A Modern Quest for Knowledge into a Past World of Literature;
or ... Why did Jane Austen write her Famous Strawberry Party Scene?
Austen and her Access to Books and Other Reading Materials
Throughout her life, Jane Austen had access to books and other reading materials and recommended reading to others. She had access to her father's extensive library, to the library at Godmersham Park, and she was a subscriber to various circulating libraries. Chapter 4 looks into the possibility of Austen having been inspired by her reading to create the strawberry picking scene in Emma.
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This webpage functions as the appendix mainly to Chapter 4: Austen’s Literature and Newspapers. However, other chapters may also contain references to this web-appendix.
Ch4/1: Austen and her Access to Books and Other Reading Materials
We know from Austen's own hand that she enjoyed reading, and that she took the opportunities given to her to visit libraries and to make the best of circulating libraries. Austen writes, for example, that '[t]he comfort of the billiard-table here is very great; it draws all the gentlemen to it whenever they are within, especially after dinner, so that my brother, Fanny, and I have the library to ourselves in delightful quiet.'[i] We also know that Godmersham Park, the home of JA's brother Edward, contained 'a most excellent library'.[ii]
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[i] Austen-Leigh, Austen-Leigh, and Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, 284.
[ii] Nicolson and Jane Austen Society, Godmersham Park, Kent, 19.
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Ch4/3: Austen's References to Books and other Reading Materials
Ch4/3 gives access to an Excel sheet which contains more than two hundred titles of books and other reading materials that Jane Austen read. For each of these titles searches have been performed to establish whether or not these works contain references not only to strawberries but also to other types of fruit to see whether the application of fruit to a scene by an author was a novelty or a common place occurrence.