they could just about get by on £250 a year??)
Shana, how do you rewrite P and P? Is it an actual rewrite of the plot 'as is' or do you extend the story to look at what might have become of Mary and Kitty, or, indeed, any of the other characters?I always feel a bit sorry for poor Anne de Burgh, who gets written off as sickly etc, but then with a mother like Lady C no wonder - and no wonder she was so 'crushed' as hardly to say a word.
I'd like to think maybe Lady C was carried off, eg, by an apoplexy when she learnt that the shades of Pemberley were definitely going to be badly polluted!, and then Anne would be an heiress, go to live at Pemberly, and have a much happier life, and probably a happy marriage too.
And what will happen to Georgiana? And the dreadful Miss Bingley??
All stories to be told!
"But the properties all make an interesting backdrop for the stories being told. Whether it's Pemberley, Netherfield, Hartfield, Kellynch, Norland Park, or wherever. The property drives the economic situation of the characters which of course drives the plot."Yes, indeed - in a way the properties are the 'stars' of the books!
Shana, thank you for the explanation of the HOA.I've just seen in the UK news that it's going to become illegal for developers to retain the 'footprint' of the houses they sell, which is just as well.
Shana, so is Mr Morris going to be your hero in your rewrite? Will he marry one of the 'spare' females left over in P and P??He's definitely a character waiting to be invented, so to speak - as in, who does own Netherfield?
One sort of assumes that once Mr D and Lizzie are married, Mr and Mrs Bingley will move north, and either buy, or at least rent, a house near Pemberley, so all four of them can socialise more easily.
That would free up Netherfield again for a new adventure.
Beth-In-UK wrote: "The main trick for a landowner to pull off, it seems, was in trying to generate, or perhaps separate, sufficient capital (whether in land or investments) and/or cash, to provide dowries for daughte..."I think you're right. This was the way to get money for your non-inheriting children.
Sons had it, comparatively, easy: they could chose a profession to get some income.
I think the lot of the daughters, if not by some means obviously wealthy (like Miss DeBourgh or Emma), was to have at least 10,000 pounds in form of a dowry to both be able to live pretty independently or be a catch for someone to marry. Anything less than, say, 2,000 pounds and you were possibly hoping to be a 5th wheel in some relative's family or going out as governess. I mean, this applies to women from landed gentry, of course. Making them totally desolate, regardless of how rich their father was if that father was like Mr Bennet and didn't provide for them adequately. Or couldn't because he died too soon (Mr Dashwood) or lost his fortune (Mr Shirley). Making your chances to marry even less likely.
As to Mr Bennet, I've always wondered if he had been more protective of his daughters and had started saving money as soon as he got Longbourn, maybe even as little as 200 pounds a year, by the time of the novel, he might have accumulated a good 4000 pounds in addition to the 5000 that he already had for his daughters. Maybe even more and I guess having 100 a year is twice as good as having 50 a year, after all!
Let's just spin this further. If he had been more careful with the money and had saved 500 a year, after 20 years there were 10,000 exra to give to his daughters. That's 3000 per daughter, or, if they had lived together without marriage, they'd have had 750 pounds per year. I'll go as far as to say that that wouldn't have been all that bad if they had learnt to spend their money wisely.
Beth-In-UK wrote: "One sort of assumes that once Mr D and Lizzie are married, Mr and Mrs Bingley will move north, and either buy, or at least rent, a house near Pemberley, so all four of them can socialise more easily.""Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to his easy temper, or her affectionate heart. The darling wish of his sisters was then gratified; he bought an estate in a neighbouring county to Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other."
My book, "Dialogue with Darcy" is a sequel to P&P and has an interesting chapter featuring Darcy's aunt Lady Catherine, and another about what happened to Darcy's sister Georgiana.You can find my book on Amazon (co.uk or .com).
My other books are at www.janetaylmer.com (although I need to update some of the links, so accepy my apologies for that).
Mary - thank you! Shows I haven't read it in a while! The comment I remember about Mr and Mrs B was that they would be cheated by all their servants as they were too softhearted the pair of them!
Isabel, I think Mr Bennet is conscious he should have set aside money from the off, but had assumed that at some point he would have had a son to inherit Longborn. However, how the son was to provide for five sisters is not explained. He would have faced the same problem as the Dashwoods after all.I may be wrong on this, but wasn't the idea of the wife's dowry that it would eventually end up providing the dowry of her daughter - but, again, if so, then the more daughters she ended up with, the more ways that one original dowry would have to be split up.
