What makes writing Austenesque variations exciting is that, in the hands of an author ready to explore truths that informed Jane Austen’s life and those of her characters, we are no longer constrained by the epochal notions enshrined in film or video. Rather, fresh approaches are sought in fantasy (Maria Grace and Abigail Reynolds, for instance), espionage (Katherine Cowley), humor (Susan Andrews and Alix James), crime (Melanie Schertz), and noir (Barry Richman), to name a few styles. Each of those named and many others speak through their writing and offer new understandings of old characterizations.
As my friend Victoria Kincaid recently defined the term I have insisted on using since 2017, Austenesque Literature uses Austen as a starting point for creating the work. This allows authors to use their voices to explore truths rooted in Austen or the world in which she wrote to build a framework within which they can speak their own truth. They are freed from trying to be (to swipe an old commercial tag from the Eighties) “Just as good as Austen.” That is not to be taken as a swipe at authors who find remaining within the Austen model to be the most comfortable one.
On the contrary, authors looking to offer readers more Austen (read Pride and Prejudice) established our entire genre. Austenesque authors’ ability to express themselves in new styles today is a result of the efforts of the previous two decades. This affords readers a broader and more enriching experience.
Here is my own writing journey. I personally use Austen to help me speak my mind. Whether it is the question of aging (see Volume Five—The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn—and Volume Eight—The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy—of the Bennet Wardrobe Series), relationships between persons of a certain age (Volume Six of the Wardrobe Series—The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament), social status and love (In Plain Sight), or love above and below stairs in the face of adversity (Lessers and Betters), I have found the freedom to write across a wide range without concern. However, I write what I write because I have something worthwhile to say. I present my work to readers today because I believe they will give it an opportunity.
***
My current novel (in progress) is entitled In Westminster’s Halls. The book is a Pride and Prejudice variation inspired by my belief that Austen was a mainstream and educated Englishwoman. As such, she had drunk of the well of the Enlightenment—not necessarily the threatening French version, but the English/Scottish one of Locke and Hume. This would, I am convinced, lead a curious and thoughtful person like Austen to hold values and beliefs that informed the truth of her writing.
Thomas Clarkson
Jane Austen was also not some hill country girl but a woman whose family lived comfortably due to being in the mainstream of English life. Yes, Steventon was rural—some sixty miles to the capital, a healthy overnight journey, but it was not isolated. Chawton was about the same distance. While attenuated to a degree by a distance that reduced immediacy, Austen would have been exposed to the themes driving English life. Look at Mansfield Park, believed to be named in honor of Lord Mansfield, an English jurist who established the legal groundwork for slavery’s abolition.
One wonders if Austen placed Meryton (Ware?) conveniently close to London to expose the Bennets to the topics informing English social and political thought. The proximity to London meant that the post could bring The Advertiser or The Times to the Bennet table the next day. Thanks to some of Caroline Bingley’s more pithy quotes, the twenty-four miles to town is often portrayed as if mid-19th Century Americans were speaking of Aunt Edna and her family, who had successfully made it to the Willamette Valley in Oregon: remembered, but never seen again.
In Austen’s formative and young adult years, the dominant social question was how the slave trade polluted the shades of England. Little else occupied the political discourse outside the war with Revolutionary and then Napoleonic France.
The question of slavery in the United States has long been a focus of mine. The aftermath of slavery—Jim Crow—in the United States is fertile ground for serious persons willing to engage with uncomfortable realities. I addressed American Slavery to an extent in the final book of The Bennet Wardrobe—The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy—with the introduction of two freed slaves, Cornelius and Hetty Johnson, who were the closest friends of Caroline Bingley Johnson, and became dear to Fitzwilliam Darcy.
However, before the abolition of slavery in Great Britain and, much later, the United States, the question of the slave trade itself was dominant. The United States had written into its Constitution that the trade—transporting enslaved persons to the United States—would end twenty years after promulgation—so 1807.
William Wilberforce
English abolitionists in the late 1700s—predominantly Quakers but within a few years including a broad swath of young society, notably Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Grenville—quickly realized that abolishing slavery altogether in the Empire would prove impossible. The economic interests of the sugar lords would never permit the removal of their prerogative of free labor. Thus, the movement of slaves from African shores to the Caribbean plantations and ports in the southern United States became their target.
The images of tearing persons from their homelands were compelling to enlightened English men and women. Olaudah Equiano’s books about his life as a slave riveted readers. However, in the 1790s, the proponents of the abolition of the trade exchanged the opposition of the sugar barons for that of the slavers themselves. The year 1792 saw the first attempt to abolish the trade die in the House of Lords; its members imbibed deeply in the pockets of the merchants who made millions off the trade. That they speciously wrapped their gifts in high-sounding statements about the threat of revolution on the scale of France or economic disadvantage if the trade in captured human souls is odious. But the attempt died and was buried for fifteen years.
Then Napoleon abolished slavery, and the United States enacted legislation to fulfill the constitutional promise. Suddenly, advocating FOR the trade lost any patriotic elan. All that was left would be to point fingers at the Portuguese. Even then, the argument followed my First Rule of History: It is Always about the money.
