Ch3/61: Jane Austen's older brother Edward Austen (later Knight) went on a grand tour of Europe, like many of his peers, and he recorded his travels in his journals.

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Edward Austen made two European tours, and the first, as it appears in Jon Spence's book, is Journey through Switzerland, August 1786, the second is Journey through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands, June-July 1790. 

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His journals have been edited by Jon Hunter Spence in cooperation with JASA Press Australia, and this has resulted in the book Jane Austen's Brother Abroad. The Grand Tour Journals of Edward Austen, 2005.

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The interesting aspect, seen in the light of this thesis, is whether he had any extraordinary experiences with strawberries, which he recounted to family and friends upon his return.

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I quickly realised that I would not be able to obtain this publication via REX, so I wrote to JASA.au Friday 28th September at noon, and the very next morning, there was a reply from JASA.au.

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They had looked through the journals and actually found an incident where Edward tells of him having picked up ice with one hand and with the other picked strawberries.[i]

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The strawberries appear not in Germany, nor at the Saxon Court of Dresden, which I had hoped for, but in Switzerland.

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This seems to have made an impression on him, and without doubt this was recounted to Jane Austen, who in her mind might have thought of Edward as Knightley; both of them did, for example, serve on the Bench as magistrates*. So, we have a connection between Edward-Knightley and strawberries.

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* Edward served as High Sheriff of Kent in 1801, and according to Chawton Manor and Its Owners he 'continued for nearly half a century to take an active part in local county business, though he shrank from entering on a political career, and consistently declined any suggestion that he should offer himself as a candidate for Parliament.'[iI]

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[i]  Austen, Jane Austen’s Brother Abroad. The Grand Tour Journals of Edward Austen.

[ii] Austen-Leigh and Knight, Chawton Manor and Its Owners, 160.