I don't think the second Mrs Dashwood had much money of her own (though a useful cousin to provide their cottage in Devon after Fanny had 'evicted' them penniless!) (and tried to keep Mrs Dashwood's dinner service for herself, and Mrs D had to point out it was a wedding present to herself, and not part of the Norland estate). I get the feeling she was quite a bit younger than her predecessor, and married for her looks when her husband was middle aged?? But that may not be true. Austen certainly is critical of her in so far as she allowed Marianne far too much freedom with Willoughby, and was far too trusting of him.
With the Bennets, do we get the impression that Mrs Bennet - who had, after all, married a little above her station - was not the most economical housewife, and liked to dress well, and wanted to see her daughters dress well, etc?We see her lack of probity about money in her remark in reply to Lizzie saying it's been left to her uncle, her mother's brother, Gardiner, to fork out for Lydia and Mrs B exclaims 'well, who else should he spend his money on?' (well, she does in the Colin Firth version, and I assume that is in the text?). It's a very irresponsible and really quite shameful remark, and Lizzie blushes for it. (At least her father realises the obligation he is now under, and worries how on earth he will be able to repay his brother in law.)
Even if Mr Gardiner had done well in his business career, he has several children of his own, who obviously had much better claim to his money than his feckless and ungrateful niece Lydia.
Janet, I do hope you don't marry Georgiana off to Colonel Fitzwilliam! Surely the age gap is too wide, and it's a bit 'tame' for her?? After all, she's presumably known him all her life.What are your plans for poor little Anne de Burgh (or is she going to take after her dreadful mother?)
By the way, having watched most of the Colin Firth version over Xmas, I thought I heard Pemberley's housekeeper (when showing Lizzie and the Gardiners around Pemberley) refer to Darcy's mother as 'Mrs Darcy'? I do hope I misheard. She would have been Lady Anne if she were Lady Catherine's sister??
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Isabel, I think Mr Bennet is conscious he should have set aside money from the off, but had assumed that at some point he would have had a son to inherit Longborn. However, how the son was to provi..."Yes, Mr Bennet realised too late that he shouldn't have hoped solely for the son to provide for the rest of his family. And from what he says I gather that that was his plan: the son would inherit and provide for his sisters (i.e. the 2000 would have to provide for his own wife and children plus all his unwed sisters). I also gather that the five daughters were a consequence of him and his wife trying to have a son. If they had had a son as their second or third child, they might not have tried for more children. So no Kitty and Lydia.
I also think that the second Mrs Dashwood must have been in her early 20s when she married the widower Mr Dashwood who, by that time, must have had a son at least old enough to be a teenager, if not older as there doesn't seem much of love between him and his step-mother. More like acqaintances, really. Men, it seems, didn't usually marry young, so he must be in his early 30 now or even older.
Mrs Dashwood says she is hardly much older than Colonel Brandon who is 37, I think. With Eleanor being 19, her marriage was that of a young, beautiful second wife with no money to an older man who had at least the prospect of the Norland estate (had it not been for that child accidentally capturing his great-uncle's heart).
Beth-In-UK wrote: "The main trick for a landowner to pull off, it seems, was in trying to generate, or perhaps separate, sufficient capital (whether in land or investments) and/or cash, to provide dowries for daughte..."Beth,
I think you are exactly correct in your summary of the concerns of the typical landowner. But some of these gentlemen just did not live long enough to do it (Mr. Henry Dashwood, E & M's father, comes to mind). I would think a very complimentary object for these landowners should have been to shape their eldest sons into men on character. After all, if you can convince the eldest son of his very extraordinary position in the family; that the honour and privilege of inheriting the vast majority of the family's assets comes with tremendous responsibility to see his mother and siblings settled AFTER his father's death, I think that would have gone a very long way. Not only would the father's mind be eased, but in this class conscious society, it only helps the family to have everyone well settled. I don't think John Dashwood ever gave two thoughts about what it would do to his reputation to have E & M be spinsters. And Elinor had to sell some of her mother's jewels, so you know they were not really surviving on the income from their piddly inheritance.
I had to reread the first two pages of Sense and Sensibility to refresh my memory about the family's finances. The unnamed owner of Norwood who dies at the beginning surprises everyone with what is in his will. He leaves the estate to Mr. Henry Dashwood "on such terms that destroyed half the value of the bequest". Not only is the property secured to Mr. Henry Dashwood's son and grandson, "it was secured in such a way as to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear to him, and who most needed a provision, by any charge (mortgage?) on the estate or by any sale of its valuable woods". The unnamed elderly uncle leaves the three girls a thousand pounds each and Mr. Henry Dashwood's (who dies only 12 months later!) leaves his widow 7,000L, which is all he has to give her. Upon their departure from Norland, the Dashwood clan has all of 10,000L to their name, so 500L per annum.
