Letter from Jane Austen to Caroline Austen, 13 March 1816
Object name: Letter from Jane Austen to Caroline Austen, Wednesday 13 March 1816
ObjectĀ number: CHWJA:JAHLTR39
Category: Letter
Description: Letter from Jane Austen at Chawton to her niece Caroline Austen at Steventon. Letter 137 in The Letters of Jane Austen edited by Deirdre Le Faye, Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 2011.Ā Two leaves octavo, laid. Red wax seal, design indistinct. Text on pages 1 and 2 only, page 3 is blank, page 4 address only. No postmark.
Made: Wednesday 13th March 1816
Context: Caroline was the youngest child of Janeās eldest brother James and was 10 years old at the time Jane wrote this letter to her. A shy, intelligent girl, Caroline enjoyed reading and had written to her aunt to share her views of Les Veilles du chateau by Madame de Genlis, a popular book of morality tales for children. Jane shared her nieceās unhappiness with the fate of two of the characters:
āYou seem to be quite my own Neice in your feelings towards Mde de Genlis.Ā I do not think I could even now, at my sedate time of Life, read Olimpe et Theophile without being in a Rage. It really is too bad! ā Not allowing them to be happy together, when they are married.ā
The story under discussion tells the tale of a young man, Theophilus, who obeys his fatherās wishes to become engaged to Olympia, a young lady of large fortune.Ā However before the wedding takes place, Olympia is deprived of her fortune and finds herself destitute and friendless.Ā The young manās father withdraws his permission for the marriage but Theophilus is a man of honour and, ignoring his fatherās wishes, marries Olympia. From that point their lives lurch from misfortune to misfortune ending in Olympiaās untimely death, the moral lesson clear, that a parentās wishes must be followed.
Jane and Caroline Austen were not the only readers unhappy with the tale; Mary Wollstonecraft lambasted the story in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, referring to Mde de Genlisā āabsurd manner of making the parental authority supplant reasonā.
Jane also mentions that she has received a nice letter from Carolineās brother, James Edward, who at the time was a pupil at Winchester College. More than fifty years later, James Edward was to collaborate with Caroline and their half- sister Anna to write the first biography of Jane Austen, A Memoir of Jane Austen.
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