William Grenville
Come the elections of 1805 and 06, most of the Commons were again ready to end the slave trade. Lord Grenville, one of Wilberforce’s abolitionist partners, was named Prime Minister. He used his power to move a bill.
Austen could not have avoided the discussions that flowed through the community. The abolition of the slave trade was something about which I have convinced she had an opinion as everybody else did–on either side of the argument. As a result, I used my imagination to wonder how Jane Austen might have created a space for Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy within the efforts of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Grenville.
That is In Westminster’s Halls.
Afterward
I find the argument that Blacks sold other Blacks into slavery and thus Blacks are to blame for their plight rather than the White desire for money that created the market both repulsive and intellectually dishonest. I will not countenance any attempt to absolve guilt for or advantages accrued from slavery or post-Emancipation oppression.
***
This excerpt from “In Westminster’s Halls” is ©2024 by Donald P. Jacobson. Reproduction is prohibited.
I have timeshifted P&P back by four years to allow the plot to develop naturally.
Longbourn, December 5, 1806
Black-edged packets were exceedingly inconvenient, especially for a man like Thomas Bennet. The tiresomeness was multiplied when Bennet had to choose between re-reading Marcus Aurelius’s Commentaries and considering the news carried by such a missive.
By their very nature, mourning-shrouded letters insisted on immediate opening, contrary to Bennet’s normal inclination to avoid news that would require him to abandon his library. He racked his brain as he flipped the envelope in his hand. There was something about the stationery, its thickness told of wealth and power.
He looked up at Hill. “An express rider hand-delivered this?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Is the messenger still here?”
“He is.”
“Please bring him here.”
The moment Bennet saw the well-tailored livery, gently dusted by miles in the saddle, he knew that any hopes he had to reply with a courteous letter of condolence had died like the subject of the letter.
Bennet addressed the rider. “If I am not mistaken, you are of Lord Grenville’s household. What does the Prime Minister want from a lowly Hertfordshire gentleman?”
“O’ that, I canna say,” the courier said, “But, p’r’aps Mr. Clarkson’s will hae more for yer.” He reached into his tail pocket and extended another message: its edges pristine.
Accepting the proffer, Bennet laid the two side-by-side on the desktop. Much as he wished to allow his friend to prepare the ground for what was sure to be uncomfortable, Bennet knew that he would be better served by drinking in Grenville’s unfiltered by Clarkson’s explanations.
Cracking the seals embossed with Ricardian lions, Bennet spread the large post sheet flat, gently smoothing the creases to read astonishing news.[i]
By the direction of the Prime Minister
To: Mr. Thomas Bennet
Sir,
Lord Grenville commands me to inform you that Your Member, Mr. Lyman Long, has died in the past fortnight. Mr. Long was the victim of a Calamity arising from the Lord Mayor’s Guildhall dinner preparatory to the convening of the new session. Tainted food was the culprit according to many distinguished men. Over half the assembly was sickened, although the Parliamentary delegation, of which Mr. Long was but one, suffered the most. At last count, eleven members have perished.
The Prime Minister has received Royal Assent for immediate by-elections to fill the vacancies. Longbourn-Meryton Village is a borough with twenty-four, now twenty-three, electors of which you are the most senior. It is, therefore, incumbent upon you to assemble your fellows within three days of receipt of this letter to ensure a speedy return of a new Member who will be in attendance when the Speaker calls to order the House of Commons on 13. December 1806.
Lord Grenville asks a personal favor of you—because of his knowledge of the important matters to be called before the Commons this session: you, Mr. Bennet, must stand for the Longbourn-Meryton Village seat. Mr. Clarkson has assured the Prime Minister that you are of a like mind concerning the great issue.
The rider will carry your reply to the Prime Minister’s office in Westminster.
I am most sincerely yours,
Thomas Annesley, MA
Secretary to the Prime Minister
A handwritten postscript put paid to any effort at demurral on Bennet’s part.
I do not doubt you would take comfort in our Lord’s plea to ‘let this cup pass from me.’ However, Clarkson assures me that you have been of a like mind with him for twenty years. We need your vote if not your voice. If, after we prevail, you desire to return to friendlier climes than those at Westminster Palace, you will leave with my heartfelt thanks. Grenville
Pulling a face at the premier’s adroit manipulation, Bennet was under no illusion that he had to go to town if only to ensure that the dream he had held since ’85 was not stillborn. His mouth still tasted of ash at the memory of ’93’s great hope. Now, thirteen years later, slavery’s forces had retreated and could not appeal to the fear of revolution and jacquerie brought on by tampering with the status quo. That old saw, if not toothless, was dulled to uselessness.
Tory and Whig alike saw that Bonaparte was not revolutionary. However, even after Trafalgar, the Emperor remained an existential threat. Standing on the side of the angels by ending the trade could only sweeten inevitable future tax levies to fund the war. Smarter—perhaps more cynical—political minds than Bennet’s grasped the virtue of rejecting the venal practice in favor of wrapping Albion in Virtue’s banner.