The Bennets are a slightly different example of dreadful planning. They've been married 23 years (although the author never tells us how long Mr. Bennet has been master of Longbourn). And they've never saved a thing, knowing the entire time about the entail and their lack of a son. This story hits too close to my own family history, so forgive me if sound grumpy, lol!
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Shana, how do you rewrite P and P? Is it an actual rewrite of the plot 'as is' or do you extend the story to look at what might have become of Mary and Kitty, or, indeed, any of the other character..."Ha! I'll never spoil the surprise of what is in my books. I wrote a sequel (By Charm or By Choice) and a part 3, if you will (Of Family and Friendship). And I do pretty much answer all your questions. A few new characters are introduced, of course, and you get to see what happens to everybody. The Wickhams are not front and center, but they are miserable, just as they deserve to be.
I'm working on two manuscripts right now, both of which are languishing. And both of these are variations to P & P. I find it much more difficult to write this way. The ending is kind of already decided, our dear couple gets together. And knowing that is kind of restrictive to me.
I finished reading What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan and loved it. I going to post a quick review here about some of his insights as soon as I can.
Isabel, yes, it does sound like the Bennets just went on with more pregnancies hoping for a boy - as you say, had a boy arrived earlier, they'd have stopped having children (might have tried for a 'spare' as well as the 'heir' of course.) Poor Mary in the Middle might have done better as a boy, studious and dull, and not good looking, but it wouldn't have mattered nearly so much for him as a boy than it does for poor Mary as a girl. As for Lydia, well, no great loss indeed! (I think Kitty probably has possibilities, and if she becomes a regular visitor at Pemberley will definitely improve, especially if in the company of Georgiana.)I do think John Dashwood would have looked after Elinor and Marianne better had they been full sisters (and, as you say, it would have looked rather 'shameful' if he had impoverished them as full sisters not half.) I always get the feeling he didn't like his father remarrying, and that is very natural in a way, though hardly the fault of the second Mrs D and her daughters.
I'm not sure without checking, but I have a dim memory that Col Brandon is 34 as I think he is twice Marianne's age, and she is 17. But he may be closer to 40 as you say. It's still 'too old' for her I think, though of course more acceptable in those days. In a way, though, when you think about it, Marianne is repeating what her own mother did - ie, marry a man much older than herself when she is herself very very young....
Shana, JA does go into some great detail, doesn't she, about how come Elinor and Marianne are as poor as they become after their father's death. I guess it's trying to emphasise their 'fall' and their really quite shocking transition from being 'the young ladies of Norland' to living in some remote cottage in the back of nowhere, with very little expectation of making a 'good' marriage. I think we are meant to feel how grim this is for them - imagine Emma, perhaps, suddenly forced to go and live like Miss Bates, or Jane Fairfax....I do wonder whether JA was writing 'from the heart' when it comes to brothers not looking after their sisters very well? We know that Jane, her sister Cassandra, and their mother were left comparatively poor after their father's death, and highly dependent on the collective largesse of their brothers. As you say, so much depended on the character of the son and heir, and whether they were prepared to make a sacrifice of their own inheritance to an extent - it's all about, in the end, them recognising that they haven't really 'inherited' the estate, only 'borrowed it from their own heir' etc, and that the reason for male primogeniture was not to enrich the heir, but to ensure the estate didn't end up being sliced up into tiny pieces.
As you say, in exchange for 'getting everything' the 'deal' was that they then set their younger brothers up in sufficiently lucrative careers of some kind, and enabled their sisters to 'marry well'.
Of course, if hte heir was not the son at all, but a Mr Collins equivalent, then all that sense of 'sibling obligation' vanished (indeed, it vanished with a half-sibling like John Dashwood!).
I do think it is to Mr Collins' credit that he was prepared to 'honour his obligations' as heir to Longborn by marrying one of hte Bennet girls. If only he'd offered for Mary though - that would have been ideal for both of them, and I'm sure she'd have suited him very well.
Shana, sounds like P and P has been a rich vein of literary inspiration for you! Look forward to seeing what you made of the excellent John Mullan book.
Beth-In-UK wrote: "Shana, sounds like P and P has been a rich vein of literary inspiration for you! Look forward to seeing what you made of the excellent John Mullan book."
John Mullan's 'What Matters in Jane Austen' was a fascinating read and an all around lovely book. Without being too verbose, here are some thoughts.
There are 20 chapters with some so light-hearted as "How do Jane Austen's Characters Look?". Well, her description (though not non-existent) are imprecise for the main characters, allowing the reader to fill in the gaps. However, she frequently does describe key characters' eyes. And looking at another character as well as feeling yourself looked at always has significant meaning (as does returning or not returning the gaze of whomever is looking at you).
