I have had two stories this summer where all or most of the plot line has been set in Ireland. Both are Regencies, not Austen-related tales. I am 8% Irish in my DNA. (The other 92% is made up of 40% Scotland, 35% England and NW Europe, 7% Norway, 5% Wales, and 5% Germanic Europe, but that is a topic for a different post.)
Was Austen also in love with the Irish? The most obvious answer to those of us who know something of her life was Tom Lefroy, the man many believe was Austen “great love,” and he was Irish. I will address that issue in a moment.
Born in Limerick, Ireland, Tom Lefroy had an outstanding academic record at Trinity College Dublin, from 1790 to 1793. His great-uncle, Benjamin Langlois, sponsored Tom’s legal studies at Lincoln’s Inn, London. One year later, Lefroy served as Auditor of Trinity’s College Historical Society, the still-active debating society of the college. Later still, he became a prominent member of the Irish bar (having been called to it in 1797) and published a series of Law Reports on the cases of the Irish Court of Chancery.
In 1796, Lefroy began a flirtation with Jane Austen, who was a friend of an older female relative. Jane Austen wrote two letters to her sister Cassandra mentioning “Tom Lefroy”, and some have suggested that it may have been he whom Austen had in mind when she invented the character of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, as the courtship between Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen took place over the year or so that Pride and Prejudice was written. In his 2003 biography, Becoming Jane Austen, Jon Spence suggests that Jane Austen actually used her and Tom Lefroy’s personalities as the models for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, but not in an expected way. Spence suggests that Jane Austen used Tom Lefroy’s more gregarious personality as the model for the novel’s heroine Elizabeth Bennet, and her own measured demeanor was used as the model for the male protagonist, Mr. Darcy.
In a letter dated Saturday (9 January 1796), Austen mentioned:
You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you, that I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago.
. . .
After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove — it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded. [Le Faye, Deirdre (1997). Jane Austen’s letters (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.]
In a letter started on Thursday (14 January 1796), and finished the following morning, there was another mention of him.
Friday. — At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.
Austen’s surviving correspondence contains only one other mention of Tom Lefroy, in a November 1798 letter that Austen biographer Claire Tomalin believes demonstrates the author’s “bleak remembrance, and persistent interest” [McKernan, Maggie (1997). Jane Austen : a life. London: Bloomsbury. p. 119.] in Lefroy. In the letter to her sister, Austen writes that Tom’s aunt Mrs. Lefroy had been to visit, but had not said anything about her nephew…
“…to ‘me,’ and I was too proud to make any enquiries; but on my father’s afterwards asking where he was, I learnt that he was gone back to London in his way to Ireland, where he is called to the Bar and means to practise.“
Another possible mention of Lefroy is in Austen’s Emma (1815). In chapter 9, Emma Woodhouse and Harriet Smith discuss a poem. Austen may have hidden the word TOLMEYFOR—an anagram of TOM LEFROY—in the poem. [Sheehan, Colleen A. (25 November 2021). “Breaking News From 1795: Jane Austen Falls in Love”. Wall Street Journal.]
Upon learning of Jane Austen’s death (18 July 1817), Lefroy travelled from Ireland to England to pay his respects to the British author. [Lefroy Family History] In addition, at an auction of Cadell’s papers (possibly in London), one Tom Lefroy bought a Cadell publisher’s rejection letter—for Austen’s early version of Pride and Prejudice, titled First Impressions. Caroline Austen said in her letter to James Edward Austen-Leigh on 1 April 1869:
I enclose a copy of Mr. Austen’s letter to Cadell—I do not know which novel he would have sent—The letter does not do much credit to the tact or courtesy of our good Grandfather for Cadell was a great man in his day, and it is not surprising that he should have refused the favour so offered from an unknown—but the circumstance may be worth noting, especially as we have so few incidents to produce. At a sale of Cadell’s papers &c Tom Lefroy picked up the original letter—and Jemima copied it for me –
It was unlikely that Caroline Austen would address the Chief Justice Lefroy as only ‘Tom Lefroy’ (she indeed addressed him as the still living ‘Chief Justice’ in the later part of the letter). However, if it is true that the original Tom Lefroy purchased the Cadell letter after Jane’s death, it is possible that he later handed it over to Thomas Edward Preston Lefroy (T.E.P. Lefroy; husband of Jemima Lefroy who was the daughter of Anna Austen Lefroy and Benjamin Lefroy). T.E.P. Lefroy later would give Cadell’s letter to Caroline for reference. Cadell & Davies firm was closed down in 1836 after the death of Thomas Cadell Jr. [Besterman, Theodore (1938). The Publishing Firm of Cadell & Davies: Select Correspondence and Accounts, 1793-1836. Oxford University Press, H. Milford.] The sale of Cadell’s papers took place in 1840, possibly in November.
In the latter years of Tom Lefroy’s life, he was questioned about his relationship with Jane Austen by his nephew, and admitted to having loved Jane Austen, but stated that it was a “boyish love”. [Spence, Jon. Becoming Jane Austen. Hambledon Continuum. London, 2003.] As is written in a letter sent from T.E.P. Lefroy to James Edward Austen Leigh in 1870,
My late venerable uncle … said in so many words that he was in love with her, although he qualified his confession by saying it was a boyish love. As this occurred in a friendly & private conversation, I feel some doubt whether I ought to make it public. [Walker, Linda Robinson (Winter 2006). “Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy: Stories”. Persuasions On-line. Jane Austen Society of North America. Retrieved 5 September 2018.]
A fictional account of their relationship is at the center of the 2007 historical romance film Becoming Jane. In this film, Lefroy is played by James McAvoy, and Austen by Anne Hathaway.
You might also find this piece interesting, Irish, I Dare Say, Ireland in Jane Austen’s Novels.
My two Irish tales are NOT about Austen, but I hope you will find them interesting, nevertheless.
Lord Fearghal English Bride is part of the anthology.
Lord Fearghal’s English Bride
HERS WAS A CONVENIENT ARRANGEMENT
Lady Claire Waterstone has spent more years out of England than she has enjoying English society. In fact, she feels very odd in making her Come Out with girls four to five years her junior. Claire has never known a “home” of her own. And while several gentlemen are eager to claim her hand, she knows their ardor has more to do with the size of her dowry than true affection. Then she encounters Lord Ainmire Fearghal, an impoverished Irish earl, whose tales of how he sees his land creates in her a desire to share it with him. Claire, therefore, abandons decorum and proposes to Lord Fearghal. However, his roguish charm soon has her wishing for more than a marriage of convenience.
HE BARGAINED FOR HER FORTUNE, NOT HER HEART
Fearghal has only one purpose in marrying Lady Claire: Save his estate. Melhman Manor reeks from inherited debt, and Fearghal requires a wealthy wife immediately. Originally, he thought to leave Claire in London, but his wife soon puts an end to those thoughts, but when she suggests Ainmire’s cousin could be working against Ainmire’s efforts to save his land, Fearghal and Lady Claire strike a different type of bargain – one based in trust and loyalty and the beginnings of love.
Regency Summer Weddings Anthology
Also, available to read on Kindle Unlimited
Meanwhile, releasing today, you will find Taming Lord Truist: Book 2 of Strong Regency Women Duo. I so loved Lord Augustus Truist in Loving Lord Lindmore, he needed his own book and a woman who could “tame” him with a gentle touch. [It is August, so I am releasing August’s story. There is truly a method to my madness.]
Purchase Links:
Kindle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYLPJ72C
Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D93SZ418?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520
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