Clarkson’s letter reminded Longbourn’s master of his commitment.
Bennet, I am not dunning you for your delayed subscription—your annual contribution when no others would reply to my letters kept our campaigns alive over the years. I sometimes wonder if you sacrifice your ladies’ security to keep the glimmer of our hope alight. I cannot begrudge you anything. I understand that in your world, weather can spell the difference between surplus and retrenchment.
No, old friend, it is not money we need but rather you. I turned to Grenville to make urgent my appeal. He is not asking you to join government but rather to sit on the back benches and utter ‘hear him’ from time to time.
Come to us! We need you to push past the line. After 11 years, we now have a chance. October’s election brought in new men of the abolitionist stripe. I need your steadying hand to help these new men keep their resolve in the face of the forces arrayed against us. C
How Bennet hated finding himself in a position where he had no choice but to act. A ‘request’ from the Prime Minister was one step removed from a royal command. Even if he could ignore that imperative, knowing that his friend had spent political capital to move Britain’s leader engaged every shred of Bennet’s honor.
He was bound for London.
However, Bennet’s time in Gracechurch Street and Westminster would be less difficult with a congenial amanuensis at his side.
***
Pemberley, December 7, 1806
Darcy stared grimly at Grenville’s summons. Being the owner of the rotten borough of Kypmton Abbey, now nothing but a dozen stones stacked one atop the other, was proving inconvenient. However much he would wish to remain closeted in Derbyshire, nursing his private pain over Georgiana’s summertime fiasco in Ramsgate, he could not argue with the great man. Darcy’s civic responsibility called him to town. He could rest comfortably knowing that his sister was already at Selkirk Castle to celebrate the holidays—and hopefully regain some of her spirit—with her aunt and uncle. Darcy would enjoy seeing his family after burying himself in post-harvest work. Together they would travel back to town after Twelfth Night.[ii]
Wilberforce’s note froze his last thought with a full picture of the altered terrain awaiting him.
…Unfortunately, we cannot wait for a fresh election to replace your Member. As the Prime Minister explained, he is expecting you to come to Westminster immediately. While Mr. Darcy always instructed the Member for Kympton Abbey to vote with the government, he allowed for a modicum of liberty when it came to matters of conscience. However, in the case of the Great Cause, Mr. Twillings was in accord with your revered father.
We must immediately advance the bill on abolishing the trade while the election’s enthusiasm remains undimmed. Otherwise, the demands of the war will overshadow all else, subordinating, perhaps for another decade, idealism for patriotism whether true or cynical.
I have not been in your company since you were a lad up from Eton. I cannot pretend to know the contours of your sentiments. I pray that you will take up your father’s mantle. W[iii]
He leaned back in his chair and sipped from the crystal tumbler, a grimace curling his lips in metaphorical distaste. Darcy could not fault Wilberforce for being nervous about his position on the institution. Throughout his years at Eton and later Cambridge, slavery’s debate had swirled about Darcy. Some, like sugar scion Tom Bertram, defended the need for free labor and unfettered trade to replenish ranks depleted by disease and outright weariness. Others were agnostic on the subject, although finding little wrong in a practice that added carriages and candlesticks to their father’s estates and townhouses. They avoided speaking about it for fear of alienating those higher in society’s pecking order. Few emulated earlier Cambridge men and staunchly decried enslaving any of God’s children. Although Darcy knew his own mind, he revealed nothing to the rest of the world. His mask was impenetrable, even to those who had been close to his father. Those who encountered him could be excused for assuming he was no different than other rich men’s sons.
Pemberley’s wealth stemmed from Derbyshire’s fertile flanks. Fitzwilliam often wondered why George Darcy had looked away from monumental Barbadian sugar profits. But, always practical, the son knew there was ample money flowing from Pemberley’s fountain. Let others live their lives as they wished, feathering their nests without any judgment on his part. To Fitzwilliam Darcy, managing Pemberley without worrying about the morality of what was legal in Modern England was enough for him.
Now, Wilberforce had sounded a clarion call, implicitly demanding he carry on his father’s legacy. For his part, occupied with maintaining Pemberley, Darcy had given the question little thought. The road to London would be paved with little else.
[i] A Large Post sheet is 15.5 in. x 20 in.
[ii] ‘Rotten borough’ is the term used to describe a parliamentary seat with few qualifying electors. The seats in the Commons so designated were usually from the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The normal course of time saw the depopulation of old seats. In some cases, there were as few as three men qualified (usually landowners) to vote for members. One of the most famous beneficiaries of a pocket or rotten borough was William Pitt, the Younger who sat for Appleby (first established in 1295 CE). Appleby was controlled by James (later first Earl) Lowther.
[iii] William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was the leading voice of Great Britain’s abolition movement. He was a gifted speaker and served in Parliament for forty-five years, including four in one of my favorite constituencies, Kingston upon Hull (Please see The Sailor’s Rest). He, William Pitt the Younger, and William Grenville were close friends and formed the political nucleus of the abolition (first of the trade and then slavery itself) movement.
Leave a Reply to Riana EverlyCancel reply