Another fascinating chapter is "Who Dies in the Course of Her Novels?". The short answer is almost no one dies in the novel, the exceptions being the two heirs of Norwood at the beginning of S&S, Mrs. Churchill in Emma, whom we never get to meet, and Dr. Grant in Mansfield Park, which suits his wife just fine. But the novels are filled with death and this chapter is full of examples of how the reader is well aware of who has died without the death itself being part of the plot. So many dead people! A short list includes: Mr. Elliot's first wife, Mrs. Smith's husband, Emma's mother, both of Jane Fairfax's parents, the clergyman Mr. Bates, both of Mr. Darcy's parents, Sir Lewis deBourgh, Sir Walter Elliiot's only son and heir, Mr. Weston's first wife, the list is endless and the consequences for the survivors shape the stories we love.
"What Games Do Characters Play?" convinces me that I will never attain a full understanding of all that Jane Austen was trying to say in her novels. Who knew that games had so much significance? Yes, the games serve to separate the characters into interesting conversational groups. But the choice of game is key. Backgammon is for those lacking cleverness, which is why it is the game suggested by Mr. Collins to Mr. Bennet. I always thought the number of people who could play was the driving force of the game selections. That is not the case. Speculation is a complicated game (thus incomprehensible to Lady Bertram) but also full of sub-plot and symbolism for revealing the player's true characters and motivations. An excellent choice for Mansfield Park where the Crawfords are making mischief under their hosts noses. Lydia Bennet is enthralled with playing Lottery Tickets, which is a gambling game. This foreshadows her ultimate elopement with Wickham as they are both gamesters (as well as unprincipled) at heart. Elizabeth Bennet chooses not to play at loo where the others are gambling, which she has no use for. But she positions herself nearby as soon as the conversation at the card table becomes interesting! And dear Anne Elliot takes pains to remind Captain Wentworth that she takes no pleasure in the card games of Camden Place. Or is she trying to remind him that she is not THAT altered from who she was eight years before?
The last chapter is the most unique and possibly not a perfect fit with the rest of the book. "How Experimental a Novelist is Jane Austen?' is fascinating as it introduces us to the new narrative styles she creates in her novels. I've read it four times and I'm still highlighting various lines in my kindle. Having written a sequel to P&P, I struggled mightily to tease out her style of writing in P&P before I wrote my book(s). The difficulty lies in the fact she uses more than one narrative style! One example is the narrative style of denial. Elizabeth Bennet is in denial about her attraction to Mr. Darcy (as is he about his attraction for her). And P&P is chock full of examples where the characters do things seemingly without any awareness or motivation at all which should strain the reader's credulity at what is really happening. Elizabeth's "not knowing what she did", her "want of presence of mind", her claim of "till this moment, I never knew myself" are all delicious examples of our heroine falling in love without every consciously considering the prospect. This chapter is a delight and yet its comprehension is still out of my reach.
Shana, fascinating and insightful - thank you!In respect of games, perhaps the one that springs most readily to mind for significance - and for moving the plot forward - is the letter game in which Frank Churchill spells out 'blundered' for Jane Fairfax to see - and afterwards we realise it's because he's mentioned something about, I think, Dr Parry having set up a carriage, which he could only have known by Jane having mentioned it in a letter exchanged during their secret engagement.
I do like the general exposition that the games the characters enjoy are revealing of their own characters....
One objection, though - I think backgammon is a very difficult game. I've never got my head round it!!!!!!
Shana, don't beat yourself up over not being able to achieve Austen's narrative style - she is the example par excellence of 'apparent simplicity'!!! Looks so straightforward, when in fact it's fiendishly subtle.
Interesting point about how many deaths actually take place during the action of the novels, compared with how many have taken place to create the situations in which the characters then find themselves.Similar 'unobvious' questions include the one which I don't think is in the Mullan book (haven't read it in a while - must dig it out!).
How many happy marriages does Austen portray in her novels? (ie, other than the ones her heroines make)
The answer is 'not many'. The Crofts are happily married, and the Gardiners. Do any others come to mind??
Regarding deaths: I find the death of that grandfather (I think) of Miss King interesting. She inherits 10,000 pounds and Wickham ddrops Lizzy like a hot patato in pursuit of Miss King. Instead of this showing her the true charater of Wickham, she actually defends him against the reproaches her aunt Gardiner makes. As to happy marriages: I guess not many is what it is, the Crodts and the Gardiners. The Allans and the Morlands in Northanger Abbey seem to have a not so bad relationship between themselves (at least there is nothing to make you think they have problems). Also Sir Bertram and his wife. I guess in their case her lack of understanding and his attitude towards marriage and interest in her help. I can't imagine Mr and Mrs Norris to have been happy. Oh, Mr and Mrs Elton! Tey must have been very happy with each other in their own way.
